Flowers and Followers

 The irises are blooming! First in purple

 and then in yellow. Now, if the slugs will just leave them alone!

 The lupines are standing at attention and attracting lots of pollinators. Yeah!

The red rhodie has also bloomed. The garden is full of beautiful colors.

We've had a busy couple of weekends with Greenfest and the Folklife festival. My friend Lisa and I  danced the day away at Folklife on Memorial Day. We tried Zydeco, Cajun, and Scottish dancing. I got home barely able to move, and then Ari wanted to go Irish dancing! I managed one more hour of jumps and kicks! It was soooo much fun! This weekend, we caught up with our family friend, Ellie, and her lovely new baby girl, Charlie, at Greenlake.

We love that it is local farmer's market season again. Two of my favorite things at the market lately are the sustainably caught local tuna from the folks aboard the St. Jude and the beautiful recycled Scrabble tile charms from Ponder Press. Most of the warmer weather produce isn't available yet due to our especially wet and cool spring, but the market is alive with rhubarb, asparagus, lettuces, onions, spinach. The upside of the down weather is that the cool crops, normally done by now, are still going strong. Ah, I love silver linings!

Anni made pasta noodles with her school chums today with the hand crank pasta machine. They were delish! Last night, Alex and I gave the machine a turn making lots and lots of mushroom ravioli. We had it for dinner, topped with a very old Italian recipe for tomato sauce. Yum, yum, yum! Here's the recipe:

Ye Olde Italian Tomato Sauce:

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion quartered
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved
1 stick of butter
1 LARGE can of San Marzano Tomatoes. These tomatoes are definitely NOT local, but are very Italiano. (Substitute at your own peril)
1/3 cup of dry Italian red wine

1) In a sturdy large pot (I used the crockpot), heat the olive oil over medium low. Add the onion and garlic. Turn to very low and cook for 1 hour (why the crockpot works!)
2) Add the butter, cook another hour.
3)Add the Tomatoes, cook another hour or two.
4) While to sauce is cooking, be sure to peek and stir occasionally. You want it to be barely at a simmer.
4) Just before serving, stir in wine.

Serve over your favorite pasta. You will find this sauce is a true burst of rich tomato with a creamy consistency. It's decadently terrific!

Finally, a big shout out to all the folks who've been checking out the blog! We love to check the stats and see where folks are a viewing us. Many blessings!

Gardenalicious

Last Thursday, I took a trip to Seattle to take care of some business, and on the way back I made a pilgrimage through Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market. I found some nifty new reading glasses at the square and these wonderful fresh clams at the market. They became dinner. Yum!

Saturday, we woke to sunshine - Yea! and it stuck around for Sunday too! This meant it was garden time! We drove out to one of our favorite nurseries for an eggplant starter, 2 more tomatoes, some some squash, and some very special berry bushes. I found a black current bush and a jostaberry bush! "What's a jostaberry?" you ask. It's a cross between a black current and a gooseberry. I can hardly wait for it to grow! Next, we headed to the dirt section for more organic garden soil, organic soil amenders, and organic potting soil. Then we headed home to plant, transplant, seed, and generally have lost of fun in the dirt. The carrots we direct sowed to the garden beds are beginning to peek through.

Today, I transplanted the three blueberry bushes to the front of the greenhouse. They weren't too happy hanging out behind it. Next, it was time to weed around the raspberry and loganberry bushes. Then, since I was already into weeding, I went for it in all the planting beds, separating out the dandelions for the chickens. They love those things. I transplanted the broccoli rabe seedlings to a window box in the garden and some lettuce seedlings to a big pot in the garden. We want to attract bees to the garden for pollination, so we seeded sunflowers, marigolds, pansies, nasturtium, big pots of wild flowers, and several flowering vines. We had a bumper return of lupine from last year which is great as the buzzies love them. My final garden task for the day was to round up the chickens and harvest chives. Then I had to go inside. Boo.

EggsSeedingly

The chickens are earning their keep! Today, we hit the 1000 egg mark! Way to go, cluckers! This month we are making an effort to enjoy seasonal cuisine. Spring features eggs, poultry, early honeys, asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, spring onions, chives, lamb, and lots of delicious greens and herbs. We are also making more of an effort to spend more time outside as the weather is becoming ever so slightly less soggy. And in other news, I'm learning to play the guitar. So far, I know three whole chords. Stay tuned for progress updates. At the local thrift store, we scored this old fashioned crank apple peeler, corer, and slicer. We used it to prepare a couple of apples for the filling in our breakfast crepes on Sunday morning. Delish! Later, we headed into Seattle to visit SAM, the Seattle Art Museum. We each had a different favorite piece of art. Alex liked the enormous coat of mail composed of military dog tags. David like a crystal sculpture and a moving leaf painting by an Australian Aboriginal artist. Ari liked an Asian moving water and goldfish painting best. I loved a very minimal abstract of Leda and the Swan. Anni's favorite? Going to the Irish pub for fish and chips for an early dinner after the museum. She was famished!

It's that seed planting time of year again. Here I am scrubbing trays and pots on Saturday afternoon.

"Hey Mom! Did you drop a seed?" Anni on her radical red trike. Matilda chicken on the loose, and the lower half of Alex.

Today we seeded: tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, Serrano and jalapeno peppers, lemon cucumbers, Japanese eggplant, leeks, green onions, basil, cantaloupe, zucchini, pumpkins, lacinato kale, broccoli rabe, snow peas, and 3 kinds of lettuce.

Tonight's dinner menu? Chicken glazed with spiced honey, rice with chives, and asparagus with Meyer lemons. Yum!

Evening Song

Julie Ann tickling Argyle, the greenhouse gargoyle.

We've been busy over the past few weeks. I took the older farmers to see the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was awesome, more Picasso in one place than ever before. We waited in line for 3.5 hours!, but it was well worth it!

We've been moving furniture and mountains of books down in our family room in a futile attempt at better organization. I know this is a futile endeavor because we are a household of highly creative people.

And finally, we received our latest power bill. We finally made it into the top 10% for energy conservation and lower usage. It almost makes all those sweaters, thick socks, and slightly coooool (translation: freezing!) showers worth it. Some where penguins and polar bears are smiling.

Evening Song in the Northwest.

Darn good show!

This afternoon, the entire band of funny farmers went to see a play in Seattle called Red Rider Came Calling (based on the book by Berkeley Breathed) put on by the fine folks at Book-It Theatre, our favorite thespians. It was absolutely awesome! Hysterical!

We traveled to France for dinner tonight. No, not really, but dinner was on the French side. We had Chasseur chicken with oven roasted carrots while Edith Piaf sang on the music system.

Then we continued our holiday decorating. The theme of our tree (and most of our upstairs decorating) is Northern Forest, lots of pine cones, snowflakes, berries, birds, critters, mushrooms, bearded gnomes, and reindeer. We finished up the tree tonight!

Happy Halloween, Samhain, and Day of the Dead!

We celebrated the trifecta of spooky days by going to the Day of the Dead cultural festival at the Seattle Center with our friend Lisa.
A brightly colored skull.

Sand painting. There were many art opportunities at the festival. We tried our hand at linoleum carving and printing.

An offrenda to Pancho Villa.

Our scary sugar skull.

Ancestral dancers. There were many, many types of dancers at the festival in beautiful, bright costumes.

An offrenda to the ancients.

Offrenda of pan de muerte and lights. A bakery was selling the bread on site. Yum!

Offrenda by local school kids.

Lots of skulls on this one.

A simple family offrenda.

Bread and fruit offrenda.

The jaguar on a wild offrenda.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween, Samhain, and Day of the Dead.

BOO!

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).

Weekend Wackiness

It was a busy first weekend in October! On Saturday, we went to the Salmon Festival in Issaquah. There was a long parade, hundreds of craft and what-not vendors, food, and of course the salmon were running by the hundreds in Issaquah creek. A good time was had by all.

Today, we headed across Lake Washington to the Seattle Center which was hosting a multitude of events. First on our list was Brickcon, the annual display of incredible things build out of Legos. We saw a town, outer space, castles, forest, a Chinese gate, a tribute to Japanese animation, a portrait of President Obama, steam punk vehicles and so much more all built with these hardy little bricks. There was much oohing and ahing.

Then we headed across the fountain to Arts Crush. What's that you ask? It's the kick off event for the performing arts in the Seattle area. Free tickets, 2 for 1 deals, and discounts abounded for plays, comedy, dance, and music. We left with 6 free tickets and a program of events to keep us busy during the L-O-N-G Northwest rainy season. Ari and I are headed to a play at Book It Theatre on Wednesday! We love win-wins.

And finally, we checked out the Northwest Tea Festival. $5 got you a ceramic tea tasting cup and then you were off to sample tea until you could hold no more. My favorite was a coconut tea from the tea purveyors out of Pike Place Market. Other winners were Choice's organic Fruity Rooibus and their Wild Forest Black teas. Our favorite tea concept was the little tea shop (3 Cups of Tea) in Bothell that donates profits to help build schools in underdeveloped countries (yes, like that book of the same name). Another win-win.

After all of our weekend adventures, we came home and put our feet up!

Guess Who Went to the Zoo?

The Bald Eagle isn't squawking.

The bears are too busy to care.

Hmm, but maybe...

Nope. Just looking for a new spot.

The python has his eye on the situation.

And the rattler couldn't give a shake.

The axolotl thinks something's silly down in its gilly.

And Anni says the world will just have to keep turning with the mystery.

Trippin' in the heat

After the miracle of sun in the Pacific Northwest, life got too toasty for us at the 90 degree plus range. We headed to the beach. Here's Ari walking on water.

Alex and Anni model the latest in casual beach wear. Note the attractive shell collection basket.

All was going well until the ginormous shark appeared...

and swallowed us whole! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Okay, just kidding. Anni went back to modeling.

On Saturday, we headed to Portland for Ari's birthday trip. Nothing like one of your kids turning 20 to make you feel ancient. I mean how can she be twenty? Especially when I can't be a day past 29, hmmm. We spent a wonderful day breakfasting, browsing the Renaissance Bookstore, lunching, strolling the Nob hill street fair, chocolateering at Blue Moon Chocolates, buying bags of books at Powells, and caffeinating ourselves for the drive home.

A quick snap of our lavender bush babies. Aren't they cute?