Wild berries are ripe again!

There is nothing quite as nice as eatables that are found fresh and free. :) My kids love finding wild berries on paths we go on (this path was pictured in this post) and eating them. Sometimes it makes other people nervous, but I try to teach them what to eat and what not to eat, right along with how fun it is to find wild food! Really, how much more local can you get?

These pictured are wild Salmonberries. There are two different varieties in Logan's hand below. Remember that Rubus berries are NOT poisonous. None of them. So when you find berries that resemble blackberries or raspberries, you can pick and eat them. They don't have any poisonous varieties. Now this isn't true of other types of berries... so for my kids right now, I still advise all my kids (even Alex) to ask before he eats anything... and if I don't know it, we don't eat it. In fact, we deam it yucky, and say that no one should touch it ever ever ever (the drama is for the berry eating toddler... just in case).

Logan posing for me so I could take a picture of the berries we collected.

And then, instead of eating one by one... he decided to shove the whole handful in his mouth. True toddler style. :)

Happy berry hunting!

26/52 ~ Well...

"Why yes... I am the mom of a toddler. Why do you ask?"

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!! The kids and I are hanging out while Don is out fighting the battle between good and evil. Today I want to thank our patriots. Those that fight for our freedom in other countries and those that fight for our freedom and safety right here in the states. And to our firefighter too... while Western WA is normally a very wet area, lately we have had pretty much no rain at all... so our firefighter and police officers will be working overtime tonight to keep us all safe and sober. Thank you to all of them for the wonderful country we are in and for keeping it that way!

And now for our special celebration... something fun from my Aunt Barb. It is 6 minutes... but oh so worth it.

And if you really want to spend some time diggin' yourself some Toto... here is the acoustic version by Andy Mckee... (minus the thunder of course). Amazing! (It has to be one of my all time favorite songs.)

Score one for the human race!

Thanks Jen!

Lavender Harvest!

I harvested lavender this morning. I cannot even tell you how wonderful my diningroom smells right now!

Can you believe, that after all of this was picked, I can't tell that any was taken out of my yard? That is how much lavender I have... I am crazy excited!

More on this walk later... but it was a beautiful day. :)

Drool... so pretty!

I am not one to spend these kinds of dollars on things for the kids room... but wow. It's tempting! Maybe I can paint something like this for Cyan and Logan's room.

I have enjoyed everything I have seen from Amenity Organics so far. Probably my favorite though, is this:

Cream and Lavender Bloom Duvet Cover

This set, I may actually dole out the cash for eventually. Our bedroom always gets forgotten. I think most parents are like this. In lieu of getting nice stuff for our own rooms, we tend to find the cutest thing for our kids rooms. Don and I have the quilt on our bed that was given to us about 10 years ago. It was on the back of a friends couch before that, so it is completely sun bleached on one side. The pattern is nice, but all the quilt pieces are now falling apart. I have a really nice winter duvet and cover from Ikea that we use in the winter, but in the summer, I gotz nothing nice to go in there so it kinda looks like a garage sale in our bedroom all summer (when we entertain the most, of course).

Don mentioned that he really liked the combination of purple and grey for our bedroom (and the fact that he had an opinion was quite amazing, so I am running with it). All our winter stuff is done in red. So I was thinking that I could do the summer stuff in purple... and then do a dark greyish taupe on the walls with tea white door and window jams. We have a VERY sunny big window in our room, so I think that would look nice.

More pictures of my pantry shelves

Ok, so now I really really love them. A lot. So funny how something you make, at first, all you can see are the things you did wrong. Is it too big for my space? Did I make it too wide? How do I support it without those ugly screws?

And then, after a couple days of using it and loving it, those things just go away. I don't even see them anymore.

I just see this:

Ecolovies ~ Cereal box mini boxes

This craft came about when flipping through olden times craft books, and I saw 'how to make a hat box'. The hat box they showed required cutting about 400 tabs on the outside of each piece of heavy card stock and securing them together with glue and then bias that was glued around the decorative paper the entire box was flawlessly covered in. I sat there for about an hour thinking, there has to be an easier way to do this craft, when it hit me.... sew it! So I set out to make a hat box in miniature out of old cereal boxes (the best card stock around).

Supplies you will need. A pen, scissors, a needle and thick embroidery thread, a small hole punch, and an old cereal box.

First measure out how large you want your box to be. I just made mine as big as the box was tall... it made for easy measuring. A shorter piece, just as long as the first piece, made for the lip of the lid.

I folded that part around until I had a circle or oval, and traced the bottom of it on to the cereal box... and that was the lid and bottom of the box.

The only special tool I would really recommend would be a mini hole punch. I bought mine 11 years ago in preparation for our wedding invitations where I had to tie tiny ribbon through two sheets of paper, and around the end of a skeleton leaf. Yes, it was just as tedious as it sounds. lol! But it works great for other projects too... mostly ones that involve a needle, thread, and my 7 year old.

After measuring the pieces and cutting the lid and bottom, I punched holes along the bottom and both short sides of the main box piece. I then secured the thread through both holes and sew down and back up again to bind the sides together leaving me with a ring of cardboard.

Then comes the tricky part... attaching the bottom. I tied a middle hole to the back next to the seam, then I tied hole that was directly across from it to the front. Then I sewed all the way around... not being picky about the way it looked... until I met up at the other tie. I tied it off, not cutting the thread, and then continued around until I got back to where I started, and tied it off again. This part really doesn't have to be neat. I didn't have any problems skipping a hole or two on each box, or doubling up if I needed to... it doesn't take away from the box at all.

I then did the same thing with the lid.

Put the two together and you have a whole mini hat box!

Then all that is left to do is decorate!

This is one that my daughter and her friend decorated for their "someday drive through lemonade stand".

And here is the one I pictured up top. I really love how it turned out.

"What in the world do I do with garlic scapes?"

I heard that question about 700 times in the last two market weekends. It totally makes me cringe sitting here right now. lol... But it is a good question. Garlic scapes are one of those things that are at the market for about three weeks. In marketland, that is gone in a flash, and within those three weeks people naturally want to take advantage of the most local, most seasonal, freshest food available. For the last two weeks, garlic scapes have been it.

So what are they and what do you do with them?

Well, garlic scapes are the young flowers on the garlic stalk. If you leave them on the stalk, they will have seed garlic in them... which if you are wondering, takes two years to grow into a decent head of garlic. So most people don't plant garlic from the seed. They plant it from 1 year old cloves for a 9 month (instead of 2 year) harvest. So each season they will have the garlic flowers for harvest!

Enter scapes. Garlic scapes taste... well, they taste like green garlic. lol... They have that same spicy garlic flavor, but somehow they taste fresher... greener. If that makes any sense.

What do you do with them? Anything that you would do with garlic! Saute them with stir fry, saute them with butter and olive oil and eat them crunchy, chop them up tiny and put them on top of salad, bake them slathered with cheese, add them to roasted root veggies.... or puree them for a wonderful pesto like I did last night.

A little bit about this recipe: It took two tries to get it right. I underestimated how spicy these suckers were! They are not just mild little garlic flavored flowers... they are just as hot as the garlic that you use in cooking... about 5 flowers makes for 1 clove of garlic. The first time I made this recipe I have 18 or so scapes in the processor... that was not good. Burnt every ones mouth and the kids couldn't even eat it at all. Best to tone down the garlic if you are worried about heat.

Garlic Scape Pesto

5 - 10 garlic scapes

1 oz (small handful) basil

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup slivered almonds

sea salt

Cut up the scapes really well and add them to a food processor or blender with some of the olive oil. Process for about 2 minutes (I know... it's loud, you can stop if you like more chunky pesto. I like mine super smooth.). Add in the basil, cheese (get the good stuff if you can, but the freeze dried stuff works too), and almonds and process for another 2 minutes. Stop and taste. Add salt if you need and toss a generous spoonful with a plate of pasta. I topped with tomatoes. :)

I also found that it has a wonderfully sweet garlic flavor that makes AMAZING guacamole!

Here is the recipe I used today:

Guacamole with Garlic Scapes

4 large avocados
6 garlic scapes
2 small tomatoes
handful cilantro leaves
2 Tbs lime juice
3 slices large sweet onion

Add all but avocados in food processor or blender and process for about 1 minute. Mash avocados in a bowl and pour in the puree. Mix well and salt to taste. It was amazingly delicious. I may make some scape puree to save for other guacamole days.

25/52 ~ Flower girl

I have never grown flowers. I always thought that if you have enough sun for roses, you have enough for something that you can eat. And I was always ok with that.

This year, I bought a house with pretty much nothing but flower beds. It has a veggie garden, but even that is lined with roses and bluebells, the apple is right next to flowering bushes.

I love it. I don't just love it, I can't believe I ever lived without growing flowers! I go out and touch them, smell them, pick them every single day. I make bouquets for the table about twice a week and change them out as the flowers fade. I can't believe that I never felt the lack of flowers.

When we got the walk through from the previous owners, Betty and Don, they kept telling me about the flowers and how they bloom all year long... One thing after another, it blooms until it freezes, and when it stops freezing, it starts blooming again. And I kept thinking "Wow, pretty... I bet I could plant an apple tree there." lol... Those seasonal things are ingrained in me for food. Strawberries for Don's birthday, Blueberries for Alex's, planting peas on Memorial Day and harvesting Garlic on the 4th of July... these dates are in my head and my body craves the foods I love for the season we are in. But now I can't wait to live years in this house... to know things like when the Yellow Chain Tree blooms, when the Roses start, and when the Lavender is ripe for harvest.

Who ever thought that I would be a flower girl?

Of lavender and built-in shelves...

Out gathering my first lavender harvest I met a little friend.

She hung out with me for about 20 minutes, tasting the blooms I missed as I made a bouquet out of the beauty of my new yard.

Then I got to come inside to this:

My first built-in pantry shelf in my new kitchen. I even made a toe box at the bottom so I could place the molding that was along the floor back on the shelf (so it matched the rest of the room). I watched lots of 'remodeling for dummies' and 'e-how' episodes to figure out how to do this... I also got about an hours worth of council from the pros at Home Depot on how to support this without the boards warping under the weight of beans and oatmeal over time. I think it turned out ok. I have never made anything that fits this tight before. Let me tell you... this puppy is FITTED. 42 inch wall = 42 inch shelves. Snug to the point of having to take the molding off so we could see if it fit.

I was pretty darn proud. :)

The history of my pantry shelves.

Local living days

Since my big market days are Sundays, I have an overabundance of good food come Monday morning. I came home with two bunches of carrots, a bag of summer squash and baby turnips, two heads of beautiful lettuce, a bunch of spinach, cilantro, parsley, 1 lb of garlic scapes (see pic at bottom), and 1 pound each Rainer and Bing cherries. And of course this:

I got STRAWBERRIES! After a long market day yesterday, my husband and I sat in front of a movie and topped, washed, and bagged 3 full flats of tiny, sweet, organic strawberries. I sigh with happiness just thinking about it. So good! There are a smaller variety that they grow at the farm I work for... they are more flavorful than any other strawberry I have ever tasted. They are sweet too... not like those ones you buy from the store (You know... the ones that taste like strawberry flavored cardboard). Those cold winter days where all I need is a taste of summer... they will be so much sweeter with these babies packed away.

Up next, what to do with garlic scapes and my new pantry shelf (my first built in!)!

Spontaneous Gratitude for today

I was sick last night with some yucky stomach bug. It sucked! So today I thought that I would count my blessings in the spontaneous gratitude way. :)

This nature table, complete with a birds nest I found on the ground, a bees hive that was in our back yard, and with my kids newest crafty addiction: Needle felting!

This sunbathing sweetheart.

This sunbathing beauty!

New plants for the front of the house.

Pictures, hung securely to our walls. Our walls. :)

The best garage sale find EVER! ($5!!)

My newly re-found electric pencil sharpener. Oh how I love thee.

And yep... this is another blue rose bud. :D

My 'blue' rose blooms!

Remember my blue rose? It bloomed day before yesterday and this is what it looks like:

It is beautiful! But certainly not blue. lol! I am excited though, as it looks to have stayed really healthy. Never having flowers before I totally thought I would kill it dead. But it is healthy and beautiful and has two more blooms on the way!

I need to pick up a couple books on caring for roses from the library to learn about what they need. I hear coffee grounds are good. As is Epsom Salts. Anyone have any good organic rose gardening tips? And what about the yellow wilty leaves? I have a lot of those on the other rose bushes (not this one yet, thankfully)... does anyone have a good cure for those? If they were veggie plants, I would say they need better soil and more nutrients. Am I on the right track?