August Garden Update

The colder than usual summer has led to a mellow pace in the garden this year and I am finding it to be just the right fit for me.  We are steadily harvesting produce, but not too much.  With a little farmers' market shopping and some gifts from my dad, we have all we need for eating and a manageable amount for putting by.

Our broccoli is one of our most ambitious crops this year.  It appears that it has become a tradition to document a side by side comparison of our broccoli crowns with my noggin.  We are again eating as much as we can and putting the rest in the freezer.

Now in its 3rd season, the front yard herb garden is largely a volunteer situation with a few annual herbs thrown in there.  This dill plant was growing up from a crack in the sidewalk.  It amused me to see it there so I left it for a long time...until I needed it for pickles!

The cool summer has been ideal for growing kale.  A bunny (see below) got into our garden and totally decimated our row of kale at the start of the season.  It has made a comeback!

I am really loving fresh mint tea as a nightcap.  Sometimes I add a little lemon, sometimes I add a little honey and when I am really feeling extravagant, I'll add both.

The raspberry crop is about to get its second wind.  The first round is always the lighter one, so I am hoping I'll get a good crop of berries before it gets too cold this fall.

We are growing a lot of new varieties of tomatoes this year, but the standby variety is still our favorite.  You just can't beat the sweetness of Sungolds.

This caterpillar and its friend ate a lot of my dill.  I didn't mind sharing.

I DO mind sharing with bunnies, though.  They are greedy!  This one and another one have been spending far too much time in our yard, if you ask me.  Our old dog isn't doing a great job of patrolling the place anymore, so this bunny has gotten pretty comfortable.

We think the garden is pretty well fenced, but there are still a few week spots we are hoping the bunny doesn't discover.

Purple pole beans!  I learned this year that I prefer pole beans over bush beans.  I think they are easier to pick, the plants are prettier to look at and they come in purple!  Unfortunately, the purple doesn't stick around when you cook them.

These blanched beans are also headed for the freezer.

Garlic dill refrigerator pickles made with my dad's cucumbers.

And, curried zucchini pickles made with dad's zucchini.

Our cucumber and zucchini plants are really not thriving this year, so I was grateful to get a bag of each from my dad.

 Soybean was our super volunteer crop this year.  For the story of how this crop planted itself, check out my first garden post of 2013.  A bunch of these made it into the freezer, too!

And, tomatoes.  Oh, tomatoes, how I love thee.  We have had no trouble eating these as fast as they ripen so far.  Although, I think that scale will soon by tipping as we are expecting some warm and sunny temperatures to be with us this week.

RX100

E's Banners in the AM

After I got a new camera bag at the start of the summer and took it on our camping trip, I realized I had been trying to solve my camera problem in the wrong way.  It wasn't that I hadn't found the perfect camera bag yet, like I had been thinking up to that point.  I finally accepted that no matter how you cut it, a camera, lenses and other bag contents add up to a lot of weight and bulk, even in the most perfect bag.  So, then what?  Do I leave the camera behind?  Just pick one lens? Take out my water or knitting to lighten the load?  Heaven forbid its a gym day and I want to have my camera along! On those days I look like a crazy bag lady with my regular bag loaded up and a lunch bag and a gym bag.  My shoulders hurt just thinking about it!

Errand Running at Dusk

The idea of getting a second camera had occurred to me in the past, but I didn't feel like giving up the control and quality of my DSLR and the expense seemed like an extravagance I couldn't justify.  Then, during the car ride home from camping, Paul and I had a good talk about my relationship with photos.  I realized that my photos are coming to mean more and more to me.  They drive most of the posts that I put here.  They mark milestones.  They document my history and the history of my friends and family, too.  They are glimpses into what is bringing joy to my days.  Simply put, they help me tell my life story.  I didn't like how many moments I had wished my camera was along and it wasn't.  Or, how often on the way out of the door, I would ask myself if this would be a camera-lugging worthy expedition or not.

Lunchtime by the River

Since compact cameras are getting better and better with each release, I decided to dig in to the market and research what options are out there.  And, if I could find the right camera, I decided I would be willing to devote a chunk of money to it. Enter: the Sony RX100.  Light enough and small enough to fit in all of my bags, amazing at candlelit scenes and way smarter than me.  If you've been reading my blog over the summer, you've been seeing mostly shots out of this camera.  I still have a lot to learn before I am great at controlling this camera, but so far I love it just for the sake that it is constantly at hand.  Here are some more of the random shots I've caught this summer just because it was easy to have a camera with me.

Raised Bed Inspiration

Turkeys on the Loose

Electrifying

Lunch Skylights

Verdant Tea

Rooftop Dad

Mighty Mississippi

Friday Night Ice Cream

Beggar Dog

Public Plums

Hooray for a splurge that is already well on its way to earning its keep!

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Paul!

So, so late on this one!  Paul's birthday round up post: commence!

On Paul's birthday, we each took a vacation day and started it out with brunch on the patio at Victor's 1959 Cafe.  From there, we pretty much lazed about for the day.  Don't think we are losing our birthday celebration mojo, though.  We took it easy on his birthday because we were recovering from the full, day-long birthday eating and drinking extravaganza immediately prior to his actual birthday.

To start off the festivities, I made my first ever quiche.  Holy decadent, batman.  Ingredients included comte cheese, caramelized onions, cremini mushrooms and thyme. I have already lost track of which recipe I used, but I do know I made it with the other half of this batch of pie crust.  It DID improve by sitting in the freezer!  We enjoyed this intense quiche with salad, fresh cherries and iced chai.  A delicious way to start off Paul's birthday celebration day.  And, it was good for the next few days, too.

Our day included a drive over the river and through the woods...to New Richmond, Wisconsin.  The "over the river" part took an ETERNITY because we went over the Stillwater Lift Bridge during the dreaded weekend tourist season.

We got stuck in the bridge traffic on the way back, too, so I am very grateful that I built buffer time into our schedule.  We were almost late for our very important date!

It was worth it, though, because Paul had no idea what we were doing when we drove over an hour and then pulled into the parking lot of a building in an industrial park.  To make matters more confusing, our destination was sandwiched between an area of strip malls and a newly developed outer ring suburban housing development.  He really had no idea what he was stepping into!

He was pretty excited when he realized we were at a distillery for a tour and tasting!  I chose 45th Parallel Spirits because they are a small distillery that creates their product from grain to bottling on site.

the needed grains arrive in these giant tubs from a farmer down the road - different grains depending on the spirit

Our guide walked us through the process, discussing their sourcing history, how they ended up in New Richmond, what they make, how long it ages, what they do with their spent grains (answer: get local livestock tipsy) and so much more!

aging oak barrels

ready to go!

A few of their spirits are not made from scratch, but rather enhanced and bottled by the distillery.  The photo above is of limoncello.  They handpeeled all of the lemons to make the batch.  With a peeler.  By hand.  100s of lemons.  Even though they didn't make the alcohol, I still think they deserve to put their name on it.

Paul got to climb up and see inside to where the grains were fermenting.  We are grateful he did not drop his cell phone in there while taking a picture.

I am still not sure I understand exactly how a still works but it is certainly a work of art.  I now know that there is a part called a dephlegmator and I like knowing that that word exists.

After the tour, we moved into the tasting room and got to sample the full line of available spirits.

I took tiny sips and let the birthday boy have as much as he wanted.  He really, really liked the horseradish vodka so that was the bottle he took home.

Next up, we ventured a few miles down the street to Brady's Brewhouse for lunch where they may or may not make their wood-fired sourdough pizzas using spent grain from brewing.  I wasn't able to get a straight answer on that, but the experience was good, nonetheless.

Paul had to study the list and make his selections wisely as he had a bunch of options and 8 glasses to fill on his tasting flight.  Kind man that he is, he ended up allocating one spot to an in-house root beer for me.

Unfortunately, on his birthday I was still suffering from my health issues.  In order to rally and really enjoy the day, I set aside my dietary restrictions.  That meant the alcohol, dairy, sugar and flour were such treats for me.  As a result, I am not in a place to judge this pizza fairly.  From my recollection, this pizza was really, really good, but that could be the deprivation talking.

After another eternity in the car going back across the bridge, we got home to take care of Tchazo.  We both had a moment where our hearts stopped when we were coming in the door.  Before entering the house, we heard Tchazo's scared/fear yelps and didn't see him at the door per usual.  We quickly figured out that he had locked himself in the bathroom, likely by turning around with his giant cone of shame and shutting the door on himself.  He was really scared and had made a big mess of the bathroom.  After we got him outside and gave him his dinner, he seemed over the ordeal.  We were very grateful that we didn't have to deal with more pet drama as we had feared when we heard his yelps.

After we hung out with Tchazo for a while and Paul opened his presents (we now have a wagonbarrow!), we ventured out for one last bit of culinary delight at Gardens of Salonica.

The mushroom saganaki wasn't on the menu that night, but was the main reason I brought Paul there for dinner.  I was really grateful when I inquired about it and they were able to make one for us.

And with that, this man that I WAY more than like is now smack dab in his mid-30s.

Happy, happy days to you, my Paul!