Articles by Colleen

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Getting Fancy

Good Wednesday to you, dear reader! How about the zoodle ramen above? It was pretty and damn tasty. The jalapeno was one of the hottest we’d come across in quite some time; neither Greg or I could eat the very few slices in our bowl. Yikes!

Time for a pack nap. Sooo cute!

Still beautiful in our neck of the woods…

One of my first memories as a child is the sound of the percolator at my grandparents house and the smell of coffee wafting to the guest room. I’d hop out of bed and pad down the hall to the thrill of Grandpa’s whistling. There in the kitchen, he’d be moving to an age-old dance, to and fro, to and fro, in slippers, old school jammies, and a robe.

From a very young age, I’d get to have a cup – a very pretty teacup, white painted with delicate pink roses. He’d fill it three-quarters with cream, add a tiny spoon of sugar, and top it off with coffee. Then we’d head wordlessly to the patio, where I’d snuggle next to him while he read the paper, puffed his pipe, and, of course, sipped his adult version, minus the sugar.

When Greg and I started dating, he did not like coffee. At our first outing to Paris on the Platte, as I knew he had always been a chocolate person, I convinced him to try a mocha – chocolate and a tower of whipped cream just the right combination to set him on the path to coffee nirvana. It worked! Before long, the pair of us were grabbing coffees at the the businesses popping up everywhere. Mochas, cappuccinos, black, with cream!

It should come as no surprise, on the occasion of our 50th birthdays, we decided to splurge on an espresso machine! After nearly three months on back order, it arrived, and we’ve been enjoying learning the ins and outs for the past few days. The coffee is delicious, amazingly so, and takes me right back to my very magical first espresso on my 16th birthday and all the other heady coffee house days since.

Our next project is to master latte art! Cheers to that…

Our girl looking VERY serious!

fennel + spinach soup

ground cherries

green chile pork burger

neighborhood crab apple

socca + whipped yogurt and feta + homegrown cayenne & tomatoes (the color!)

Grandma’s rosehips

kung pao chicken + vegetables

Mid-September! It creeped so stealthily in, a sudden call for blankets in the inky black of night and sweatshirts and jackets in the low slant of morning. Cool, cool. Days are all over the place, pleasant or blasting heat, the patter of rain on concrete. All beautiful.

As is often the case, I canned three batches of deliciousness over the course of twenty-four hours, Grandma’s rosehip + apple jelly, apple butter, and rhubarb jam. My legs were wobbly from all the standing and stirring, stirring, with the house a heady terrarium of sweet scented steam. The results are glorious and delicious, especially the rhubarb. I used the last stringy stalks, macerating them overnight in sugar in hopes of softening them up. There was a LOT of green, so I added a handful of frozen cherries to pretty them up, and boy, what a fabulous jam. But alas, no pictures! Gotta turn up the imagination dial, dear reader.

We are still enjoying our Weight Watchers adventure, losing weight, learning, and questioning. Greg comments on how much more he is laughing. Me? How much less I am belching. All good. I keep adapting recipes to match points and do what I can to add MORE vegetables to our life. Steady as she goes….

Trust

Trust: the fruit of the work you are doing will grow in its time.

Morgan Harper Nichols

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Gives

Hope gives us something to do when we are afraid of what might happen.

Karen Casey

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Farmer Greg + tomato + kohlrabi
pork shoulder steak + spiralized zucchini & carrot + veg galore + peanut dressing
Uncle Lyle + Aunt Bev, with L O V E

The front garden gives and gives

Who goes there?
Raccoon methinks
B a l l o o n s ! !

Mud! Juniper’s toes! My Maine Coone socks! Hello Paris…

blue tepary
scarlet runner beans: one and all
S I X pounds of prickly pears wild harvested and processed!

Home grown tiny canteloupe…flip fantasia
With a sincere nod to US3’s FAB song!

poblano
fennel + chicory + ground cherry + kohlrabi + tomato
tomato
big + little
harvest
Breakfast “Ramen” – zoodles + egg + bacon + jack cheese + green chile + chicken broth
pico de gallo with our own tomatoes and cayenne pepper – huzzah!

Good Tuesday to you, dear reader! What eye candy here today, and what luck to find it all in front of my lens.

From the top: the garden is going like gangbusters, with super delicious ripening tomatoes, of a variety we cannot remember, drat. The kohlrabi hollering go big or go home!

After struggling a bit with the middle age S P R E A D, Greg and I joined Weight Watchers. It’s been a few weeks, and though the pounds aren’t exactly flying off (damn slowing metabolism!), we are losing weight and feeling truly great. It is actually FUN, and we are enjoying the challenge. I am spiralizing like a mad woman: zucchini, carrots, butternut squash!

We visited Bev + Lyle’s graves weekend before last for the very first time. Her colorful personality called for a rainbow of roses. We’ve had more death in the family, and I’ve felt a little heavy about it, truth be told. I pore over pictures and replay Super-8 style memories while pondering the gossamer connections of blood kin and my chosen family, each binding me to the wider world. Like planting small seeds of comfort that will one day bear beautiful fruit.

In a super cookbook from the library, Living Within the Wild, I found the recipe for Breakfast Ramen. Theirs uses actual ramen, which is NOT worth my points on WW, so of course I zoodled! It also calls for nori rather than green chile, but come on, green chile was made for this dish! I will definitely be making it again.

This past weekend was the Balloon Festival, and we awoke early Saturday to wade through giant puddles and trudge the mud of two evening’s blessed rains: all to watch the launch from our favorite perch on high. The mist veiled hills a bonus gift for our labors. Every year we expect a crowd in our viewing spot, and every year we are gratefully spared, reveling in our own good luck AND company to watch each wonder of gravity rise and rise and rise.

It is prickly pear season, at last, at last. I cannot believe my good luck at finding the local patches of beautiful fruit, waiting to be turned into wonderful juice. The spiny jabs worth it in the end.

More glory in the garden as the harvest gets to go, go, going. We experimented with cantaloupe! While it is among the best we’ve ever tasted, it is not nearly worth the water or labor for the three adorable fruits produced. The ground cherries, peppers, beans, zucchini, and tomatoes are quite a different story. The blue tepary and scarlet runners an excellent introduction to beans for drying, so we will plant much more next year, taking out the strawberry plants that do so very little. How life presents a body with ample opportunities to learn!

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