Tuesday = Garden Tour

We had a busy and hot week so far. Saturday, we went to a local island with some friends and spent the day there. Went to a kindie rock concert by Justin Roberts and enjoyed ice cream, the park, and catching up with our friends. I love days like that! We stayed on the island for Mass and afterward we ate at a local restaurant run by a local farm on the island where everything but the coffee is grown locally...the food served is grown, raised by Seabreeze or a couple other farms on the island. It was one of those "once in a lifetime" meals...only wish i was better dressed for it. :o) Their restaurant is amazing: it's a clean little French themed place in a little house next to one of the grocers, ironically. As you walk out to the deck seating, you pass their butcher counter--beautiful meats; the maroons of true, fresh beef roasts and burger, the beautiful yellow chickens and fresh sausages. Oy! More inspiration!! They have a beautiful blog in telling their story and concerns for food trends in this country.

Then, of course, after a gorgeous day on the breezy, farm & tree filled island with 1 traffic light on the whole island and with Mom and Pop establishments beckoning you in with their whimsical but welcoming store fronts (which the anti-conglomerate minded citizens have honoured with a motto known as "Keep Vashon Weird"--there is one franchise on the island: Subway sandwiches. And it was protested so much, i believe another franchise won't get a foothold in the place), it was time to get back to reality where driving through the areas of big box shopping areas (aka "Fertile Shopping Cresent") in a sea of fast food restaurants lining the streets to our neighbourhood where 96 degrees with dead still, smoggy city air.

It's been really hot as of the last 4 days...in the 90's for 3 of them, breaking records for those too.

However, today...it's cloudy and currently 57 degrees. *sigh*

This Saturday will be 30 degree cooler than last Saturday. *double sigh*

It's not just Mother Nature that hasn't known what season it is all year.

The poppies are flowering for a second time,

I really like these "Buttercream" California poppies!

I hope to have a field of them someday!

Or maybe i'll have to settle for a parking strip full. ;)

Our first yellow squash is coming along.
Proof that the tomatoes have been happy over the last few days, they've started to blush a little.
I can't believe they've almost grown to the top of the 8 ft. stakes already!

Just before the hot weather we were able to harvest some of the fingerlings and lettuce.

This picture represents 3 pounds of fingerlings. Cookie Monster's had some made into mash, and they really weren't that bad.

Yesterday, we had some excitement too, that you've probably been reading about in the paper. I was downstairs watching t.v., flipping back and forth between Dylan and local news coverage, while C.m. was playing the computer with her grandma. I heard a huge crash, as if C.m. had fallen to the floor. I envisioned broken bones. Then she yelled "Mom, what was that?" I came running upstairs to see and there was another boom--the west side of our house moving violently. There wasn't any prolonged shaking, so it wasn't an earthquake. I panicked at the thought of having to go outside to see what it was...that side of our house isn't near any streets, but maybe something **HUGE** could have happened on the freeway--a tanker explosion or something? Then i started thinking bald eagles! They've been known to tangle in the air during fights and crash land in people's yards. Could they be on the roof? Was that the booms we heard? I looked out the window and the chickens seemed to be okay.

So i ran back downstairs to check the news. The president was visiting here in Seattle. He even went to my most favourite bakery who has a glorious cookbook that everyone should own! The news flash happened pretty quickly, as 911 was knocked our in some counties and overwhelmed with calls in other areas. Apparently, some yuppie was returning from vacation in a remote wealthier area of central Washington and didn't realise he had flown his private plane into secured airspace. Those booms? The 142nd's F-15 Eagles that were scrambled to intercept the yuppie's float plane--from Portland International to Seattle in 8 minutes!! Their sonic boom was heard from Longview, WA to Edmonds, WA (a distance of about 150 miles.) The planes in this division of the Nat'l Guard apparently cover the northern border of CA all the way to Alaska. They were reporting if the planes were scrambled to AK (which is 2550+ miles from Portland to Anchorage) it would take them 15 minutes to get there!! Amazing! (But so glad i didn't join the Air Force when i really wanted to be a pilot as a kid!) :o) Can you imagine the adrenalin rush those pilots had when they were called up, then cleared for flight faster than the speed of sound once they were in the sky?? **sheesh**

I sat out on the deck hoping to get a view of Air Force One as it flew passed, but conditions were such that it was taking off to the opposite direction. Grr! Of course, the year we see it from our deck, i didn't take a photo because it had Bush, Jr. in it, but this year when i'd like a picture....grr! That could have been my entry for Sunday Stills this week too, which is about metal.