cooking up a story

thanks to my friend marley who passed this along to me. check them out HERE.

CSA Haul Week 2

serious bounty. we got spring onions, turnips, turnip greens, radishes, garlic scapes, asparagus (probably the last for the year), strawberries, mixed braising greens & snap peas. From the PYO (pick your own) garden I got dill, cilantro, gallardia, yarrow, bee balm, batchlor's button, lovage, nasturtium, lavender & mulberries! Whew, what a great week all for around $25!
i spent the weekend cooking and gardening, it was lovely!

End of Summer Harvest

Sorry, it's been too long. I have been busy, we took a trip to the beach which was much needed and truly relaxing! We were in Jersey visiting Wildwood and Cape May. I just love Cape May and have been going there now for about 12 years almost every summer. I love small beach towns with the charm of the colorful victorian houses and a slower pace. We ventured to the boardwalk one evening and rode a few rides including the teacup spin (which Brendan tried to make me sick on but failed) and bumper cars. It was fun acting like kids! I've also been busy uploading over 1000 pictures now on to Flickr. Wow, I've worked through the backlog going back about 5 years now and I'm so inspired to keep taking more photographs after this project. There are so many talented pro and amature photo's there, check it out if you need a little summer inspiration! We are off again this weekend for another river tubing trip in honor of the end of the summer. I'm still reveling in the last of the sun and heat filled longer days. I know I'll be missing the bumper crop of tomatoes, flowers and zuccini come winter.

Gardening Community Volunteering

I've been spending quite a bit of time on the weekends volunteering at my CSA (Red Wiggler) and the Mo. Co. Master Gardeners . I've been shocked to discover there are really NO Community Gardens in the DC Metro area (specifically Montgomery County). In my opinion the reason for the lack in this area may be due to the general perceived "value" of the land. I don't see too many empty lots sitting around in the upper areas of Mo. Co, this may be a common problem with urban sprawl. I tend to associate community gardens with cities but I think there is just as much need in "suburbia". People can be disconnected from the land and have no place to garden even outside the city. Along this train of thought I've also recently come upon the idea of Guerrilla Gardening and have found a few blogs and websites devoted to the idea of nocturnal beautification of barren spots in urban areas. It is quite a great idea. I'm going to start scouting spots for either a Com. Garden or some Guerrilla Gardening. Do you have a community garden? Do you have a small plot of land you could plant some herbs, flowers or other plants? Gardening is good for the soul and reaping the rewards of locally grown food/flowers is reward for all the hard work that gardening requires.

Art Farm at Red Wiggler

I spent a few hours this Saturday volunteering at Red Wiggler (See links left) which is the CSA I belong to. They participated in the annual Montgomery County (Farm Alliance) Farm Tour and Harvest Sale of which they are one of the "Art Farms" on the tour. There were stilt walkers, drum circles, veggies for sale, bands in the barn, site specific sculptures and other various happenings. I particpated in a "Peace" project where we all spelled out the word and symbols for peace while a plane flew over and took video. I should get a link to that eventually. I always enjoy seeing people out enjoying the farm durring this event and I certainly look forward to my weekly visits to the farm to pick up my share. It is so peaceful and pleasant and I LOVE the PYO (Pick your own) flowers and herbs. I forgot my camera so I used my Treo and took some shots, they aren't great but you can view a few Here . I had a little fun in Photoshop with a few of them, especially the sunflower and funny colored cherry tomatoes.

Book Arts Project

The Book Project started last fall with 12 fellow friends, artists etc. My friend Erin (who I've done ATC's with) wanted to start a larger project where multiple artists were involved and we each got to have a piece of each others art. So the idea was born, the group of people were choosen and we each had to choose a theme or topic and create our own books. Over the last 10 months we have been rotating said books between us all and creating artwork in each others books. Please go Here to see all the photos. This photo is of my book "Touch".

Going Live

Hi All,

I'm such a perfectionista that I've been sitting on this blog for a bit now and saying I would get it right before using it but why? I've decided I'm just going to jump in and learn as I go. I had this idea that starting a blog would be "easy" or at least easier than starting a website but HA, not so. Anyways, here it is and I'll perfect it as I go along. I've been busy with work, CSA and Master Gardener stuff as well as summer time fun such as Tubing last weekend and swimming etc. Summer goes so quickly, I'm trying to savor the flavor. Okay, so I've posted some links to sites I love, I love to use and sites of friends I love. Check them out and let me know if there's something great out there I should check out. Soon I hope to have a link to B's website since he bought his domain name for his new company: Sub Urban Solution. He's been so busy with jobs it's amazing! I'm still trying to figure some things out here and I'll soon have a link to my Flickr Photo sets. Off to take a walk!