Man, I meant to write about last weekend sooner, but it got so hot this past week, and I couldn't bear to have my laptop on my lap. But now, with the sun down and the fan aimed at me, I think I can manage.

We've been doing all sorts of fun summer activities lately (I suppose this includes our four nights of porch camping last week, but that was more out of necessity because our bedroom was too hot to sleep in). Last Saturday, after a haircut and a quick visit to the PSU farmers' market for one last box of pie cherries before the season ended, I headed back to SE Portland to catch the Division/Clinton neighborhood parade, which was held as part of the annual street fair.

It was a pretty short parade, but it was fun to watch. The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers was at the front of the parade and totally made me want to take up drumming. They were followed by an assortment of people in cars, on bikes, and on foot. I especially liked the fish bike!

Next, we had an excellent lunch at Little T, chatted with Susan and Andrew for a bit, and then walked up Division to check out the rest of the street fair.

The highlight of the fair, for me, were the snow cones. I'd been looking forward to them all morning, and they did not disappoint.

Maybe it was just the hot, hot day, but we weren't that impressed by the street fair in general. There just didn't seem to be much going on compared to the Hawthorne Street Fair (Patrick pointed out that Division has a lower concentration of businesses, so that makes sense). We did have some good ice cream at Pix's ice cream social, but it was super crowded and frantic, and at that point, we just wanted to go home. Next year we'll probably stick to the parade and maybe get some snow cones, and that'll do it.

The Tour de Coops was the same day, and we decided that instead of running around town trying to see everything, we'd just visit a couple of the coops along Division after we checked out the street fair. I convinced Patrick that we should walk to the coops, which were around 70th and Division. In retrospect, it wasn't a great decision--walking 50 blocks in the heat was unpleasant. At least we were smart enough to take the bus back!

We did get to see a few good coops. This Old Dutch style coop was my favorite.

When we bought our Tour de Coops booklet, we also purchased a few raffle tickets, and we were lucky enough to win a fully assembled Garden Ark! Here's one just like it in the designer's backyard, which was part of the tour.

It's a really beautiful coop, but we're not totally sure we'll keep it. We kind of wanted to build our own coop. But it's pretty handy to have a coop ready to go in our garage! It makes it more likely that we'll actually get chickens in the spring, rather than saying we will and then putting it off because we don't have a coop built.

Later on Saturday, we biked over to Meat Cheese Bread, picked up some sandwiches, and headed over to Colonel Summers Park to watch Dirty Dancing (part of the Movies in the Park series). It was great--we had our little sandwich picnic beforehand, plus some free popcorn, and Patrick biked over to Whiffies when they opened and brought us back some fried pies, which were awesome. I had a double chocolate creme pie, and Patrick had the first lemon creme pie ever dispensed from the cart. Cool!

The movie started when the sun went down, and everybody had a good time, cheering on Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. It was so nice to hang out on our picnic blanket in the cool evening air--just a great way to spend a few hours. Afterwards, we rode our bikes home in the dark, which, I've recently decided, is one of my favorite summertime activities in Portland.

On Sunday, we had a great run along the Eastbank Esplanade before it got too hot (we're up to 54 minutes of running without stopping, as part of the One Hour Runner program--and I'm actually enjoying it). And then I made jam!

During rhubarb season, I'd frozen a few cups of chopped rhubarb so that I could make bluebarb jam when it was blueberry time (how could I resist, with such a clever name?). It turned out pretty well, though I'm not sure that I like rhubarb in jam all that much. But the jam is still plenty nice on toast.

In the afternoon, we headed up to North Portland to see Trek in the Park, a live reenactment of an episode of Star Trek. We're not that into Star Trek, but we really enjoyed it. The actors were great, and the production paid good attention to detail (like having the appropriate sound effects when the imaginary doors opened and closed). I'd definitely go back again if they put on another production.

And then there was a heatwave, and we had no air conditioning, and it pretty much sucked. I spent some time working from the basement, since my office is on the second floor of our house, but our basement smelled funny (Patrick thinks this was because of a dry drain trap). Anyway, we made it, and things have cooled down a little now. Phew!

We spent a good chunk of time yesterday getting our new chicken coop home (we had to rent a pickup truck, since it was too big for our car), which was kind of stressful, since we had to deal with U-haul. But we redeemed the day by biking over to Laurelhurst Theatre to see the new Star Trek movie (this much Star Trek in the span of a few weeks is unheard of for us!), which was fun. We followed it up with a late dinner at Laurelhurst Market, a new restaurant and butcher shop started by Simpatica's founder. I wasn't in the mood for a big piece of meat, so I ordered a few appetizers/sides instead--gazpacho with crab; grilled green beans with pancetta; and peaches with prosciutto and pistachios.

Everything was so good, and I really liked the service and overall atmosphere. I'd definitely like to go there again, but I'm not sure how often we'll get back, since Screen Door is also in the neighborhood. I sure do love Screen Door!

We enjoyed another late night bike ride last night, and another early morning run along the waterfront today. I haven't been a fan of the super sunny, hot days lately, but I'm loving the nights and mornings right now--the air is the perfect temperature and such a welcome relief from our too-warm house. Speaking of which, it's time for bed! I think we'll try sleeping in the dining room tonight--a good compromise between our bedroom (too hot) and the porch (too many bug bites). The only other option is the basement, but it most certainly has a higher concentration of spiders than our porch does.

Last weekend, Star and I participated in the Stumptown Challenge, a Portland-centric scavenger hunt run. We were hoping to win the second-place prize: a year's worth of Dave's Killer Bread (which is the best bread ever!).

We were given clues describing 12 Portland locations, and we had to solve the clues and take pictures of ourselves at 11 of the 12 locations, traveling only by foot or public transportation. The three teams that returned to the starting point fastest won. We were allowed to use the Internet and/or phone a friend to help solve the clues. There was also a brief Portland-related quiz before the race, and correct quiz answers improved a team's total time.

We did pretty well on the quiz (thanks to a close reading of the Portland Wikipedia page the night before), and with Patrick's help we were able to solve all of our location clues correctly. We brought Patrick's iPhone along, and it came it very handy--we used it to see when the next bus/MAX/streetcar was coming, so we could decide whether to wait for it or run to the next destination. Our main weakness was that we tired quickly and weren't able to run the whole time, but I don't feel bad about that. It was a hot day, and a good portion of the running was uphill. I can run for long(ish) periods of time when it's a nice cool morning in Ladd's Addition, but in a race setting I run too fast and use up all my energy right away. I should work on that.

We were given half of the clues to start, and then we had to go to a check-in point to get the remaining clues. The first six clues were all in the Pearl district, so we ran between most of the locations, but then the second six clues took us to North Portland, so we had to take the MAX/bus to get there. Waiting for the MAX was tough, because we kept wondering if it would have been faster to take the bus (turns out it would have taken about the same amount of time).

When the race started, I was hopeful that we could win, but at the halfway point we found out that 20 teams had gotten there before us, and I think that discouraged us a little. But we persevered, and we ended up coming in 18th out of 71 teams, which I'm really happy about! And even though we didn't win the bread, we did get our very own Dave's Killer Bread magnets, which is almost as good!

Click here for the clues and unflattering pictures of us at each location. I definitely need to work on my self-portrait skills. The photo below (taken in Overlook Park) is my favorite bad picture of us.

I'm really glad we decided to do the Stumptown Challenge. It was lots of fun, and I hope to do it again next year!

P.S. In case you were wondering about the logistics of getting a year's supply of bread (we sure were!), here's the scoop: Each member of the 2nd place team received a punch card good for 52 loaves of bread. They have to go to the Dave's Killer Bread store (in Milwaukie, which is just south of Portland) to pick up the bread, and they can pick up four loaves at a time. It's a good thing their bread freezes well!

P.P.S. Later that day, Patrick and I went to see The Decemberists play (along with Blind Pilot and Andrew Bird) at McMenamins Edgefield, and it was possibly the best concert I've been to. It wasn't just the music (the Decemberists are always great), but the setting was perfect--a warm summer evening, sitting in a clearing watching the sunset while listening to music we love. Not only that--Patrick brought me an ice cream cone, and there was a cute baby wearing too-big hot pink protective ear muffs. After the concert, it took forever to get out of the parking lot, so the people in the car next to us cranked up their Decemberists CD, got out of the car, and danced, and a bunch more people came over and formed a big happy drunken dancing circle (we are not dancing circle enthusiasts, so we stayed in our car and watched from a safe distance). It was just an all-around good night.

Note to self: Bread and Ink has totally awesome ketchup!

We went there for pre-trivia dinner about a month ago, and I was totally impressed by their ketchup (I think I said, "Is this what ketchup used to taste like? I feel bad for all other ketchups!"), and then I promptly forgot about it. The memory of that ketchup came back to me a few days ago, but I couldn't remember where I'd had it. Luckily, Patrick helped me remember just now. I'm making an entry about it so I won't forget again.

The other praise-worthy feature of Bread and Ink (that I know of) is their Waffle Window, but I've already written about that. Hooray for excellent neighborhood restaurants!

While I'm writing, I wanted to make note of two upcoming Portland events that I'm super excited about:

• Tour de Coops: We narrowly missed this last year, and I've been waiting patiently for it to come around again. And now it's only a week away! I'm excited to see all sorts of cool local chicken coops (hopefully they'll give us some inspiration for our potential coop), plus they're raffling off one of those awesome Airstream-trailer-style coops by John Wright. I would so love to win that!

• Portland Pie-Off: Thanks to Sarah for the tip-off on this one! We were vaguely aware of this last year, but it was the week after we moved here, so it didn't seem like the best time to bake a pie. But this year I'm definitely considering entering. I'm particularly intrigued by the C.P.R. pie category. I love a good baking challenge!

Wow, I guess this means we've lived here for almost a year now. It has been so great so far--everything I'd hoped it would be. Thank you, Portland :)

We made a quick trip to Seattle the weekend before last so that Patrick could do the Seattle to Portland bike ride for the third time, along with Andrew and Jon. I came along to help get the car back to Portland, plus I wanted one of the best cupcakes around!

Patrick, Andrew, and I drove up from Portland on Friday. We stopped in Olympia for lunch at the Fifth Avenue Sandwich Shop and dessert at Boston Harbor Pies. In retrospect, perhaps we should have skipped the pie since we had cupcakes in our future, but there's no way I can walk by a pie shop and not stop in to try some!

Once in Seattle, we made a beeline for Cupcake Royale (luckily, Jon lives in Ballard, so we were only a short walk away). Yum, yum! After digesting a little, we went to the Hi-Life for dinner. We made a last-minute Safeway trip for safety pins, and then we turned in for the night.

Early the next morning (early enough to catch a beautiful sunrise!), I drove everybody's bags over the starting line, wished them well, and then headed over to a little park in Ballard to pass the time until the U-District farmers' market opened.

I hunkered down in the outdoor living room at the park and read A Homemade Life, which seemed appropriate since Molly lives in Seattle. I've been reading Orangette for a few years, and I was excited to check out her new book. It didn't disappoint--it was funny and interesting and honest--plus I want to try all of the recipes in it!

After a pleasant hour of reading, I drove over to the farmers' market in search of pie cherries (short season, have to make the most of it!). Happily, I found one stand selling them, so I bought 2 pounds, along with a few early apricots, sour cherry jam, and some locally grown rice pilaf mix.

The cherries went into a cobbler the next day. I used the recipe in Baking Illustrated (also available here for CI subscribers), and it turned out okay, but I didn't like it as much as my first cobbler. This one was too grown-up tasting for me, what with the red wine and spices. But I'm sure many people would like this version better than a more traditional cobbler.

I considered sticking around Seattle for a few more hours, since my to-visit list is pretty long, but I was more in the mood to hang out at home in Portland and relax. So I headed back, stopping for lunch in Olympia. I stopped at the Bread Peddler, where I had an awesome morning roll (croissant dough rolled around a butter/sugar filling), rhubarb lemonade, and a wheat berry salad. What a great place!

I took my lemonade down to the water and then took a walk around the farmers' market (it runs 4 days a week!). Mindful of the farmers' market produce already in the car, I only picked up one thing--a mason bee house. I've been wanting to make one of these, and although this would be super easy to make ourselves, this is the kind of thing that would take us years to get around to making (our project list is far too long already). So now I just need to hang it in our backyard and see if any bees move in! Mason bees don't make honey, so this is just meant to provide a home for some friendly neighborhood pollinators--minimal maintenance required, and no bee suit necessary.

And then I drove the rest of the way to Portland, where I was greeted by a very relieved kitty (I wish there was a way of telling her that we're not abandoning her and that I'll be back tomorrow so that she doesn't feel obliged to ration her dry food). The next day, I met up with Patrick, Andrew, and Jon at the StP finish line in Portland. From what I hear, the ride went well. I'm totally impressed and proud that they were able to ride 200 miles in 2 days. Patrick even mentioned trying to do the ride in one day next year. Crazy talk!

More knitting completed! A while ago, I bought a skein of laceweight yarn to make some crocheted edging for a dishtowel, but that project didn't work out, so I used the yarn to knit a Swallowtail Shawl instead.

This was my first lace knitting project. There are a few obvious mistakes if you look closely, but I'm still happy with the finished product. I used Eunny's blocking tutorial, and it worked great!

I'm not sure if I'm meant to be a lace knitter, since it requires more concentration than I can usually muster while watching TV shows. But I like the end result, and it's nice to be able to make something so nice out of just a skein of yarn. Patches likes it too!

Now I just need to incorporate this shawl into my wardrobe. I haven't been much of a shawl-wearer up to this point.

(Also on Ravelry)

Patrick's family was in town this past weekend, so on the fourth of July we hosted a barbecue and then went to see the fireworks on the SE waterfront (it was very crowded, so next year we'll probably try watching from our house instead). We went to the PSU farmers' market that morning and bought supplies for dinner. I was super excited to find Montmorency sour cherries at two stands, and I bought a few pounds to make a sour cherry cobbler for dessert.

My joy was somewhat dampened by the discovery that somebody had stolen my third anniversary bike seat while we were shopping at the market. That's disappointing. But at least I still have the rest of my bike. I took the bus home, Patrick drove back and picked up my bike, and he put my old bike seat on it tonight. Not the worst thing in the world. Plus I had those pie cherries to cheer me up!

I didn't have a cherry pitter, so I used a drinking straw, which worked really well (though it worked less well when I pitted sweet cherries the next day--I wonder if sour cherries are freestone and sweet cherries aren't). I made the sour cherry cobbler from Rustic Fruit Desserts (a winner of a cookbook so far!), and it was well received. I enjoyed it a lot--full of cherry flavor, and not too sweet. I'm hoping to find more pie cherries in weeks to come, but it sounds like they're pretty elusive. I'm just glad I found them at least once this summer!

For the pre-dessert portion of our meal, Patrick grilled some red snapper from the market and topped it with an avocado-strawberry salsa. We had veggie kabobs, pesto potato salad, and green salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, and Tracy's balsamic vinaigrette. The green salad was actually the best of the sides, probably because the lettuce and beets were straight from the garden. Yum! The potato salad was good, but it wasn't amazing (maybe I didn't add enough olive oil?). My quest for the perfect potato salad continues.

In my excitement at being surrounded by Pacific NW berries at the market, I overbought, plus I had leftover heavy cream from the cobbler, so I ended up making a second cobbler the next day. This one was based very loosely on the blueberry cobbler with cornmeal biscuits recipe from Rustic Fruit Desserts, but instead of blueberries I used raspberries, blackberries, and sweet cherries, and instead of lemon juice I used lime juice. Despite all of the reckless substitutions, it turned out well, but the sour cherry cobbler was definitely the winner this weekend.

And speaking of baked fruit desserts, I forgot to mention that after the First Thursday run, we stopped by the newly opened Stone Pie Joe's on NW 23rd to check out their mini pie selection. I was intrigued by the spicy clam pies (such an unorthodox pie offering!), but we went with the blueberry pie instead, since we'd already had dinner. It wasn't the best pie I've ever eaten, but it was good, and I'm sure I'll want to stop in again next time we're in that quadrant. Mini pies are a winning idea!

I'll leave you with a couple more pictures from around our garden. First up are two pictures of our cover crop, which ended up making pretty flowers, much to our surprise. Soon we'll be digging it under so we can plant our winter garden--parsnips and kale, among other things!

And here are our beets and lettuce patch, going strong! They didn't much like the heat wave this weekend, so I think we'd better eat them soon. Pulling big fat beets out of the ground is so much fun! It reminds me of pulling radishes in Super Mario Brothers.

Part of our small red currant harvest this year. Now that I know what the currant bush is, I'll treat it better next year, and hopefully we'll get enough currants to make jam!

We had another guest over the long weekend--Susan found this excellent bouncy horse on the curb a few blocks from us, with a Free sign on it. So lucky! She wasn't able to take it home because she was busy wrangling Pearl at the time, so we stashed it in our side yard for a few days. Now that it's at Susan's house, we kind of miss it! It was such a cute addition to the yard. But I know Pearl will get more use and enjoyment out of it than we would :) Besides, Patches was suspicious of the horse...

Hey look, I sewed something! It has been a while since that happened...

When I saw Betz White's shirred pillowcase top tutorial on the CRAFT blog, I knew I wanted to try making one for myself, so I started keeping an eye out for cool old pillowcases. A few weeks later I found a great one for $2 at House of Vintage on Hawthorne. There were 2 of them for sale, but I decided to buy only 1 and leave the other for somebody else to find and get excited about!

Patrick graciously picked up some elastic thread at Cool Cottons, and I sewed this top over the course of a few hours during the long weekend. This was my first time working with elastic thread, and I was really pleased with the results. It's not scary at all!

I wanted to preserve the cute lace eyelet trim along the bottom of the pillowcase, so I ended up following the S/M directions, even though I was closer to the M/L measurements. Luckily, it fit me just fine. My only complaint is that the straps ended up a bit loose and tend to fall down unless they're secured to something, so if I do it again, I'll need to pay more attention during the safety pinning step.

Adding in the cost of the thread, this top probably cost me around $3, and it was super easy to make. I'm so pleased with how it turned out!

Yesterday afternoon, Patrick, Star, and I did the First Thursday Run despite the 90-degree weather. This is a monthly event, where they unveil a map of participating local businesses 5 minutes before the run starts, and then you run to as many businesses as possible within an hour and get raffle tickets from each. When the hour is over, they draw tickets and give away prizes from the participating businesses.

We didn't bring water along with us because we figured there would be drinking fountains along the way, but of course the route we chose had no drinking fountains. Oh, it was unpleasant. If we do it again, we'll bring a pre-printed map of the area with the locations of all Benson Bubblers marked on it.

Despite the heat and lack of water, we put on a decent showing and each got 6 tickets (from Title Nine, the National Guard, Lulu Lemon, Blush Beauty Bar, Santa Fe Taqueria, and Cafe Reese). Patrick was unfazed by the lack of water and ran up to Food Front for a seventh ticket while Star and I walked back to the finishing point, where there was glorious cold water! Hooray!

After getting rehydrated, Patrick and I split a big, melty maple bar donut from Coco Donuts, which actually tasted pretty good despite seeming like the thing you would least want to eat after a run in such hot weather. Patrick also ate a big donut before the run without any ill effects. He's crazy!

Patrick and I didn't win anything during the raffle, but Star won a card for a dozen free donuts! It was very exciting :)

Star and I also signed up for the Stumptown Challenge, which I'm looking forward to! I hadn't heard about it before yesterday, but it looks like it's some sort of crazy Portland-centric scavenger hunt run. The second place prize is a year's worth of Dave's Killer Bread, which is the best bread ever! That's an excellent prize!

Sadly, we didn't take any pictures at the First Thursday run, but there will most certainly be pictures from the Stumptown Challenge!

I spent the past week in California for work and took a few days to visit my mom, grandma, and aunts while I was in the area (it's always so much fun when they all get together!). Now I'm back home in Portland and trying to get back into my normal routine. Our garden grew so much while I was gone! Patrick valiantly ate salads every day, but he's only one man. We need to step up our lettuce, beet, and chard consumption before things get really out of hand!

While I'm catching up, here are two recently purchased outfits. I like the idea of wearing dresses and tunics with leggings this summer. It's a good combination of cuteness and practicality (this way I can still ride my bike).

These are from two of my favorite clothing stores in Portland. The first one is from Mink (leggings from American Apparel next door). I love going to Mink--everybody who works there is friendly and enthusiastic! They seem genuinely interested in helping me find clothes that I will love.

And the second top is from the newly opened Makool Loves You shop in the Ford Building (at SE Division and 11th). Anisa makes such cool clothes, and they're very reasonably priced considering that they're handmade. This shirtdress is a little bit hipper than what I normally wear, but I like it--the plaid is so happy, and the wooden button accents are great (she adds all sorts of cute embellishments to her clothes).

Added bonus: both of these tops have pockets! If I can find the time, I want to sew a few more shirtdresses, but I'm not sure if it'll happen this summer, given all the other things I want to do.

P.S. Sleeping on the porch in the summertime is great! I did it this weekend at my mom's house in California, and it was so nice to be out under the stars. I'm hoping to do some more porch-camping (or backyard camping) at home this summer. Ooh, and go berry picking and make jam and go see movies in the park! I'm excited for summer :)

Portland must be rubbing off on me, because this past weekend, I went camping and ran a 5k, and I enjoyed it! When we finished our first 5k, I searched for more upcoming events on active.com, and the Ocean's Edge run in Lincoln City sounded nice. Patrick had been angling for a camping trip for a while, and it just so happened that his new camping book recommended a campsite that was only a few miles from Lincoln City.

And so it was that on Friday, we drove out to Beverly Beach State Park. We got there after dark, set up our tent, and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up to rain, but luckily the tent kept us dry. I didn't feel particularly inspired to run a 5k in the rain, but we headed out to Lincoln City anyway.

It was cold and windy on the beach, but at least the rain had stopped. About 40 people showed up for the run, and I was the only one wearing a hot pink skirt and stripey green socks. Go figure! I got the impression that most of them were from around Lincoln City--more of a neon windbreaker crowd. The run was kind of demotivating--we started out running into the wind, on a sloped beach, and the sand wasn't packed in a few places. And my socks kept rolling down, which was super annoying! I just wasn't feeling motivated, so I stopped and walked for a little bit, and Patrick ran ahead (and made good enough time to get the camera from the car and take a picture of me crossing the finish line). I actually finished this run faster than the Starlight Run (~35 minutes), probably because it was a flat course. Still, I'm glad it wasn't my first 5k. I would have felt bad that I stopped and walked so many times after all that C25k training.

After the run, we headed to Otis Cafe to try their famous brown molasses bread on our friend Chrissy's recommendation. There were a couple other people from the run there, which was cool. I had the hangtown fry, along with hashbrowns and brown bread toast. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of cooked oysters, but the hashbrowns and toast were excellent. The brown bread was so good--kind of like eating huge buttered slabs of gingerbread (but a little less sweet and a little more bready). I'm excited that the recipe is available online. I'll have to try making it someday!

We had originally planned to get pie from Cafe Roma after the run, but luckily we scrapped that plan, since on our way back through Lincoln City, we found out that it had been replaced by a Thai restaurant. Bummer. We bought saltwater taffy instead.

Next, we headed down to Newport to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. They have a really cute ad campaign, so I was excited to visit. The grounds were nicely done, and I liked that some of the exhibits (like the otters and giant octopus) were outside. Although it had all of the standard exhibits I enjoy in an aquarium, it mostly made me miss the Monterey Bay Aquarium--I hadn't realized how awesome that place is. That's okay though, it was a still a fun visit.

Next, we stopped at the South Beach Fish Market to buy some salmon for dinner. Unfortunately, we weren't hungry enough to try their fish and chips, which are supposed to be tasty. In fact, we didn't eat any fish and chips on this trip. That seems like an oversight...

Back at the campsite, we showered (so nice to have a hot shower after running a 5k and driving around the coast all day!), and Patrick successfully started a campfire and made an excellent dinner of salmon, biscuits, and asparagus with sugar snap peas. And we had s'mores for dessert! We also managed to scare off a wily raccoon that was coming to raid the campsites while our neighbors were at a free lecture on how to stop raccoons from stealing your food (Lesson 1: don't leave all your food out at your campsite while you go learn about raccoons!).

One of the main drawbacks of the Beverly Beach campsite was how close the neighboring sites were, which meant that it was pretty noisy with very little privacy. Definitely not the kind of place where you can sit and enjoy the solitude of nature. Instead you can enjoy the sound of RC cars and drunk college guys cheering. But it was a really pretty setting (very close to the beach and full of lush greenery), and the bathrooms and showers were nice, so we were happy with it. Maybe next time we'll try for something a little more secluded. Some of the other sites seemed to be a little larger and more screened off by trees and bushes, so maybe campsite C27 was just a bad choice.

The next morning, we had a campfire breakfast (leftover biscuits, bacon, and fried eggs), hung around the campsite for a little bit and visited the beach, and then headed out. We went back to Portland by way of Tillamook so we could check out the Tillamook Cheese factory.

The drive to Tillamook was beautiful, and we stopped at Munson Creek Falls to spend a little more time in nature and have a picnic. We only saw a couple other people along the trail, which was nice. There were salmonberries lining the path, but I wasn't confident enough in my foraging skills to eat any. I guess that's just as well, since Wikipedia says they're "insipid." It was a pleasant little side trip on our way to Tillamook. I'm glad we decided to stop there.

In retrospect, it was a bad decision to go to the Tillamook factory on a Sunday afternoon in June, since I guess everybody visits the Oregon coast on summer weekends. It was packed! We waited in a long line for some free cheese samples (mmm, curds), took the self-guided tour, and then waited in two more lines for the legendary Tillamook ice cream (we bought our ice cream at the upstairs counter, which seemed to have a considerably shorter line than the ice cream counter downstairs). It was tasty ice cream! I had the marionberry pie flavor in a waffle cone. We ate outside and then hightailed it out of there, back to the peaceful silence of our car. Phew! I'm not a big fan of crowds, but I do like dairy products.

We'll have to try visiting the Oregon Coast again during the week or in the fall. At least we know that our tent will keep us dry if it rains.

P.S. I wanted to mention again how much we like Lori at Rainy Day Pet Sitting. Our sweet kitty had some unexpected dental surgery (3 teeth pulled because of cavities) a few days before our trip, and Lori totally took it in stride. She added extra visits and had no trouble giving Patches her antibiotics and pain meds. Plus she texted me to let me know that everything was going fine. I'm so glad to have found a reliable cat sitter in Portland!

This is Patches right after she got back from the vet, all hopped up on kitty painkillers and with a shaved area on her leg from the IV (it looks like she has a little furry go go boot on that leg!). Not to worry--she's doing much better now. We'll have to do a better job of brushing her teeth in the future so she doesn't need to have any more teeth pulled!

Here are some more recent garden pictures, for those of you who enjoy such things. It sure makes me happy to see everything growing so vigorously! (click through for more pictures on Flickr)

I've kept putting off talking about our garden because I wanted to wait until it was done, but that's silly--it will never be done. That's part of the beauty of a garden--it's always changing! So here's a quick overview of what we've done so far.

February: We made a garden plan (inspired by Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades) and ordered seeds from Territorial Seed.

March: Patrick cut down a scraggly volunteer tree in the front yard and tore out some ivy and mint, and we planted a dwarf fig tree and some dwarf blueberries from One Green World. We also planted two kinds of table grapes along the side of the house. Patrick started rhubarb and tomato seedlings in our basement. Daffodils, crocus, and grape hyacinth emerged and bloomed!

April: Tulips appeared! We tore out the vinca and old man's beard vines alongside our house (though it's an ongoing battle--they continue to pop up). Patrick planted PDX Habitat seed mix in its place. He built a cold frame out of a free pallet (from Ecohaus) and old single-paned windows from the Rebuilding Center, and we moved our tomato and rhubarb seedlings into it. He also built raised beds for our backyard, and after much debate, we settled on a configuration and filled them with 4-way soil mix from Mount Scott Fuel Co. We sowed seed for beets, scallions, chard, and lettuce. Bluebells popped up all over our yard, and our new crabapple tree bloomed. And we bought a beautiful used push mower on Craigslist.

May: We planted seeds for herbs, carrots, asparagus, pole beans, flowers, and leeks (for winter) and transplanted our rhubarb and tomato seedlings. The tomatoes had weak stems (damping off disease?), and we weren't sure if they were going to make it, but they're doing great now! I discovered the wonders of the pelargonium family and bought a rose geranium for making experimental desserts. Portland Nursery has other scented geraniums, including a lemon meringue pie geranium. Oh, the ice cream possibilities! Wildflowers bloomed, as did our roses. Seedlings emerged! I thinned our beets and lettuce, and we had our first salad from our new backyard.

June: Vigorous growth by almost everything in the garden! Things really took off within the last week or two (the picture below is from the beginning of the month; I need to post a more current picture). We've harvested some lettuce and strawberries, and I think beets will be ready shortly. I just noticed baby tomatoes today. This is fun :)

Due to our lack of menu planning, we had some nice meals around SE Portland this weekend. We ate lunch at Broder on Saturday. Man, I love that place! We're so lucky to live nearby. This time I had the winter board, and everything on it was delicious, especially the seasonal salad (peas, bacon, and blue cheese). I love the little spoon that comes with the soft-boiled egg!

That night, we went to Shangri-La, a brand new laid-back restaurant serving Indian food, located where Clinton Street Brewing used to be (SE 26th and SE Clinton). I had just mentioned to Patrick the night before that I wished we had a low-key Indian place nearby (Vindalho is nice, but it feels a little too fancy for us some nights). Lo and behold, we do have a low-key Indian place nearby! Woo hoo! They're still in the process of opening, so the menu is limited for the next few weeks, but what they're offering so far is great. We both got the dinner plate, which included samosas, dal, greens, two curries, and rice, and then we split a big cakey orange cardamom chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

Such a good meal, the owner was friendly, and the ambiance is nice and casual. The menu was entirely vegetarian the night we were there; I forgot to ask if it was going to stay that way. That would be cool.

And while I'm talking about food, let me catch you up on a few recent meals we've made at home...

A few weeks ago, I made English muffins again, this time using the recipe in The Breakfast Book. It's a pretty easy yeast dough (very little kneading involved), and I love the fact that you bake them on the stove in rings (I used cookie cutters). They even tasted like English muffins are supposed to! We had some for dinner topped with poached eggs and ate the extras with jam. Homemade English muffins make me happy :)

Even though I'm pretty well rhubarbed-out at this point, I feel compelled to buy it if I see it at the farmers' market. A week or two ago, there were also strawberries at the People's Coop Market (yay!), so I made a strawberry-rhubarb oat crumble. It was based on the recipe for Rhubarb, Oat, and Pecan Crumble in Rustic Fruit Desserts, but I used a mix of 1/3 strawberries and 2/3 rhubarb (and reduced the sugar by a smidge) and replaced the pecans with peanuts, since those were the only nuts in the house. The end result was reminiscent of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but in a good way.

Last week, we continued our quest for interesting vegetarian lunches and tried falafel wraps--tortillas filled with Moosewood tabouli, salad greens, and falafel and topped with yogurt + lemon juice. I wasn't a fan of the tabouli on its own (probably because I used overly assertive wild mint and parsley from our garden), but it was fine in the wraps. And the falafel patties were great! The wraps turned out really well, though they're a bit more labor-intensive than normal sandwiches.

We got our first CSA box from Big Leaf Farm last Thursday (Patrick rigged up an elaborate bike trailer + cooler contraption so we could pick it up by bike). Everything is so pretty! We used the purple broccoli/kale mix from the box, along with kale and collards that Susan generously shared with us from her garden, to make Cook's Illustrated manicotti with greens for last night's dinner. So good (not surprising, given the amount of cheese it contains!).

Since I had leftover ricotta and some frozen pie dough scraps, I made mini lemon ricotta pies, topped with sliced and sugared strawberries. They were enjoyable (though I'm not sure if I like the grainy texture imparted by the ricotta) but not very photogenic. It's so satisfying to combine a bunch of kitchen odds and ends to make something tasty!

Hey, check it out--I made a skoodlet! Lee came up with this pattern for a combination hood and scarflet a few months ago and was kind enough to share it with me. It's a great way to add a little warmth to a cold-weather ensemble without adding bulkiness.

I decided to make it in a neutral color so that it would go with most of my clothes. I chose Blue Moon's Woobu (merino wool + bamboo) yarn in the beautiful Lenore colorway. To spice it up a little bit, I worked lattice stitch instead of stockinette stitch for the body (but I stuck with stockinette stitch for the scarflet sections because of the short rows). I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Lee's pattern is well written, and I like that it's customizable for any yarn and gauge. The hood turned out pretty pointy (possibly because I made it an extra 3/4" deep), but I'm cool with pointy hoods. I finished it off with vintage buttons from The Button Emporium.

I really like the combination of the lattice stitch and garter stitch textures. I'm excited to wear it with my pink jacket this fall!

(Also on Ravelry)

You know what I love? Biking home from trivia on a warm summer night, catching whiffs of honeysuckle and roses as we zoom down Clinton Street. Summer in Portland is a wonderful thing!

I just finished my first 5k run! I had intended to run the whole thing (since I was able to run 30 minutes straight during training this past week), but there were a lot of hills in the last mile, so I walked a little toward the end. I'm still very happy with my performance. I ran it with Star and Patrick, and we finished it in around 40 minutes. Not bad for first timers! (Patrick could have done it faster, but he stuck with me, which I appreciated)

Here I am recreating my triumphant finish, since we forgot to bring our camera to the run. I probably looked a little more defeated during the actual finish, because of all the hills at the end, but this is a better way to remember it :)

The Starlight run was a bigger deal than I thought! It was set along the Starlight parade route (an hour before the parade started), so the route was packed with people waiting to see the parade. There were even people lined up on the upper levels of parking garages to get a good view! Lots of people cheered for us, and there were tons of kids standing on the side of the row with their hands out for high fives. Little kid high fives are total motivators :)

We had originally planned to dress like Pippi Longstocking, but the costume side of things got neglected in favor of training for the run, which was probably a wise choice. We opted for stripey socks and pigtails (just Star and me; not Patrick), which worked out fine. I bought my socks from Sock Dreams years ago, and this was my first opportunity to wear them. They stayed up the whole time and weren't too hot (it was really warm during the run), so I'd say they were a success! And I loved my new running skirt (purchased along with the tank top at Lucy yesterday). What a great innovation! I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing a skirt this short under normal circumstances, but it seemed okay when I was running, especially since it had shorts underneath.

I'm really happy with how the Couch to 5k program worked out. As promised, I went from no running ability to being able to run a 5k (give or take) in 9 weeks. That's so crazy--I never would have thought I could do that!

Next I'm planning on training for an 8k. Most 5k to 8k training programs I've found take 10 weeks, and conveniently enough there's an 8k run coming up in exactly 10 weeks (the Homer Classic in Silverton). Then there's a bigger 8k in October as part of the Portland Marathon (and it just so happens that Tree will be in town to run the full marathon, so that's perfect timing!). I think without a goal, I'm likely to stop running, which would be unfortunate, since it feels good to exercise regularly. Hooray for fitness!

On Wednesday, Patrick and I hosted trivia at Zach's Shack for the first time. It went well! The basic format is four categories, each with ten questions. Each round, the team with the highest score wins 4 free hot dogs. I've listed our questions below, in case you want to play along at home (highlight the black bars to see the answers). Sorry, no free hot dogs for Internet participants :(

(That's Patrick before trivia started, enjoying his complimentary trivia-master beer) We went with three themed categories, plus pop culture mashups (a favorite at Zach's, popularized by Pete). Wikipedia made it so much easier to come up with the questions.

Rock:

1. Naturally occurring columnar structures such as Devil's Postpile in California and Devil's Tower in Wyoming are made from this type of igneous rock.
   Basalt
2. This actor and former wrestler, who starred in such movies as The Scorpion King and Walking Tall, sometimes goes by his WWF ring name, "The Rock."
   Dwayne Johnson
3. In 1937, a bill was introduced in Congress to add this woman's face to Mount Rushmore.
   Susan B. Anthony
4. In Greek mythology, this king was cursed to eternally push a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down.
   Sisyphus
5. What are the four characteristics, or "four C's," used to describe diamonds?
   Carat, cut, color, clarity
6. This 2009 Broadway musical, named after a 1983 Def Leppard song, features classic rock hits from the 80's, such as "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" and "The Final Countdown."
   Rock of Ages
7. The Carnac Stones, a collection of more than 3000 prehistoric standing stones, are located in which country?
   France
8. Stone-washed jeans are most commonly produced by washing the jeans with this abrasive volcanic rock.
   Pumice
9. How did Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, get his nickname?
   He raised and sold birds while in prison
10. What were the original three flavors in Fruity Pebbles cereal when it was introduced in 1969?
    Orange, cherry, and lemon

Paper:

1. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone used construction paper cutouts and stop motion to animate their initial short films and the South Park pilot episode. What was the name of their first short film, and what was the name of the pilot episode?
   The short film was The Spirit of Christmas, and the pilot was "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe"
2. Historically, the dyes used in litmus paper were extracted from this natural source.
   Lichen
3. Which country's paper currency, called the krona, features such national figures as opera singer Jenny Lind and botanist Carl Linnaeus?
   Sweden
4. In the Giro d'Italia cycling race, the color of the leader's jersey is based on the newspaper that promotes the race. What color is it?
   The jersey is pink
5. The term "ticker tape parade" was coined in 1886 to describe a spontaneous celebration that occurred during the dedication of what New York City landmark?
   The Statue of Liberty
6. This fictional tabloid newspaper has been featured in a variety of Marvel comics and is edited and published by J. Jonah Jameson.
   The Daily Bugle
7. This American paper company was founded in 1879 and is credited with being the first to sell toilet paper on a roll. They merged with Kimberly-Clark in 1995 but continued to use their original brand name.
   Scott Paper Company
8. At the age of nine, this actress won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Addie Loggins in Paper Moon, making her the youngest winner in Oscar history.
   Tatum O'Neal
9. Support for the Spanish-American war was fueled in part by sensationalistic stories published by American newspapers. This so-called "yellow journalism" ran rampant in 1898 when this American ship sunk in Havana.
   U.S.S. Maine
10. In The Office, who is perennially the top paper salesman at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton?
    Dwight Schrute

Scissors:

1. Fiskars, a Finnish company, introduced their iconic orange-handled scissors in 1967. In what century was Fiskars founded?
   17th century (1649)
2. In the movie Blade Runner, what animal does Rick Deckard dream about?
   Unicorn
3. The creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles originally envisioned this villain as a man wearing large trapezoidal cheese graters on his arms. His original name was "Grate Man."
   Shredder
4. The three fates appear in many cultures' mythologies. In Greek mythology, Clotho spins the thread of life for each person, Lachesis measures it, and this fate cuts it.
   Atropos
5. Elton John and Anderson Cooper are fans of this New York City band, which has had such hits as "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" and "Take Your Mama."
   Scissor Sisters
6. In The Big Lebowski, there is a dream sequence in which The Dude is chased by several characters wielding scissors. Two of the pursuers are played by Peter Stormare and Torsten Voges. Who played the third pursuer, and where else in the movie is there a prominent image of scissors?
   Flea (from Red Hot Chili Peppers) is the third pursuer, and the prominent image is a painting of scissors in Maude Lebowski's studio
7. George C. Scott played Detective William Kinderman in Exorcist III, which is best known for an unnerving scene involving a possessed woman with a large pair of bone shears. George C. Scott also played an army general in which 1964 movie?
   Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
8. Honing stones, which are used in the knife-sharpening process, traditionally come from this U.S. state.
   Arkansas
9. This infomercial product, invented in the late 1980's by a San Diego carpenter, is capable of performing "hundreds of precision-layered haircuts" and delivers a "refreshing vacuum haircut."
   Flowbee
10. This prolific actor, whose credits include the voice of Vincent VanGhoul in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, made his last movie appearance in Edward Scissorhands, in a death scene
    Vincent Price

Pop Culture Mashups
(The answers are phrases that combine two different pop culture subjects. For instance, if the clue is "80's high school sitcom chronicling the life of Zach Morris and friends is reimagined starring the New Edition splinter group that performed the 1990 hit 'Poison'," the answer would be "Saved by the Bell Biv Devoe")

1. A tournament involving this hand game that is commonly used as an alternative to flipping coins and drawing straws is surprisingly won by the bushy-eyebrowed actor who starred in The Fabulous Baker Boys and was a regular on TV shows The Agency and Stargate SG-1.
   Rochambeau Bridges
2. The author of the novel Infinite Jest collaborates with one of the actors from The Princess Bride to pen a novel with an almost inconceivable number of footnotes.
   David Foster Wallace Shawn
3. An unaired pilot is discovered for Nickelodeon's first original live action TV show, set on a ranch run by Mr. Ernst, in which the theme song is the 1987 rock hit allegedly written about Vince Neil, lead singer of Motley Crue.
   Hey Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
4. The tap dancer who was a Sesame Street cast member from 1990 to 1995 stars in a Broadway revival of the 1989 comedy that starred Patrick Dempsey as a pizza delivery boy turned gigolo.
   Savion Gloverboy
5. Scottish-American artist who teamed up with Fatboy Slim to write a disco opera about Imelda Marcos re-dubs the soundtrack for the 2008 Coen Brothers movie starring John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton.
   David Byrne After Reading
6. Even though one of them is a fictional character, the tabloids allege a budding romance between the Blossom character whose catch phrase was "Whoa" and the producer of Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette.
   Joey Russofia Coppola
7. A new South Park episode is aired in which the show's fictional Canadian comedy duo perform unspeakable acts on the guest star, an actor who made his film breakthrough in 1992's Scent of a Woman and has appeared in four out of five of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies to date.
   Terrence and Philip Seymour Hoffman
8. Just in time for Lollapalooza, the British pop band best known for their 1983 single "Too Shy" and the 90s rock band who performed a hit song on the "City of Angels" soundtrack form an unlikely supergroup.
   Kajagoogoo Dolls
9. The Canadian chanteuse ranked by Forbes magazine in 2007 as the 5th richest woman in entertainment is commissioned to perform a biographical opera about the career of the outspoken athlete who played pro football with the Atlanta Falcons and pro baseball with the Atlanta Braves.
   Celine Deion Sanders
10. After her Hollywood career tails off, the actress who played Nona on The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Georgina on Gossip Girl is found working behind the counter of the restaurant chain named as having the freshest fast food in the country by Gourmet magazine in 2003.
    Michelle Trachtenburgerville

Like I mentioned earlier, we've reduced our meat intake since moving to Portland. I've been wanting to try making some vegetarian lunches, but my daily turkey sandwich routine is so easy. Plus I was having trouble coming up with vegetarian alternatives other than grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly. Moosewood to the rescue!

This week I tried a couple vegetarian lunch options from the New Moosewood Cookbook. I started with these yummy blue cheese and pear sandwiches: mix together cottage cheese, a little honey, blue cheese, and chopped walnuts; spread mixture on bread; top with sliced pears; toast for about 5 minutes. Very tasty and filling! I liked the sandwiches with wheat germ sprinkled on top, though next time I would put the wheat germ under the pears so it would stay put better.

For today's lunch, we had pita wedges spread with mayo and topped with tofu salad, with a side of white rabbit salad.

I liked them both, especially the tofu salad (I think the white rabbit salad will benefit from additional fresh fruit, once more stuff is in season). I had hoped to put the tofu inside the pita bread, but it didn't form pockets (how frustrating!). Maybe next time I'll try making tofu salad wraps instead. Also, bonus: the tofu salad gets better if you let it marinate, so you can make a batch and have lunch ready to go for a few days. That's just as easy as making a turkey sandwich!

So far my vegetarian lunch effort has been a success! The only drawback is that Patches doesn't get her lunchtime turkey snack, but we just found out that she has gained 2 pounds since she moved in with us (such a sweet chubby kitty!), so maybe it's time to cut back on the turkey anyway.

While I'm at it, check out some of the no-meat dinners we've had recently:

1. Spring farmer's market salad topped with nasturtiums, pizza topped with sauteed mushrooms, green garlic, and broccoli raab (dough recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook). I had extra dough left over, so I made pizza rings (topped with olive oil, grated Parmesan, salt, and pepper). Not bad!

2. Asparagus and goat cheese quiche (recipe from Baking Illustrated, yum!) and salad with roasted beets, blue cheese, asparagus, and candied nuts; shared with Lee and Pete while playing Bad Movie Bingo.

3. Mushroom and broccoli noodle casserole, also from the New Moosewood Cookbook. The recipe made 10 servings instead of 6, so we've got a lot of noodle casserole in our future. It's tasty though.

Like I said before, I don't think we'll be cutting out meat completely right now, but it's nice to know that we can reduce the amount of meat we consume and still eat well. Living in Portland definitely makes that easier!

It has been a rhubarb party around here lately! In addition to the rhubarb cake, strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, and pig's bum that I've already told you about, I've made the following items in the past few weeks:

• I made jam and put it in jars! Gingered rhubarb jam with honey, to be exact (recipe from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving). This was my first time canning at home. I took that marmalade class with June Taylor a while back, but I was still a little nervous about the whole process. It went fine though (well, I haven't actually opened any of the processed jars, so I guess I won't know for sure until then), and I'm excited to make more jam as the season progresses!

  
  
  

  The jam itself turned out good. It was kind of like a cross between marmalade (with little nuggets of lemon peel) and berry jam. Tangy, but not overly so. And it tasted yummy on Patrick's almost no-knead bread and pecan brown sugar biscuits. This batch filled three half-pint jars with a little less than a cup left over for immediate eating (it probably could have filled four jars if I'd had another one ready).

  
  
  

• Next up was rhubarb meringue pie. I'd originally bookmarked this recipe in How to Eat, but Molly's version was a little easier to follow. The filling was tart and bright pink with streaks of yellow from the intense farmers' market egg yolks in the filling. It was acidic enough that it ate away at the coating on our tart pan base after a few days. Oops! Next time I should remove the pan base right away.

  

  I think Patrick liked it better than I did. It wasn't bad, but there are other rhubarb desserts that I've enjoyed more.

  

• After seeing Amy's post about the rhubarb buckle with ginger crumble from Rustic Fruit Desserts (a new book from a local baker and chef!), I ran out, bought the book, and made a buckle of my own. I added orange zest to the cake batter, which didn't make a noticeable difference but made me happy. It was a little underbaked in the middle, but the outer two thirds were very good. I love this kind of casual tea cake, especially with a good crumble topping. I'm excited to try more recipes from this book!

  
  
  

• Faced with still more rhubarb in the fridge (and with a reasonably large stash already in the freezer), I made a half recipe of rhubarb compote #1 from Rustic Fruit Desserts. I had some crystallized ginger leftover from the buckle topping, so I chopped it up and added it to the compote. Bad idea--this stuff is super tangy because of the added ginger! I'll have to try making it again without deviating from the recipe.

  

  We ate some of the gingered rhubarb compote on top of cinnamon-swirl French toast (it sounds like a nice combination, right?). The French toast was good with the compote, but awesome with good old maple syrup. That's some labor-intensive French toast (since you start out by baking a loaf of cinnamon-swirl bread), but it's totally worth it.

  
  
  
  
  

As much as I love the rhubarb, I'm looking forward to strawberry season for a little change of pace. And when blueberry season comes along, I'll haul out my bag of frozen rhubarb to make bluebarb jam (another recipe from Small Batch Preserving). With a name like that, how can I not make it?

Last Saturday, Patrick and I met up at the PSU farmers' market for lunch (I was downtown for a haircut, and he'd just finished a bike ride in the West Hills). Normally I shy away from the PSU market because it's so full of people and things to see, and I just want to hide in a corner, but it has so much good stuff that it's worth braving the crowds every so often. This time around, we had biscuit sandwiches from Pine State Biscuits (their egg and cheese sandwich is so good!).

After we ate, Patrick biked home, and I wandered around and picked up some asparagus (the first we've had this season; we dusted off the grill and enjoyed stacks of grilled asparagus for dinner that night), lilacs, and flowers for Pearl's first birthday party (anemones, ranunculas, and chive blossoms). The flowers ended up matching Susan's color scheme, as did our giftwrap--excellent!

While downtown, I also stopped at the Button Emporium's new location and picked up a vintage wooden button, which I used to wrap our present to Pearl. We got her four books from the Cat and Dog series, which was one of my childhood favorites. I think the series is out of print, but Amazon's used book sellers saved the day!

Susan did a great job decorating for the party, and the weather was perfect for a backyard get together. She's such a crafty powerhouse--she made a birthday pennant (which I definitely want to copy at some point--what a great birthday tradition), a matching bib, skirt, and shirt ensemble for Pearl, yummy cupcakes with button toppers, and tiny terrariums for favors. It was a great party :)

We spent most of Sunday gardening. My big accomplishment of the day was planting two asparagus beds from seed (the hard part was preparing the beds, since they were full of grass, bluebells, etc.). I have no idea if this will work, but Steve Solomon seems convinced that starting asparagus from seed is better than buying crowns. Here's the plot in our front yard. Nothing to see yet...