ROOD 002: Anniversary book

This post is part of what will undoubtedly be an ongoing series, which I am lovingly calling ROOD (Ridiculously Out Of Date). Posts which I have had in draft mode for, oh, some number of... months, but for whatever reason, have not devoted the time to finishing (sigh). Though blogging is generally meant to be a timely affair and these posts are sadly irrelevant, I still feel compelled to share them with you. I hope you find this trip down memory lane an enjoyable one.

I made this photobook for Mark for our fourth anniversary last September. We hiked four of the 46 High Peaks of the Adirondack within these years, so I thought that was a nice parallel. Some of our best times have been on these mountains and in these trees. Hopefully we'll get there later this summer to climb a few more!

Chickadees

They're fully fledged now, and have been swarming the feeder, six at a time. The cats sit low on the window seat, in super-stealth mode, and twitch at them. I can't determine if it's torture or entertainment for them.

I'm not sure where they roosted this year, but a couple of years ago they lived in one of our birdhouses, and I remember being impressed by the non-stop nest-building stage. And then, later, the non-stop food-fetching stage. You could sometimes hear the cheeping when the food arrived to the voracious little beaks within.

Juicing

Juicing has been a great way of using the extra greens from the CSA shares. In fact, it's a great way of using any and all fruits and veggies that are a bit too mealy, wilty, or limp to eat on their own. I'd never juiced before, but a friend gave me her old juicer that she wasn't using anymore, and it's awesome! It does a phenomenal job of extracting the juice, so I'm left with only very dry, fibrous pulp, which I am saving in the freezer to add to soups and muffins. Anyone have any other uses for the pulp?

CSA sharing Wednesdays

I enjoyed reading Shanna's funny post about how having a CSA share is like—but really not at all like—being a parent. Not that I would know, but I did feel some weighty responsibility when I picked up last week's share, which included a massive head of napa cabbage. It filled my bike basket entirely. After we split it with our CSA share sharing buddies, it was a much more manageable size, but even still, it's been napa cabbage salad every day over here.

I can also relate to the pressure to do something interesting and creative with the spoils. I tried to make this lovely chard and onion galette, but it was an epic, epic failure. Firstly, my dough didn't bind... entirely possible because I used mystery flour instead of white flour (I'm trying to use it up!), and coconut oil instead of butter (but it says 'use like butter'!)... in any case, I ended up with a non-doughy, but still tasty, crumbly, cracker-like base, on which I piled the sauteed chard and onion, since there was zero hope of this "cracker" wrapping around anything... It was not good, people. Not good. Mark powered through it like a trooper; just took a few glasses of milk to help wash it down... 

Random aside about my bike basket:
The basket was kicking around the house, and I needed something to help carry home the CSA bounty. So Mark attached it to my bike, and it is the *new awesome.* I mean, my paniers are great, but they've got nothing on this basket. However, I am under strict orders not to fill it with kittens. Hrmph. Other than carrying CSA bounty, what good is a bike basket if you can't fill it with kittens?!

It's taking over

And we're not sure what it is. At first we thought zucchini, but it's too big for that now. Doesn't quite look like squash either. Our best guess is pumpkin, which is funny, because we didn't plant pumpkin. Possibly a rogue seed from our compost soil, which would be remarkable, because of the one pumpkin we had at Halloween, I roasted all but a handful of the seeds. It also means the compost we spread on the garden hadn't composted enough. An interesting (and hopefully fruitful) mystery...

In the garden

Wedding + memories + mooooooose!

My cousin got married last weekend! What a beautiful wedding (and weekend) it was! The weather was—not exaggerating—the most perfect weather there could ever be. Sunny, warm (not ridiculously hot like it had been), a lovely breeze. Perfection. The waterside location wasn't too shabby either. The stunning bride and handsome groom are so clearly in love and make the perfect team together. And I had the distinct honour of being the groomsladybro!



It was so great to catch up with family that I hadn't seen in years and spend some time in Bracebridge. It was a trip down memory lane to visit Bowyers Beach where my grandmother used to take me and my brother and my cousin swimming. I used to beg her to take us here! I remembered each turn in the road to get to the beach; so surreal that it was so long ago, but so incredibly familiar. Etched.

Oh, and on the drive through Algonquin Park, we saw a moose! I'm pretty giddy in this photo, because—believe it or not—this is my first moose-sighting.

My bouquet is holding up so well; it is so lovely to have a lingering piece of that beautiful day to enjoy.  :)