Susan Branch Blog | Susan Branch Blog

When our calendars show up at the studio is when, for better or worse, I start thinking about fall. I’m a Pavlov’s dog that way. Calendars = fall. And the calendars showed up yesterday! That, along with all our pumpkin talk lately, and I have that little quiver of excitement zipping through me just knowing fall is on it’s way! ♥

I love all the changes of season, but no other one gets me like fall! I even Christmas-shopped yesterday! Not for me yet, I’m not THAT organized, but for things for the web store, like cute dishtowels, and these great jars of wonderful clover honey, and my favorite, big jars of Wisconsin sour cherries that I’ve fallen in love with. It’s, as usual, the little things! Our web store isn’t big, but it’s sweet — all stuff we want ourselves!

I came by store-keeping naturally, my mom started me young. She set up a store in a closet in the laundry room, and saved us all the tiny one-serving cereal boxes, old crackerjack boxes, the flavor-straw boxes, cream bottles the milkman left, Jell-O boxes, Kool-Aid envelopes; she washed out soup cans, and we arranged everything (which was the fun part) on the little book shelf she put in the closet. We had to climb under the “counter” (kids table with “marble” top) to stand back there and sell our stuff (for poker chips). It was probably the entire inspiration for the store I used to have in California. Childhood things do that to you!

W a i t ! I have pictures! I have a blog! Want to see the store? No problem! . . .

Here it is, my one and only store, I called it, of course, Heart of the Home. (I can see right now I should have held on to that soup tureen on the right.) I wanted to make it like a little “department” store, in about 300 square feet! There was a kitchen, a bedroom, dining room (where there was always a “girl party” going on), baby’s room, bathroom, a corner for “afternoon tea;” lots of vintage mixed with new things, and even a garden shed on the back porch. It was a work of love. Isn’t it darn cute?

My brother Chuckie made the bead board walls and the counter…he liked playing store too! I made the curtains behind the counter and for the storage room. I cut Just Joey roses out of my garden for it almost every day.

Once in a while I would get out the old wood-burning set and burn a quote on a giant wooden spoon, because people loved it, so you know, gotta do it! There were little SB stickers on all the handwritten price tags that were tied on everything with ribbons.

We even had furniture, old stoves from the 50’s, hutches, spool beds, children’s furniture. The fun thing was it was constantly changing. Stuff would go, so I would have to “redecorate!” Seasons would change, had to redecorate. It was my job. 🙂

Yes, we had fun with it! Girlfriends worked there, Judy was the manager, Kellee made all the signs for it. It was in a really cute little town near San Luis Obispo, near the coast, called Arroyo Grande, (halfway between LA and San Francisco) in California.

Decorating, la la la la la, it was honestly like a giant toy, a massive game of playing house.

The Baby Department.

←This was part of the garden shed on the porch. We sold little bundles of fresh herbs from our garden, also, of course, because we were insane, all sweetly tied with ribbons. Baskets of organic apples, plums, walnuts and avocados from our California trees.

Which, then, all turned into a farm stand. Yes, we had a farm stand too. I’ll show you pictures of it someday. It’s hard when the world is so beautiful to only choose one thing to do and do it. A person wants to do everything! But, in 2008, I longed to get back to writing books, which, after three years of running Heart of the Home happened to coincide with the renewal of the leases, and I thought, that was fun, but….gotta go. And so now I look back and remember. Once, I had a store . . . ♥

Anyway. . . losing train of thought, the calendars are in! 🙂 Fall is coming, redecorating is coming!

It’s cold here today. It’s pouring rain. It’s a breath of fresh fall. It’s not supposed to make 70! Low humidity! Into the weekend! Oh Boy! I feel a casserole of corn pudding coming on. I feel weeding in the garden coming on!

Sending creative lightening bolts of love to you. ♥ xoxo me

Even though my garden is only 12′ x 24′ and has only three tomato plants in it, which, including trips to the farmer’s market (which I would never want to stop doing), is plenty for us; and even though our mint is out there in a pot and there are only two Swiss chard

plants and one big clump of flat-leaf parsley; when we pull out the shovel and dig a hole, or plant tiny seeds, we like to think we have a little farmer blood in us. Of course that’s ridiculous, when you think of the work done by a real farmer, but we like to think it anyway. We have a barn you know. So what if it “came with the house.” And, more proof of farmer credentials, we make compost. Here it is . . .

I think this photo looks healthier and possibly more delicious than some dinners I’ve had! Except for the egg shells. 🙂 I was permanently hooked on composting when I saw the difference in my tomato plants and roses, those grown with compost, vs those not. Night and day. So we keep this soup pot (with a lid) underneath our sink and into it goes all our fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells, & coffee grounds. It’s green – green – green, saves money, makes you feel like a good person, makes your garden beautiful. I’ll give you a link at the bottom of this post, for a web site that gives composting info — it’s so easy, even we busy farmers can do it.

This year our compost heap took off in new unexpected ways. This grew all by itself. First grass grew, then this mountain of what we can see now is squash. We keep going out to admire it, Joe calls to me through the kitchen window from the barn, “Have you LOOKED at the compost heap lately?” I think it’s only going to get bigger. I hear thunder right this moment, that means rain, and these things LOVE rain!

It’s taller than the back of the arbor! Some might think we should weed it; but not us. Crazy talk. It’s done so well as is, why fool around with Mother Nature. ♥ We feel a little sorry for our neighbors that are about to be inundated with free squash. We see these plants as a kind of evidence at a crime scene. The questions are (were) — where’d it come from and what kind of squash is it? The prayer was, please don’t let it be zucchini. We’ve done zucchini, we’ve been eaten alive by zucchini, we know what one little zucchini plant is capable of. The other day, wandering through my photos, we solved the crime. Aha! This is our compost heap late last fall; the culprits look so picturesque and innocent just sitting there:

Nature has done her magic and we’re pretty sure what we have is a pumpkin patch! See what I mean about things grown in compost! We are pumpkin farmers. This is the best looking crop of anything we’ve ever grown. So here’s to all of us farmers . . .