Bountiful harvest

Holy tomato!

I think I will not run out of dilly beans this year

Architectural photography

So the architect wanted pictures of the house so he could submit them for various awards.  The only problem is that we live in the silly house, and are busy people.  We didn't have art up on half the walls, the garden is a disaster because I focused on the veggie garden this year and I let the rest of it hang for this year.  There are holes where things didn't come up, other things are too big for the space I put them, all the background shrubs and trees are tiny and don't give the intended structure... all in all a disaster.  

It took me a week and a half of full time work to basically move all of our stuff (clutter in architectural terms), do some emergency garden attempts at beautification. It was so hard since 1. I was removing all trace of us, and 2. I am a biologist darn it!  I'm no interior designer!

One of the fun things had to do with the bedroom art.  We've been working on art for this room for a while.  A lot of it went up in the past month in preparation (it does look so much better now, moved in etc).  This particular wall was driving us nuts though.  Nothing really worked.  We have a particular Portland artist that we absolutely love.  Her name is Laura Buchan and she does biology inspired woodwork.  We've seen a bunch of her stuff at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, but there were two particular pieces we loved for the wall.  The museum helped us track Pennon down, but when we got it it looked funny on the wall all by itself.  Just for the heck of it I contacted Laura and asked if she wanted to come help place it in our house.  And she did!  So Laura and Eric hung our new art and we loaded her up with garden veggies in thanks.  It was very fun and Laura is a really cool gal. 

The second adventure came when we hired a cleaning crew to come help clean.  When I called to hire them, I explained the architect situation, that we need a beauty clean and that it is a big and window filled house.  i.e. I need help.  They blew me off of course, but when they showed up mid day the day before shooting, they had a panic attack (I had sent pictures that apparently no one looked at).  3 extra crews were called in, an outside window cleaner contracted... All in all is was a huge production that they tried to blame me for not informing them.  Ha.  Why does no one believe me when I say it will be a big deal?

So heres my crappy camera showing how it looked on the day of the shoot.

My friend Jordan came out to take the pics and we spent the day from 9 am to 10 pm running around opening doors and windows, closing them, moving furniture...

It was exhausting.  By the time we finished, all the restaurants were closed, so on top of everything, I made ratatouille from the garden for dinner.  I think I deserve a little rock star status for that one. weeee 

happenings

Eric's beard is so long I can braid it.  

Makings for dilly beans!

Garden dinner

DC trip

After school ended, we took a trip to Washington DC to visit a few of Eric's good friends.  

First stop was to visit Hans and Shannon.  Hans is working as chief of staff for congressman Thomas Massie.  That meant we head entirely too much about how DC actually works.  We got a tour of the capitol building from one of their staff.  Hans kept following the historical statements with snippets of truth.  Oh ouch.

Then we went to Andrew and Sidney's house.  Their son Reid hated me.  sigh.  When Andrew picked us up from Han's house, Reid was asleep in the back.  When he work a few miles later to a stranger next to him (me), this was flat out not ok and he never forgave me the entire trip.  

Pretty darn cute kid though.  It was fun (especially the moments he forgot he didn't like me)

Pretty garden

Isn't the garden getting pretty?

Persian tarragon pickles

Kirsten housewarming

Kirsten bought a house a while ago and we finally got around to giving her her house warming present.  Bulk buying of the raised bed kits we such a good deal that we bought a few extra just in case.  Which was lucky because then we had some to give to Kirsten!

Here Keith and Eric are working on setting the first one up.  I of course had just thrown my back out so I was useless, but I could take pictures!

Meet Hank

Dad's got another one!  Meet Hank.  Super cute

Summer of the pickle

So I planted lots of cucumbers but I don't eat them except in pickle form.  And they are very productive.  So, it looks like it will be the summer of the pickle!

EV and Gus: an uneasy love affair

Growing garden