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!

A day in the life of the Funny Farm

Today, I thought I'd write about daily life down on our Funny Farm.

David is our fearless early riser. He makes sure everyone else gets up and gets going. Sometimes, he even wakes up before the chickens.

Speaking of which, here are the girls, Claudette and Henrietta. They are always awake by 7am, but sometimes, one of them has the urge to lay an egg at 5:15am, groan!

Why is this boy smiling?

Because that big pile of Canadian rocks isn't going to fall on his head? No, that's not it. It's because he doesn't have to get up at 6:15 every morning to get ready for high school! And because now, he's no longer a middle ground junior, he's a mighty SENIOR! This photo is from our February trip to Vancouver, BC. It was cold!

I'm usually the next one to make an appearance out of bed.

Once, breakfast is going, it's time to wake up Anni and Barkley. Here's Anni awaiting a cup of tea, and Barkley hoping she drops something yummy on the floor.

Almost last to make an appearance at the breakfast table is our recent graduate, Ari.

Hmm, maybe that's because she was celebrating her graduation and acceptance to the University!

And finally, we have a family member who only graces us with his presence when it fits his feline fancy.

Yep, you guessed it, Alchemy the cat.

Today, was Alex and Anni's last formal day of the school year, although we believe in year round learning; so we'll all keep our minds busy with summer activities. This morning, Anni and I potted up some Marigolds for teacher gifts, and then we were off to speech and OT appointments. This afternoon, all the farmers went in search of a new dog food for Barkley. The old brand was not agreeing with him. While we were at the pet shop, we found a pal for our lonely goldfish, Squeak (the big orange one).

Squeak's pal, Bubbles went to the giant fishbowl in the sky after a swim bladder illness that caused him to swim upside down, quite happily, for the last 3 months of his fishy life. Squeak has been kind of droopy since. Now, he has a new pal, a comet goldfish. The funny farmers have dubbed him (or  her) Eros after the asteroid due to make a close pass by earth later this year. They seem to be getting on swimmingly.

Today's weather took a turn back to normal Pacific Northwest fare; some sun, some clouds, and some rain.

Here's today and yesterday's garden harvest:

 Yesterday: strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, nasturtium flowers, calendula flowers, borage flowers, mixed greens of chard, mustard, kale, and arugula, mint, cilantro, and lemon balm.

Today: strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, nasturtium flowers, calendula flowers, chard, baby radishes, squash blossoms, and sage. These are pretty typical harvest for early in our season. We are also harvesting lots of chives and oregano. 

Our tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, beans, cucumbers, and pumpkins are just beginning to fruit up. I can hardly wait. Here's a photo of last year's final tomato harvest, once the weather had claimed the foliage. We ripened all the remainders indoors!

What do we do with all this garden goodness? We cook of course! Here's Monday's dinner:

Baby potatoes (farmers' market) with parsley (ours!) sauce, local sole fillets sauteed in butter (local dairy) and chives (ours), cucumber (farmers' market) salad with nasturtium and borage flower petals (ours). It was delish!

We've been working using lots of stuff in our aging and temperamental fridge which has been slowly dying since last fall. Tomorrow (keep your fingers crossed) our new one should be arriving! After multiple attempts to resurrect the old one, we've decided it's time to give it up and invest in a new energy efficient model. Now, are veggies will stay nice and fresh! Yippee!

And since we like to end on a sweet note, after dinner and clean-up this evening, we make cookies!

These delicious little morsels are mini chocolate chip butter cookies with local WA walnuts. Yummy!

Our 6th Day of Snow in the Seattle Area!

 January is the month I teach Anni about winter weather. I think we may have tempted the weather fates. They blew a cold front that's been drifting snow down since last Saturday.

 Anni's winter art.

 Snowmen rule the bulletin board.

 And they're taking over the mantel.

 Snowflakes hanging midair between the learning center and the dining room.

 We braved outside to feed the chickens.

 They were hungry and so not amused by the snow.

 A rhody in winter white.

 Barkley, have you been eating the snow again?

 Snowflake sugar cookies.

 No two are exactly alike.

 Is it nature or the unsteady hand of the decorator?

The flowerpot snowman standing guard over the garden. "Back you snow goblins!"

 A ginormous icicle handing right over the center of our front door, ready to nail the unexpected.

 Is this the rare Northwest tree squid?

 Nope, just a frozen wind chime anchored by an aggressive grape vine.

The official family snow-o-meter.

We've enjoyed our winter respite, but seriously Weather Fates, enough! My farm box is coming tomorrow and I don't want to have to sled seven miles to pick it up!

Happy Nana's Day

Anni proving that kids love the packaging the most! We all stayed up for the solstice lunar eclipse on Monday/Tuesday. It was cool to see a red moon!

Barkley all dressed up in his holiday bandanna.

We traveled to Northeastern Europe for our Yuletide dinner this year. We had parsnip and sweet potato pancakes with chive sour cream, cheese, potato, and onion peroshkis, ham roll-ups, lingonberry brown bread, and gingerbread cookies. Yum!

The CSA farm box arrived today. this one featured baby spinach, carrots, broccolini, avocados, apples, oranges, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, parsnips, bokchoy, tangelos, potatoes, and a pomegranate.

Every December 22nd, we hold our annual Nana's Tea in honor of my British grandmother. This year we invited our friend Lisa over to share in the grand chaos of making lots of goodies. We made sausage rolls, curried egg sandwiches, watercress and tomato sandwiches, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, a vegetable herb cracker spread, a prawn green onion spread, a British cheese plate, jam tarts, current scones, butter biscuits dipped in bittersweet chocolate, and a Dundee cake, all served up with a big Brown Betty full of tea and a toast of champagne. It was fun. (Anni ate her weight in sausage rolls!)

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

"What's this cold white stuff? My tail is cold! And so are my paws! Woof!"

The green house. Plants inside are thinking (yes, you know they can), "It's cold, and who turned out the sun?"

The chicken coop. Henrietta, Claudette, and Waltzing Matilda are thinking, "Cold, cluck, cold! I need to go lay an egg. Race you to the nesting box."

The garden under a blanket of white.

The last of the garden veggies we harvested the evening BEFORE it snowed; carrots, celery, chives, and squash.

Suburban Adventures #2

Guess where we went on Wednesday?
"Woof, woofy, wooooo!" Translation: I'm a happy, happy dog!"

" There's just gotta be a ball out here somewhere."
A thistle in bloom.
These kids aren't Dutch.
Lots of trees and grass.

Did you guess? Marymoor Park and SODA dog park. A great time was had by all, especially the now worn out canine.

The CSA farm box also arrived on Wednesday, full of organic goodness. This one had peas, mushrooms, avocados, tomatoes, carrots, jalapeno peppers, red onion, corn, green onions, bananas, oranges, nectarines, grapes, pluots, plums, limes, and cherries. Yum!