Dance and Provencal Song!

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;               --John Keats from Ode to a Nightingale

What fun we chickens have been having lately!  (Yes, I've perhaps lost it as I'm including myself and the kids in our flock.)  Summer finally showed up in the nick of time, and we've been enjoying the sweet, sweet weather.  Here's sort of a pictorial review from the last 2 weeks, with commentary:

Here's the best pic I had of my friend Brian's band, Stillwater Hill.  You may recall that Caroline and I partook of the Carnation night life and watched these guys play some great bluegrass at Sliders.  Brian is my old buddy from Tolt and he's the smiley one playing the banjo.  I sure like bluegrass. 

Here we have a shot of a recent harvest.  Caroline and I dug potatoes--which is really fun, btw.  We got our first kohlrabi of the year and she liked it.  It sort of tastes like a radish, minus the spiciness, and is super crunchy, like jicama or turnips.  Likey!  We also picked a few ripe Sungold tomatoes, green and purple podded pole beans--a garden staple.  The purple beans are especially delicious and neat--when you cook them they turn bright green!  I cooked them in a little water and a smidgy bit of bacon grease, per OM's tip.  I loved them, but the kids prefer them raw.  Isn't that weird?  We also harvested some broccoli.  I managed to smash all of these veggies into one meal, here's how:  baked up some chicken with the halved potatoes(olive oil and and a sprinkle of Old Bay), made a cheesesauce (milk, cornstarch, butter, lil salt, then stir in the sharp cheddar and parm after its thickened), cooked the broc and beans in the way mentioned above, with peeled and sliced kohlrabi and tomatoes as the amuse bouche.  Mmmmmwwaaah (kissing fingers), delish!


Then, last weekend, the kids and I loaded into OM's Silver Fun Bus with her brood and headed up to Lummi Island to celebrate Sister Sue's 50th birthday.  We celebrated with our tribal members as well as some of Sue's other Sisters.  The weather was next level beautiful, the kids had a beach to play on and stuff to jump off of (see below):

Here are the rascals all jammied up:

And here we have OM and Kimmy lighting the candles on Sue's cake:

There's Sue, recoiling from the intense birthday candle glow:

And here she is, contemplating being 50:

It was a gorgeous night!  We had a beach fire, bien sur, stuffed the kids in the tent, talked and laughed, and then everyone went to bed.  OM and I built up the fire a bit and stayed up talking and looking at stars.  I saw Scorpio way low on the horizon and that was a treat; it's such an amazing constellation, my favorite.  It's huge and spread out and has the coolest red star in it, Antares, that looks like a RUBY, and the long curve of the tail is so pretty! 

The kids woke up at the crack of dawn, of course they did.  Therefore, so did OM and I.  I was SO tired, but the benefit of that was getting to see the sunrise.  Yay!  Sunrise over Lummi, best ever. Look:

Dance and Provencal song...yes indeedy!