Gone Shroomin'

On Sunday Casey and I went mushroom hunting near Stampede Pass, WA (map). This is near where the TV show Twin Peaks was filmed*. We went there on a tip from my acupuncturist (who barely speaks English but knows his mushrooms). What a variety of mushrooms we came across! Everything from inedible to delicious and medicinal to deadly. Colors of red, orange, yellow, purple, blue, pink, brown, black and white. We took photos (link) and brought pounds of mushrooms back home. Casey spent the evening identifying them. Although we could have eaten quite a few, we decided not to because we are still learning. You want to be positive of the species or it could be fatal. I am already looking forward to our next hunt.

*For the fellow Twin Peaks fans: Next time I am going to get a slice of cherry pie and a cup of Jo at the famous Double R Diner.

Summer of Seattle

July August 2010

Casey and I had a summer of chickens and house guests. Our chickens arrived by mail the first week of July and our first guests soon after. Ian and Kennedy, Casey's kids, visited for two weeks. Jen and Adrian from Houston came the week after. Then Will from Portland and Alicea and Brian from D.C for a few days each. It was so much fun to watch the chickens grow. We could see them change over night.

If you don't know by now...

Casey and I are getting married in Switzerland. The date is set for July 2, 2011. We are so thankful to have my wonderful mother and aunt help plan the festivities. As some of you may know my mother is from Switzerland and I am officially a Swiss citizen. Last summer we fell in love with the town of Aigle where my aunt lives...the rolling vineyard hills, the bridge that Napoleon crossed and the 12th century castle did it in for Casey. We are so excited and hope y'all will be able to make it.

If you haven

Chickens!

If you are one of our facebook friends you know by now that we got baby chicks. We initially ordered 3 but one died in the mail so we had to order another 3 (the minimum number to survive shipping). So now we have a total of 5 baby chicks. Each one is a different breed with a very unique personality. One has fluffy feet, another will lay blue eggs, and one will have elegant black and white feathers. All have names except the replacement one, who is simply called "the second coming" for now. You can see more photos of these cuties by clicking HERE.


Here is a video of them loose the in basement. They enjoy running around free and playing.

Long time...no blog.

It has been a long time since my last post. Where do I start? Well, Whiskey got a haircut. Here are the before and after shots of my Mohawk girl. We also celebrated Casey's 38th (yes, my old man) birthday. As a surprise I got him 2 tickets for his kids to come up and visit this summer. I roasted a duck (seen in photo) and a week later we made duck fat french fries which subsequently put us in a 12-hour coma.


We also thought we lost our cat Penny. She was missing for 3 days when we realized she was living inside our couch, petrified of the balloon I brought home for Casey's birthday. We rehabilitated Penny into normalcy (at least for her) and Casey is back to being Mr. Snow White of the house. (Sorry Casey, not the most flattering photo but I thought it would nicely show the farm animals). Did I mention we are getting chickens?!?!

DIY Food!

Lately the weather has really started to turn warmer and much less yucky/rainy, the raised bed garden is growing like gang busters and it's got me wondering what to do with all the veggies..

Well what else than pickling! Sweet pickling of course.

Actually Em bought me a bunch of stuff to practice on before recklessly experimenting on her hard-won harvest. So here is the first round. Baby bells in all colors,jalapenos,carrots,onions and garlic. I can't wait to eat em', a week or so and I will. If I don't get Botulism, then I'll send Mom,Dad and Sis some.

Oh Boy!!

And I've decided to really push my luck and make a small batch of sauerkraut. Don't worry though, I've done a bit of homework and taken the prudent precautions. I'm assured that it's pretty safe, after all, people have been doing this for ages right?

It's kinda' funny but the best foods(IMHO) are the ones that require some form of bacteria of mold to produce, such as cheese,bread,beer,wine,kim chee,sauerkraut, ect.. And the attraction for me is that I CAN DO THIS MYSELF.

Garden Construction.

Casey, my friend Becky and I built our raised bed veggie garden last month. Not knowing how long we are going to be renting this house we built only one 4' x 8' x 16" bed. Ideally I would have the entire yard filled with raised beds but that would be too pricey, plus our new landlords might not agree with all the construction. Now we are just waiting for the sun and heat to come.
You can view more photos and garden progress HERE.

2-year Anniversary

Monday was our two-year anniversary. Time does fly by fast, then again it feels like we have been together forever. We decided to walk down to a nice Italian restaurant a couple blocks away that we heard good things about. We had an early bird dinner (5 PM!) and were the only ones there so we got great service. I has a pasta and veal cream sauce dish and Casey had pan seared herbed scallops. Yum-o! As a surprise Casey bought me two metal lawn roosters. I have been wanting these for years but never got around to getting them in Texas. Low and behold Mexican handmade roosters are sold in Seattle as well. Next up...real chickens!

Congrats to the newbie parents!

Two friends (Natalie and Carla) and my cousin (Vanessa) gave birth to their first babies in the beginning of March. All boys too! I wanted to dedicate this post to welcoming them. Also an honorable mention goes to my friend Katie in Boston, MA who is also expecting a boy any day now.

Natalie and "her" Casey had Barnabas on March 1 in Santa Fe, NM.

Carla and Brett had Mason on March 11 in Phoenix, AZ.
Vanessa and Charlie had Weston on March 15 in Seattle, WA.

So much to tell.

So much has happened since the last post. Casey actually wrote that last post on Day 2 without water. That weekend I was in Phoenix for my friend Carla's baby shower. So I came home and it was then Day 5 without water. Our landlord was warned by us and the City of Seattle that the water was going to be shut off due to non-payment. We were getting foreclosure and water shut off notices over the past month. Our landlord said he would take care of it and then said he did take care of it. Lies lies lies. So at Day 6 I contacted the city of Seattle to report this. They came within a few hours to inspect the property. On Day 8 we got the notice to vacate. We were thrilled to get out of the lease at this point. Thanks to the help of our friends at the Westenders Scooter Club and Becky, we packed and moved all of our belongings into a Penske truck within 48 hours. We will be taking our former landlord to small claims court to get the deposit, rent and moving costs returned. Even though we probably wont get a cent out of him we think it is important to at least embarrass him in front of a judge.

The good news is that we are already moved into a new place. A cute house in the NW Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. The place is bigger and cheaper than the last. This is a two bedroom/1 bathroom house with a huge basement, a larger garage, and a big fenced-in yard. Casey signed the lease before even seeing the place! He really trusts my judgment... the words "bigger garage" was all I had to say. We have been here now for 1 week. The unpacking is going slow but after packing moving and unpacking over 3 times in 4 months we are getting efficient with this grueling process.













I have a lot more to tell of the happenings over the past couple weeks with my trip to Arizona and my parents visit to Seattle. I will save all that for the next post. Now it's time to take a much needed break.

Down in the lab

After a long period of transition, I finally have a workspace!

 

We've worked so hard getting all our stuff situated in the new house, It's time to relax and enjoy it.

Settling into Seattle.

Last week was eventful. Although our house is still in the unpacking mode. "My" kitchen is all set up. I have been cooking quite a lot since we moved in. Homemade meals daily...mostly soups and stews for this rainy weather. We don't go out to eat anymore. Its great! Much cheaper and cozier. On Friday night we made homemade pasta with a pasta machine I got for free on craigslist.












Over the weekend, my friend Becky and I went on an all day farm tour in Sequim (pronounced SQUIM or I like to say SQUEEM). Nash's farm is a medium sized organic farm located about 2 hours away. You have to take a ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island then drive north. It was a beautiful day. We lucked out because it had been raining hard for the previous 10 days. The fields were quite muddy as you can see in the photos. There was a wonderful vegetarian meal provided made from fresh farm produce. We also picked some cabbage, kale and brussel sprouts. I went a little overboard but you can't stop me when they say "take as much as you want."

Newest Addition to the Family

Say hello to our new bird. She is a 6 month old Cinnamon Green Cheek Conure. Since Whiskey won the Cesar Milan Contest (first place in her category!) we decided to use the $700 Petco prize to add a new member to our famiy. It was between a fish tank and a bird. The buh-buh-buh bird won. We did our research and found out that the green cheek conures are little clowns that sometimes can talk and are otherwise very quiet. Our baby is very sweet and cuddly and already trusts us. We are still working on a name. So far it is "Pinky" because we were watching this creepy 70's movie called 3 Women right after we got her and the character's name was Pinky Rose. Other possibilities are Sammy, Coral, and Poulet. Like all of our animals she is already IN LOVE with Casey. Last night she was preening his hair. Click HERE to see more photos of her. As some of you may know Surfin' Bird is one of my favorite songs. Here is The Cramps rendition for Jen.