life in bullet point form part two

no time for any thing but bullet point at the moment...not sure why...

- Kohlrabi. Grow it. Peel it. Roast it in small cubes. That is all. Who knew?

- Moving to the big house for the fall/winter because the (tiny)cottage is under some very creaky acacia trees and there are some crazy wind storms here in the fall.

- Studio is almost totally cleaned out and decorated. This Saturday I am going to Long and McQuade to rent equipment, and then I guess I record this thing...

- Have temporarily stopped using cookbooks in order to increase my arsenal of recipes that feature food that is totally in season and found either in my backyard, or in the backyard of my CSA farm (which happens to be across the street.) Tonight was tomato-coconut-basil tofu with sides of braised chard and beet greens, roasted kohlrabi, baby beets and zucchini and wild rice with blueberries (from the best, and best priced, organic blueberry farm ever.) Loves it.

- Grey's Anatomy comes back on September 25th. I now think about this every day, so I figured I should make a note of this on my bee-lowg. I don't care what anyone thinks. That show got me through 24 hour a day morning sickness when I was pregnant, and is now my blissful one hour to myself a week. Sometimes TWO hours! Like on September 25th! 'Til series finale do us part. 

- Books I have read so far this summer: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Pollan), Frankenstein (Mary S.W.), In Defense of Food (Pollan) and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver). 

That's it for now. Better update with photos soon.

xo.h

life in bullet point form...

Some updates on my life here in manure-topia...

- The lettuce glut has finally come to a close, and we are now able to eat just one big salad a day rather than trying to figure out how to include lettuce as "a part of your complete breakfast."

- Now is the season of (from our farm) continued chard and kale, little spicy yellow peppers that are coming in before all the other peppers, basil, cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, cherry plums by the dozens falling from the sky, beet greens, chives, early blackberries, etc.

- Right now there are also cute little versions of what will be future eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, all the squash, tomatoes, artichokes, red runner beans, and many more etceteras. I should have bought a deep freeze when I moved here. Next year...

- Something sad. A mother rabbit unfortunately decided one night to build her nest and have her babies in the middle of our strawberry patch which has just come into berries again, and is routinely visited by all manner of probably predatory small mammals and birds. Anyway, one morning my mom and her friend discovered that three of the babies had been killed, one rather brutally, by some sort of small animal -- at the time my mom did not know if these were rabbits or mice or what, but she buried the three and her friend brought the two others to the wildlife society here in Langley where they said they were indeed baby rabbits and that they were both hypothermic (from the cold night uncovered in the nest) and lethargic (from being exposed to 30 plus degree direct sunlight the whole morning before they were found.) The prognosis was not good, but we are going to check in to see if either of them survive. 

- There have been two bear attacks in two days in Burnaby. Freaky. One happened in someone's front yard, and one happened in someone's basement. I have just come into some bear spray in the form of a pen. "Excuse me Mr. Bear, before you eat me, do you think I could have your autogr...ZOINK!!!" 

- This is the part where I say the record is coming along, except what I have to say actually is that it is written, as it has been for a year, and that I am going to be recording it on mostly rented equipment in a garage that I am "turning into a studio" -- the quotation marks are for indicating that in fact I am mostly just picking peas and arranging parts in my head these days. More to come on this. I say this so I feel pressured to actually work. Whoever thought deciding to make a record in the summer was an idiot. Oh wait, that was me...

- Kai is becoming a total beach bum. He even has spiky hair and he's kind of salty tasting.

That's all for now. 

Please send me record making vibes. 

Love H

 

Play Your Chards Right!

Pictured directly above is a big bunch of Bright Lights Swiss Chard that I pulled from the vegetable garden that my mom, my husband Adam, myself and some brown bunnies have been tending to. Also ready for harvest are red and green lettuce, snap peas, strawberries, mustard greens, mesculun mix and the first blueberries of the year. The salad (pictured at the top) featured everything mentioned above, and definitely tasted as good as it looks! Hooray for eating as local as it gets!

xo.h

...and the envelope says...

So here is the short list for the Polaris. I was right about Basia and Plants and Animals, wrong about Hayden, unfortunately. Anyway, that's that. I'll have to listen to the records and see who I want to root for now...

The Polaris Prize

I just read the long list for this year's Polaris Prize, and it definitely made it clear to me how out of touch I am with the music scene this year! From the entire list, the only albums I have in my collection are The New Pornographers - Challengers, Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors and Hayden - In Field and Town! I am going to be a nerd, though, and still attempt to predict, based on just being around people, listening to the music on CBC3 podcasts and reading blogs and weeklies, who I think may make the short list when it is announced tomorrow.

Here is my very uneducated guess...

Basia Bulat

Socalled

Hayden

Plants and Animals

Corb Lund

So I guess we will see. Do I get anything if I am right? 3/5?

p.s. Keep in mind that the above list represents who I think will get nominated. As for who I think should get nominated, I haven't listened to enough artists on the longlist to say for sure. Hayden is probably who I will be rooting for, though, as I think he is a careful, lovely and painfully underlauded genius. 

xo.h

Bolt from the Blue.

The farm was rocked last night by one of the craziest thunderstorms in recent memory. 

I noticed that the lightning was mostly sheet lightning, as I find it tends to be here in B.C. as opposed to Ontario, where I found that bolt lightning was the norm. I always thought that these were two different types of lightning that occured more often in some places than others. 

Then I found out by searching online that sheet lightning is just a lightning bolt that is hidden by clouds.

I'm an idiot.

Anyway, if you go to this Wikipedia page on lightning, there is a very cool animated picture of cloud-to-cloud lightning which IS different, and which I have only seen once that I can remember, in Dallas, Texas. The page also has pretty much everything else you would ever want to know about lightning, unless you are some really lightning obsessed UFO weirdo or something, then you may want to look further.

xo.h

This Much Closer to The Martha.

My Mom has the most crazy-assed collection of Martha Stewart Living magazines you have ever seen.

I would venture to say that she probably has, in mint condition, every single one she has ever put out. 

There are several massive cupboards dedicated just to housing them.

This has been a major score for me because I love The Martha.

While reading a copy of MSL from the 90s, I happened upon an article about The M's massive McCoy pottery collection, mostly of the Butterfly line from the 30s and 40s. I instantly fell in love with the pieces, and vowed to begin collecting it myself.

I walked into the Village Antique Market in Fort Langley, yesterday, hopeful but not too hopeful about finding any McCoy at all, let alone a piece from the line I was looking for. While not too expensive these days, McCoy pieces are highly prized by their owners (especially since their popularity with the late Andy Warhol) and are not easily found.

But what did I find at the very  bottom of a shelf full of chintz, teacups and mini embriodered hoops? A canary yellow McCoy planter from the butterfly line in almost mint condition...for twenty bucks! (PICTURE FORTHCOMING...)

Wait...it gets better.

I got home and decided for fun to see if The M had a similar one to mine on her big shelf of McCoy, and she has THE EXACT SAME ONE!! That makes us BFFs, right?

I am toying with the idea of just trying to collect the ones that she has. That's not creepy, is it?

xo.h