Octoberfest in Calhoun City the weather was mild, but by Fall Festival in Bruce Friday night, it was freezing.
We usually have a ball game or two where we add sweatshirts and maybe gloves, and gradually add clothing by the week.
Friday night I had my Land’s End big coat, knit hat, gloves, long johns, Under Armour shirt and was still cold Temps were around 40 during the game. We went from highs in the mid-80s on Monday to 40s during the weekend.
Lisa McNeece
Saturday morning at the Sweet Potato Arts and Crafts Festival the weather started out very chilly, but ended up pretty nice by lunchtime.
One of the most popular booths Saturday was April McGregor, aka Farmer’s Daughter. She was selling her Sweet Potato cookbooks, hot sauce, jams, preserves, sweet potato butter samples and more.
I bought a couple of non-sweet potato items– blackberry preserves and strawberry jam and talked to April about making the Sweet Potato hummus.
I was gathering ingredients the other day and came across “tahini” in the list.
First I had to figure out what it was, and then I had to find it.
Tahini is a paste made from ground hulled sesame seeds. It is available in the health food section of large grocery stores and is a common ingredient in making hummus.
I plan to try the Sweet Potato Hummus this week.
I also visited with James Young who was selling his Vardaman History books. Zilla Spencer was assisting Young at the booth. The book is dedicated to the late Dewitt Spencer, Zilla’s husband.
I never leave the festival without purchasing a couple of bags of the sweet potato chips made by the Spencer family. This year they were set up in front of the Mattress Outlet.
The chips are delicious. Grandaughter Ellie Kathryn ate a half a bag by herself.
Although it was the first day of November, the granddaughters and I carved our Halloween pumpkins Saturday Nov. 1.
The first one we did in the traditional manner– triangle eyes and nose and toothy smile, and the second, a cat. They loved it.
I told Addi Claire pumpkin carving is easy and fun, it’s getting the pumpkin ready to carve that is such a pain. I don’t care how many tools you have. And with every pattern for carving you get two word instructions, “remove insides.”
That stringy, seed filled mess is just gross. And there’s no easy way to deal with it.
Once we got beyond that part the carving was a breeze and the girls loved lighting the pumpkins and watching them glow from inside the house.
We did put them on the front porch instead of the back patio to keep the dog from eating them as he has done every single year in the past.
My mother, Jo Ann Denley, continues to improve after surgery on her broken hip a couple of weeks ago. She did come home Wednesday as scheduled and is now having physical therapy at home.
Because the house was already set up for my dad, who was on a walker a lot of the time, we didn’t really have to make any changes. The floors are tile, doorways are wide, and there is a seat and hand held shower spray already in the shower.
She is getting around the house really well and is looking to getting back to her normal schedule of “going and doing.”
Jonathan Harmon, of Vardaman, was the winner of the football contest by tiebreaker, over Jello Chrestman of Bruce and Marlon Long of Eupora. There are only two more weeks to play this season.
E-mail Lisa McNeece: lisamcneece@gmail.com follow her on twitter @lisamcneece