Summer, Swimmingly

Summer is not summer without a dabble of feet in a cool creek, a dash through a sprinkler or a plunge in a cool body of water on a hot day.  I love long slogs up creeks, crawling over and under logs, watching for crawdads who might nibble on my toes.  I love rope swings and flying out into the air and splashing deep into the coolness of the dark pool.  I love wading along the shore of the sound, looking for pretty rocks shimmering under the water and the cold splash as a large wave crashes into me just as I dip down to pick up a particularly pretty one, sea weed clinging to me, making me laugh.  I love a lake, a cool refreshing freshwater swim, where eagles and osprey fly over head, swallows and swifts dive through the air and skim over the water.  Kingfishers call out their raucous call and herons perch on old posts or along the shore, their still patience a calming presence.  Turtles peek at me, just a little striped head barely above the waters surface before diving down to watery depths.  Necklaces made from lake weeds and dragonflies zipping past.  I love not being the only full bodied woman wearing a bikini, not afraid of her goddess curves, feeling sexy in the water despite all those extra pounds.  I love that black bikini, letting more water move over my skin, cool and refreshing silkiness.  The comfortable ache of muscles well used and a growing hunger as I linger on the shores edge after a long swim.  I love the feeling of my soft skin warmed in the sun, cooled in the water and warmed in the sun once again.  That feeling of relaxation that only comes from times like these.  I love summer, swimmingly.

A Sugar Scrub By Any Other Name

What do you get when you take, lavender, fair trade organic sugar, cold pressed apricot kernel oil, lavender essential oil and a little creative energy?  Why a Lovely Lavender Sugar Scrub, of course!

This project was inspired by my love for a particular Suki Product, that I haven't been able to purchase for a while due to budget woes. It's full of lemon lusciousness and I miss it!

I always called it a lemon sugar facial scrub.  So when Domestic Witch posted the recipe for the lavender sugar scrub I was excited to give it a try.  I didn't realize the difference between the two until after I had made and used the scrub for the first time.  The Suki Product uses saponified oil and thus is a cleansing scrub where as the lavender sugar scrub is more of an exfoliating moisturizer.  Great for summer sandal feet and silky soft legs, but not for washing your face!

Now I'm wondering if I can get my hands on saponified oil.  In the mean time I have a nice squat pint jar of great smelling lavender sugar scrub sitting ready.  My feet will be so happy!  There was enough to make a couple small jars for family too... happy feet all around!

This project was inspired by a post over at Domestic Witch and made possible by a generous offering of lavender from my mother-in-law.  If you happen to be so lucky as to have a bit of lavender on hand (or a nice mother-in-law who has a bit of lavender) then I encourage you to visit the link above to find out how to make your own Lavender Sugar Scrub.

To Happy Feet and Learning!

Celebrating the Harvest

First Harvest, Lammas, Loaf Mass, Lughnasadh, Cornucopia, County Fair Time - whatever you call it, it's all about the celebration of the harvest.  This time each year over the centuries and around the northern hemisphere of planet earth, people have been finding ways to celebrate the harvest of fruits and grains, and their own hard labor.  Every culture approaches it a little differently, each with its own customs.  Bonfires, gatherings, offerings to the gods, giving formal thanks to the earth for its fruits and so much more goes into these celebrations.  Mark and I came up with our own way of celebrating, and today marked  our second annual blueberry picking "ritual", complete with picnic and other August time treats.  This year our gala event for two was held at the Mercer Slough U-pick Blueberry Farm in Bellevue - a beautiful setting filled with wildlife, blueberries and a good number of happy berry pickers.  There was even a surprise visit by a coyote. I learned today that coyotes howl over sirens just like dogs do!  It was howling and yipping just a few yards from us and was spotted by some fellow pickers!

This young robin was one of the fellow blueberry pickers present today.  I think he's giving me the territorial eye here, don't you think?  

Obviously there was enough for everyone, though.  We brought home over four pounds of blueberries.

Another berry delight was the handful of ripe blackberries we managed to find and quickly gobble down.  Only a sampling of what's to come from the wonderful month of August!

There were a few tomatoes ready for harvest today too!

And what better way to eat them than with a little fresh mozzarella and basil. Yum!

And what August outing wouldn't be complete without a little ice cream?

A large part of the Lammas/ Lughnasadh celebration is the focus on the grain harvest.  So to celebrate this aspect I baked a Rosemary Olive Oil Cake.  I had never combined rosemary with sweet before, but when I saw a recipe for this in the latest Yoga Journal Magazine, I was quite intrigued and decided to give it a try.  Boy, am I glad I did!  This recipe is a keeper!  I altered the original recipe to try and bring at least a little whole grain into it.  Here's my version:

Rosemary Olive Oil Cake

4 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup olive oil

2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped rosemary

1 1/4 cup unbleached white flour

1/4 cup white whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Oil a 10-inch loaf pan and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl beat the eggs with a mixer for 30 seconds on 

high speed.  Add the sugar and beat on high till very frothy and pale.

While the beaters are going, slowly drizzle the olive oil in.  

Gently fold the rosemary in.

In another bowl, blend the flours, baking powder and salt.

Gently fold the dry mixture into the egg mixture.

Pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then tip the cake out

onto a rack to continue cooling.  

Happy Lammas/Lughnasadh/First Harvest!

Photo Source

 and

The Artist

Summer, So Far

A beautiful Solstice ritual with local druids started off my summer in what could not have been a better way.  OK, perhaps less mosquito bites would have improved it slightly.  Dratted little buggers!  The ritual was a simple yet deeply meaningful one and was followed up in true druid fashion with great food, drink and entertainment.  There were stories, poems, song and even a silly joke or two.  A great time had by both Mark and me among great company.  The main tree we were under was quite thoroughly decorated!

The next summer highlight would have to be the continued growth of our garden and some of the bounty we've been enjoying from it.

And these are just the things I thought to take pictures of.  We've been eating  lots and lots of greens, new potatoes, scallions, carrots, beets, squash and peas.  I just picked our first tomato last night, a yellow Taxi Variety that we have in a planter near our front porch.  We're looking forward to eating it tonight!  Both the p-patch and the home planters and raised bed are doing well - quite productive.  And it's about time to start planting greens and beets and such for the later part of the season!  And get the basil transplanted - finally.

We've also been enjoying some of the local bounty that we aren't growing ourselves.  We went and did u-pick strawberries and got 20 jars are strawberry jam made up along with a delicious strawberry rhubarb crisp that is long gone.  We also got raspberries and made up 16 jars of raspberry jam.  The latest was a 13 pound box of apricots that got canned up, made into apricot pie and a handful thrown in the freezer for later apricot delights.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of these due to the camera dieing on us.  But trust me, all the colorful jars look lovely!

We've had a good many enjoyable evening strolls along Alki, despite the crowds, and several picnics in local parks with one wonderful summer swim in Lake Washington down at Seward Park.  While we were swimming both a Bald Eagle and an Osprey flew over us, not to far above the water.  They were having a bit of a territorial spat.  The Osprey decided to not argue with the Eagle.  Smart Osprey!

We also had a great paddle at the arboretum on Lake Washington with plenty of birding by yours truly.  The  ducklings were probably the biggest treasure of the paddle, though!

Another highlight was joining my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law for the Vashon Garden Tour.  There was a lot of oohing and ahhing and drooling and coveting and dreaming.  I took over 150 pictures that day and a healthy selection of them deserve their own post, but here you can see that we three girls just couldn't help but smile after a day of garden delights!

Yes, summer has been good to us so far.  The sad thing, though, is that I may not be able to record the rest of the summer quite as well as I would like, due to our camera dieing on us.  Replacing it may not be in the cards all to soon.  I'll just have to use words in the mean time and do my best.

Happy Summer!

Blending

Yes, I've been absent more than not, lately.  It's been one of those internal transitioning times for me and I always find it near impossible to write about lighter, less personal stuff during those times.  So I just don't write - or rather I just don't publish what I write.  There is rarely a day that goes by that I don't write.  It's therapy and creative outlet all wrapped up in one, and necessary for my sanity to remain at least a little to this side of sane.

During this time I found that having a separate food blog was just way to much to maintain.  So I made the decision today to once again blend my "everything else" blogging with my food and recipe blogging.  I've imported all the food posts from Rutabagas and Other Adventures to this blog and will continue to incorporate food related and recipe filled posts from time to time.  Hopefully this will help me feel less scattered all over the place.  I still have my nature related blog The Tern's Song that only occasionally sees posts these days, mainly because most of my nature writing has taken on a more personal and spiritual nature.  I'm still wrestling with whether to open all that up into The Tern's Song or not.  We'll see.

In the mean time I have a backlog of things to write about for this blog and I hope to slowly but surely catch up.  Stay tuned.

A Good Morning

Up early this morning.  Woke up before Mark's alarm went off at 5:30.  Odd sense I didn't blow the candles out till after 2am.  But I was awake and had some energy so after Mark left I went out for a ride on Ducky.  I road out to the first pier along Alki and then sat there for quite a while watching the gulls and crows and a man on a paddleboard waiting for waves.  I eventually noticed that the dark birds perched out on the buoy marker/light thing were not cormorants but a pair of eagles.  They were perched there watching the morning go by... so I took a lesson from Eagle and perched on a bench and watched the morning go by.  When they took off they were just above eye level and very close to me - they are such magnificent birds, so awe inspiring.  And enduringly patient - they have to be considering the number of gulls and crows that suddenly showed up to harass them when they took off.  I watched a crow keep flying in from behind one of the eagles and when it got with in six inches or so the eagle would shift and drop just a little but it always made the crow pause for a moment in his boldness.  Once the eagles had disappeared I picked myself up off the bench and turned Ducky towards home.  The heron that I had seen on the way out was now further out in the water where the receding tide was giving access to more of the shallow sandbars.  More people were out by the time I was riding towards home.  More joggers, more cyclists, more rollerbladers, stroller pushers and dog walkers - all typical of a sunny morning on Alki.  It was nice to have a day that I could be out there adding my own touch to the crowd - sitting tall on my blue mixtie and pedaling along with a sunny day eagle enhanced smile.

The Beech Grove

There is a park not too far from my home that holds a grove of 18 beech trees.  I had walked past it many time during the winter and had not noticed it in great detail.  Not until a few weeks back when visiting the park with a friend did I realize it was a beech grove.  We were drawn into it by the beautiful silvery bark and the bright green new leaves fringed with delicate hairs.  It took a  few moments before it came from somewhere in my memory that these were beech trees.  Upon looking on the ground it was confirmed by the scattering of last falls nuts.  We admired the trees for quite a while before being called away by the hoot of an owl that needed to be investigated.  But as I was leaving, I placed my hands upon one of the trunks and whispered my thanks and intentions to come back.

The friend I was with could appreciate the trees from a nature loving and naturalist point of view.  But she would not have understood the stirring I felt in me as I stood in the grove among those trees, a stirring that was connected to my own spiritual path and the knowledge that there was something very special and sacred for me to learn among these trees.

Nearly three weeks had passed and I finally made it back this evening.  This time with my husband, who had wanted me to show him the grove that I kept mentioning.  The grove of beech trees had never been too far from my mind and when we arrived at the park, I kept saying I wasn't exactly sure which direction we needed to go to get there but something in me must have known because instead of following a path I cut out across the park in a very particular direction and eventually came out right in front of the grove.  It was dusk and the silvery bark was glowing in the last light of the day.  The weaving of the branches and leaves against the darkening sky was beautiful.  I gently pulled a branch down to show my husband the fine fringe of hairs along the edges of the leaf.  We admired them together and I gently put the branch back in place.  It was perfectly still as I started to step under the branch when a leaf dropped right in front of me.  I kept the leaf safe in my hand while we walked among the grove, stopping and looking up through the branches, studying the different patterns in the bark - both natural and those carved by people, listening to the slight breeze in the leaves that had begun to stir among the branches.  I was gently touching one of the tree trunks when my hand passed over an area of the trunk, just off the trunk by an inch or so actually, that was warmer than the surrounding area.  It caught my attention immediately.  The warmth had an energy to it that I'm not sure how to describe.  I had my husband feel as well and he noticed it too - the warmth.  I paused there with wonder.  What was it?  

As we said our goodnight's to the grove I saw a dandelion seed head on the edge of the grove and I reached down and plucked it.  I said a wish for the groves continued health and growth and for it to be appreciated and with a laugh for it to have a lovely carpet of bright dandelions below it and then blew all the seeds back towards the grove.  It was spontaneous and wonderful.

I kept feeling that I need to go back to the grove again during the day and sit in it's midst and write.  I can't shake that feeling.  And tonight while researching lore about the beech I came across a couple references to the beech tree being connected to books and learning and wisdom - especially by writing.  How completely UN-coincidental.

The Hermit Crab

Picture Source

A few months back, while exploring on the beach with one of my nephews, I was teaching him to leave the whole shells that could become hermit crab homes.  He caught on really quick and only collected the broken shells to give to his Grammy.  Every time he found a whole shell he would carry it to the waters edge to leave it for hermit crabs to find.  I was pleased with the success of that lesson.

Picture Source

Today, the Hermit Crab taught me a lesson.  I was on the beach at Discovery Park leading a Tot Walk.  I had seven toddlers, their adults and even a couple infants along for adventure.  We had already seen a lot of hermit crabs, some big, some small, some who liked to hide and others who wanted to make a dash for it as fast as they could.  In one of the little pools I picked up a small broken Dogwinkle shell, to move it out of the way.  When surprise of surprises, there inside the little cup of the broken shell, a space not even a quarter inch in diameter was the tiniest hermit crab I'd ever seen.  In a broken shell.  Well, darn.  Time to change that lesson, maybe.  Tiny hermit crabs need homes too, I guess.

Maurie, Maurie...How Does Your Garden Grow?

It's been a while since I mentioned our Lincoln P-patch plot.  I wrote about it back in February.  We didn't start work on it until this last weekend.  And what work there was to do!  It had gotten pretty weedy since the above picture was taken in February, but it will give you an idea as to how much change really happened over the weekend.


I wanted a design that would be really comfortable to work in, one where I could plop my ample tush down in a path and comfortably work in the beds.  Wide paths aren't that common in p-patch plots because we only get a little bit of land (ours is 10X11 or so) and people want to use all that space for plants.  I have a war with myself over this every time I design a new p-patch.  But I know the way I garden.  I like to be comfortable, not cramped and that can make a huge difference in how much time I end up wanting to spend at the garden.  So with Mark's encouragement we designed a garden plot with ample path space and a layout to be able to let some of my artsy nature have room to play.

We also had a serious slope to deal with and it was essential to build up the garden space, level it out and makes sure that we did a design that would not allow our soil and seeds to wash away down the hill.  We ended up putting 12 inch tall boards in on the west and north sides to help with that issue and then went with raised beds with in that, to help even more.

There are four triangular beds one for each of the four directions, something I like because of the tie to some Native American beliefs and lore.  Each direction is also connected to one of the elements, earth, air, fire and water.  I can have fun with that by incorporating colors and little artistic touches to represent each.  This was done in more formal herbal gardens in times past and really the garden plot does have an herb garden look to it, though very few herbs will be grown in it - I am trying to find spots at home to put my herbs where they will be more handy.  On the East side we put a bamboo trellis up to discourage the dogs that run down the path above the garden from running straight into a garden bed.  When we saw that we would have some taller bamboo support poles on either side we thought it would be fun to put a string of colorful prayer flags between them.  Mark picked out the larger sized flags from the garden center and we ended up stringing them along three sides of the garden.  East, South and West.  It makes the garden really colorful and pleasant, and yes, unique!  Here are some pictures of the process:

After those pictures were taken we got to planting some starts.  Golden beets edge the perimeter of the south bed (in the above picture that's the one to the right).  Red scallions edge the west bed.  Broccoli fills the center of the north bed and the edges have two different lettuce starts along them.  The east bed has Russian Banana Fingerling potatoes and a few left over scallions.  I have some shelling pea starts that will go along the trellis.  The rest will be left for some summer crops to be put in after the May Tilth Plant Sale.  I have two spots where I plan on putting flowers either in planters or by creating more raised bed spots at the ends of the paths on the NW and SW corners.  We still have to figure out what we are going to do for the paths.

We have an 8X4 raised bed in our backyard where it gets at least half a days sunshine or a bit more and we will have more food plants in there.  I have pictures of that process but I'll save that for another time and another post.  It's sunny outside and I think I may just head over to the garden and get those peas in while the weather is cooperating!

Happy Spring and Gardening to everyone!

Catching Up

I saw the above on one of my favorite blogs that always perks me up.  I felt like it about said it - except the cute shoes part.  Cute's great, but Comfy is what's really important!

I had a few moments today to take a look at some of the blogs I love reading and realized that I wasn't the only one missing in action in the blog world or the only one thinking about blogging and wondering where to go from here.  That was a real comfort.  I'm hard on myself when I can't or don't get to everything.  So I'm hard on myself most of the time.  Now, I'm thinking maybe it wasn't just me and something universal was going on and several people were being effected in similar ways.  I feel better now.

I'm so behind on sharing what has been going on that it can be really overwhelming to even start to try and figure out where to begin.  I realized yesterday I hadn't been very communicative all around, not just on the blogs.  Guess I was in some introverted stage for a bit.  But I know that there are at least two people out there that would like to know what I've been up to.  So here ya go, Aunt Billy and Uncle Jim - your my best fans.

Weekend before last Mark was busy drying the dishes when my antique glass citrus juicer slipped from his hands and crashed into a million pieces on the kitchen floor.  So when a sunny day came the following week I walked on up the hill and did a little shopping.  The first order of business was to find another antique glass citrus juicer.  This went with our efforts to not bring new plastic into our house and to buy used whenever possible.  Not to mention it was a damn good excuse to go browse an antique store.  The ladies were super helpful at the antique store and I soon had three citrus juicers to chose from.  I went the smallest which was the mid-range in price and the cutest.  It has this little extra feature that really sold me on it - a primary ring with little slits that let the juice out but hold the seeds back.  It was also extra pointy and sharp so I was hoping it would be easier to use than my last one.  It is!  With out further ado - meet the new citrus juicer:

While I was up on the hill I stopped in at a consignment shop and was pleasantly surprised by what they had in there.  So often consignment shops are either focused towards teeny-boppers or old ladies.  I'm somewhere in between and I discovered that the shop was too.  There were several things to try on and I found a couple wonderful spring items.  Including this fun bright green dress.

And this beautiful cardigan.  Check out the detail!

And those are what I wore for our date on Sunday.

Mark surprised me with homemade whole wheat sticky buns for breakfast.  They were sticky gooey wonderful!

Then we caught the bus to downtown and went to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Calder exhibit which was fantastic.  This had to have been the best special exhibit in a while and the entry was the most spectacular I had ever seen with a huge Calder mobile sculpture turning in  the air.  I was so inspired by his creativity and use of random objects  and metal and color.  I walked away with lots of crazy art ideas in my head and I look forward to bringing them to life over time.  If you aren't aware of Calder and his art you can check it out here.


After we left the museum we walked through a fairly quiet Pike Place Market where most everything was closed due to the holiday but Mark did manage to get me a single daffodil, which was really sweet.  Then we stopped at a small coffee shop that is also a local roaster and had a some excellent cups o' bean juice.  

It was time to catch the bus and head back to our little Alki neighborhood with a quick stop for pictures at the beach.

The cats were happy to have us home and sitting still for a little while.

We finished the evening with a light and delicious Japanese meal of Miso soup with tofu, shitake and green onion, brown rice, cucumbers and onions with rice vinegar and a surprise attempt at little cucumber and avocado sushi rolls by Mark.  Great day.  Great Guy.  Lucky Me!