Re-visiting the Northern Neck

So Thrifty Mom , my girls, and I spent a day last week thrifting in the Northern Neck as we did in the fall. Here is a link to last year's excursion. This time we were able to go to one more thrift shop than we did last time and re-visited all of the others that we loved so much. We didn't hit a $5 a bag sale, but we did get A LOT of goodies! We also lucked out by one of the locals telling us about a lil' lunch spot on the Potomac river in Fairport. It was called the Cull Ring and we ordered the most de-lish basket of fried dill pickles served with a mayo/mustard sauce as our appetizer. As we were eating our crabcake sandwiches, fried shrimp, and turkey croissant on the porch of the restaurant, along came a lil' crab crawling by our feet. The waitress acted like it happened all of the time.

Here's the front side of the Cull Ring

and the back side.

cute lil' crabbyde-lish fried pickles

Here are the goodies that we bought:Vintage peach apron $5, black and white blouse $4.50, white short sleeve shirt $3.50, child's white w/ black polk-a-dot shirt $2, vintage white ruffled slip $2, yellow/white/pink floral dress $8, red striped MS valance $1, green canvas handbag $4.50, red gingham ruffle sleeved top $4, gingerbreadman child's apron $3, blue child's nightown $2.50, child's denim skirt$2.75, 3 paperbacks .50-$1, Adirondack chair napkin holder $2, antique pastry blender $3.50, gardening apron $1, child's MKA shoes $3child's pink gingham Pooh dress $8, child's pink Polo shirt $3, pink cotton/chenille sundress $7.50, floral capris $8, pink lace vintage tea towel $3, cherries/strawberries plastic bracelet $1.50, pink gingham capris $4, adorable plastic stacked lunchbox $4.75Look how cute the "new" napkin holder looks in Thrifty Mom's river cottage holding those blue crab napkins...Here are some more of the houses around Reedville to add to my other collection.Here is the thrift shop that I didn't show in my last Northern Neck post:It's in Heathsville.

And here is the old house who's property it sets on. I so love the Northern Neck for it's quaintness, beauty, good food...and thrift shops!

Fried Green Tomatoes

I LOVE me some fried green tomatos! Thanks to my sis-in-law who grew them, I had some big ones this past weekend at the river. I have found that people have different ways of making them, but I like to dip them in egg, corn meal or flour, back in the egg and the corn meal or flour and them fry them up in veg. oil. I've also tried chicken breader mix, but it's a little too peppery for my taste. I layer them on paper towels as for a few mins. as I take them out and then I douse them in salt and eat'em hot. I've also had them with garlic aioli and that's de-lish. And I had someone tell me this past weekend that they eat them with confectioner's sugar on top.

Yummy!

Mom found the apron at a church yard sale last year. It's her river apron and it was either .10 or .25!

Let me know your version of fried green tomatoes!

A clothesline upgrade

There aren't many things that make me happier than my fresh clean laundry hanging on the line and blowing in the sweet Virginia breeze...although I don't know what happened to the sweet Virginia breeze. It's rare to have a breeze around here, actually. But anyway, I love the smell of laundry, esp. sheets after they've been hanging on the clothesline to dry. For the past 4 years, we've had the 3 lines attached to the trees in the backyard and I have loved that, but as the trees have grown, the shade has taken over. So my sweet husband made me a "real" clothesline with 4...that's right, four... lines that hang in the direct sunshine. The clothes seem to dry in a coupla hours instead of 48 quite a few more. So now I can wash and hang 3 loads at a time and they dry so much faster after I've left them out in the rain! I'm so loving this clothesline!

While we're on the subject of hanging laundry, I'll show you my clothespin apron. My mom found this checkered tablecloth at an estate sale for .10 and she made my clothespin apron from it. I just love it, don't you?! I hang it by my backdoor when I'm not using it. I'm able to wear it as an apron, hang it on my shoulder, or hang it on the clothesline itself and it makes hanging laundry so much easier and enjoyable.

Here is one of my laundry baskets that I love to use. I bought it at a church sale last year for $5 and there was a lady there who said she was carried around in it as a baby in the '50's. Can you imagine getting rid of it...and for $5?! Well, I've definitely gotten my use out of it the last year...it's had many purposes.

Do you enjoy hanging your laundry out to dry as much as I do?

Blackberry Pickin'

Last week, we went blackberry picking at our favorite local "u-pick" farm. We had some that were 2" big! I posted here a year ago about the blackberry cobbler that we made with our berry bounty. This year I saw the recipe on Cherry Hill Cottage's blog (one of my favorites) for blackberry wine cake and couldn't resist (btw, while you're visiting Cherry Hill Cottage, check out my new necklace).

This is a very moist cake and DE-LISH! Oh and since this recipe calls for wine, I told the girls that the bowl and beaters were all MINE... just like when I make rum cake ;o) Yummmy!

Big Mama Limeade

See my "new" vintage Big Mama drink dispenser? I got it for .25 at a sale on the way to the river along with the set of 3 scoops and the 1950 Sunbeam cookbook for a total of .75! Over the weekend at the river I decided to try a limeade recipe that I had found. I made the mistake of not trusting the recipe and added 3 too many limes and boy did we our lips pucker after the first sip! Lesson learned... trust the recipe and it will be perfect!

3 limes, quartered

1/3 c. sugar

4 tbsp. sweetened condensed milk

Place all ingredients in a blender or processer. Add 4 cups cold water and blend on high speed until limes are slightly chopped. Strain into a pitcher and then with the strainer still resting above the pitcher, slowly pour about 1 more cup of water through the strainer over the lime pieces to extract all the residual sugar and juice. Refreshing!

Celebrating the 4th of July in Rivertown, USA

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. We celebrate every year at our river place with friends and family. My children get the most excited about the lil' parade that we have every year. We are sometimes on the side of the road watching and sometimes we participate. This year we participated...yep, we went all out ;o)

Here is my mom, dad and dog "brother" along with family and friends to the right of them watching for us in the parade.

My "brother", Bailey, anticipating the parade.

This colliape is always leading the parade.

The parade consists of golf carts, lawnmowers, 4 wheelers, bicycles, wagons, and trucks full of children...some even with pools.

Here we are (I have a lot of adorable pics of the children that I wish I could share with you all, but I don't feel comfy with putting them on my blog)...

At the end of the parade, we're off to get snowcones at a neighbor's house.

And I'm serious about my snowcone!

This is our family tradition along with lots of food and then fireworks at night. Fun times!