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Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these haunting images)

• I adore this pocket planner – the design, the size – adorable!
• This picture is just about the sweetest thing.  A groom seeing his bride for the first time on their wedding day.  Try not to tear up yourself.  From Michelle Newell Photography.
• Speaking of wedding – love these earrings from the JCrew bridal collection.  I don't think they should be for brides only though.  Maybe aged marrieds would like them too.
• The Besotted Brand shop is open!  I swear I'm not on her payroll – I just love her design esthetic.
• Touching story of female prisoners at Terezin, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, documenting their family recipes in order to preserve them: In Memory's Kitchen.

This has been a grueling work week.  12 hour days, day after day.  I am so happy the weekend is here and we are having house guests!  I plan of just relaxing and enjoying every minute of it.

Have a fabulous weekend!

I thought we were about due for a chicken post.  Haven't done one of those in a while.  

I noticed something interesting today.  I was looking at the eggs in our refrigerator and while I can't tell the Rhode Island Reds' eggs apart I can very definitely tell which ones Grace, the Buff Cochin has laid.  Her eggs have a shell that is a lighter color and rougher texture than the other eggs and they are bigger and pointier.  The Red lay an egg that is a rosy brown color and smooth and almost shiny.  

Well I was counting the eggs in the fridge and we have 20 of them. And 8 of them were laid by Grace.  We pretty much eat the older eggs first so you can figure we are eating them in the order they were laid.  Which means Grace is laying at twice the pace of her red headed sisters.  Eight of her eggs and twelve divided up between the other three chickens.

Slackers.

We are thinking that we will get two more chicks next Spring.  Not sure what type yet.  I kind of want Ameraucanas so we have blue/green eggs but I don't know much about their temperment.

We have settled into a routine with them.  We let them out of their run just about every day (weather permitting) for a few hours.  We can't leave them out unsupervised for too long because we have had coyotes and the occassional stray dog come on the property.  So we only let them out when we can keep an eye on them.  

Doing the weekly coop chores takes less than half an hour.  We clean out the dirty wood shavings from their coop and rake out the run. Wash and refill their waterer (more often in hot weather) and refill the feeder.  About every six months we do a deep scrub down with bleachy water.  

Along with their laying crumble and whatever bugs and greenery they forage on their own, Rick gives them a treat of fresh fruit or veggies every morning – zucchini, tomatoes, kale, oranges (which we stopped because we heard too much citric acid isn't good for shell production), apples – whatever we have on hand.   

They sure have been a lot of fun and I've never once felt like they were too much work.  They are just so fun to watch and they are so personable and friendly.  

 

Happy Monday.  I'm actually feeling rather exhausted from my weekend and would like a day or three to recuperate.

I was down at my Dad's this weekend (since Thursday) and took advantage of the local farmer's market.  For some reason I've never really gotten into the routine of going to a Farmer's market up where we live.  For one – I find the Bay Area ones to be superior.  I think most of the local farmers in my area actually go down to the Bay Area and participate in the ones down there. 

I should investigate this further….

Anyway, since I was here on Saturday two of my sisters and I met up on Saturday morning and walked to one of the local Farmer's Market.  It wasn't that large, in number of vendors, but they did have a good variety of goods.

 

Gosh I love Dahlias.  I need to grow my own. 

I ended up getting corn, tomatoes, basil, peppers, fresh baked pitas, honey and beeswax hand cream. 

The best thing about Farmer's Markets, in my opinion, is getting to talk with the vendors about their products.  They are, almost without exception, very passionate about it. 

Whenever you go to a FM (okay I'm tired of typing out Farmer's Market so we are going to employ acronyms from here on out in this post…) there will be the central casting vendors with a huge display of perfect looking tomatoes, pyramids of carrots, the glossiest peppers – and there will be a huge crowd buying up the product. 

I tend to walk right past those and head for the booth with no customers.

Stop and talk with the vendors the have a small table, with one or two products.  This is where you will find someone that is so happy to share with you the history behind what they are selling, their philosophy on raising what ever it is they are selling – ways to prepare or use their product.  To me this is the real benefit of a FM. 

I am lucky in that I have great access to fabulous produce year round.  But the local market that is selling it to me is a middle man.  They don't know that the peppers in this pile are much sweeter than the ones in the other pile and the reasons why. 

Or that the honey purveyor's husband was off removing a swarm of bees from someone's attic and that those bees would be brought to their farm and become part of their operation. 

 

To me it makes the honey sweeter when I know the people and the story behind it. 

On Saturday I made stuffed peppers and corn on the cob.  On Sunday I made a caprese salad with the tomatoes and basil.  We also had cornbread and drizzled honey on it. 

The peppers were fabulous.  They were Corno di Toro peppers.  They are very similar to bell peppers but they are sweeter.  The shape is different too – they are long and slightly curved.  When I make stuffed peppers I like to split them vertically (if the stem is at the top).  Then I just make a simple stuffing of sauteed shallots, sweet Italian sausage (turkey or chicken since I don't eat pork), rice, cheddar cheese, salt & pepper to taste.  And I only use yellow, orange or red peppers – I don't like the green ones (for anything actually).

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and that you got to eat fabulous, fresh food.