Weekend Basics

Saturday we got up early and hit the streets for a walk with Basil. We've enjoyed getting up just before 8am on Saturdays to walk Basil throughout the fan — it seems like the neighborhood is still asleep, the birds are loud and lately we've been hitting lots of little yard sales that pop up here and there throughout the streets.

Mary and I laugh that all of the sales we've come across in the fan seem to be a little more organized or "curated" than the typical ones you might pull off the side of the road for — it's pretty funny. That morning we walked back home with two Terracotta planters we plan to fill with mums for the front stoop.

We didn't make it home without Basil spotting a few new-to-him fan cats. Follow the path of his death stare to find the little black dot on the stoop below:

Saturday brought us some of the best warm weather we will probably see around these parts for the remainder of the fall and winter. I took the opportunity to get the smoker going for a chicken recipe I've been planning and was able to use up some of the cherry wood Mary's mom brought us from down at the farm:

While things were getting good and smokey, we enjoyed as much of the outdoors as possible. We picked some of what we think will be the latest and last strawberries growing in our trough planters — you might able to tell from the big brown nose below that Basil was outside enjoying the fine weather with us as well:

He was air drying from his last outdoor bath of the season:

 

I also took the time to tackle a fence patching project I've been meaning to get to for a while now and hope to share more details here on the blog soon:

The cool weather came in with a thud here in Richmond this Sunday — it was just soup weather. I made one of my childhood favorites — navy bean soup:

Find the full recipe published on E.A.T. today.

While spending the majority of Sunday indoors, we also made a mega batch of sweet potato dog chew treats for Basil. One of our neighbors had bought an entire bushel of them from one of her coworkers and generously shared the bunch with us — we knew exactly what to do with them and even left a little zipper bag on the neighbor's front porch filled with treats for their dog, Maverick, from Basil:

Find our recipe for making these great natural sweet potato treats here.

Basil was thrilled both Stephanie and Brandon (my children) were in town for a little while over the weekend:

 

Mary knocked out a few craft projects indoors on Sunday for the house:

And even had time to make a limited batch of these key shaped pocket knife necklaces for her jewelry shop:

 

Find them available with more pictures here.

As you can tell, it was a full weekend and we're looking forward to the week ahead. What was on your agenda this weekend — have you picked your pumpkins yet? We're a little behind on that task this year!