A Secret Place

We were lucky this year to discover our neighbors most secret place (upon her invitation). We thought it was pretty cool to lay in her hammock and then realized just how super awesome it was when we looked up and saw the first grapes ripening.

Then we got to go back as more ripened and eat a lot of grapes, real grapes, with seeds!

It was pretty incredible to eat off of these vines, both have been around for over 20 years!

Farewell Chickens

I started to a get a little sad and overwhelmed when I started a countdown until we move. Currently that is 24 days left in this town, in this house, in the place that we have been living and making home for 9 years. Moving is a big deal.

Instead of my sad, pitiful state of realizing that all of my friends will continue to enjoy playdates without me, that my craft ladies will keep crafting and all the people we cook for will continue to eat, I am hoping to embrace every inch of this place while I have it and take with me all my digital memories.
This fence we put in 2 years ago, Asher carried every single one of it's posts out of the garage pretending to be a busy worker bee. He was naked, doing his manual labor, River was 4 months old and spent the time looking up at the pine trees, it was a great day.

The chickens that the flock contained are now passed. Some passed on to friends, some stewed for us, and lots of feathers into the fly tying supplies. The current flock will be staying here for the new family. This flock is pretty awesome. Especially one of the Ameracaunas. Oh her green eggs are the most beautiful, the size is great and the yolks when you crack them open are unbelievable. She is a special chicken (to the right of the black- who the boys named Peck).

The boys love to work in the compost, which is truly spectacular. The chickens have been in this spot for the past six years, and with a home catering operation we produce a lot of food scraps. The soil in the compost yard is two feet deep of perfect black soil loaded with red worms. Whatever the chickens don't eat, the worms get in a week, it is an amazing live area in our yard. I so want to dig up as much of it as I can for our new gardens, and if I had my way I would probably fill a car load with it, luckily I have a more sensible partner who is adamant we can make it again with the new chickens we will get in Wisconsin this coming spring.

Posting Elsewhere

Just in case you really miss me I am posting over at our Community Supported Kitchen blog as we move our business to a new location.

An Update

Oh time. I am having a time places words with much these days, and I foresee a quiet place on this blog, while I enjoy this favorite time of year for me. I love the transition to fall so much and it is my last in this first little house of mine. I have a few things to share this week.

We have been taking on pet insects a lot lately, it is fun to watch the boys build them a habitat with food, water and a place to hide.

Potions

I put together a simple potions set for Asher. He is loving it while River naps.

Two bottles of colored liquids, one cooking oil the other soapy water. A spray bottle with vinegar. Powder bowls with tiny spoons of baking soda, corn starch and salt.

Endless mixing opportunities. I hope to find a few more things that will be as fun to watch as baking soda and vinegar.

Color Water Play

The temperatures have cooled a bit (only 91 today) but man is it muggy. Nothing seems to slow down my boys, but I have become extra clever to try and get them to stay close to one location, then I don't have to move so much. Apparently I don't enjoy sweating as much as they do. So out came the food coloring, funnels, ladles, measuring cups and cool wet fun.

River was very strategic as posing for unexposed photos naked. We refilled the main color buckets a couple times and had a lot of mixing fun.

One hour later had us diluting a small portion of purple water with a water relay and then swimming.

I really wish I fit in that tub!

Pickles!

Our cucumber tunnel is booming this year (Asher's words). Something about the dry heat, bottom watering has helped them thrive. We have been picking daily for the last week and every other day the weeks before that and made so many batches of pickles.
The boys love hanging out in the tunnel, sad to think that we will need to make it taller next year, Asher has grown.
We do hope to make some kosher dills for winter, but thus far we have been enjoying batch after batch of live pickles. They don't last long around here and the boys love making them.

Sometimes we cut them.

But mostly they are whole cucumbers.

Make a bucket of water salty like the ocean, the boys love doing this. Add spices (great use of garlic bulbules). Submerge cucumbers, let sit out for a day 24-36 hours until it is bubbling, and then put them in the fridge. Eat as the bright green color fades.

An Update

Things are a bit hectic around here. We are enjoying all our days and counting down the time until our big move. I am stuck in the excitement of something new, the sadness of leaving what we know, too much time to go to really start packing and trying to get a business up and running in a place that we aren't.

The boys are busy, the days are beautiful and I don't want to miss a moment of my favorite seasonal transition due to be lost in a haze of life passing me by.

This scene in ways makes me sad. Our Community Supported Kitchen has been such a wonderful lifestyle business for us. While working out of our home has it's challenges and we have been outgrowing this place, I love that our boys get to see some pretty large scale food production done in a good way.

So this site may be quiet for a bit of time, if you like visit me at 608 Community Supported Kitchen's Blog! I will be trying to put some energy in over there and if you know anyone in Madison Wisconsin, please send them our link and link it anywhere you can. I am getting quite the tutorial on how to make our site better for search engines!

Discovering

The boys are getting pretty good at chasing butterflies and catching them being careful not to actually touch them but to put them in an observation glass.

So much to discover around the yard. As our days are numbered here, we are trying to enjoy every last inch of this place that has been home for so many wonderful years.

Baking Day

Tuesday mornings are busy around here cooking for friends as we like to tell the boys. This summer we hit an awesome Tuesday rhythm. The boys both understand that it is our big day of work and tend to take it upon them selves to play and allow us to get the work done. Often times though it finds us together in the kitchen baking the bread and this week Asher took it upon himself to make a bunch for dinner.

He waited patiently while it baked, then picked some jam off the canning shelf (currant from last year) and we had ourselves a lovely breakfast.

This recipe was a challah recipe that is impossible to mess up! Perfect for any shape, any hands and always tastes so good.

Cooling Off

Oh it is hot. Too hot to sit at the computer, too hot to move. We have spent our week finding places that are cool. Streams, pools, libraries, malls and the coop.

It amazes me that the boys seem virtually unaffected by such heat. They want to go go as much as ever. We hit an outdoor park early before it is too hot, then AC at the library for mid morning. Home for naps in the afternoon and an evening outing for some cool off time, while our house cools off. Our stream outing was great. I am never excited about heading to the ditch, there is garbage and really it doesn't have much of an aesthetic. Plus it takes me a while to chill out with my kids- we can always wash them off! Then the magic unfolds, crayfish are found a teeny tine, small mouth bass, nymphs and ton's of damsel flies, plus a little fish on a line.

You may have to look really, really hard to find the beauty of this place, but if you take the time to look closely and wait it really is there.

Urbana Tiger

Our fist big harvest of the summer garden. the garlic we found growing wild and have cultivated for the past 8 years now out of the ground. We hope that this years crop of Urbana Tiger will be traveling with us north to be planted in a new home in Wisconsin.

Ben and I found this garlic our first year planting at Meadowbrook's Organic Gardens, we never imagined at that time we would spend nine summers in this wonderful, small town.

I am a bit lost for words these days, so pictures it will be.

These Days

I am really enjoying the deliberate way my youngest is with his art. As his older brother never seems to stop moving and turns any art supply he gets his hands on into some animal the idea that young kids spend more than 5 minutes coloring or painting is new. River is an incredibly intentional kid. He thinks before he does, attempts to color in the lines, or paint shapes.

We are loving these summer days, strolling along at this slower rhythm that has us enjoying our immediate environment so much. Lots of time splashing in water, digging in the sand, and painting sprinkled with minutes spent in the blazing sun harvesting berries.

I really can't remember a more pleasant beginning to the summer. The shade of our yard is much appreciated. As a family we are trying to remember to focus on our days and the right now. With a possible move and uproot we are having a hard time not being consumed with the what is to be. Luckily we have two members of the family here to remind us to live everyday with intention and living in the present moment.