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.