Gardening
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Summer Evening Light
Can we talk about the summer evening sky? June in the Pacific Northwest is so brilliantly beautiful, especially when it actually acts like summer and we get to see the sunshine, feel the warmth, smell the drying grass and geraniums, the roses and jasmine, and where we live, the salty sea air. And perhaps my favorite thing about living here in the summers, especially as June takes flight, is the evening sky. It’s breathtaking in so many ways, the pinks and lavenders stretching out across the sky as the sun’s rays make their long, arc across the horizon, making our days stretch out into forever. And the way that…
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Strawberries with Brown Sugar & Sour Cream
Every year for the past few years we have picked a bounty of strawberries from our own garden. And each year seems better than the last. I’ve said it before, the Hoods are my absolute favorite. Like any homegrown fruit or vegetable they beat the store bought kind any day. To me they taste better than any candy, and they absolutely ruin me for strawberries the rest of the year. Even Lily and Jasper are becoming strawberry snobs and hardly touch any I buy from the store. For a gardener with kids, strawberries are such a fun crop, as they grow really well in our climate, and the kids can…
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An Abundance of Chives
A few weeks ago I sat at Wheat Penny, a restaurant in Dayton, Ohio, with some of my cousins and my aunt and uncle and had some of the most delicious pizzas ever. The Spring Has Sprung pizza was our favorite! It was a white pizza with asparagus, shrimp and chives. When I read the ingredients on the menu I thought, Huh, chives, big deal. Boy was I wrong. The chives made that pizza. It was so out of this world scrumptious, and the chives were the perfect herby, oniony flavor to go with the shrimp, asparagus, and delicious hints of garlic. I have an over abundance of chives in…
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Spring Garden 2015
I’ve been avoiding working in the garden this year which is confusing for me because our weather has been really oddly nice this winter and spring. Usually, come December 26th I can’t get my Christmas tree down fast enough and my garden catalogues out. By January I want the earth to be ready for me to start digging and planting. This year I knew I should take advantage of our great weather and get some starts planted, but I could barely drag myself out of my own hibernation mode to think about the garden. We didn’t even start our own sugar snap peas inside this year, instead I just planted them…
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Amazing Winter 2015
Not to intentionally anger the rest of the country, but here in the Pacific Northwest we had one of the most beautiful, amazing winters. Little rain, lots and lots of sunshine, blue skies and temps in the 50s and 60s. Spring has already brought us a few days in the 70s. It was not a good winter for the mountains and ski resorts, which is a huge bummer for snowy sports fans, not to mention the lack of snow in the mountains could mean less water for the farmers this summer. And I have a feeling the bugs and weeds this year will be atrocious, but those of you who…
