Summertime Bounty + Neighborly Gifts

Tomales Elementary School Student Garden

:: Beula's freshly canned, still warm jar of bread and butter pickles.

:: A yell from our neighbor, a walk to the lower pasture for a plate full of warm, just caught yesterday, salmon.

:: "Free" zucchini gifted from the pile accumulating at our little post office.

:: Renegade gardening in the school garden for strawberries, lettuces and dahlias.

:: Foraged yellow plums = two plum upside down cakes.

:: Another delicious salmon dinner shared at a sturdy, weathered table with friends.

:: Getting the call...do you have any fresh herbs I can use tonight?  Why, yes, yes I do.

:: Nibbles and nosh on our front deck until the sun sets.

:: I heart summer.

Summer 2013 :: Day 30

:: Gifts from our 83 year old neighbor - Dead hummingbird carcass for Grady & freshly canned pickles for our family.  Funny combo.

:: Alaska tickets secured!!!  We are going to meet up with the Rangel women and have another summer  adventure with those strong, amazing ladies.  G will attend this camp with Isabella & Sophia in Homer, Alaska.

:: Spent the afternoon playing bocce at one of Steve's clients' home in Graton.  Their home is beautiful and the garden, art & bocce court were stunning.  Grady was the only kid there, but he had a nice competitive time playing against the adults.

:: Found out the politician I work for got arrested last night.  What the hell...?

:: Started watching Season One of Arrested Development as a family.  Mildly inappropriate, but over G's head for the most part.

Million Days of May

May seems like it has a million days in it, which can be good and bad.

The winds have been relentless lately.  Wind is the hardest of weather conditions for me to deal with.  It looks beautiful outside, but you can't be out there.  The sun is shining, but you are stuck inside with a runny nose and doped up on allergy medication.  Yuck.

I've just been put on high blood pressure medication and that freaked me out a little bit.  I've been battling it ever since I was pregnant with Grady, but somehow putting me on a long-term medication really hit the issue home.

I've been trying to get out there and run, but with all the pollen wafting in the air it feels like I'm only making matters worse.  I'm also working on reducing the amount of animal products I consume and focusing on preparing healthier meals for me and my family.

Actually, I love this kind of stuff (not the high blood pressure and visits to Kaiser) because it helps me to refocus my energies and take stock of my life.  I've felt a tightness in my chest over the last few months and I chalked that up to stress and being busy.  I hate that word :: busy.  Every woman I know is busy.  I want to un-busy myself, focus on creating art and beauty in my life, share more meals with friends and family and release those things that weigh me down.  I'm a work in progress.

Maker Faire Shenanigans
G's 10 year old physical exam obligatory mom photo

Steve picked up the parental festival duties and took Grady to Maker Faire a few weeks ago.  I wrote a little bit about it here and here.  It's all about science, innovation, technology, creating and making things.  The crowds were huge this year and the highlight for Grady was watching the Coke-Mentos bottle rocket demo.  Yes, a father-son outing for sure.

Arann Harris & The Farm Band
G's pop-up art sale
G + Kristin, his former preschool teacher & fellow artist

Oysterpalooza hit Valley Ford over Memorial weekend and so we walked into town to see a few of our favorite bands, visit with the locals and G set up shop under a big 'old pine tree to sell his artwork.

G really had a blast playing with new friends he met at the festival, handing out his new business/social  cards and hay bale hopping until the festival shut down around 9 pm.  He used to be one of the kids dancing right in front of the stage, but those days are long gone.  Now he roamed the back garden area with his cohorts, only checking in with me every once in awhile.

We're still making our weekly pilgrimage down the highway to Bloomfield Farms to harvest our weekly vegetables.  G is learning how to identify different lettuces, greens and teaching me how to harvest kale.

We picked broccoli last week and I ended up making a batch of broccoli soup.  Now, I remember back to the days where my son would only consume Odwalla's Green Juice and a cheese quesadilla.  Well, happily, those days are long gone.  I've worked really hard over the past five years to get him to ingest more than a chicken, cheese, tortillas and PB&J.  It has been a long, long road and I'm happy to report that he ate my broccoli soup.  He didn't love it or want seconds, but he ate it without putting up a fight or trying to negotiate how much he actually had to eat.  He just ate it.  Sweet Jesus!

I attribute the above feat to the fact that he hand-picked the broccoli and had ownership of that thick, rich bowl of mama-made love.  Well, that's my theory anyway.

The winds drove us into the library on a school night last week.  I had just finished my book club selection State of Wonder by Ann Patchett and was itching to get out of the house.  All three of us drove into town and loaded up on books, videos and had a little respite from the howling breezes surrounding our little abode.

G's idea studio
Local dairy cows
My favorite sign

We attended the Open House at Tomales Elementary School and brought home mounds of graded schoolwork, the finished Mission Project Model and G met his future 5th grade teachers.

The 4th through 8th grade classes went to Cal Skate on Friday.  I was a little bit nervous about G going because I didn't want him to hurt himself.  If my husband is reading this :: Stop rolling your eyes!  Yes, I am a bit of a worrier.  Be careful is my mother's mantra and, yes, she passed it down to me.

Needless to say he left the house with a pocket full of quarters, his favorite ripped up pants and kissed me on the cheek.  I'll be okay mom.  Tell you all about it after school.  

No broken bones to report.

We spent the afternoon in Stinson Beach over the weekend celebrating a dear friend's birthday.  We were there a matter of 10 minutes and our son quickly changed into his board shorts, hopped on this paddle board (1st time ever being on one) and paddled across the lagoon, tied it up and proceeded to climb into a total stranger's hot tub.  He was soaking for about 30 minutes and then leisurely returned to us with the biggest smile I've ever seen.  So out of character for this careful, quiet boy.  We all had a good laugh at his boldness and I'm sure the hot tub owners got a chuckle out of this kid, too.

Stinson Beach afternoon with the Matthews & Tuchbands

We spent the afternoon reminiscing, storytelling and watching our children enjoy the first (windless) day of June.

Art Sale + Birthday Party!

Rooster hair in full effect

Steve went down to Southern California to visit his father and grandmother (who turned 91!) for a few days.  It was nice to spend a string of days with just Grady.  We found our rhythm with work, school and meals.  He read a lot, I cooked favorite foods and we devised a plan to sell his art prints.

Art Sale Compromise @ Gourmet au Bay

He received word earlier in the month that he was not accepted as an artist for the Local Art Tent at our annual Fisherman's Festival in Bodega Bay.  He was a little crestfallen and I was just hurt for him.  After a few days went by, we came up with a plan to sell four of his art prints at Gourmet au Bay (our former business).  He titled and signed all of his prints, helped create the email flyer above and we sent it out to dozens of our closest community friends and neighbors.  We were making lemonade out of the lemons we received.

Proud artist + his watercolor prints

His art was well received and he sold about 32 prints!  He received email pre-orders and on-the-spot purchases at $10 a print.  He was beaming and interacted with every customer in such a sweet way.  They asked about his process, what inspired him and which was his favorite and/or best-selling print.  His best friend was there to help him and when the clock hit 6 o'clock on the dot, they were ready to get out of there and get home to a video game marathon, homemade pizza & root beer floats + a sleepover.  What a full and fantastic day for our little artist.

10th birthday party extravaganza

The next day was the big 18+ kid birthday soccer party at Sports City, our local indoor soccer facility.  Almost everyone came that he invited, plus a few surprise guests!  It was the best kind of party.  The kids ran around and got good and exhausted.  They recharged with fruit, PB&J sandwiches & chocolate milk and topped it all off with the most delicious cupcakes from Sift Cupcakery.

This was the first real birthday party we've had for him, as all the others were mostly our friends and his god-sisters.  This was an all out bash with friends from all the different aspects of his life (preschool, soccer, his current 4th grade class + special friends from neighboring communities).  

You could tell it was a lot for him to take in, but he did it gracefully and enjoyed every second of it.   The big day is actually next week, but this boy is taking cues from his mom and s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out his birthday for a few weeks.  I wonder where he got that idea from? 

The effects of chocolate cream pie on G, Viv + Scott

This week was full of lots of cake, shenanigans with the neighbors & seeing how much fun we could have and not have a meltdown (any of us!).  It was a success in every way.

EArth Day 2013

We celebrated earth day by heading down the road to Bloomfield Farms and harvesting lettuce for the week.  They had a sweet craft table set up to honor the honey bee and G quickly sat down and got to work.  He looked so big in the little vintage school chairs.  He also planted a few complimentary kale plants to bring home and plant in our garden.  I do hope they survive...

Spring images at the Ponderosa

Flowers are blooming.

The grass in the fields are almost as tall as I am.

The guys scouted a location in the back pasture for their newly finished owl box.

I've been seeking comfort in food magazines & cookbooks, as the days draw closer to Fish Fest and my volunteer chairperson duties kick in.  I've been logging in several hours on the computer and then need a quick break on the deck to read & recharge.  It's just the fix I need to keep me sane.

Water Wars!

The father-son water wars have commenced for 2013.  G received a brand new small water gun pistol and doesn't quite connect the dots that giving his dad the older (read larger) one is really setting him up for failure.

He doesn't care.
He's living up the last days of his 9th year.
He's soaking up the water, the fun, the presents, the friendships, the adoration of our friends, the books & sweet treats.

Good-bye, nine.  What a year.
Can't wait to see what happens next for this amazing little fellow.

Equinox + Spring Growth

Leprechauns left G a jar full of rainbow-colored jelly beans and gold foil-wrapped rolos in the center
Fog lifting over the beautiful maze-like fields in Valley Ford

The hillsides are receiving their inaugural mowing from the local farmers.  They are mowing rows and patterns into the swaths of land that gently roll through our valley.  They are trying to beat the rain that is in our local forecast.  I think farmers are really artists and dreamers at heart and I feel in sync with nature monitoring their field work and snapping pictures of their art-form.  The soil is their canvas and they put a lot of hope into the itty bitty seeds they place in the ground.  I just love me a farmer.

Moody Ranch mustard (the thin strip of horizontal yellow above left)
Our yard has hundreds of daffodils opening this month 

The mustard fields are in full bloom and the daffodils are just waking up from their winter slumber and dotting the neighbors' yards and roadside stretches along Highway One.

Common thread :: Pink

I've taken pleasure this week in trying to find a common thread with my photography and syncing them up here for the blog.  The pink camellias fell in an unorganized heap on my entry into work, so I stopped and gathered them up and made this heart on the entryway to my office.  It made my co-worker smile when she arrived and that's all I wanted.

The peach tree at my house had small, pink bud break and I just hope with all my might that we get a good crop this year.  I have plans for canning peach jam.

Grady painted me this sweet painting and titled it "Lone Flower".  It reminds me of the post-apocalyptic world in The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  Sad and beautiful at the same time.  I love the titles he comes up with for his paintings.

I've been using a training schedule to get me motivated to start running again.  I love how I feel after I run, but it is damned near impossible to get me out of the house.  I'd much rather take pictures, read, talk on the phone or putter around with G.  Those activities would not get me in shape for our future trip to Australia and so the time was now to start moving this body.

Grady has been a big help in this department.  He rides ahead of me singing a little ditty, spotting birds and riding back to tell me their names and location.  I keep my eye on his little body fading into the distance and I run after him at a steady pace - a metaphor for the transition we are both taking part of right now.  My breath is ragged when I catch up with him, but I feel healthy and strong.  He rides the last mile home with me and downloads about his day or a cool stick he just spotted.  I'm really enjoying this time together after school on Middle Road.

This house saw a lot of cooking and entertaining over the weekend.   This ooey gooey concoction (pictured above) consisted of a rustic loaf of french bread, smothered with Époisses (the stinkiest cheese around), crème fraîche & sauteed fresh rosemary and then melted in the oven for about 15 minutes.  It was aptly named.

I also made my first loaf of Irish soda bread using local food writer, Michele Anna Jordan's, recipe.  It was so easy, had a fantastic crumb to it, served warm and slathered with honey butter.  I'm definitely going to add this to my bread-making repertoire.  It's not just for St. Paddy's Day.

The weather has been fantastic and I've dug around in the back garden beds readying them for planting.  Not sure what I'm going to plant this year, but it will most likely be used as my kitchen garden.  Herbs, onions & I may try my hand at snap peas.  We'll see.

Grady and Steve have been doing little projects out in his shop and I love seeing them out there together.  This weekend they worked on a vintage clock that was running a bit loud.  I have no idea how or if they fixed it, but I think the part I liked was seeing Steve impart his fatherly wisdom on Grady and see G's eager eyes transfixed on his father's every word, asking good questions and his general interest in learning something new.

Took my first trip to our local Pasta King to purchase fresh pappardelle.  Walking into that shop was like stepping back in time.  The sign above spoke to the small town nature of the business.  They've been around over 50 years and it will be hard to go back to store-bought pasta after tasting the amazing freshness of this man's flat, plump doughy, delicious ribbons of pasta.

G has been adventurous lately.  He kind of needs a push to get outside and explore, so I've tried to be the impetus for this over the last week.  We tried to hike the back hillside behind our house, but some snappy cattle ranchers yelled at us from afar to get off their private property.  The day was dreary and there was a little chill in the air.  I wandered around and snapped photos and Grady explored his treehouse and played with lots of sticks-turned-swords, of course.

The week was also filled with new routines and trying my hand at reinventing the old with yogurt-making and repairing my vintage typewriter.  The yogurt making was a mild success and I'll keep trying to perfect it, but knowing I'll be able to use my typewriter in the near future brings me a simple kind of joy.  Being a former legal secretary and having a fondness and affection for the written or typewritten word, I think of this turquoise beauty as a vehicle to bring me a tiny bit of happiness.  I want to add typed words and phrases to my watercolors and see what the end result looks like.  Stay tuned...  

Life has been full and the weather has been gorgeous.  Grady has been maturing and pushing limits and I think it's about time I start letting go a little.  It's hard for me like I never thought it would be.  Having Grady turn into a 10 year old has opened my eyes and made me realize that I need to soak up the quiet moments and celebrate his transition.

It's a hard balance, you know?

Birthing, coddling, swaddling, feeding, walking, preschool, talking, creating, sending to public school, encouraging, supporting, getting involved, documenting, loving, absorbing it in bits and pieces and then feeling like I need to voraciously absorb and document so that I don't forget.

Border on smothering, taking stock, pulling back, still documenting, analyzing, pondering, discussing our parenting roles and the next step.

Feeling a heart string get pulled and letting go.  Just a little, but still letting go.

Watching, hoping, fearing and celebrating this wonderful, smart, funny, imaginative young man.

It's gonna be a long, hard couple of years ahead of me.

I'm ready, but I may cry and stretch my heart in order to absorb it all.  I'm learning that parenting is much the same as being a kid.  I get to experience the joys of childhood all over again, through him.

It's like your do-over and do-better.

Grateful for the chance.

March :: Like a Lion!

3 eggs a day from our hens

Spring just crept up on me and I'm not sure I like it.  Our winter storms hit us around the end of December and we haven't really had a storm since.  I love a good rain storm, local flooding and spending all day inside drinking tea and watching movies.

Loving the new app Over on my iPhone - let's me quickly add captions to my photos

Grady was sick and missed a few days at the end of the school week.  Of course, he kept himself busy reading his dwindling stack of library books.  He also worked on his illustrated casa project for Spanish class for hours on end in his art studio while listening to hours and hours of Harry Potter on CD.  After four days at home, he was ready to get back to school.

Temperatures reached 76 degrees last week and I prepped my garden bed at the office.  I planted radishes, carrots & beets.  It felt good to be out in the warm sunshine and digging my hands in the dirt.  I came home to find our field dotted with dozens of yellow daffodils.  And as much as I'm sad winter is coming to an end, I'm slowly coming around to spring.  Everything is blooming and I can't help but like it.

Tomales Elementary School's inaugural chess club 2013

We had our last Chess Club meeting this week and all 16 students showed up.  They signed the sweetest note to the instructor and were genuinely enthusiastic about all they had learned.  There is a chess tournament in May and I think the boy wants to give it a whirl.

Signs of Spring in Valley Ford

We're gearing up for a trip to Arizona for spring training.  Steve & Grady have tickets to see the Dodgers play, as well as the A's.  I think this will be a great opportunity for them to bond over baseball and I'll get a little time to bond by the hotel pool with a good book.  A win-win for all of us.

Speaking of winning, Grady's 4th grade CYO basketball team are now league champions!  It was a fantastic game and came down to the final seconds until we secured a 20-19 point victory.  This team was comprised of 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade boys (the only one in the league with such a young group) and they played their little boy hearts out.

Steve kept score every game this season and I was cheer leading from the bleachers.  I'm happy they won, but I'm more happy to have our Monday and Wednesday nights back as a family.  The weekends are free, as well, for now.  More neck jewelry for Grady with this awesome medal.

I've been inspired in the kitchen this winter.  I've been reading some great cookbooks, pulling inspiration from magazines and trying it out on the guys.  They are always up for whatever I'm cooking and that just motivates me all the more.  We have been eating lots of fish tacos, homemade pinto beans, braised ribs, cherry pies, coffee cake, pizza and lots of eggs.  

I went out to our mint patch to grab a handful and found one of our hens had a secret laying spot nestled into the corner of the mint bed.  Twenty-two eggs!  I let Grady smash them into the compost bin and crossed my fingers that the hens were done laying there.  

Saturday afternoon we went to the McLean Homestead in Two Rock for an art show and walked into another world.  Beautiful metal spheres dotted the landscape (some filled with roaring fires) as we made our way to the dilapidated former chicken house, wherein we found barbed wire sculptures and massive pastel portraits, both mediums by Jennifer Pulchinski (she had me sit for her in early January and I can't wait to see my portrait.  Her stuff is amazing!).  There were dozens of mechanical robots, a light tower and a pretty wild group of people.  Jason McLean is a sculptor and tinkerer and his tools, shops and materials captivated my husband.  Grady ran around looking at all of the gypsy wagons and forts that their little girl, Xenia, had access to and thought it was the coolest.  It was.  It is.

The vibe was Burning Man-esque and we weren't staying for the band and performance art, which was going to be Farmer Anna (the one who wrung my rooster's neck on xmas eve - yes, her!) playing Jolene by Dolly Parton on the upright piano.  The kicker was that someone was going to set it on fire while she played that song.  God, how I wanted to stay and see that performance!

More Grady stuff:

G is officially a tween.  He says things like Totes, OMG!, TMI and LOL.  He thinks it's hilarious that I make a big deal about this.  He's even making up his own silly acronyms like ISHICB!, which means I'm So Happy I Could Barf!  Cute, eh?

9 and 11/12 years old

I can't get this outfit off of his body.  It's his uniform as of late - ripped up converse high tops, some non-descript grey or blue shirt, turquoise hoodie, camouflage pants and his LA Dodgers hat.  Every. Single. Day.   I'm over it and by the look on his face...he's over me, too.

We spent Dr. Seuss's birthday at the Rohnert Park Library and their courtyard was exploding with plum blossoms.  The trees just outside our kitchen window are bursting with tiny white blooms.  Spring has sprung in Valley Ford.

I've been dabbling in watercolors lately.  I'm finding it really relaxing to cut up watercolor paper, get out my favorite vintage paints I scored from a flea market and just start painting.  I'm sticking to simple, familiar forms like hearts, circles, birds and messy paint splatters.  It's the one thing that has been making me really happy these days creatively.

This entire post sums up in photos and words the last week of our lives.  So much happens in a week and sometimes I'm dumbfounded at all that we fit in.

Grady thinks I take too many pictures, but I don't want to forget this time in my life, our lives, so I'll just keep snapping away.  I love coming here to this space to slap it all down, relive it with my writing and hit publish.

These days are fleeting and I know that now more than ever.

Summer is...

:: Handmade margaritas

:: Warm, freshly picked strawberries that melt in your mouth

:: The time to learn new chores & responsibilities

:: Abundant artichokes served warm & cold

:: Our first meager harvest from our little blueberry bush

::  Haying (and allergy) season in Valley Ford

:: Bowls of cherries

:: Roadside gardening of the most fragrant sweet peas

:: Just plucked basil for the oh-so summery caprese salad

:: A good reason to celebrate dear friends

:: The time to work on home projects

:: Inflatable pool wrestling season

:: All about picking, eating, preserving & enjoying all the fresh fruit you can

:: Making time for simple art

:: Crunchy hillsides & billowy clouds

:: After dinner hikes behind our house with our family

:: A lovely reminder to slow down & bask in the sunshiny glow.