Nantucket Beach Plums

Freshly washed wild beach plums on their way to becoming a deep, dark, and richly flavored homemade jam. Photo by Nancy Wolff.

My friend, and fellow blogger, Nancy Wolff, posted one of her cool family recipes at her Prudent Living on the Homefront blogsite. It's for jam made from beach plums, (Prunus  maritima) a species of native fruit that grows along the shoreline in revered, and secretive(!), spots. I loved the colors in the photo above; it just said "artandcolour" to me.

• Click over for Nancy's easy-to-follow, well-illustrated and step-by-step instructions for Beach Plum Jam, here. And as always, the Prudent Living on the Homefront blogsite is featured in my "Blogs and Websites of Note," at right.

And Now Let's Hear from the Gals . . .

The Day Lady Arrived—My Mom and her new puppy, Lady, circa 1930. I know my mother never used a ScooPup Pocket back then, but if they were around I'm sure she would have loved it, lol.  Approximately 14 x 22 inches on clapboard siding; paint, paper, silver foil and polyurethane.

Doggone It, It's Over
I stole that headline from my longtime pal, Bette, owner/writer of Walking the Dog blog and inventor of the innovative ScooPup Pocket. Bette, an animal lover and rights activist, came up with an answer to the question every dog owner faces on a daily basis: "On a walk, what do I do with the poop, lol?" Almost four years ago she designed, patented and had manufactured, the ScooPup Pocket, and sadly, instead of creating the 15 million jobs this country needs right now, dog owners of this country apparently preferred the errant plastic grocery bag, their used lunch baggie, or, well, I don't want to know that "or" is. Bette's calling it quits on her cool product. I'm so proud to know someone that had a vision, sat down and thought of all the pros- and cons- of developing a niche product no one else had before, and followed through with it, finding a manufacturer, coming up with the marketing plans, and hiring lawyers. When I heard about the lawyers I knew she was serious!

So, dear readers, I'm announcing that for the month of March, at least, Bette is selling her cool, and colorful, ScooPup Pocket, and then taking Riley, her awesome dog, out on a really long walk, lol. If I had a dog, I'd order one in every color, just because I think they're awesome.  Watch the 1-minute promotional video Bette made and see if you don't agree. Hey dog owners out there! You need this!

• Bette's heartfelt blogpost about this venture, at Walking the Dog. Click here.
• TinyGrowl's website for the ScooPup Pocket is here.

Planting the Seeds of the Future

Soon, the Hummingbird Gate to our vegetable garden will be swinging open as a new growing season begins. We won't have to wait until May to start our veggies this year!

On a lighter note, beginning a new chapter, my friend Nancy Wolff, writer of Prudent Living On the Homefront, which I profiled recently, has filmed her first segment for the website. I predict, once again, I will be someone's "little people" in their past! This is a segment aboug starting your Spring vegetable seeds indoors. As in "right now!"

• I've listed Nancy's Prudent Living website in my blogroll, but you can just click here, too.

Lastly, a Tiny Bit of Blog Business
I recently changed the "commenting" procedure at this blog—I stopped using the "Captcha" system which helps cut down on spam comments. Blogger had changed their format so that the captchas were longer and more difficult to read. I rarely had to delete spam comments, so I thought I'd give it a try and see how it worked—if it was easier to comment, and I didn't encounter any spam, it would be a win-win situation. Since then, I've had to delete anywhere from 10-25 spam comments every day, though. The weird thing is I get the notifications in my email they are posted, but when I come to the blog to delete them, they're not here. They're making me nervous that they're embedding themselves in some way, and they do seem to be getting more numerous. They're not just fake Gucci bags anymore either, so in order to protect the integrity of this blog, and to make sure none of my readers are confronted with anything "nasty" I'm going to go back to the captcha system. Thank you for coming here, I value your readership and comments!

Reconnecting with Old Friends

And a Few Updates to Casey/Artandcolour

Early 1980s—Nancy and Bill, Dodge Dart and a pretty kitty.

Joining Facebook recently, I've digitally reconnected with several friends from my past, and it's not at all as dirty as that sounds, lol. It's fascinating the way Facebook works, and all social media I s'pose, in that it really emphasizes the "web" in World-Wide-Web. As far as finding old friends, you "friend" one person, who then puts you in touch with another friend from your past, and next thing you know you're zooming along in a flying Delorean back to your childhood.

An example of this is Nancy Evans Wolff, above, with her husband Bill. I've known Nancy since she moved to Guilford in 3rd grade. I've known Bill since high school. We've spent time together in Vermont, Maine and Nantucket and we formed a little cooking club back in the early 1980s. We traveled to Germany together on an exchange trip for our high school German class, and I was a groomsman in their wedding. But times change, of course. They moved away after their marriage, had four children—two daughters and two sons—and while I heard snippets of how they were doing through the intervening thirty years or so, we really didn't connect again at all. That is, until the past few weeks when I joined Facebook as I mentioned above.

Well, as it turns out, and I'm not at all surprised, Nancy is a blogger, too! She writes a column for Prudent Living Magazine, a Vermont-based quarterly magazine dedicated to green home renovations, alternative energy solutions, gardening tips and health information. According to the magazine's website, it's about "living smart, using resources wisely, preserving good health and safeguarding the planet." Nancy and Bill live in a passive-solar house they themselves built in 2000, garden extensively, keep a well-stocked pantry, and enjoy watching their electric meter spin backwards, lol! Nancy's blog has recipes, house-hold tips, gardening advice and personal anecdotes, and you can really learn new and useful ideas with each post. We certainly made some awesome meals "back in the day" and the whole idea of "prudent living" is just exactly right for today.

I hope all of my readers check out Nancy's well-written blog and, especially, enjoy her recipes. This girl can cook, lol! 

• Nancy's blog. On the Homefront—Prudent Living website, click here. The newest post is a recipe for her Mom's Corn Chowder, followed by Storing Coffee and Starting Seeds Inside among many, many others. On the left side of her page, you'll find all of Nancy's archived blogposts. 
• My loyal readers may also find Nancy's blog in my Blogroll, on the right side of my blog under Prudent Living On the Homefront
• Prudent Living Magazine website, here. It's free pdf download, and really worth the fifteen seconds it takes to register!

Updates to Casey/Artandcolour

• Sharp-eyed readers will notice I recently added "Share" capabilities to my posts in my two blogs, located at the bottom of each post. This makes it easy-peasy to share my blogposts on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other Blogger sites, as well as making it easier to E-mail posts. Please feel free to now share away with your family and friends.
• Just this week, I've done away with the need for typed "captchas" to post comments. Blogger had made them more difficult and tedious, in my opinion, and I rarely had to delete an spam comments anyway. So far, so good. I've had three e-mail notifications of spam comments since the change, but when I've gone to those posts to delete them, I can't see the comments. Perhaps Blogger is somehow deleting them, perhaps as the blog "owner" I can't see them. If any of my dear readers every see a spam comment, please let me know. I'll leave the "captchas" off as long as the spam doesn't become unmanageable. I'd like more comments and more interaction, not less, but we certainly don't need to find links to Russian mail order brides, cheap Viagra or what-have-you!
• As I mentioned in this post, I've recently joined the rest of the world on Facebook. I don't have a specific Casey/Artandcolour page, or Casey/ArtandcolourCars page yet, but I have a personal page for my oh-so-radical politics and like-minded friends, lol. I link back to my blogs, and post historical photos and remembrances of my town. I've found good music there, interesting stories and remembrances, and the aforementioned old friends. Come join me if you'd like, Casey Shain on Facebook.