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.