these days...

These days are long and hot and thick and still.
First sun of a storm filled week.
Set free in the promise of cooler evening temps, we stepped high over wildly growing plants and harvested what had grown in our absence.

Beans and edamame.

Zucchini that took advantage of being left unsupervised and decided to have a party and get huge!

Zucchini are the teens of the garden.
Feel free to corrupt the eggplants.

I'd like it if they grew in an untamed sort of manner as well.

Thanks.

We cut some zinnias so that more will grow.

And discovered that I actually can grow a sweetpea! And it might even flower!

(and yes, this does deserve two exclamation marks in a row. Really.)

The feverfew is everywhere.

We carefully step and make pathways around it.

So many flowers from my mother's garden watch over us.

It's the ten year old version of a flower crown. Eth likes to sneak up behind me and slip flowers into the tucks and twirls of my upswept anti-humidity hair. A little present. Then he laughs because, you know, he's ten.

Oh, the second half of summer.

These days are sweltering and sometimes I just want to rush through them and make a bee line for Autumn, but I know I need to stop and remember...

These days are filled with moments and smiles and tiny gestures that I don't want to forget.

Even if they are sweaty ones.

Senses working overtime...

This garden project.

I'm so glad for that little voice inside me that told me I could do it and do it my own way.

Full and blooming and I love cutting flowers and picking vegetables and getting lost in an overload of senses.

I love all the colors and textures. I love that there are no rows and so many curves.

Simple and sweet and an abundance of food to fill our summer plates with color. We definitely eat our rainbows.

Green, yellow, and purple beans, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, hot peppers, green peppers, edamame, orange peppers, watermelon, pumpkins, and hopefully (it made flowers, I'm so excited!) eggplant. We've pickled, steamed, baked, frozen, grilled, chilled, and dehydrated.

Lessons learned. Plans made.

Busy days.

Grandma Pat came to dinner after a day in her gardens.

She arrived with armfuls of beautiful roses.

I am a most lucky girl.

The sweetest gift.

I spent Monday morning gathering vases and trimming stems.

Now there are roses everywhere in the house.

Wild days...

July is wild and filled with surprises. The days move quickly from sun up to sundown and sometimes I feel like my list is far from complete. July is the edge of chaos in so many ways. It is an exhilarating feeling, July feels alive and elemental, but it is a careful dance for me to keep from feeling overwhelmed. Good thing I have awesome helpers and, of course, big eaters with me on my journey.
July mornings with blueberries. Definitely in my top 5 favorite things about summer. Blueberries on cereal, blueberries popped into muffins, blueberries in a bowl as a snack. Yum.




July birthday surprises for sweet Heather at my sister's house. My sister and I are 13 years apart. I was 9 the year that Heather arrived on the scene. I was super excited for her to be born. Definitely a July baby. Wild, exciting, and so much fun.
Every time I start to feel exhausted by July, I think of all of the great people I know and love who are born in July....about their personalities, their energy, that beautiful whirlwind that seems to surround them. They sort of just give into the whole thing.
The Wizard of Oz must be about July. Everyone in the know just gives in to the tornado and ends up in beautiful Oz wearing stripey tights and some fantastic sparkly shoes as their reward. They all get home eventually, just not 'til the end of July.
I am rolling with that theory for now. Who can say no to the Lollipop Guild?




My sister has this really gorgeous multilevel deck that is perfect for outdoor parties.
All the best summer foods were in attendance, including crabs. Ethan had a refresher course, since I think the last time he tasted crab, he was a preschooler.
It's an action food. He loves it.




He wants to eat crab and lobster every day. We may need to relocate. He's working on the accent so as to blend in immediately for the possibility of easier access to the foods he loves.
The great thing about summertime food, I think, is that it is so minimally processed. People are so close to their food. You see where it comes from. We try to eat this way as a family year round, but it is really easiest to to in the summertime. Ground to table. Water to table. We are the ones doing the processing.




The garden, in keeping with July style, is an Oz all its own.
Surprises under leaves and over tops of branches. Fighting bad bugs and cheering on good bugs. Hunting and gathering.
Happy abundance and lots and lots (and lots!) of processing.

Rewarded with lunches and dinners where so much of it came from less than 3 feet away from the table.

This is wild July. And while it is quite a ride, it will be gone before we know it. Breathe deep and learn all you can before you click your heels three times.

(Don't worry, they let you keep the shoes as a souvenir.)

Lemonade and a visit with Betty

It's one of those beautiful Friday afternoons.
All the home keeping and baking is complete.
There is plenty of sunshine and a gentle breeze.
The sort of afternoon where tea might be replaced with
lemonade and a slice of chocolate chip zucchini bread.



Ethan already taste tested a slice before I got a photo taken.
The verdict was that it tasted amazing. However, I have a feeling that there is a very short list of the things that don't taste amazing when there are chocolate chips involved.
Don't tell, but the funny thing is that the chocolate chips are more for me. I don't like the taste of zucchini bread unless it has chocolate. Bonus for everyone else!
I love making zucchini bread because I get to visit with Betty. Betty Crocker cookbook Betty. My Mom had the version published in 1956 that my grandmother gave her. I remember reading the pages for cookies and cakes when I was little. My mother's notes penciled in the margins. There were certain recipes I knew only came from The Betty Book.
When I got married, my mom bought me the edition that came out in 1992. It was important to her and special to me. She inscribed the inside cover with the same small, neat handwriting of the margin notes from her book. My very own Betty Book. My first of many cookbooks, but always my favorite. Just like mom, I have certain recipes that only ever come from Betty.
Quick bread, like zucchini bread, is one of them.

okonomiyaki

Summertime is all about vegetables in this house. We love cabbage for it's nutrition, but there is only so much coleslaw tolerance before your mouth is done with all the chewing, don't you think? So when a recipe like okonomiyaki is discovered, there is cause for celebrating, and making, and not wasting the rest of that head of cabbage. It's the perfect lunch to eat on the backporch.
We make a odd little version of it, of course. I skip the bacon/meat part and basically make it with cabbage and green onions or chives with the okonomiyaki sauce on the side and minus the mayo. If you are cringing out there, I understand, but I'm just going to own it this way, it works for us. Okonomi is "to one's liking", after all.
There are authentic lovely recipes out there like this one and, for a really awesome straight forward basic recipe, there is this one if you want to give it a try.

Felt Applique Ethan Style

A key chain.
Pick out a combination of the brightest happy colors and then think of the idea of the picture you want to make.
Cut your felt free form. Artists are daring. You can use a ruler if you really like straight edges.

Start with a background square. Choose your favorite color. Mine is orange. Cut your picture shapes and lay them on the top.
Keep adding details until you like how it looks.

Pin the shapes to the square as you sew them.

Then take a break because it's 12:00 and time to eat lunch, no matter what. Hey, I'm ten. Ten year old boys get hungry!



After you have eaten, sew your appliqued square to another square the same size. Put the key chain loop in between the two layers. Mom calls this a sandwich. Good thing I just had lunch! Sew around the edges of the square.

Tada.

A key chain of a sandcastle and shells.

The summer when Basil was eleven, he and Drusilla cut off the very bottoms of all their clothes and wore flip flops every single day.
Their toes got very dirty.
They would wash their feet each night, as the sun began to set, with the overturned watering can in the garden.

Blue is blue, red white and blue...

Two favorite discoveries of the holiday weekend.

First, what we call blueberry bashful. A sort of riff on this super yummy blueberry buttermilk cake that I found on Culinerapy's blog

I added ginger because I love blueberries and ginger together. I also switched out the flour with Whole Foods 365 baking mix for our family's GFness and it worked really well. We've made two so far. Ethan might marry it, if he could.



Second discovery was hearing about this film.



I love Alice. I am so interested to see what Tim Burton does with the story. The photos themselves look amazing.

So that was a weekend of red, white, and oh so lovely blueness in discovery.

Holifriday...

Family and friends have a long weekend and I'm excited to spend time with them

and this happy weather.

Today: more old school teapot brewed iced tea

and smiling at red geraniums.

(I don't know what it is about them, but I love them so much!)

A bit of reading on the back porch

and an evening full of festivities.

And front porch bunting.

This is summer.

Laundry lines need love too...

I have loved this sweet fabric for so long.

It was from my Dad's fabric store and found in my Mom's stash that I inherited. It has cheery little laundry items on it. soap, irons, clothes pins, and the most important air drying laundry item of all.... a bright smiling sunshine!

I never knew what to make with it though, until today.

My clothes lines need a happy place to live when they are off duty.

Also, they will eventually have roommates when I find some clothes pins.

This is why it's like a townhouse of a bag instead of a ranch style.

Clothes pinned hearts because fresh laundry is love.