Violet Beauregard's Favorite

Why is Anni smiling?

Because this morning, she, David and I all headed over to the Mercer Slough for two hours of blueberry picking bliss. We picked lots and lots of berries!

 What did we do with all these berries? Well 12 cups worth immediately into pies! 2 cups worth went into lemon blueberry muffins. 2 cups went to a friend. 1 cups is destined for a salad tomorrow and another cup into the dressing. That leaves 12 cups for freezing! We had so much picking them that we can't wait to go back to the slough.

The pies prior to the tasting of the pies!

Can you spot all the gypsy peppers on this plant?

What are these strange orbs? Why, there the beginnings of this year's pumpkin crop! Yea!

And just to end with something pretty, the Asiatic lilies are blooming. The hummingbirds love them! 

Baking up a storm!

After a very busy weekend, full of sun and music, today was definitely a get to work day down on The Funny Farm. The back yard garden patch needed weeding and watering, and most importantly of all, harvesting! The tomatoes are turning, and the summer squashes are spewing forth. So much so, it was time to bake up a storm this evening.

Luckily  for heat wimp me, it was cooler today. First, I baked up a batch of curried eggplant slices for tomorrow's dinner (thanks greenhouse). Next, it was time for a double batch of cheesy zucchini mini breads with parsley and chives (all from our garden patch). Then, it was on to two trays of chocolate chip cookies, just because the oven was already on and the bread was still rising. Finally, we needed some breakfast breads, so, into the bread machines went orange currant bread and buttermilk apricot bread with almonds. I like to use the dough setting for these sweet breads and then form them into small loaves to be baked in the oven. After all the baking, the house is warm and smells incredible!

It felt good to escape the sun today. Ari and I got a little too toasted by it while attending the Blue Grass Music Festival on Bainbridge Island on Saturday. We'd never been to Bainbridge before. It was a lovely ferry ride over, and the island is pretty, lots of green and trees. We'll be back.

On Sunday, the whole clan went to the Highland Games in Enumclaw. There were pipe and drums and lots of marching about. We saw many mad Scottish athletic events and loved the modern bands playing at the main stage. Our favorite for the past few years is a band called Brother. These three guys combine the didgeridoo with page pipes and a bit of punk - awesome fun! While haggis was an option, we opted to dine on mini shepherd's pies instead. Mixed in with the tartan clad crowd were assorted fairies, pirates, and recent escapee from the ren faire. We had a terrific time!

Music, Flowers, and Gourmet Goodness!

We've been having a very busy week down on the Funny Farm. Summer here in the Pacific Northwest brings out all the artists, visual and musical. On Saturday evening, David, good friend Lisa, and I went to see a circle of songwriters at the Black Dog Cafe in Snoqualmie. The music and the edibles were both terrific.

Alexander finished up his series of drawing classes at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens on Sunday. The girls and I wandered the grounds snapping photos. Yes, we finally located the camera battery recharger! Yea!

This week, Anni has been attending gourmet teen cooking camp at Sur La Table in Kirkland. Everyone has been very inclusive, and she is having a blast! On Monday, she made homemade spaghetti noodles (lots of cranking), marinara sauce, mini meatballs, creamy dressing and Italian salad, and for dessert tiramisu. Yesterday, she cooked up a fiesta with tortilla chips and pico de gallo, chicken fajitas, veggie quesadillas, and  both strawberry cream and mango popsicles. Today, she journeyed to a Japanese menu, rolling sushi, folding gyozas, tossing yakisoba noodles, and mixing up some green tea ice cream. Tomorrow, Anni does a frog leap to France for a classic french menu. I love helping at cooking camp. The kids feed me well!

A word from Barkley: "Woof, arf, arf, bark, woof!"
Translation: I'm a happy dog: dog park! dog park! dog park!
                  Other dogs yippee! wag, wag, sniff, sniff, run, run.
                  Water? Water. Water! I need water!
                  Nap, Time for a naaaaaaaaaap.

Yes, we took the woofer to the dog park. He was deliriously happy and then slept the rest of the day!

In garden news, we're harvesting tomatoes, zukes, cukes, and lots of herbs and flowers. The lettuce and radishes have begun to bolt in the warm weather, and all the berries except for the blues and blacks are about done. It looks like we should soon be seeing more eggplants, pattypans, peppers, and green beans.

Even though, everyone knows I'm a winter queen, I'm really enjoying summer this year. Hope your's is great too!

Summer Celebrations

Hmmm Honey, where did I stash the camera battery recharger??? Apparently this item is currently in electronic witness protection for overused devices. So sorry, no pics today.

Last Thursday, I went to hear a great local singer/song writer, Jean Mann, in one of my favorite venues, the Kirkland Backyard Concert Series. It was a very cozy evening with lots of great food, and Jean played "The Dance" one of my all time favs to listen and dance to. Many congrats to Jean for being commissioned to write a song for a movie!

And speaking of reasons for a celebration, it was Ari's birthday over the weekend. The mighty petite turned twenty three! She had a day out with her pal, Tony,and the next day we had a garden party with friends; Lisa, Shanie, and Jean. There were grilled garden veggies, a big salad, basil lemonade, raspberry ice tea, and truly decadent French chocolate cake. Lisa added Hoppin' John, Shanie some delish curry croutons for the salad, and Jean's wonderful salty sweet and sour homemade chocolates completed the feast. The weather was gorgeous. We ate, laughed, did a craft, and planted some herbs. Now, when's our next excuse to celebrate?

A few folks have been asking some gardening questions. I'll attempt to answer a few:

1) How do you supply nutrients to your organic garden?

We use a variety of methods, the biggest being compost. We compost all our plant based food scraps in a 3 tier composting system. By the time, it hits the 3rd box, it's ready to go directly onto the garden plants. We also use worm casings (poo) from the worm bin. Tomatoes love this, and finally for our acid loving berries, I use an organic fertilizer with a low pH.

2) How do you control pests in the garden?

Again this is a multiple step process. First, we don't plant in rows. We lasagna plant. A typical raised bed has a squash of some kind, a tomato or two, leeks, lettuce, marigolds, chard, nasturtiums, an herb plant or two, and more marigolds. By not planting in rows, if bugs attack that can't take out all of any one type of plant. Nasturtiums act a bug traps for a couple of pest drawing them away from your zucchini, squash, and pumpkins. Marigolds help keep cut worms away from root veggie such as carrots, radishes, onions, and potatoes. Lettuces grow quite happily in the shade of tomatoes which seems to help keep the dreaded NW slugs away. Lots of bugs don't like the strong odor of herbs such as basil, lavender, rosemary, and oregano. If rodents are pesky in your garden, plant lots of mint! We have two chickens, Henrietta and Claudette, they do a great job taking care of ants and earwigs.

When bugs do attach, I spray the plant with this mix: 1 cup warm water, 3 cloves of minced garlic, 1 tsp castile soap (like Dr. Bonner's), and 1 Tbsp olive oil. Put everything in a blender and whirl. Let sit 1 hour and shake. Put in sprayer bottle and spray plants after they've been watered for the day. Keep extra in the fridge for up to a week. Lots of bugs don't like the garlic and the oil helps gum up their larval stage, protecting your plants. A word of caution: don't use on foods non compatible with garlic, such as berries, unless you enjoy the subtle tinge of garlic with these.

3) Exactly, what are you growing this year?

Oh, the toughest question of all, because I keep starting seeds and adding new plants! So far, we have 21 tomato plants, mostly heirloom, 4 gypsy peppers and 2 jalepenos, 4 garden cukes and 2 lemon cukes, 7 pumpkins, 4 zucchini, 3 pattypan squash, 3 butternut squash (thanks Lisa), lots of leeks, 5 kinds of lettuce, marigolds, nasturtiums, runner beans, peas, pineapple, purple and common sage, Greek and Mexican oregano, lemon balm, lemon verbena, purple, white, and red potatoes, rhubarb, camomile, borage, dinosaur kale, rainbow chard, mustard greens, zinnias, Gerber daisies, Icelandic poppies, Asiatic lilies, rose geranium, red geranium, black eyed susan, sun flowers, corn, garlic chives, common chives, chocolate mint, citrus mint, French and English thyme, begonias, snapdragons, calendula, sweet and Thai basil, eggplant, curly and Italian parsley, rosemary, pasque flower, bleeding heart, tea rose bush, black currants, jostaberries, marionberries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, boysenberries, blackberries, grape, coleus, radishes, fuchsias, maple flower plant, aloe plants, cyclamen, an orange tree, canterbury bells, pansies, and lots and lots of dandelions (I count these as a garden crop since I eat them!).

Harvesting summer veggies!

It's been a busy day down on the funny farm. All the warm weather has finally engaged the fruiting parts of our garden veggies. Today, we harvested our first zucchini of the season, and we have one big tomato just about red (I can hardly wait!). Yesterday, we harvested our first gypsy pepper from the garden and eggplant from the greenhouse. We've also had a few runner beans and pear tomatoes. And the lettuces, berries, and herbs are out of control! We have to have big salads and berry smoothies for lunch everyday just to keep up with the flow!

Last week, we noticed a garden mystery; our zucchini and other summer squash were starting to grow and then withering and dying. Hmm, what was up? I checked for insect - none. I recharged the soil with compost. Still, they languished. So, I dug into my stack of gardening resources, and found the answer in Ma book: Willi Galloway's: Grow, Cook, Eat. The lady flowers were not being (eh-hem) pollinated by the male flowers. This might have been due to lack of bumbly bees, but I suspect it was due to our love of stuffed squash blossoms. I put a halt to their harvest and hand pollinated several lady flowers. A week later, the squash plants are all happily making zucchini, yellow summer, or pattypan squashes.

In family news, Ari is gearing up to start the UW in the fall. Translation: she filling out lots and lots of forms.
Alex got his pre-senior picture haircut yesterday. David had been trying the yin yoga classes with me. Now, I just have to get him to try a flow class. (I'll have him  in pretzel poses in no time!) Anni enjoyed her yoga session this morning, and she's been loving her afternoons in the back garden.

Remaking and hip hop!

We've been busy down on the funny farm this weekend. All the garden fruits and veggies needed to be recharged with some fresh compost. So, there was the turning of the compost, the shoveling of the compost, the spreading of the compost, the watering of the postcomposted plants, the splitting and repotting of the aloe vera plants and then an afternoon nap for all the farmers! Phew!

We also hit the farmers' market yesterday morning for tomatoes, broccoli, sweet pea flowers, and a very cool pendant for Alex, made by one of my favorite market artisan, Stephanie of Ponder Press. It's shaped like a shield, inset with his school colors, gold and black. Go mighty Vikings!

We've been doing lots of arts and crafts this summer, part of our new goal: Be remakers instead of new consumers or destroyers. The idea is to repurpose stuff you already have, might be tired of, or is wearing out, into new items that you really like. We'll be posting pics of some of our remade items over the summer.

Alex was continuing in the artsy mode today with his drawing class at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

Anni and I dug into the craft bin and decided to make a very cute purse:

Side 1

We took a rounded wooden clasp box, painted the outside black (with leftover acrylic paint), added dotty scrap paper and leftover black velvet ribbon. Then, we decided to have some fun. We added scrap velcro to the front, back and inside, and attached felt flowers, a wooden flamingo, and a felt bird cage. The additions can be mixed and matched to a unique look. The ones not in use can be conveniently stored inside.

Anni loves her new purse!

 Side 2

Inside

Tomorrow, we'll paint the inside of the purse, after the outside glue is completely dry. Anni already has her eye on some more items in the craft bin as possible future additions.

As many of you already know, I love to dance! Usually, I Celtic modern, ballet, or belly dance, but lately, I've been kicking my heels out. I've been enjoying Zumba with its latin rhythms, and tonight, I took my first hip hop class. It was a blast!Tomorrow, I'm trying a Tease class, va-va-voom!

Happy Beginning of July

The sun has finally reached the Pacific Northwest, and it decided to stick around for awhile. We're loving it; even when we grumble that the house is too warm in the evening! So what have we been up to?

Gardening of course! Berry season is in full swing. Almost all of our different berry bushes are producing. We have an abundance of raspberries, boysenberries, marionberries, blueberries, strawberries, and even a few jostaberries and black currants. The blackberries will be along in a few weeks. We're also seeing our first green beans of the season, and yesterday, I harvested 3 yellow teardrop tomatoes!

What is this patient girl waiting for? Dinner of course! We've been favoring simple dinners in the heat. This one is a ginormous garden salad with coastal shrimp added and a rounds of garlic bread from our favorite local bakery.

What's going on here? The raspberry bush in engulfing farmer Julie Ann. Help!

Where did she go? Oh, no! The raspberries have exacted their revenge! Even the dog looks worried.

This week Ari had to go to Shelton, WA for a training. I went along too, and while she was training, I found a cool bookstore and an enormous bead warehouse to explore. Now, I have the yearning to remake some of my old jewelry. Crafting is cool! (Even on a very hot day like it was) After the train, we continued west all the way to the Pacific Ocean! It was gorgeous on the beach, even the water was warm (very rare here!) We had a lovely lunch and walk amongst the surf before heading the Prius back home.

We celebrated the holiday with a backyard bar-be-que and lots of fun decorations. We also went to see the new Lone Ranger movie. We liked its humor.

 The Independence Day BBQ: Ribs rubbed with dry rub, slow grilled, and slathered in BBQ sauce,

 Corn on the cob with butter and garden oregano, homemade potato salad, organic watermelon, and

Anni's favorite - red, white, & blue cupcakes, full of garden berries. We hope you all had a great 4th of July!