Happiness Is...

Happiness is sunny sliced oranges on a winter morning followed by a hot cup of Irish Breakfast Tea, especially when said items use my favorite pottery made by my best friend :) !

What small things bring you happiness?

Fire, Lunch and Compost Pit

It was a gray but warmer October day - the perfect day for a fire in our little backyard. Mama was the master fire builder. Looks pretty good huh? Fires always remind me of camping, one of our favorite activities, which we don't do enough.

Lunch was a simple affair of goat cheese on Wasa crackers for the adults, cheddar cheese and crackers for Sam and apples.

Sam, who usually is all over the place during meals, focused on the fire, sat still and ate. Maybe we should have fires everyday?

I imagine Sam is thinking - "Is she taking my picture?"

The fire made a dramatic collapse after about 30 minutes.

Dan's project for the day was to dig a compost pit which we could put our compost bin on top of to increase it's capacity. We seem to always run out of room for our kitchen scraps mid winter, so this effort will hopefully solve the problem. I feel we still need another bin, but space is such an issue in our little backyard. We already have a shade garden, kitchen garden, raspberry patch, sandbox, playhouse, fire pit and tables and chairs. Oh ya, there is a bit of room left to play - thank goodness!

Before the hole was filled and covered, Sam had such fun getting in a out of it! All by himself no less - what a three year old!

Daddy and Sam together in the compost pit. I love this photo as it really captures the fun of the afternoon.

Dinner From the Garden

We have a small garden in our city sized yard, so it's indeed a special night when dinner is from the garden! Tonight's bounty was basil for pesto and raspberries for dessert.

My beautiful berry bowl is from my best friend Emily .

Here's our modest raspberry patch. We live in Hopkins which was known for it's many raspberry fields, but now the only raspberries growing are in our backyards.

Our beautiful basil! The smell is so heavenly.

Sam helping with the washing.

Presto Pesto!

Our cat Zooey (think J.D. Salinger) basking in the warm sun, being no help at all except making me smile!

Strawberry Picking

We went strawberry picking today for the first time. It all started with a tractor ride to the far fields (this was by far Sam's favorite part.)

Here's Dan in his row doing the actual picking. It's a little hard on such a tall guy to have to get down so low.

You really have to hunt for the berries amongst all the foliage as they like to hide.

Of course, there is lots of eating too which Sam excelled. But, if you didn't watch him he'd put his half eaten strawberries back and grab a fresh one!

Here I am holding the bounty of the day. We picked 30 lbs. by the end of our visit and ate who knows how much! Now, off to the kitchen for some baking and freezing of such summer goodness!

Shelling Peas

I stumbled upon a fun activity to do with my family the other day - shelling peas! We went to the farmer's market Saturday morning, as is our routine, and purchased some sugar snaps peas. The skins had gotten tough so I decided to shell them and just use the peas for some fried rice I planned to make. We usually sit in the park next to the market and eat our goodies, this week cookies and black raspberries, and our son Sam runs around. So, I started shelling the peas into the now empty raspberry container, Dan was helping me and then Sam stopped running, an amazing feat in itself, and joined us. We sat and finished the lot together munching on peas and chatting - truly a lovely 10 minutes! Next week I plan to buy more to freeze and can only hope to recapture the experience!