Over the meadow and through the woods...

Well, we had a delectable and fun Thanksgiving Holiday. A small one after last year's reunion (see the photo on our blog "Belonging"). Our son is traveling, but both daughter's families were here along with a few friends.

It really is a trek to get here... to Grandmother's house, as it is. Where we live is very rural and the highway is the kind of winding road that separates those who must have fresh air and the front seat from the rest of us. Actually, I belong to the fresh air group myself. I never saw the road to my own Grandmother's house in Pennsylvania. My parents drugged me with Dramamine before they let me near a car, and I slept en route to everywhere we went. Fortunately, none of our clan needs medication to make the journey.

I find it interesting that one of the things that always impresses everyone about our holiday meals is that I save the ends of bread all year to make stuffing. Is this so odd? Once they start to dry out (or before they mold) I will take bread and tear it into small pieces and spread it out in a shallow bowl to dry. Once dry I put it in a gallon jar to save for stuffing. It makes for interesting and very good sage stuffing - I have mostly whole wheat bread with sunflower seeds and cracked grains in it, but also white sourdough, rye bread, whatever comes through the house. It is such a favorite that I need two full gallons of dried bread to make enough! It can be made vegetarian or not and is good all year. Here is the recipe:

Simmonsville Sage Stuffing
(Measurements are approximate)
4 cups dried bread cubes or pieces, all kinds
1 c. chopped onion
6 cloved diced garlic
1 c. chopped celery
1 c. chopped mushrooms
Bell's Seasoning
salt
Pepper
Paprika
Chopped parsley
1 egg, beaten in 1 c. water or stock.
1/4 c. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Saute onions in oil and butter until soft, add garlic and other vegetables and saute until mushrooms are soft and celery still slightly crunchy.
Place bread in large bowl. Add cooked vegetables. Put a little water in the pan, swirl and add to bread mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper and up to 1 tablespoon of the Bell's Seasoning.
Toss it all together, then add the egg liquid and a liberal amount of sweet paprika. Toss again and correct the seasoning as needed.
If stuffing a bird remember to do it loosely to leave room for expansion. As a bird-less side dish, place stuffing in covered casserole, dot with butter, cover and bake until heated through - about 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.
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So, with Thanksgiving behind us we are left with a very small window ahead for getting all the Christmas/Hanukkah orders out. How this season gets compressed!
For us, part of the difficulty lies with our wonderful, but remote, location. One pays the price for being far from urban centers. In our case, for one thing, it slows delivery time.

During regular order flow we ship 2 times weekly, Monday and Thursday. That way all orders go out within 1-3 business days. Once we start in the morning the race is on to get the UPS orders ready before the driver gets here - between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Then we can take a break, as the Postal Service pick up is on their way back to town around 3:30 p.m. (we would never make their morning schedule of 9:30 a.m.).
If we receive an order after the orders are shipped, it will go out the next shipment day. When order volume is up, we ship more days per week to make sure all the orders get out within the same week (excepting orders received after pick up on Fridays). We are shipping every day this time of year.

So, while ground shipping and Priority Mail generally take a "normal" amount of time, due to our remote rural location 3-day generally takes 4 days. What happens is, when the driver gets back to the main office in town after driving his 120 - 230 mile route, the express plane has already left, delaying the package by 1 day.
This is why we do not offer overnite (which is impossible from here) or 2-day, except in very special circumstances, which is a lot more expensive considering it cannot be that fast anyway.

When a customer lets us know it is imperative a package arrive by 'X' date, we do everything we can (and they are willing to pay for) to get it there on that date. But we always recommend that you order up to 2 weeks ahead to guarantee early delivery, as for a gift.

So, with this in mind should you want to bestow a gift of our special Soaps or lovely Gifts this Holiday Season, here is our Holiday Shipping Schedule.

Last possible dates to place orders for on time delivery of Christmas Gifts:

UPS Ground
East Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Military & Territories: order by Dec. 14 to ship on Dec.15
Rocky Mountain States to Midwest: order by Dec. 16 to ship Dec. 17
Western States: Order by Dec. 17 to ship on Dec. 18
UPS 3 Day Select
From anywhere: Order by 10 a.m. Dec. 18 to ship Dec. 19
U.S. Priority mail
Order from anywhere by 10 a.m. Dec. 18 to ship on Dec.20

Frost on the Pumpkin...

We saw the first migrating geese fly over last week. I start to become anxious waiting to see them this time of year. It's easy to miss them if I'm in the house or shop - you cannot hear them then. But outside their presence is heralded by such a commotion of honking you hear them long before they are in sight, even when they fly so high you can barely see them. I don't think they can flap their wings without commenting on it! This annual migration is one of the great hallmarks of the turning of the seasons for me. More than anything else it signals the coming of long nights and cold weather.

And now we have had the first hard frost. It dipped into the 20's last night, putting an end to all the watering and much of the work in the garden. Also an end to the basil and tomatoes and such – after we eat all the ones that are now ripening in the house! We are still trying to finish all the pre-winter list. Cleaning gutters, coiling hoses and removing filters that keep the drip irrigation from clogging. There is still firewood to split and stack, projects to wrap up, hammocks, folding chairs, and such to put away until next year.

The business prepares for what we call the "Holi-Daze", when we work hard to ship gifts on time for our customers while we ponder when we will get to do our own. All the soap for Christmas has to be made long before Thanksgiving to be cured and ready in time. Woolie soaps must be felted and gift assortments figured out, baskets ordered, flowers dried, all well ahead of November. The economy is bad in many ways, but we must prepare as if everything is the same. We cannot afford not to be there for our customers.

We love putting together the gift assortments. We try to anticipate what might be most fun, most useful, most attractive to each of you when you see the gift in a store display. For the gifts that are sold via the internet store we try to give each a personal touch to compliment what you have chosen to put in the basket. The dried flowers we add are from our, or a friend's, garden. A few are wild everlasting flowers that we gather locally. Our feeling is we try to make each gift as if it is for our own best friend.

We hope our soaps and other products are the personal gift that pleases all who receive them. See our offerings on Simmons Natural Bodycare's gift pages.