Urban Harvest

After we put the Rebels to bed, we have been:
…Making Pickles from our garden cukes, dill, and fennel. Here Mr. Brown is stuffing it into one of his Party Pigs originally used to make homebrew.
…processing peaches. Every year the peach truck comes from Georgia and we buy two cases, one for eating and the other for freezing. We’ll make some jam from a few of them when it’s cold outside and we can stand to be in a hot canning kitchen.
Sunday Dinner of zucchini* stuffed with tomatoes*, chard*, herbs*, and Bumble Bee Beans*,along with crusty bread drenched in egg and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.  Mr. Brown put them on the grill and we served it with white wine and Peach cobbler for dessert.

* all vegetables from our garden

During the week, I made ratatouile entirely from vegetables from our garden and added a few springs of our lavender as well. Yum.

Easter 2009

Made lasagna noodles and cleaned the house on Good Friday. Mr. Brown had the day off.

Great Grandpa Frank wasn’t up for visitors, so we didn’t go to Milwaukee. Stayed home and dyed eggs and gardened on Saturday. After lunch, I went to the gym to swim… and float in the therapy pool.

Easter Sunday we hunted for Easter Baskets, then an egg hunt under the apple tree, off to church and the Big egg hunt afterwards. A beautiful day for a walk, then back home for dinner. Aunt J and Josh joined us for spinach lasagna, deviled eggs, hot cross buns and lemon tart. The best Easter I can remember.

Yoga weekend. Thanksgiving Canceled. She’ll be comin’ Round the Mountain….

I am posting pictures of our ladies yoga weekend on Flickr. It was such fun to knit and chat and eat great food and do lots of yoga. If I was in a sorority, I would want it to be like this was. We arrived on Friday night, itching to go for a walk. Then we discovered that it was the opening of deer hunting season, and unless we packed our florescent orange jackets and yoga pants, we were best to stay around Artha. So off to the yoga studio, then back to the house for huge bowls for guacamole and burrito fixings. Saturday we greeted the day with more yoga, breakfast prepared by the owner’s of Artha and then some goal building. Then lululemon‘s Natalia directed us in some goal building excercises. I built an inspiring  collage and listed S.M.A.R.T. goals for the next 1/3/5/and 10 years.  And S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for  Specific,  Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Timely goals. Of course I wrote them in pencil, so the goals can shift. It is so important to take time to realize your dreams and write them down, especially when surrounded by earth loving, beautiful mothers, who have such great goals of their own.

Other news, we all got the flu on Wednesday night, so we canceled Thanksgiving and rescheduled it for Sunday at Grandma L and M’s house. It was just the 6 of us, but the grandma’s pulled out all the stops and we had a traditional feast, complete with a pumpkin pie that Chris prepared.

[They'll] be coming round the Mountain… my sister-in-law, her boyfriend, and their terrier are moving into our spare bedroom. I have been in a frenzy of sorting and uncluterring, trying to eak out more space in our 1200 sq. foot ranch. They live small in Japan and I refuse to give into the American McMansion… although sometimes I do wish for my own bathroom and closet. But then again, who doesn’t wish for such things. As mother always said” If wishes were horses, beggers would ride.”

Driftless Arts Festival

I planned on Blogging more, but I have been swamped in CSS writing trying to figure out how to customize Brownbuilt. I can never leave a style sheet alone. So, until I can find my way out of this quagmire-blogmire, I apologize for links that go nowhere and photos that don’t open. Luckily, only 4 people read this sight, and I know their love will outlast a few coding hurdles.

Last Sunday we took a road trip to the Driftless Area Art Festival. The winding roads prohibited me from knitting in the car, lest I barf on my handwork. The weather was fantastic, the food and beer was local, organic, and yummy as was the art and music. I visited with a favorite artist, Amy Arnold , and like a school girl crush, I blushed and giggled and choked out that I was a huge fan. Then I backed it up with buying two hats. Chris gave Coco and Ladybird their first “underdogs” on the swings, which made them squeal with delight. Swinging will never be the same again. We drove past Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School and dreamed of which farmette we would like to own. Tried to hit Sibby’s Organic Zone Ice Cream Parlor, but it was closed on Sunday. Another reason to come back to our little slice of homesteading heaven.