Farmin'

Here is Adam with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.

An old friend used to say "Farmin' aint easy, farmin' aint easy."
But it can be fun!
Last week, Adam and I went to two lectures by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virginia. He is the "grass farmer" featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma.
On his family's land, he has a system of rotating chickens, pigs, and cows in succession over the field to raise both animals and healthy soil in a way that maximizes the qualities of the animal, provides a rich healthful diet, and minimizes purchased feed and fertilizers. It's simple and amazing.
Check out the Polyface site.
I think what we liked best about meeting Joel Salatin was the kinship we felt to him. He described himself as a "Christian-Libertarian-Environmentalist-Lunatic Farmer," and we can identify. He farms, goes to church, owns guns, homeschools his kids, votes for Ron Paul, and wants the government out of his personal life :)
Everything on his farm is open access and all ideas will never be patented. He's an open source guy.
He totally reminded me of Adam.
It was fun to be in a Seattle audience with people who respect him but you could tell they were a little uncomfortable/surprised he wasn't a Democrat or as "progressive" or "politically correct" in other parts of his life like they might have expected.
Yay for farmin'!

Peanut butter and venison!

We've been eating primarily peanut butter and venison over here at the homestead.
And we are not complaining one bit :)

Several weeks ago I won 3 packs of ground venison in a raffle at a gardening convention on Vashon Island. Yahooo! Free food!

We've feasted on venison pasta sauce with mushrooms and gunsmoke chili (delicious!)

Also in the kitchen:
Adam baked peanut butter cookies. He doesn't like baking and I have rarely seen him as stressed as he became...the poor man.

And last but not least:
Peanut Butter "shakes"
Mmmm, I could eat them everyday! (And I actually do)
2 doublehanded handfulls of ice (3 cups?)
1 frozen banana (soon you will keep bags of frozen bananas in your freezer like I do...)
1 cup rice milk
1/2 cup or more chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup sweetener like maple syrup, agave, brown sugar, etc
ground Chia seeds - for fiber :) (I get free samples from a vitamin shop over here)

blend it up!

Here's me eating 2 peanut butter shakes before I decided to make them myself!

The Sacrament of Birth

This just in!
My friend Analiesa, over at The Cotyledon, writes wonderful essays.
They are often on a mix of botany, birth, and Earth topics.
Her newest article, "The Sacrament of Birth" is excellent, inspiring, enlightening, and can be found at Square Two's site.
Here is the intro written by Square Two:
Third is one of the most beautiful essays we've been privileged to publish here at SquareTwo. It's by Analiesa Leonhardt, who helps us to recast the international issue of egregiously high maternal mortality rates into the spiritual issue it really is. Leonhardt does so by providing a exegesis of scripture concerning the earthly ordinance of birth. We promise that you will never think about birth the same way after reading this eloquent article."
Yay Ani!
Thanks for putting into words what women all over the world have internally understood but not verbalized. You are a talented spokeswoman :)

Dogwood

The dogwoods (various Cornus species) have been blooming lately.
I love them!

Botanical factoids:
Dogwoods have 4 large bracts - special leaves at the base of a flower or group of flowers - that happen to be brightly colored and look like petals.
At the center of the 4 bracts - where we would expect to see stamens and pistils if the bracts had been petals- is a group of small, non-showy flowers.
...pretty cool :)

catching up

So many things to post about!
I mentioned my sister, Briana, came to visit and we re-arranged the entire house...
We also did some other things :)
Explore Pike's Market (for the 6th or 7th time...)

Sushi night!!!

Briana has hosted many sushi nights in Salt Lake City that I have recently missed. We made up for lost time :)

Easter
Our friends Chad and Wendy invited us over for Easter dinner

...not only was the food delicious (curried ham, salad, scalloped potatoes, steamed nettles, asparagus), but we had SO much fun.
Wendy and Chad are awesome.

We dyed Easter eggs

and laughed ourselves silly over rocket balloons and sticky hands!!!

They also let us eat all their special chocolate:)
Nettles
While at Wendy and Chad's for Easter dinner, Wendy showed us her secret stinging nettle patch.

We picked so many nettle leaves it was a feat to wash and dry them without getting stung. But well worth it. Bri went home with a large bag of dried nettles (high in protein, iron, and other vities) for tea for her midwifery clients.

After Bri left, we still had a lot of raw tuna (I love raw tuna), so Adam made a wonderful seared tuna dinner :)

Spring in Ithaca

I haven't posted what I've been up to for quite a while...
First, some photos from March, from my birthday trip to Ithaca, NY to visit Adam's mother and sisters and nieces!

It was a sister reunion and I'm so glad I could be there :)

The sisters all went to the spa for massages....

And met the boys for dinner at Maxie's Supper Club, a delicious New Orleans-style fish house :)

Had an Easter egg hunt with the cutest Barlow grandchildren!


Tirzah made a lovely Sichuan noodle dinner - she is a great cook!

Grandma, Grandpa, and all the little ones!
Eliza, Addie, Morgan, Jude, Oliver, Savannah, Jane, Elijah, and George:

Addie, Elijah, and Jane:

Tirzah and Jude:

I loved spending time with you all, thanks for a great trip.
It is wonderful to have such fun and friendly in-laws :)

My bike is gone :(

One of my most favorite things is gone :(
My special bike that I rode almost everyday for 5 years.

It's an old, rusty blue Schwinn mens bike. Very heavy, but I still want it back....
It was stolen from the Montlake commuters bike rack.

Spring Cleaning!

Spring cleaning has struck our house - initiated by a visit from my sister :)
The kitchen:

The main room:

There is still more work to do, hang paintings, etc. but if any of you had been to our house before you would know this is a significant improvement :)

Walt

Oh, Walt Whitman, you've done it again...gone and stole my heart!

There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object she look'd upon, that object she became,
And that object became part of her for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of year.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter,
and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of her....

Respect the Spindle

Over the last 5 days, I have come to respect the spindle.
Last week, I suddenly became obsessed with spindles - something I had never cared about before.
First, I finally realized what they were (I have seen them hanging in yarn shops, but ignored them because I didn't really know what they were/how they worked).
They are simple, handheld tools for hand spinning fiber.
Then I read online how to use one (google searched it) because I was too embarrassed to try in the store AND I was at work, so I had to be virtual.
Then I wanted to get my hands on one and try out this ancient, women's skill...but I was still at work :(
After work I walked over to the cool U District fiber store, Weaving Works, tried one out (using my recent google knowledge) and realized no one at the store really knew how to use a hand spindle either. I also found out the nice ones are very beautiful and expensive.
Then I read online (searched 'how to make a spindle') that you can easily make one with a wooden toy wheel and wooden dowel or even with a pencil and CD's (If you were babysitting or something...?)
I figured I should make one for my birthday, and have a great present for under $5.
You have to remember the original spindles were sticks and balls of clay, so you don't need to be fancy.

Here's how I did it:

wheel, dowel, brass cup hook

and here is what I spun:

the cotton fluff from the vitamin bottle!!!
hahahahhahaha!

I saw this intriguing book called Respect the Spindle. It has beautiful photos of spindles both new and antique from all over the world. Very cool.


Here is a great link to interesting photos of women spinning all over the world.