Whoooooo!

Welcome to our haunted house.

The mummy greets you (and the daddy too).

Witch says step into my cage!

Pumpkins galore!

And even more.

Spooky house aflame.

A bucket by any other name.

The mantel all decked out.

Anni's bulletin board
And eek what is this? An alien civilization? Warts on a witches face? Toe jam? An undersea garden? Hazard a guess...

It's a Romanesco Broccoli. The kids call it Klingon broccoli. It's delish.
We got one in this week's CSA farm box. And speaking of produce, today was our last local farmer's market for the season. Today's finds were potatoes, red onions, pears, chili peppers, spicy cheese, rainbow chard, and a butternut squash. We wish all the farmers a warm and happy winter season. See you next spring!

Today was cold and rainy, a perfect day for a cook-in. So, I made curried butternut squash soup (thanks Lisa for the recipe), potato-leek soup, Italian bean soup with chard (our dinner tonight), turkey leek stock, a big pot of veggie spaghetti sauce, and spiced squash scones (desert tonight). The kitchen smelled incredible!

David and I had a chance to get all decked out in our finery last night. We went to the Seattle Opera to see Lucia Di Lammermoor. It was terrific. The primadonna and base padre especially. Think: a cross between Macbeth (treachery) and Romeo and Juliet (tragic love).

Happy Mabon!

Sidewards view of Monday's garden harvest: carrots, cauliflower, beans, lettuce, chives, rhubarb, celery, lemon cukes, lots of little tomatoes, berries, and eggs. 4 eggs/3 chickens, go figure? We figured a harvest picture was perfect for Mabon, the autumnal equinox when day and night are equal. Mabon is the second of the Celtic harvest festivals. We celebrated with lamb shepard's pie, a tomato salad, and harvest pie (mixed berry with apples and rhubarb). Delish.

Alexander's outstanding salsa. Our favorite way to use extra peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro.

When good kids go boring! Thanks Nintendo!

Moving day in the garden.Today, we moved some of our warm weather plants into the new green house. In went the orange tree, eggplant, a cherry tomato, a jalapeno, a lemon cuke, a squash, all the basil plants. We also set a big pan of tomatoes to ripen in the windows.

As promised awhile ago, a view of the new and improved shower. We still have some minor touch-ups and painting to do.

Enchiladas on September 16th. Happy Independence Day Mexico!

Side dishes for the enchiladas: a huge garden salad complete with flowers and cherry tomatoes and a citrus berry fruit platter. Yum!

What's this smiling girl pointing to?

Last Wednesday's farm box: avocados, lobster mushrooms, onions, pears, oranges, limes, nectarines, potatoes, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, apples, and more mushrooms. We used the lobster mushrooms in a mushroom spaghetti carbonara. Awesome!

Eek! Trickle! Thud! Thump, thump, THUMP!

Eek, something's wrong in the upstairs bathroom.

Trickle! Water is coming through the ceiling of the bathroom below, luckily it's over the tub.

Thud! David's reaction to the necessity of calling in an outside fixit person.

Thump, thump! The sound of the crew demolishing the bathroom wall, fixing the piping, fixing the wall, checking out the water heater, putting in a new fan and light, and retiling.

THUMP! David seeing the final cost of the repairs and new tiling.

We did this as a joint project with a highly recommended handyman. He was great. We did lots of running around for materials and the grouting on the tiles. He did all the stuff that took plumbing or electrical know how.

I can't wait to take the first shower! Pictures of the fix tomorrow!

Busy, busy!

Okay, okay, I promised pictures, but I haven't taken a one. We've been really busy putting the learning center back together for the start of school. Anni started today. Alex finished his classes and has a week off before he begins again. Ari restarts her college classes near the end of September. She got an A in her summer class. (You go girl!)

Today, the farmers pruned the garden. We attacked some overgrown shrubs first. Then it was time to trim the alder and the neighbor's plum tree which had grown so far over the fenceline as to shade the back half of the garden patch. Everytime, we trimmed a branch, a cluster of plums (I believe these were greengage plums) bonked us on the head. Some were very ripe! We returned the good plums to our neighbors along with some tomatoes, zucchini, and a jar of jam. We harvested 12 more zucchini, gave 4 to our neighbor, and 3 became dinner. Zucchini 100: 81 + 12 - 7 = 86 to go.

Harvesting!

Today was a big harvest and paint day. In the garden, we harvested 54 tomatoes, 2 zucchini, sage, lacinato kale, parsley, basil, 2 tomatillos, a bell pepper, beans, and a very large sunflower head. Check out the updated farm stats for this year!

We finished painting the learning center today. We did the baseboards, trims, overheads, and touch-ups. It looks great! (Photos tomorrow).

Dinner tonight was homemade pesto (thanks Lisa for the big bag of basil!), garden tomatoes, and scampi shrimp (local WA coast). Now we just need another 100 tomato and zucchini recipes!

The painting continues...

Our endeavor to rid the funny farmhouse of its sterile white walls continues. We've already painted the fireplace brick solitude blue (more tealy really) and the fireplace wall Ralph's ranchito sueded red. Over the past week or so, we've been painting the other walls ripe wheat (a light soft gold).

Today, I tackled the window casements with the color rye (one shade darker that ripe wheat). Working around the blinds and their ecetera was a real challenge! Hmm, wheat and rye. Now, don't we just sound like farmers?

Tomorrow, it's on to the baseboards, corner trim (both mulling spice), and fireplace trim (Ralph's library mahogany. Then, we have to put all the STUFF back in that room. That may be the most difficult piece. Next on the list, sanding the banister railings, oh joy!

Colorific!

The funny farm home has been exploding with color! We're painting again. This time it's the upstairs learning center, in anticipation of the approaching new school year (Hear Alex groan!).
The wall above the fire place is now Ralph Lauren Ranchito sueded red. The fireplace itself is Behr Solitude blue. The side wall are in various stages of Behr Ripe wheat and Behr Rye. To see the true colors check out the websites (because they won't let me copy the colors here). The hardest parts have been 1) moving all the books, toys, and etc in that room, stopping the dog and cats from sticking to the wet paint, and removing Anni's hand prints as she guides down the walls! The trickiest part is going to be painting the wall above the staircase while balancing on a very tall ladder perched on the steps!

The warm weather has returned to Seattle, and the garden is going bonkers. New harvest items today were raspberries (yum!) and the sunflower heads. We're drying the seeds in the oven. We'll use them in our bread making over the next few months. We picked 6 large red tomatoes, 20 cherry tomatoes, and a green zebra striped one. We also harvested beans, kale, chard, and 6 more zucchini! In addition to zucchini, the yellow squash are beginning to explode. We also have acorn, delicata, and cabochon (sp?) squash coming on for the fall. For those of you following the zucchini 100 here are the numbers: 67 + 6 = 73 to go.

Paper, paper everywhere

Today, I was up much earlier than usual, giving a friend a lift to the airport. Then I had some coffee, came home and fell back to sleep, zzzz! Who said farmer rise with the chickens? Not this farmer! We'd better get lazy, late rising chickens in the spring!

Later, we farmers attacked the office. It was time to clear the old files and set up for new farm files. As I was shredding and recycling, I was pondering how to pack a very breakable item. Then Eureka! the shredded paperwork makes awesome packing material, that can then be composted.

Anni and I made noodles this evening with the pasta machine. She loves to make macaroni noodles. She says they look like caterpillars. And speaking of food, we made a great chicken dish for dinner. It was chicken cutlets in a portabello mushroom cream sauce with marsala wine. (We substituted 2% milk for the cream.) The chicken was lovely and saucy, served up with parsleyed potatoes and fresh green beans.

The garden is beginning to call to us. We keep going out and looking at the plots, planning where the veggies will go. We are also considering putting in a couple of fruit trees, a mini orchard. As we know nothing of fruit trees in the Northwest, we are still in the research stage on this one.

Photo Gallery

The carrots that survived the snow!

The enchiladas that did not survive the family!

Seriously though, these were some delicious enchiladas!

We finally got to try out the new oven!

The new colors for the family room;

Basil green, Yucatan, and Ranchito red (more terracotta),

slightly lighter due to the camera flash.

Now, it's time for the hard part...

putting that room back in together!

And a dash more color!

It was another painting weekend for the suburban farmers. We are still working on our basement family room, experimenting with cheery colors for our greyish climate. To the Tuscan Terracotta, we added Yucatan to the lower wall, and then painted a contrasting wall in Basil green. The combination looks terrific! Pictures will follow once I can locate my camera again. To get to all the walls, we had to move the entire contents of the room to the center, and anyone who's seen this room understands that moving many hundreds of books can be a real pain!

Many, many thanks to our pal, Lisa, for helping with the painting yesterday. She's a real trooper! Today, I took on the baseboards and trimming single-handedly. I'm currently trapped in the basement as I've painted all around the door frame. So, somebody come and rescue me soon. Please. Is anybody out there?

In other news, the farm kitchen finally got a new oven. This farmer can hardly wait to try it out. That is if I can ever leave the basement. Help.

And finally, the snow has returned! Just when we though it was safe to reemerge in our vehicles it came back and blanketed the trees and lawns. So far, it's leaving the roads clear. The snowflakes looked beautiful dancing from the sky as I drove yet again to the hardware store for painting essentials. The paint guys are on a first name basis with me now. And, I really should buy stock in this blue painting tape.

Photo gallery tomorrow!

Good Friends, Good Food, & Good Reads

Today on the farm, we built another bookcase and promptly filled it with some of the many books which have been lining the floor of our bedroom. Many thanks to suburb assistant, Alexander. (I'm still trying to figure out how to sleep on the opposite side of the bed.)

This evening, Ari and I had a wonderful Thai dinner with our friend, Lisa. We also went to a great used bookshop in Redmond, MacDonalds. It was having a sale on cookbooks. Lisa and I stocked up!(See below) I also found a copy of a back-to-farm memoir and of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

This week's book choices are 5 in a series of vintage cooking books, thin little volumes, by Barbara Swell. The books are published by Native Ground, which also has books and recordings of ol' time music and lore. The cookbooks have a cornucopia of interesting recipes such as Thomas Jefferson's Spoonbread, Fairy Cookies, Fried Green Tomatoes, Sweet Potato Dumplings, Cranberry Pot Roast, Ethels' Nice Tomato Cookies, Volcano Potatoes, and Foods That Wiggle. In addition, these little gems have many historical tidbits, food poems, farm humor, vintage photos, household hints, food proverbs & superstitions, weather lore, folk remedies, good luck rhymes, and pioneer etiquette. The titles I picked up are: 1) Log Cabin Cooking, 2) Secrets of the Great Old-Timey Cooks, 3) Take Two & Butter 'Em While They're Hot!, 4) Old-Time Farmhouse Cooking, and 5) Mama's in the Kitchen: Weird & Wonderful Home Cooking 1900-1950.

Whosh!

The funny farm continues to work on the interior of the farm house. Yesterday, we finished rearranging our bedroom. Now, I just have to get used to sleeping on the opposite side of the bed. (No luck yet!)

We finally had to give up on our 25 year old oven and order a newer model. Visions of lasagnas, pizzas, and pie are dancing through the future farmer's brains.

Today was a very busy one. Anni had vision, OT, and speech. Alex had theatre. Ari had college. David was working. I ran the kids everywhere and then had a writing class and dinner with the Vegetarians of Washington. (Nope, not a vegetarian, but a very veggie-leaning flexitarian.)

Phew!!!

It's been a busy couple of days! On Saturday, I helped by friend, Lisa, with some interior painting, furniture moving, and lamp construction. She helped me get to IKEA to pick up a couple of much needed bookcases.

On Sunday, I headed to the gym for cardio with Ari and yoga with Lisa. Then, we had a urban adventure to the International District for Dim Sum. It was a beautiful sunny, winter day, so we went for a walk along the waterfront. Then it was time for coffee and chocolate.

Today, it was our turn for interior painting and furniture construction and rearranging. I painted a wall in the family room, a lovely color called Yucatan, and touched up the wall we painted last week. Sadly, I think it's going to need another coat! Next, Ari and I built a bookcase for her room. She and her many books are now very happy. Finally, I rearranged furniture in my bedroom so my bookcase will have a spot on the floor.

I thought we might be bored over the winter, but the suburban farmers are keeping busy with all of our nesting projects. We are looking forward to all the Inauguration festivities tomorrow.

Coloring on the walls

Well, actually we're painting on the walls. We've decided to paint the interior of our home, small sections at a time. The first walls to fall victim to our painting efforts were down in the family room. We found a lovely dark spicy terracotta color that should really warm up that space. My pal Lisa came over on Sunday afternoon and we donned the painter's caps and grubby clothes and away we rolled and brushed. So far, we've done one whole wall and one upper wall (the lower part of which is going to be a different color). On Saturday, I was over at her place helping to paint two walls of her room a lovely teally blue color. As soon, as I move two bookcases and a gazillion books, I'm going to attempt the opposite upper wall. (Pictures to be coming soon)

I think we're doing a winter hibernation due to both the weather and the economy. We've been doing quite a bit of sorting, organizing, donating, recycling, and finally tossing. With 5 people, a dog, 2 cats, and a tank of fish in a small house, this needs to be a regular occurrence! We're also looking with wonderlust at the garden and heirloom seed catalogs in anticipation of the coming spring's planting season.