sky study #75

sunset August 20, 2012

ardha-chandrasana with pada-hastasana

My friend Jeanette came over last week and we rode around on the Honda - Jeanette can do this in Bikram yoga, for reals:

just when you thought it was safe to look at this blog again...

I made more pickles.  This is how they begin, soaking with onions in salt water

7 pints of bread & butter slices - my favorite

All you ever need is ONE pickling cucumber plant in your garden.  I planted two, which is why I have 10 million cukes.  

stuffing everywhere

Bed pillow = fun dog toy

peppy

20 pound wheel of montasio cheese with green peppercorn

sing it, Cowboy

stop me now

more pickles

five fingers

When I was in Detroit I tried on Alex's running shoes - it felt weird to have something in between your toes, but I like how they look, kinda like monkey feet.  He is going to run a half marathon in them - go Alex!

blue wheelie

The blue cheese is coming along nicely - here it is at two and a half weeks

scary sky study #74

Stormy skies over Midland, Michigan on my way home August 19, 2012.  It looked like the start of a tornado.

Motor City paradise

My weekend in Detroit

The Renaissance Center forever!

hound of love Kelly

Raquel's laptop - 4 more years!  

We came upon a huge cycle group about 100 riders long - don't listen to anything saying Detroit is run down and dying - it was beautiful and vibrant and full of life everywhere

Randazzo's world of watermelons

yes it does

My dates for Dukes of September at Pine Knob

look out for that lowdown - Boz Scaggs gettin' it

Dave's new cat Oliver Pickles

The woodward Dream Cruise was going on - awesome classic cars everywhere you looked

Everybody Wu Chung tonight - Dave made me a mock duck salad with this stuff - delicious!

the hostas and the well pump

The beautiful scene outside the little ground-level window in my basement

did I mention I was canning a lot of pickles?

more

compliments of Fern

Garbage picked from Fern Street, Traverse City

sky study #73

sunset Thursday, August 16, 2012

Holman Farm cornucopia

from Laurie's magic orchard & garden

61 white peaches

a rainbow of eggplants

Dave's hash

Dave came to visit and made the most amazing potato hash for breakfast with chard from the garden, and a fresh egg on top - smaczne!

pickles pickles pickles and more pickles

Can't stop making pickles - 4 pints of bread & butter pickles from the garden.  Pickles for all!

S loves D

One of my oldest friends visited the farm this weekend.  We were Detroit punk rock teenagers together, and 30 years later, she is as funny, smart and together now as she was then.  God bless Doreen!

Doreen & Sue, New York City 1982 (please note permed mullets)

Doreen & Sue, Kingsley 2012

the Perseid meteor showers

OK, who else was up between 2:00AM - 3:30AM Saturday night?  Did you see it? Spectacular!  I was tripping out watching the shooting stars, about one per minute.  Just amazing.

It spawned a complete mental brain-flow experience of consciousness where I was contemplating being on planet Earth, suspended in the Milky Way Galaxy, that we are mostly comprised of water, and that we are orbiting the Sun and it's also hanging in suspension in the universe, and we orbit around it, and I WAS FREAKING OUT about space....I hope the same consciousness happens to you during the next meteor shower. Where am I?  What are we?  Sorry for the hippie flow, but I know you know what I'm talking about.

the little gift

Losing Whitey a few weeks ago was tough - she was my favorite chicken, my pet and also my only white egg layer.  Until this week...I went out to collect eggs and found this tiny white egg, the first from one of the new young Leghorn hens.  I didn't expect to see any eggs from the young girls for a few more months, and it was so nice to see a white egg in the hen house again.

"My sun sets to rise again."

- Robert Browning

the visitors

The other evening two canine senior citizens turned up at the farm, a golden retriever and a little black pug.  Both were very friendy and well cared for, the Golden had a tag that said his name was Buddy Gomez (what an awesome dog name).  We called their owner who came and got them from about a mile away. 

Boss Butter

I made a batch of cultured butter this week - here is the cream churning in the kettle.  Butter making is the messiest job: greasy, buttermilk splashing everywhere - I thoroughly buttered every surface in the cheese lab making it.

But the end result is worth it - 10 rounds of freshly made butter tied up with string.

it's berry time

Fresh from the woods

right into jam

so plump

first Summer pickles

it's all dog toys

This rope toy was especially tough

This plush toy had fun filling

Kick out the jams

Saw it at the Traverse City Film Festival last week - I love Detroit!

lacking any pretense

"We tend to think that animals of a breed are all alike, yet in observing and drawing them, I have found each to be unique in appearance and temperament; and each, lacking any pretense, seems to have a natural dignity. It is unsettling to look into their eyes and wonder what they know. There is a great distance between us, yet we feel so much in common as creatures."

BethVan Hoesen, from Creatures: The Art of Seeing Animals

the kind mold

You have to poke holes into wheels of blue cheese, which will introduce air, which mold needs to grow.  I poked 20 holes in each side of the wheel with a sterilized skewer.

Blue wheels age on their side. I am trying to find my taste for blue cheese, which I don't have much of now, even as a cheese maker.  This wheel was made with some raw milk that I traded for a few pounds of feta cheese.  I will post some updates as it ages and gets veiny.

death of a pillow

Vintage 1950s barkcloth, or dog toy?  Cozy can't tell the difference.