With so much delicious fruit growing all around me this Summer, I have had tarts on my mind. Maybe it's my French roots showing, but there is something about a nice, rustic crust topped with baked fruit that makes my mouth water. I have been playing around with gluten-free options so my son can partake in this culinary adventure I've launched off on, and there have been some good learning ...
Life
A Homestead Tour
On the way to a day outing to the beach last week, we stopped by to visit my homesteading friends, Jeff, Taryn and Bracken on their place up the Siuslaw River. They are some of my favorite, inspiring people in this world, and it is always a treat to have a visit with them and see what they have been up to on their land. Between raising their son, making and selling art with ...
Baking Lughnasadh Bread
Each year on Lughnasadh, an ancient Gaelic harvest festival, I bake a loaf of multigrain bread with my children to celebrate all the things being harvested in our garden, in the farmers fields, and that we have cultivated in our lives. I usually like to do something with oats and seeds added to it, and we often end up forming it into a lovely spiral shape. Last year, we made this ...
Spiced Butter and Berberi Sauce: The Cornerstones of Home-Cooked Ethiopian Food
On of the most delightful ethnic food experiences I can recall is discovering my first Ethiopian restaurant on a visit to Portland. All these lovely, spicy dishes were presented so colorfully on a plate with lovely flatbread that you tore off and used for scooping in lieu of utensils. Even better than this visually stunning display of textural variety was that they wanted me to eat with my hands! ...
Kick up Your Heels at the Country Faire!
The Oregon Country Faire has come and gone once again, and I count myself lucky to have soaked in a full day of all the visual, auditory and all around experiential art I could possibly absorb. To call our community of artists vibrant barely does it justice. The earthen pathways through the forests along the banks of the Long Tom River were lined with booths overflowing with beautiful wares, ...
Laura Ingalls Wilder on Nature
(Home From the Hill by Fran Brooks) This is one of my favorite articles written by Laura Ingalls Wilder on the importance of nature in childhood. I am a firm believer in the necessity of the outdoors for children in developing a healthy sense of place and inter-connection with the world around them, and although they may not all be raised in the environment recounted by Wilder ...
Those Summertime Blues
It was just a blueberry pickin' kind of day, so we headed up the McKenzie River to one of our favorite farms, the McKenzie River Organic Farm. We have been picking here since my kids were little, and every year we look forward to visiting the enchanted looking cobb farmstand, petting the cows and pigs, saying hello to the chickens, picking giant juicy berries from bushes that would be more ...
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Here we have my son's most recent art project. We let the chickens out for some free ranging on the farm, and he was very concerned that in the comings and goings of the farmers, they should be aware of our roaming flock. I think he did quite a lovely job. And, just because I couldn't help myself, here's another sign that I can't take any credit for, but someone passed it along my way and ...
Fine Feathered Friends
In honor of my new little featherd friends on the farm, (which you can read about on my other blog here: Meet the Quail ) I thought I'd post some of the gemstone bead necklaces I've made with various ceramic bird pendants. I really enjoy visiting gem faires and finding strands of beautiful polished and chip gemstone beads to string them in. The Redtail Hawk Wise ...
Meet the Quail
I can't really say when I got the bird raising bug, or tell you how long I have wanted quail, but I sometime over the past ten years, I started dreaming and scheming plans to raise these little game birds. Maybe it was the delicious speckled quail eggs I always picked up at Morning Glory Farm on my way out to the coast, or maybe it was the free rustic chicken coop a friend gave me that was too ...