Farmer's Markets

Look for me at the Original Monument Farmer's Market on Aug. 15 and 22, 2009. I'll be at the Farm and Art Market at Pike Creek at Margarita's on Aug. 29, 2009. I'm working on adult monster T's, bibs, monster bags, monster/robot glass earrings, and pillowcase dresses.

Water Fun

Clayton learned how to squirt a water bottle today. He got himself soaked, so we took it outside. Tomorrow, I may take him to a Spray Park.

Some of Yellowstone

Check out the buffalo who was actually laying there rolling around when I first came upon this spot. I wonder if the "soil" has some toxic properties that do anything to his coat.


Devil's cave, I think it was called. It emitted a growl which was pretty neat. All of the pools and gyesers stunk to high heaven of sulfur.

A volcanic mud




This and several above: Yellowstone Lake
On the way out of the West exit of the park, in the Shoshone National Forest:

Some reservoir.
Coming towards Casper, WY.

Here are some of my photos from Yellowstone. The rest are on another computer, so it may be a few days before I can post them.
Animals I saw:
1 Yellow Bellied Marmot
3 Black Bear
1 Grizzly bear
Too many Bison to count
8 white pelicans
1 Moose
1 coyote
1 fox
Lots of elk- probably the same ones hanging out on the lawn at Mammoth Springs
Too many Prong Horn Antelopes to count

Crafts and Clayton

Here are some coasters I made. I gave them away to a couple getting a new home.
These are some of the dish towel dresses I have been making.

"Mom, I gotta have something from Cabelas.

Clayton loves smoothies.

Meet Me at the Park

The base has a park play day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Clayton has fun being independent. Look he can lift that weight with one arm. He's struggling. :) Grandpa should be proud of the lawnmower skills. Future basketball player?

More from the CSA

This is a breakfast casserole I made with the spinach. Actually, the pie was not from the CSA. I thought we would get more rhubarb last week, but we didn't, so I had to use the strawberries I bought. I ended up making a strawberry blackberry pie.



This is the kale which I used for 2 quiches. One wasn't too hot, but there's another one in the freezer.

CSA Produce!

Last week:

Butter Lettuce and Green Leaf Lettuce:

Several salads including a Santa Fe style with quickly “roasted” corn and onions (didn’t have any black beans).

Sandwiches

Chicken salad tonight and using up the rest of the butter lettuce

Beets:

Roasted the few and planned on doing a Dill-Walnut Vinagrette but I was scared of eating beets.

Spinach and Beet Greens:

Made sautéed with garlic and bacon

Rhubarb:

Made an excellent rhubarb-strawberry pie

Dill-

Potato salad

Homemade dip with corned beef (the store was out of the dried beef I was planning to use, but Clayton loved it)

Tonight I’m going to use it in a recipe for chicken salad with tarragon from my plant. UPDATE: I am eating it right now. It's really yummy.

Cilantro- didn’t get used. Matt’s away and I’m not a big fan of it.

Pastured Eggs- just hard-boiled them tonight and plan to use the garlic scapes I got today to make deviled eggs with bacon.

Plans for This Week:

Baby spinach

Full grown spinach

I’m thinking about making a quiche. I suppose I could make an extra crust tonight to use. Or maybe a breakfast bake. I might be able to make one and then freeze it until Matt gets home. Plus, the girls are coming next week.

Butter Lettuce

Cilantro

2 Types of Kale- plans for Restaurant-Style Zuppa Toscana recipe I found.

-baked Kale chips

Beets- red -roast them and make brownies

Baby white beets- I’m going to make hummus

These are roasting right now.

I was counting on rhubarb this week, so I’ll have to make a plain strawberry pie since I bought strawberries. I’ll probably mix in some frozen black berries and see how that works. I’m planning to make the dough here soon and cook it up tonight. I better get going. Not really what I want to be doing, but I’m worried about the berries going bad.

Thrift Store Finds

I got a neat shelf with short openings to organize my papers and flat items. ($12)
I found a nice play kitchen for $15 that is much nicer than my homemade one. Clayton is having fun with it. I got some kid sized forks and spoons, too. I went to Goodwill to get some short sleeve shirts and shorts for Clay. Only found shorts, pants and a nice top for Olivia when she's bigger.

Getting Out of the House

T


Last night Clayton and I went to hear an excellent band called Mango Fan Dango. They do gypsy jazz in the tradition of Django Reinhardt. Clayton wouldn't sit still , but that's okay. He roamed around the Secret Garden and was fascinated by the statues throughout. He skinned his knees for the first time. The last pic is one side of my farmer's market booth. My camera battery ran out before I could get the other side.

Patio on it's way

When we moved again on base, in the fall we were very disappointed that we didn't have a patio or deck as promised. So, we decided to build one ourselves.

Matt has finished the patio! I'll put the final picture up soon. We've been under the weather lately, so it's been slow going. I'm going to dig some dirt in the woods and fill in around it. Matt's supposed to put up the fence this week. I can't wait to be able to go outside and not chase after Clay.