Raspberry Jam

I had to share this wonderful picture from jam making today.

Berry Picking Heaven

Yesterday I went to Sauvie Island with my lovely lady friends (and their super cute little boys) and we picked berries. We picked and ate and chatted for hours. It was wonderful. Today we make jam.

I gotta put a shout out to any readers that are local and like picking fruit out on Sauvies: the cherries are amazing! And they are going to be done by the end of the week (do you hear an alarm sounding? I sorta do) one farm hand told us that peaches would already be ripe next week?!?! wow. Seems like the strawberry season lasted a month, but suddenly the raspberries and cherries have come in and out of season in a matter of a week! My goodness. You gotta be on top of this stuff, us city slickers just don't have a finger on the pulse of the farm ripening.
Picking cherries was fun as always. Even though we had headed out to Krugers specifically for raspberries, we made a stop at the GM farm (the road before Krugers) and found the cherries ripe for picking. I guess all this cloud cover and moisture has them ideal and ready to burst. There was a man working on the trees (they cut the branches each year so the tree will grow more and fruit even more the following year) and he first made us taste every type of cherry (I hadn't realized last year that every tree is a different type of cherry) and the Vans cherries won out. He cut down branches for us from the Vans tree and we picked all the ripe berries off the fallen branches. In the past I've climbed the ladders and picked that way... so this experience was quite unique! The farmer said "I'd rather see the branches falling off the trees than the people falling off the ladders!". I can appreciate that.

Then we continued down the road to Krugers. Awesome picking as always! Supposedly the raspberries were "picked over" from a busy weekend, but we cleared house, easily picking almost 2 flats of berries by diving into the plants and finding many many ripe lucious berries for the taking.

4 year old Micah kept saying "they are so beautiful!" and we were calling them jewels. They really did look like jewels.
Ripe yummy gems, like earrings dangling on the plants - and they seem to say to me "Pick me! Pick me! I am soo yummy!"

Okay, so I gotta add a link to Farmer Don's blog:
http://farmerdonkruger.blogspot.com/2009/07/really-farming.html

I was just reading last night about the land use decision by the county, evidently the locals have put an end to any weddings out under the big oak tree. Evidently the wedding party buying hundreds of dollars of flowers and food for the event was not recognized as a the farm selling their agricultural product. @*&@^*# Farmer Don's events out on Krugers farm is an integral way to how he sustains a farm with organic no-spray methods, only him and 4 farm hands (I find that amazing, 80 acres and 4 guys! and thousands of u-pickers!) and continues to grow rather than go bankrupt.

Heres the deal, Sauvie Island is agriculturally zoned land. All operations on Krugers farm must be oriented around the production and sale of what he grows on his land. There's an article that Farmer Don links to on his blog where you can read more.

I think this is outrageous. Let me get up on my soapbox for a moment to say that the locals out on the Island think the pumpkin patch festivities in October are great (the ones put on by the local farmers), but Farmer Don (the California man that they hoped would leave after he went broke) is on their sh*t list. He managed to come in and save a beautiful farm from acquisition and abuse by major agricultural corporations - he made the gorgeous land publicly available for MY enjoyment. Evidently the locals are sick of this man and they see no positivity in the success he has found in letting the city people come out and enjoy the bounty of Sauvie Island. They think he makes noise and blocks traffic on the bridge. They have decided he can have concerts, but no weddings... pumpkin patch and corn maize, but no kid birthday parties with hayrides. WTF. And Farmer Don's only choice now is to roll over and obey, or appeal the county decision. In other words: throw a bunch more money at lawyers and the county in order to try and persuade them to let people take their vows under his beautiful oak tree and celebrate their love by feeding their family with organic fruits and veggies with flowers on the tables that were picked on that very farm. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, that's what I see. I am appalled. Now I will get down off my soapbox.

Chicken Sparkler

These hens are my favorite firework - I made this little video last weekend. It was the 4th of July and after vending all day at the PSM, I convinced Tim to take a bike ride with me to the store for fireworks (he protested the silliness, I convinced him with the opportunity to take a bike ride). I bought up some of these hens and a funny panda thing that also shot sparks out of its ass. I love it. The big loud ones don't do much for me, but these little guys have got to be one of the best use of gunpowder that I know of! Who doesn't love a chicken that shoots colorful sparks out its ass!

Fridays

I usually spend Fridays getting ready for a weekend vending at the Portland Saturday Market. Today is no exception.

Are you curious what that entails? Well, for me at least its a matter of inventory mostly. Other bits on the to-do list every Friday are making sure I have change $$ for the weekend, checking the weather to see what I am going to be dealing with, do the laundry so I have clean clothes to wear :)

Artwork inventory is a whole nuther matter though. I am constantly keeping up with inventory - every weekend many of my pieces find new homes, so each week I have to restock! I try to make things in batches, say 10 or 20 at a time (I know I am low-scale in terms of quantity, but hey - its all handmade! I figure there should be a little uniqueness to everything, and if I do thinks in too much quantity that uniqueness sorta dissolves).

I work with the glass earlier in the week so that by Friday it will be cool and out of the kiln, ready for me to assemble into mobiles. If I need something for the weekend, I have to have made the glass pieces early in the week.

Today I am putting together more mini mobiles in rainbow colors (pictured above are little orange pieces that I arrange with blue triangles and red yellow and purple dots to make little mini mobiles) and long mobiles I call Chakra circles... a few other mobiles will inevitably get put together as the evening progresses.

And today I've been getting a lot of work done on my new-old picnic table! Its so nice to be able to work outside. Tim has completely spiffed it up and built me benches (so far there are 3 beautiful white benches!!). If you want to see pictures of him working on the table/benches check out my flickr

Beachy Glass Colors

I'm making earrings... beach glass colors...

first I cut pieces into small strips

then I cut the small strips into bits

then I paired up the bits and arranged them to make it easier to glue a small piece of wire inside each pair
after firing in the kiln the glue will burn away and the piles of square bits will all be cute and round

next... bending all the little wires and making these beachy beads of glass into earrings...

Sun Shade Fabric

My new picnic table has already come in handy! I bought some sun shade fabric for my booth at the Portland Saturday Market. It is really hot and sunny lately - I replaced the top of my booth with this sun-shade fabric that lets in air and light, but cuts down on the heat.
So far all I have done is take 2 pieces of the fabric (it comes on a huge long roll of 50ft x 6ft) and sew them together to make one bit 12ft square (I used staples as pins to hold it in place as I sew, they worked smashingly, in fact I never even bothered to take them out). I used my new picnic table to hold the sewing machine - I've never worked with such big pieces of fabric before, the picnic table was perfect!Then this morning I simply used clamps to hold it in place over my booth. Sorta ghetto fabulous - but it worked. Next week I will take it home again and sew the corners so it fits a bit better, possibly put a little love into the edges, that wouldn't hurt. Either way, it works, and it looks great. I think it helped too. It was a beautiful day (see picture below) but it was hot hot hot in Portland terms (I heard it was 98degrees this afternoon) and my booth is in the full sun.
The wonderful gals of the tie-die booth on the left side of this picture were the ones with the brilliant idea of using shade fabric. When I saw Rhea I had to ask her what she used for her canopy because she was able to cool down her booth considerably. My booth was still hot today, but it was pleasant, at least more so that with a regular top.

Oh and today at the market there was a music stage set up! Just last weekend I mentioned in my blog that I couldn't wait for there to be a music stage again. Ask and you shall receive - eh?! :) This is the view from my booth - front row seats.

Making a Picnic Table

I need a table for my backyard. Currently I have a great little yard, but not a great table to sit at... there's my beloved "bucket furniture" made entirely of paint buckets and round pieces of wood, but they sorta fit a tea party for 4 year olds...My dad handmade the picnic table I grew up with, so I love the idea of making my own now... Tim offered to make me one - I LOVE that idea... in the long run I think that would be spectacular (I even printed out plans for a sweet table that folds in half to make two benches - this video is a must-see! click this link to check it out)

Seems I am the only one at my house that thinks the folding table is amazing (Tony thinks its too small, Tim thinks its silly) so its back to making a simple picnic table. We thought starting with making the benches would be great, and putting an old flat door on top of a pair of saw horses makes for a fast table.

A trip to the Rebuilding Center was all I needed to get going on this project (thanx Maggie for giving me a ride in Colonel Mustard!) - I picked out a big flat door from the "dollar door" section and a whole bunch of wood to make the benches (the wood is reclaimed from someone's deck - all pre-treated for outdoor use and already seasoned and dry - I got all this wood for $20!)This is the door I picked out, its huge (and it had little wheels on the bottom which made it easy to roll out to the truck - gotta love that!) and it cost $1!
The best part was as we were driving to the Rebuilding Center, Maggie spotted an old table on the tree-lawn of a house we passed - it was free! It was just waiting for me! It needs a little TLC, but its simply awesome. I may put the door on top of the table (makes it bigger and flatter and it just seems too easy to not do) which would keep the sawhorses free to make the benches.
It already looks so happy in my backyard! Yeah for picnic tables.