...since I posted in this blog last...
So much has happened since.
I traveled to the mainland to help my twin brothers celebrate a big milestone birthday; their 75th. Was able to spend time with both of them and nieces and nephews I hadn't seen for a while...some of them for many years! My sister and BIL drove up from Florida and several others either drove or flew in from distant parts (Hawai'i, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia and Florida) to join in the celebration. We had a wonderful mini-family reunion.
Photo: the 4 siblings and Buddy.
Of course, we visited my favorite farmers market in NC...not far from the community where my brothers live. Bought some great figs and ended up making fig jam.
Photo: at Piedmont Triad Farmers Market
Easy fresh fig jam:
2 pounds figs, cut in half, half a bottle of NC red muscadine wine and some local honey. Cook it down slowly until all nice and glossy and thick. Lovely!
I drove down to Florida with my sister & BIL and we broke the trip in two stages; in Georgia we visited with one of our cousins for a weekend, visiting Demorest, the small town where our grandmother was born and so much of our early family history was lived.
Photo: Sonia, my sister Sandra, 1st cousin once removed Nancy, niece Madeline and great-niece Brenna - Safford Springs, Demorest, GA
We also spent one night at their beautiful mountain log cabin in North Georgia....and experienced a golden sunset spreading over a glorious view of the Georgia Mountains.
While in the north Georgia area we also visited our great-grandparents' graves and another wonderful farmers market (Jaemor Farms in Alto), bought peach butter with honey to take back home for my son who was not able to travel with me and ate delicious homemade peach ice cream.
Can you guess what time of year it is!!??
Our cousin hosted a mini-reunion of cousins from the original branch of the American side of our family (Fisher-Parker). Was able to reunite with a cousin I hadn't seen since 1962...that was fun as we all shared family photo albums and stories. Everyone had their laptops out copying and uploading info and photos. It was great! We even had a bit of friendly FL Gator-GA Bulldog rivalry going on.
Celebrating the "Fisher Cousins/Descendants" reunion with pizza, salads, kale chips and a yummy giant cookie 'cake'
By this time, I was not feeling well and when we left Georgia the next day, I knew something nasty was coming...by the time we got to central Florida to spend the night at my niece's house (my sister and BIL's daughter) I had a full fledge cough and some sniffles. My BIL came down with it also...the trip to Miami was not fun.
Arrival in Miami was late in the afternoon and I felt so bad I ended up in bed by 5:30 and didn't get up until 8 am the next day, (which passed as a blur, as I can't remember doing anything except be a bump on a log and watch inane tv all day)
Finally decided to visit an Urgent Care facility not far from their house. So glad I did. Diagnosis after Xrays: acute bronchitis. I was thankful, as I thought I might have had pneumonia. Taking my meds religiously, but the cough persists.
Had to cancel/postpone my trip home (it was scheduled for today) as there was no way I could get on that plane with this 'thing' and coughing up a storm.
Oh, my sister also came down with this thing....we are a house of sickness ;-) and haven't been able to do any of the things I had planned to do while in Miami or see any of the friends and realtives here...except for one who braved it to our door just to check on us!
Hopefully, we will all be feeling better before I leave and I can salvage a little bit of my Miami visit!
In case you missed them, here are a couple of articles published since I left:
A Taste of Honey - The Hamakua Times
Farmer Feature: Taro Patch Farm - Hawai'i HomeGrown Food Network
