June 26, 2017

Ridge Spring News

Harriet Householder

Ridge Spring Farmers' Market: Life sure can be good.  Rain has been forecast for this past weekend, but The Ridge Spring Farmers' Market did not get any rain on it.  The rain came in the afternoon.   There were 10 vendors and a food truck.  There were so many choices: corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, PEACHES, tomatoes, eggplants,  peppers, string beans, beautiful flowers, boiled peanuts, and more.  The pickles Mrs. Daisy is making will take six to seven weeks and are called Mrs. Truluck's Heinz Sweet Pickles. Abbie and Samantha were there selling cookies and blueberry muffins plus teas, seasoning salts and more. CTP Catering and Concessions was the food truck and owned by Will Tolbert.  He had his daughter with him and the French fries were delicious.  He  had fried fish too. Bonita Orendorf and family are a new vendor.  She bakes pies including pecan and breads.  There is so much to choose from at the Market and I hope to see you there.  Saturdays from 7:30 until

Just a quick reminder of the Friday Night Outdoor Movie at Town Hall will be held July 21.  That movie screen is 20'X40' Town of Ridge Spring along with The Saluda County Chamber of Commerce  will set up a movie screen on the lawn at the new town hall to show Monster Trucks, our first free outdoor movie on Friday, July 21. 

Saluda County Library Summer Reading Program 2017:  Our Summer Reading Program It is for all ages (even adults).   Questions? Call 864-445-4500 x226.  Thursday, June 29th, 10AM The Jolly Lollies! Interactive music and dance!  Friday, July 7th, 10AM  John Tudor  Builds A Better World Magic Show!

Saluda Senior Center will be giving out the last of the vouchers on July 10 at the American Legion building in Saluda that is behind the Court House.

The Juniper is back open for Sunday Brunch on June 25 and their regular schedule.  I did see on Facebook that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and her husband attended the dinner at the James Beard House and so did Creg Melvin who was at WIS 10 and is now with NBC in New York. 

Harriet's Garden Tips:  What is  nice about computers is that you can check to see what you have written at the touch of few keys.  I have mentioned daylilies more than once.  Interesting!!!!

Herbs: There are culinary, aromatic, ornamental and medicinal herbs.

Culinary herbs: We know a lot of them, parsley, chives, oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram, mint, and basil to name a few.  All of these are easy to grow and enjoy.  Parsley has flat leaf that is excellent in cooking and curly leaf which is good as a garnish.  The only problem with parsley is the butterflies lay eggs on the plant, caterpillars hatch and eat all the stems.  (The butterflies are beautiful, though) I try to have parsley in two different locations so the butterflies do not get t hem all.  Sometimes that works.  Parsley also lasts for two years so keep planting the seedlings. Sage, oregano, chives, thyme last through our mild winters, but basil and marjoram do not.  Try an herb garden soon and add to your  meals a little spice.  And for fun dry the cayenne peppers for winter spice.  Just be careful for the heat of the pepper will get on whatever  you are using to prep the peppers.  Try experimenting!!!

Josie Rodgers

Did you see all the great pictures and postings of our Juniper family in NYC?  It looks like they had a lot of fun and impressed some very important people at the James Beard House including SC’s very own Nikki Haley and Craig Melvin!  We hope Brandon and Dwayne don’t get any funny ideas about leaving the Ridge for the Big City!  We love them here!!

The Ridge Spring Farmers Market opens each Saturday around 7 or 8 am with lots of vendors offering a vast array of fruits, veggies, plants, baked goods, and other treats! 

RSM Middle:   The middle school cheer team is raising money for camp, uniforms, and other expenses.  You can help by purchasing from Pelican’s SnoBalls every Friday night (6-8 pm) until July 28.  Just tell them you are there for RSM, and they will donate a portion of your purchase to the middle school cheerleaders!  Contact Monica Johnson for more information. 

RSM High:  The Trojan family welcomed our newest member June 20:  Adam Walker Meade, son of Diana Meade, weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz!  He is beautiful!  We celebrate this rainbow baby and pray for his health and happiness along with that of his big brother and sister. 

From David Marshall James:

"The People We Hate at the Wedding" by Grant Ginder

   Weddings can be beastly affairs, particularly when the list of invitees contains unavoidable beasts: namely, family members.

   Siblings Paul and Alice Wyckoff have defined their lives in reaction to their half-sister, Eloise Lafarge.

   To Paul and Alice, Eloise is the privileged princess-- the favored one-- someone whom their Mom will always love much more and way better, at least in their feverish, belittling brains.

   For, once upon a time, Mom (aka Donna) was married to a wealthy Frenchman, Henrique Lafarge, who, like so many Frenchmen before him, was prone to stray, particularly with Younger Women.

   Donna, a through-and-through Hoosier in spite of her fluency in French and residency in Paris, tapped into her solidly Midwestern core and fell into suburban living outside Chicago, settling on a less glamorous but more stable marriage, producing Paul and Alice in the process.

   You would think this ever-so-grounded, all-American family would be beyond content in their macaroni-and-Parcheesi lifestyle, but the younger half-siblings cannot see over their out-of-joint noses at Cinderelloise.

   Long-suffering Donna has the blame bulls-eye smack-dab on her forehead.  Hasn't she undercut her second family in favor of her first?  Hasn't she made her second husband's life miserable?

   Quelle grande surprise, then, that Donna's toking (her word) hand-rolled Mary Janesies when she's not quaffing tumblers full of vodka with her lush-living neighbors.  She ought to be appealing to the Spirit of Joan Crawford to hurl white-hot wire hangers, like Zeusian thunderbolts, at her disrespectful progeny.

   When invitations to Eloise's wedding-- set for Thomas Hardy Country, U.K.-- arrive, Paul and Alice fairly choke on their envy at the Princess Bride.

   After all, Paul's amour, Mark, has been drifting away from him ever since Mark found firm footing and an elephantine ego up the ladder of academia.  Meanwhile, Alice is kidding herself like a third-rate comic out in L.A., messing around with her married-with-children boss.

   Of course, whatever miseries they're enduring can be attributed to Donna and Eloise.  Will the Ugly Americans and their Mother make it to Dorset?  And, if so, how will the drama play out-- a la Noel Coward, or perhaps more Pinteresque?

   In this, his third novel, New York writer Grant Ginder glows when his characters are traveling about England, even when they're stuck in traffic.  Philadelphia and Los Angeles fare less well.  It's as if the characters must enter the forest ruled by Titania and Oberon in order for the scales to fall from their neo-reptilian eyes.

Then again, Eloise ain't a-gonna let the drama queens upstage her at her own wedding.  She may not be the Big B in the role that they've cast her, but she can certainly channel her inner B, allowing the author to put the epiphany in his epithalamium.

Just another reminder that Harriet's Garden is closed until September unless my car is there.  I will be on vacation next week so the Ridge Spring News will be a trip down memory lane.  Stay tuned.  I found a 1938 high school newspaper printed by the Ridge Spring High School.  Joe Cal Watson's picture with the staff is on the back page.

REMINDERS

All Summer Saturdays: Ridge Spring Farmers' Market

July 10: vouchers at Saluda Senior Citizen

July 21: Free outdoor movie at Town Hall

August 21: Total Solar Eclipse

Ridge Spring Library hours: Mon/Tues 8:30 am - 12 pm; Wed., 8:30 – 4:30; Thurs 8:30 am - 12:30 pm; Fri 8:30 pm -4:30 pm

Ridge Spring Post Office hours:  Mon-Fri. 7:30 am – 11:30 am; Sat 9 – 10 am

Saluda County Library Hours:  Mon/Wed 8:30 am-5 pm; Tues/Thurs 8:30 am – 6 pm; Fri 8:30 am – 5 pm; Sat closed

Recycling Center Hours: Mon/Wed/Fri 1-7; Sat 7-7; Sun 3-7; Tues/Thurs closed

First Thursday of the Month:  AARS meets at 6:30, 685-5783

Third Thursday of the Month: FORS at Library at 5:00; no meetings in July and August