Local-voire

The last couple years I have become more concerned with our food sources. I have read several of Michael Pollian’s books plus Barbara Kingslover. Last year, one of our young friends was the farm manager for a local organic farm and we jumped off into the organic local product with him. Now that our Farmer’s Market is open again I am trying to buy as much as I can from there for our weekly meals.

Tonight for example we had some Salmon (from the great market in Seattle hand carried back to Indiana), all the rest is local: new potatoes (just boiled with butter), zucchini, yellow squash, red onions, and eggplant roasted with some olive oil and garlic and for dessert an apricot-plum “tart”. I perused many tart recipes and finally winged it. It was beautiful to look at and to taste. Even my customers (male) could appreciate its beauty and taste.

The orchard that grew the plums (very small, sweet and lovely tasting) will have several other types of plums maturing in the next few weeks. They also have many types of apples. The very first of which we bought a week ago: Lodi. They will have apples now until late in the fall.

I have a source for locally raised/grass only bison-which makes the most wonderful guilt free hamburgers. I have a source for grass-fed: turkey (in the fall) and chicken and eggs.

Our garden is starting to put out cukes, yellow squash and scallions. The first corn has tasseled and the 2nd is about ready to be hilled.

It's that time of year again!

Today we started our annual "putting away the harvest." The cucumber plants have been toying with us; lots of blossoms, lots of small baby cucumbers, but none large enough to "do up." However for the last couple days we have been picking a small amount that finally added up to enough to pickle. Yesterday we cleaned them all up and put them down in the lime. This morning Kent scrubbed them down again while the oatmeal cooked. After our morning walk, I picked dill and grape leaves. The jars were washed and ready to assemble. I recovered the peeled garlic from the freezer(left over from the last pickle party of 08), and stuffed 7 jars with dill, garlic and grape leaves. Then comes the cukes. I learned how to be an efficient jar stuffer from my dearly departed mother-in-law. Putting the pickles in the jars was one of the first things I learned from her back in 1985. She had worked at Vlasics once upon a time and talked about the foreman who would tell the ladies on the line, "one more pickle in that jar!" We did 7 quart jars of pickles and used less than 2 quarts of brine; that's a pretty good pickle to brine ratio!

The jars were processed and are now sitting on the island cooling off. There is few things as satisfying as hearing the pinging of the jars sealing.

Last bird out

This morning I looked up at the nest and thought the Momma Robin was standing above her babies. When "she" never moved I took a closer look and realized that I was looking at a almost grown baby Robin. I took its picture and within the next half hour it fledged successfully as there was no body on the porch.

Changes are coming

A year ago this weekend we hosted an absolutely fantastic event that started with Jake's Eagle Court of Honor and the party afterwards. On Sunday we enjoyed the company of family: Farm Grandpa and Grandma, Gaylord Grandpa and Grandma, Mark and Sam, Nano and Paul. Much of our events were centered around our patio and deck. Less then a month later, the big tree that shaded the patio lost half of itself in a wind storm, taking out the line of big old shrubs and trees that had marked the property line to the south.

Since October we have been slowly progressing towards finishing the landscaping in that area. First we had to wait for the stump grinder man to return and do the "free" grinding (he owed us for the freestanding driveway light that they knocked down when they took down the tree.) He returned at the end of April. Then we had to wait for the lawn man to come in and regrade that area of the yard ( in years past, Kent would have been doing this but he is under the whip at work and with his Dad's affairs.) Greg finally came and did the yard on Wednesday. Kent got home late Friday so we used our Saturday to go pick out trees and put them in the ground. Since Kent did all the digging by hand he has asked for at least several weeks of respite.

Where does time go?

I can't believe how fast time flies by. Next weekend is the Memorial Day holiday. Jake is all done with his first year in college and Alix has finished her third. Mom and Daddy have been gone for 9 days now. And Amos is almost 3 months old.

We have a new family in our neighborhood - in our household to be exact. A pair of robins have built a nest on the edge of a porch pillar. It took them several fruitless days until we had rain and they could use mud to plaster the nest to the wall. I would have knocked it down before completion but it is too high up. So high up that I'm pretty sure they won't get any nestlings safely to the ground. I'll get a picture and post it later.

We did have some excitement a week ago. Jake discovered a football sized mass of honeybees clustered in one of our bushes about 3:00pm. It had just formed since lunch. We called our local "honey" man. He came and put out one section of a hive with some attractant in it. The next morning he came back and took the hive (with the new queen and most of her workers. He told us that what we had was a swarm of bees caused by a hive splitting into 2 hives. He was very encouraged to see a hive healthy enough to split. Since CCD (colony collapse disorder) started we have lost 1/3 of our honeybees. Improper use of pesticides is considered a major player in CCD.

Watching time march on.....

A pretty day here today. I have walked the dogs, visited with my folks, finished trimming the grapevines, taken some pictures of the yard and spent over an hour on Facebook; reading new to Facebook but old friend's pages and adding pictures to my page. The morning is almost gone and I have yet to take a shower and get ready to face the rest of the world.

I had a great visit with the western kith and kin last week; saw all the younger gen, complete with dogs. Hopefully we will be able to do it again in April before our dog sitters fly the coop. The first night we spent in NYC. I was a typical tourist; spent so much time looking around that I couldn't keep up with Kent. The next time we are going to go to Central Park via the subway. Seattle was better, family and not such an intimidating city atmosphere.

This trip was sandwiched in between Jake's spring break and Alix's. They were each home only several days and they didn't overlap. But Jake had spent several days vi sting Alix. Nick was also visiting Alix and the two guys got to spend some time together as she had classes. Alix rode home with Nick to Lansing and then flew here in the middle of the week. She returned the same day we did and was able to use my car which saved a trip to the airport. When she left yesterday she rode in with Kent on his way to work so all in all a very efficient trip home. Her getting back to MSP was a nightmare though as the planes are very full on Fridays-Mondays during spring break time. After looking at full airplanes all afternoon it looked like I would be picking her up and heading for MSP. She was able to find out that the plane from Lansing to MSP on Monday had many seats; now just to get to Michigan. I was praying and an answer arrived the next time I checked the CVG to DTW (Detroit) flights for Northwest. You could get there if you flew Comair to Grand Rapids to Cleveland to Detroit. The important part of that trip was the Comair leg from CVG to GRR. She was on the phone with me when I found it and almost screamed, Grand Rapids! Thats only 90 minutes from Lansing! I checked it and it had 6 seats and she had time to catch it. She texted me this morning that she was on the plane to MSP and would arrive in time for her classes. Hallieuha!!!!

All the action and disruption of my routine was good for me. I am becoming more of a stick in the mud with each passing day. But it is good to have some time alone now and work on the things around here. Like spring cleaning everywhere.

Celebrate!

So last Thursday, we had a parade and then a 30 minute ceremony downtown to honor our local celebrities: the Herbert Brothers! Who you say? How about the guys who beat out Madison Avenue Ad companies and scored the number one Super Bowl commercial!

Frazz made me cry today