Thursday, July 7, 2011

"Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. 
Rest your head 
in her lap. 
Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts."
-Wendell Berry

Dragon carrots from the garden.

Pink, yellow, three-color, and orange carrots.

Daily salad for lunch. Cucumbers and butter lettuce from Finley Farms. Everything else is from our yard.

Update:
Red-Headed House Finch Family

Remember when we introduced you to our new neighbors back in mid-June?


We weren't sure if the mother and father had abandoned the nest because we didn't hear or see them for about a week. We thought maybe we'd scared them away. You see, every time we opened the back door the mother would fly away and perch on the phone wire. We tried not to use the door, but it just didn't make much sense after awhile.

A couple of days ago we were eating lunch outside near the chicken coop and heard peeps coming from the eaves. Lo and behold, the nest was not abandoned and the babies have arrived!

We used the zoom and snapped some photos from inside the house.






We counted four babies total. The one you see above is the largest, strongest and feistiest. He/she gets most of the food. The mother and father trust us enough to allow us to watch their feeding. Yesterday it was so hot (close to 90's), so the mother nudged the babies onto the ledge next to the fence.

Also, if you look close you can see white hair. We realized it's fur from when we brushed and bathed a shedding Little White Fox!

Summer Flowers

 "Nothing is more the child of art than a garden."
-Sir Walter Scott

The flowers are flourishing with the warm, summer days. As the heat rises, so do the sunflower stalks! It's so beautiful, I just had to take the camera and snap some photos. Enjoy!

Bird's eye view of a bee inside a squash blossom. (Squash blossoms are an excellent addition to sauteed vegetables or pizza.)








Plums O' Plenty!

"What is more mortifying than 
to feel that you have missed the plum 
for want of courage to shake the tree?" 
-Logan Pearsall Smith

Last week we burrowed Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook at the Solvang Library. We hoped to use local ingredients while experimenting with the famed Waters recipes. We found a Plum Upside-Down Cake recipe which is perfect because our plum tree is plum full of plums!(Try saying that fast ten times.) You can find the recipe HERE.

Recipe Changes:
Our tree is produces Santa Rosa plums, so we did not use Elephant Heart Plums. 
We used raw whole milk.
For the batter, we used about  9 tsp stevia instead of 1 cup sugar.
Instead of all-purpose flour, we used organic whole wheat pastry flour from the bulk section at New Frontiers.

When we were kids we would shine the plums on our shirts before eating. 



The Little White Fox LOVES to steal plums!

Kale, zuchinni, eggs, turnip, snow peas, three-color bush beans, strawberries and plums.

Eggs and plums from the backyard.
Completely baked!

Ta da! We served thin slices with a dollop of McConnell's coconut ice cream (a Santa Barbara company).