eat your seaweed

When I attended Maine's Common Ground Fair in 2009 with John + Mary, the woman at the table next to theirs at the farmers market was Kacie from She Sells Seaweed.  She has a great small business hand harvesting seaweeds from coastal Maine.  The reason my chickens' egg shells are so thick is the daily portion of ground kelp I add to their feed.  If you haven't tried eating or cooking with sea 'vegetables', give it a go - they are salty, super healthful and fun to cook.

stone carved beauty

I love this statue - it stands outside of the Grand Traverse County administration building.  

kinda foodie meeting #2: juice

Bikram peeps Margaret, Lisa, Sarah and I had another of our every-few-weeks kinda foodie meetings.  This time the topic was juicing - we all brought in our juicers and pressed up a bunch of fresh goodness.  We made green juice, watermelon juice, citrus-ginger, and carrot-apple-orange.  Powerful delicious!

sky study #36: Detroit represent

Took this in beautiful Detroit this weekend

shell optional

I read a poultry magazine that has a column dedicated to strange eggs that are laid by readers' chickens.  I figured that at some point, I would find something freaky in the nesting boxes, and today was the day.  This egg had no shell and a weird tail, but was otherwise intact.  And perfectly edible.

I'm so white bread

Made this today - if you've never made bread from scratch, give it a try - it's really easy and your house will smell like a bakery

mourning dove posse

I have several mourning dove couples around the farm - here are 3 of them camped out under the bird feeder.  For being such shy birds, they walk shoulder to shoulder with the chickens, which fascinates me.  The chickens are so boisterous and rowdy, and the mourning doves feed and hang out right alongside them.

clobbered

No, Spring is not on her way....NW Michigan just got 10" of fresh snow ☃

the kind hosta bud

Surely Spring is on her way!

spring chickens

Outside my office window just now

roasted vegetables are so easy to make

Just toss your faves with olive oil, salt + pepper and bake in a pan at 350° for about an hour - that's it - so charry and good.  This was a pan of collard greens (frozen from the garden last Summer) brussel sprouts, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots and kabocha squash.  Eat your vegetables.

Boss......I mean dead mouse

♡ Happy 50th Anniversary Mom + Dad ♡

Mike Kurta + Margaret Wilson - married March 18, 1961

sky study #35

Sunrise this morning - March 18, 2011

the melt

The snow is melting this week and the chickens can finally venture back out to free range - they are so happy.

kinda foodie meetings

A small group of us from yoga have been holding informal, bi-weekly meetings focusing on different healthy-lifestyle related food topics.  A few weeks ago we did one on coconuts, and Wednesday the subject was fermented foods.  I brought my sauerkraut crock, Lisa makes kefir and kombucha, and Margaret made some coconut oil popcorn with brewer's yeast (that's what's in the bag in the center of the the table).  The meetings have been great - we all know a little bit about a lot of stuff.  The next meetings is going to be on juicing!

scottish soul food, updated

Vegan banana-date scones

DRY MIX:

1 cup all purpose flour

1¼ cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons ground flax seed

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

WET MIX:

1 cup mashed, ripe banana

⅓ cup rice, soy, nut or regular milk

⅓ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup brown rice syrup or agave

FRUIT + NUT

1 cup cut up dates 

½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix all together, drop in large dollops on parchment paper lined baking sheet, and sprinkle tops with sugar.  Bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes.

inspired beer

I had a perfect half pint of rye beer and an extremely good conversation today at Traverse City's own Right Brain Brewery.  Thanks Russ!

cute birdie report

This is the common redpoll 

There were dozens of them at the feeder this morning 

cheese labels

Culture Magazine has a photo essay on vintage cheese labels.  Aren't they beautiful?