{"id":6621,"date":"2015-01-24T10:28:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-24T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=6621"},"modified":"2015-01-24T20:11:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T01:11:09","slug":"garden-and-fence-hopping-on-a-clear-blue-january-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2015\/01\/garden-and-fence-hopping-on-a-clear-blue-january-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden and Fence Hopping on a Clear Blue January Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-367\"<\/a>One of the mildly annoying things about writing for magazines and books is that I can\u2019t really reveal what I\u2019m working on while I\u2019m working on it, as that would, you know, spoil things. And I\u2019ve never really been the spoiling type. My sister was the one who would find all the hidden Christmas presents ahead of time.<\/p>\n

But I wanted to talk a little about a piece I\u2019m working on, because today it made me think that sometimes my \u201cjob\u201d is hardly work at all. More like fun. Of course my \u201cjob\u201d changes constantly, depending on what hat I\u2019m wearing. But during the winter, if I\u2019m lucky I get some writing assignments I can complete before the busy farm season returns. Better still is a writing assignment that requires me to go outside and poke around in our beautiful winter landscape\u2014and to visit with some of my friends and neighbors.<\/p>\n

So today I had Martha\u2019s Vineyard Magazine<\/i><\/a> to thank for a lovely morning spent in lovely company. The company was the talented Fae Kontje-Gibbs<\/a> (below), and the mission was to visit a few Island gardens that Fae will be illustrating for the feature I\u2019m writing on kitchen gardens.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0063\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The idea behind the article is that everyone (who wants one) should have a vegetable garden, no matter how small. No big plot needed. In fact, small is good, tiny is wonderful, and medium is dandy if you can swing it.<\/p>\n

\"greens<\/a>\u00a0To that end, my editor and art director decided to use real-life Island gardens as inspiration for three sample garden designs.<\/p>\n

Today was Fae\u2019s birthday, so maybe the karma was just good to begin with. And Fae is certainly one of the most positive-seeking persons I know. Also, it didn\u2019t hurt that we began our morning with a visit to my neighbor and friend cook-gardener-quilter-hen whisperer Katherine Long, who is simply one of my favorite people on the Island.<\/p>\n

\"roosterk\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When we arrived, she was outside letting her hens graze a bit on fresh grass, and we were immediately drawn into a beautiful circle of chickens, and then into a conversation that spanned everything from the merits of roosters to the study of cell biology.\u00a0Fae got out her notebook and did some rough sketches of Katherine\u2019s colorful chickens and of her garden\u2014a place where practicality and efficiency combine with charm and whimsy in the most delightful way.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0045\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While we were there, Katherine took us into one of the chicken coops to see two baby chicks, recently hatched out by Silkie hens, who are wonderful mamas and don\u2019t seem concerned that January may not be the best time to hatch chicks.<\/p>\n

After leaving Katherine\u2019s, we went on to a larger garden where we gently trespassed into a family\u2019s personal sanctuary (with permission) and then drifted over to the neighbor\u2019s fenceline (without permission) to take a peek at some large animals grazing on the other side. They turned out to be alpacas, and one large chocolate brown fellow (or gal?) came to greet us. While Fae gently spoke to him, I tried to photograph his amazing face. Then suddenly he decided to drop to the ground a do a roly-poly, like Farmer does several times a day. I gasped\u2014I\u2019d never seen an animal that large just decide to lie down, roll over, and scratch his back for fun. (Although I do remember being on a horse in a shallow river when the horse decided to roll over.)<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0104\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While Fae finished up some rough sketches of a bird bath, a watering can, a pathway and a hand trowel, I simply stared up at the tree limbs etching the blue sky. Stared and stared. As much as my mind likes to travel to unnecessary worry and forethought, I just couldn\u2019t think of anything wrong with our morning, anything to make me fraught. I just thought about how blue the sky was.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0134\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that I really should spend more time toddling around. Serious work, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"rooster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the mildly annoying things about writing for magazines and books is that I can\u2019t really reveal what I\u2019m working on while I\u2019m working on it, as that would, you know, spoil things. And I\u2019ve never really been the spoiling type. My sister was the one who would find all the hidden Christmas presents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[111,103,6,45],"tags":[104,152,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6621"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6642,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions\/6642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}