Full days

Our week was packed to the very top, every ounce of fun you could possibly imagine crammed into a finite amount of hours per day.  If there only were more hours!
Right after teaching my cheese making class, Steve's old-time friend from high school arrived with his mate and four kids in a rented RV.  They brought the rain with them (after weeks and weeks of drought), which followed us to Lopez Island, where it hardly ever rains.  Alas, one of the two days we stayed there found us crammed into an RV together, huddled away from torrential rain.  What fun it was!!! You wouldn't think four adults and seven kids could have enjoyed each others' company packed into a small space like that, but we did.  The couple was lovely in so many ways, and we spent lots of hours talking, exchanging ideas, and just having fun.
On the island, we stayed with our friends Scott and Brigit, who run Sweet Grass Farm and grow the tastiest beef I ever ate.  They fed us hamburgers one night, and ribs the other, and I swear it was a religious experience!  If you have never tasted grass fed Wagyu beef, you haven't lived.  The cows were hugely pregnant and about to pop (indeed, one gave birth the day we were there, but the protective mama didn't let us get close to her calf for photo shoots).

Once back from our island getaway, lots of food needed my attention.  I harvested and froze broccoli and cauliflower.  The kids and I picked plums from  a friend's hedgerow, which I made into plum butter.  We also gathered the last raspberries of the season, which, naturally, have to be devoured with whipped cream.  Our animals greeted us more (the pigs) or less (the chickens) enthusiastically.

On Saturday, the whole family drove to Bellingham so the boys could participate at Kids' Vending Day.  They sold their Tie Dye T-shirts, bird houses and wooden spoons.  I think part of why they like going to market is not necessarily the making-money-concept, but because they go with their best buddy Alden who makes wooden walking sticks.
When we're not busy dealing with food, animals or selling stuff, we are outside.  Pond, meadow, forest - whatever we can get.  As long as the sun is shining and the garden is brimming with food, I don't much care where we are!  Ahhh, it's a good life!