Sweet Potatoes....the nearly perfect food!

Tonight I harvested my sweet potatoes.  This was the first year ever that I had tried to grow them.  I did all of my gardening in containers this year and was unsure how my sweet potatoes might do. 

Well...

...I have sweet potatoes!  My first harvest ever yielded about 30 sweet potatoes.  These are some of the more photogenic ones of the bunch.

Sweet potatoes are considered one of the most nutritious foods you can eat.   They have very high levels of antioxidants, as well as high levels of vitamins A, B6, and C,  C, B vitamins, manganese, copper, biotin, and potassium.  They stabilize blood sugar and improve the body's response to insulin.  High in fiber and low in calories, too. 

Plus, they are sweet, tasty, and versatile.  Next year I hope to plant a whole lot more than I did this year.  They were easy to grow and did well.

Let the blogging begin...

I have always been a writer at heart.  Actually, both a writer and a reader.  Come to think of it, I do believe that they go hand in hand.  I believe that there can be readers who are not writers, but I find it doubtful that writers who are not readers might exist.  I remember as a child being scolded to stop reading and to go to sleep. 

Two funny memories come to mind. 

I used to get carsick a lot as a child.  (Still do, but now I know how to fix it -- I don't read, don't look down, don't look left or right, and ride in the front seat.)  However, back then I could not control my compulsion to read as well as I can now. 

We were traveling in the car and I was reading.  I cannot remember now if I was traveling with my parents or with Auntie Shirl and Uncle Art -- but I do remember that I was getting sick, but could not put the book down. 

One of the aforementioned adults (whichever one was there at the time) scolded me and told me to put the book away and to stop reading.

I looked up (a tad bit green around the gills by this point) and said to them, very matter of factly, "I am NOT reading...I am just glancing at the words."

I am 52 years old and my mom still reminds me of that one. 

The second time was at home in the farmhouse where I grew up.  I had already been scolded enough about staying up too late to read, so I took precautions that night -- closing my bedroom door, putting a towel at the bottom to keep the crack of light from escaping into the hallway for my mom to see, and reading by the light of my closet with the door cracked (and my secret supplemental flashlight close at hand). 

I heard my mom come up the stairs and down the hall.  She always had really creaky feet that snapped with a tic-tic-ticking sound.  Between her creaky feet and the creaky floor, I always had a good auditory bead on her location.  Fake sleeping, book safely tucked away, and lights off.  Yes...I had fooled her that night.

Or, so I thought.

After I heard her get into her bed, I waited a few minutes, put all of my light escaping precautions back into place, and picked up where I had left off.  A few minutes later, mom hollered down the hallway, "Shut that light off and go to sleep...NOW! It's a school night."  Defeated (but also confused about how she had figured this out), I complied. 

After the light was out, I happened to see the reflection of her own bedroom light on the flashing of the chimney on the flat roof of the addition on our house.  That was it!  I begrudgingly closed my eyes and went to sleep, but certainly did not tell her that I knew her secret.

Instead, the next night I finished that book with the light on in my room...undetected by my mom.  I still had the towel under the door and all of the other precautions I had taken the night before...but that night I pulled the shade in my room, too.  Mom was none the wiser and I finished my books. 

I don't think all of that reading has hurt me any.