Yard Art by Local Artisans

I have a favorite piece of art on my deck that is very clever and original. It's an old table knife with forks and spoons hung from it like a mobile. It is attached to the eaves of my house facing the deck, and it provides a sweet and subtle sound as the wind gently moves it. Since we spend a lot of time eating on our deck in Adirondack chairs, it's an appropriate decoration.

I am amazed at the number of local artisans available in our country area. I have an arbor fashioned from copper pipe welded together, a wood pergola separating my front yard from the pasture, many wooden garden supports, birdhouses, chairs, tables, and handmade wreaths hung from gates and fences. I even have a small quilt top made to look like the US flag affixed to the fence in the summertime. It all goes together well.

This weekend, I'm on the lookout for more supports for my burgeoning garden vegetables. I'll go to the antique mall in Monroe to see what they have, and pause for a while to have lunch at the bakery there, and meander my way home the 'back way' through old Snohomish and then home to Maltby. It's the Slow Life, and it's the life for me.

Roasted Corn Salad

During my Williams Sonoma cooking classes, I learned how to make a Roasted Corn Salad. It's a summer salad, using ingredients fresh from the Farmer's Market, and the recipe is below. It's a beautiful and colorful salad, and it looks nice on the buffet table.

6 ears fresh corn, roasted on the grill (drizzled with olive oil)

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup red onion, chopped

1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley

Cumin powder, cumin seeds

Grill the corn, cool, and remove kernels with a corn zipper. Set aside. In a small bowl, combine 2 tsp. ground cumin, 1 tsp chili powder (mild), juice from 3 lemons. Whisk together, and add 1/2 cup olive oil. Set aside.

Mix the corn, tomatoes, onion, and cilantro. Pour the viniagrette over the salad, tossing well.

In a 350 degree oven, toast 2 tsp cumin seeds, until slightly brown, about 5 minutes. Cool.

Chill in frig for at least 3 hours before serving. Arrange salad on a tray, and sprinkle with 1/2 cup Feta cheese and the toasted cumin seeds.

Festive Party Lights for Summer Nights

I hung my Japanese lanterns from my outdoor white fairy lights last night, and clicked the white battery-operated paper orbs on. They lit up the summer night sky, competing with the moon.

I've got several Farm to Table parties scheduled for the month of August, and I can't wait to gather together friends and family to share good food, fun, games, and conversation.

I sat outside tonight and enjoyed the beautiful evening after the sun went down. The lights add a wonderful ambience to the back yard, and I lingered quite a while, thinking back over the day, grateful for another day's work, and anticipating the end of the week when our next few vacation days begin.

Tree Hugger

My neighbor to the south of me has four lovely acres and a home that looks like an English country estate. He has a huge old flowering cherry tree that borders the white picket fence in my front yard. In the spring, the tree is so heavy with beautiful pink blossoms that the branches sway and dip toward the ground. It is truly a wondrous sight.

I found out last weekend that this tree is slated for removal in the next few weeks. While my neighbor has planned to take this tree out for the last four years, it has never happened because I've told him how much the tree means to me, and he relented. However, it looks like the time has come to say goodbye to this long-standing member of the neighborhood. My front yard will look so bare without the lovely and graceful branches, the broad-leafed foliage, and of course, the spectacular spring blooms.

I fleetingly thought about chaining myself to the tree to save it, but discarded the notion. I've made my thoughts clear and my last request has been denied.

The beauty of the neighborhood will be diminished, but the memories of that lovely tree will live on forever in my mind.

The Art of Provence

We celebrated the warm sunny weekend by attending the Bellevue Art Fair in downtown Bellevue last Saturday. This is the premier art fair in the state of Washington, and attendance this year exceeded all previous years. There were hundreds of artists displaying their works, and we spent many hours talking to artists and sculptors and rug weavers and entertainers. It's always inspiring to be around so many creative people.

After a quick lunch in the air-conditioned mall, we found a photographer who travels extensively in Europe and who has an impressive collection of lovely prints that appealed to both of us. We settled on a photo taken in Provence of a bistro table with a beautiful yellow and blue tablecloth--so evocative of life in France. It was just what I was looking for!

It now has pride of place on my kitchen counter, right next to my coffeemaker and my clay jar of Starbucks whole coffee beans. It looks perfect with my French Country furnishings in the house, and it will bring back memories of this year's art fair for both of us.

The Garden in Midsummer

The weather here has been warm and sunny now for several weeks, and the garden has responded to all of the heat and light. The peas and beans are doing well, as are the Choggia Beets and swiss chard.

This last weekend, I found some garden supports, one wood and one metal, to put in the raised beds to support the plants as they continue to grow. They add an ornamental quality to the garden, too, and it won't be long before the beans and peas have completely taken over these structures.

The garden is a place of hope, where we tend our plants and flowers daily, and then sit back and wait for nature to take its course. It's a commitment of time and energy, but the reward are great.

As I grow in my technical knowledge of horticulture, I'm hoping for a better garden each year. That's my dream, anyway. We'll see.

Silence

When I first moved from the city to the country, I couldn't get over how silent it was except for the occasional hooting of an owl or a serenade by croaking frogs. I had gotten used to screeching brakes, shouts from sidewalks, and piercing sirens. At first the silence kept me up at night. I tried to find ways to fill up the 'nothingness', turning on the radio or the fan.

I finally realized the extent to which our days are filled with the constant buzz of background noise. Even if you turn off all of the obvious noisemakers, the sound of the refrigerator or an alarm will kick in. The opportunity to experience complete silence is so rare that when you encounter it, it feels unnatural.

When we take a week off and go to the beach, it takes me at least two days just to get used to the quiet and the thoughts in my head. I can finally hear things like the beat of my own heart, or the sound of the waves in the distance.

In the last 30 years, there has been an unprecedented growth of noise in our society. Cars honk, video games blare, and leaf blowers are earsplitting. Think of noise pollution as second-hand smoke--even if you are minding your own business, you're forced to put up with it. What can we do in order to counteract the volume in our lifes and rediscover true quiet?

1) Make your home a haven of tranquility--find ways to make things quiet at home.

2) Create a sense of calm--practice meditation or muscle relaxation.

3) Tune it out--daydream.

4) Give your brain a break--put on headphones.

5) Speak up-- tell the person next to you that they are bothering you.

6) Fight for peace--Noise Pollution Clearinghouse at noise.org

In the long run, a quieter life will mean a healthier life. It's good for your body, your mind, and your spirit.

Summer Light

In summer light the

sky is wider, taller, its

blues

belie their name, a

light requiring

shadows

concentrated to

maintain the constant

dark-light balance

There's only one

season and its faces

Some kinds of truth

hide beneath words

like shadow under

leaves

Our raspberries ripen,

drinking water and light

losing their early

tartness, slipping from

their stems

to stain fingers and

tongues as sweet as

strawberries

Also gorged on light

and water, the hedge

plants thrive

gesturing with new

branches over and

along their fence

weigela, lilac,

rhododendron,

forsythia, camellia, red

barberry

while in raised beds

awaited beans and

carrots sleep

--Don Brandis

Stained Glass Window For the Garden Arbor

Many years ago, we started staying at a resort on the Washington Coast called the Ocean Crest Resort. It was a lovely old place, with decor from the 60's that had never been updated. Besides the wonderful, laid-back ocean ambience, you felt as if you had just stepped back in time when you stayed there. We had many wonderful vacations there with our dog Bartok.

The last time we stayed there, I bought a lovely stained glass window that we've had in our home, reminding us of the good times we've had at the beach. Through home remodels, this piece of glass got relegated to the garage, and I stumbled across it last weekend. It was so evocative of times at the beach that I brought it out and started looking for a new place to display it.

At last I decided to hang the framed piece from my pergola. It catches the sun and breaks the light into beautiful colors on lovely summer days, and provides a backdrop for my Julia Child roses and all of the other annuals in my yard this year.

A Cottage Garden at Country Village

Last weekend, I went to shop at Country Village in Bothell. The White House Antique store was virtually deserted due to the beautiful, 80-degree sunny weather. I found several supports for my vegetable garden (the beans and peas are getting tall, finally!), and after I made my purchases, I walked around the beautiful shopping center, enjoying the country gardens and cottage garden flowers.

I especially liked the daisies and the frenzy of cottage garden flowers that they had planted in the middle of the complex. There was a charming birdhouse in the midst of all the color, and I took this picture so I can keep it as an example of a cottage garden for my future reference.

Raspberry Glace Pie

The raspberry patch has almost completed its summer offerings. The berries are large and ripe and very sweet, and we have been picking them once or twice a day. After making 24 jars of raspberry jam, I am now looking for a couple more recipes to use up the berries that will probably last one more week. I'm sad to see this harvest end--it's been the most abundant crop we've had in the 9 years we've lived here.

The Raspberry Glace Pie starts out with a baked and cooled 9 inch pie crust. As it cools, stir 3 ounces of cream cheese until smooth, and then set aside. Gather 5 cups of raspberries and measure out one cup and put that cup through the food processer and pulse until liquified. In a pan on the stove, blend one cup sugar and 3 tablespoons cornstarch, then add 1/2 cup water and the liquified raspberries. Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute. Set aside and let cool.

Once the glace is cooled, spread the cream cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, add the remaining four cups of raspberries, and top with the glace. Refrigerate for at least three hours before serving. Mmmmm.....summer at its best!

A Slow Dog for the Slow Life

I've had my Black Lab 'mix' for two and a half years already, and she brings us so much joy. We wake in the mornings to her insistent efforts to rouse us from our bed, experiencing a cold, wet, large black nose in our face as the first recollection of the day. A 5 a.m. walk follows, which usually involves a bunny sighting and the lingering scent of a raucous brown squirrel that has run up and down the large Douglas Fir out in the country lane. A lot of crunching sounds reach my ears as the dog breakfast is wolfed down, and then the long, lazy nap-filled days of a country dog begins.


Juno makes sure that she budgets adequate time for long, lazy dog naps. She moves around the house, finding the best spots for the best views of what she wants to check up on. The dining room sliding doors offer a panoramic view of both back yards, and after jumping up on the couch in the living room, she has a great view of the street and country road that runs alongside our property.

When we went to see her at the dog shelter for the first time, she was quiet and subdued. Her biography described her as "a couch potato who likes to ride in the car". It was a very accurate description!

Juno reminds us to slow down, enjoy ourselves, and live The Slow Life.

Backyard Bird Sanctuary

Below our deck, there is an area around the apple tree that is shady and cool, and home to many different types of birds. This year alone, my hanging baskets were host to two families of sparrows and one family of Stellar's Jays. It was fascinating to watch the rituals between the male and female birds as they divided the tasks of preparing for the babies and then caring for them once they emerged from their shells.

My aunt brought me a beautiful white armillary sphere from one of her trips to Copenhagen, and it nestles comfortably among the hostas and clematis. There is a birdbath among the ivy and mint that is always filled with water, and I often take fuschia blossoms that have fallen to the ground and float them on the birdbath's water. We often reach in and grab fresh mint for our iced teas and for our summer sauces.

Stepping stones lead to the gate that opens onto the front yard. Fairy lights are strung from the deck to the apple tree in summer, lending light to evening conversations on the deck and at the bistro table below the deck. It's a comfortable retreat from the stresses of the day, and the birds are always there with us, singing not because they have to, but because they have a song.

Maltby Shade Garden

Several years ago, I cleared away debris from the corner of our pasture and dug out a nice area for a shade garden (the 'clearing away debris' phase lasted about a year, as all lawn clippings, branches and stray rocks had been deposited there by the previous owner for over 15 years). It's a lovely part of the yard, and I could always envision a nice place to rest in the shade on a summer day.

We brought in some topsoil from the soil compound across the road, and started raking and working the soil. There is a medium-sized birch tree in the middle of the area, which made a nice focal point. I found an old antique plow, and placed it in front of the tree. I added two birdhouses, and over several years, I tried various plants in that area. All of them could not survive with the lack of sun in that area.

We started reading up on shade plants and shade gardens, and went to Flower World and bought two Heuchera (Coral Bells) plants. They thrived, and in two years, they doubled in size. We added a Wiegela bush, which is beatiful, and I recently transplanted a small lilac bush and a small Honey Locust tree, and they have also done well. A begonia basket hung on the fence at the beginning of summer completed the project, and the area looks lovely on these warm and sunny summer days.

Master Gardener Program at Oregon State University

I just got accepted into the Online Master Gardener Program at Oregon State University! This has been a dream of mine for a long time, and the course starts on August 30. It's a 12-week certificate course in Home Horticulture, and it provides all of the information I will need to keep my trees, plants, home and garden thriving. I can't wait to begin.

I'm meeting later this week with a co-worker who is taking the full Master Gardener course from Western Washingon University, so I'm looking forward to her experience. Her class involves 60 hours of community involvement at fairs and garden shows during her year of coursework.

Here's the link to the program. Stay tuned!

http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/workforce/master-gardener-online/

Paradise Valley Conservancy

About a mile from our home in Maltby, there is a parking lot and trailhead to the Paradise Valley Conservancy. On this land, there are hiking trails and beautiful forested land. It truly is a 'paradise' after being in the city, and all you can hear is running water and the sound of birds.

The Paradise Valley Conservancy is an area consisting of 670 acres previously owned by the Lloyd family. They sold the property to Cascade Land Conservation company in 1999.

The property is located at the headwaters of Bear Creek Basin, which was identified by the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife as the most productive salmon stream in western Washington for a basin of its size. Owned by the Lloyd family since the 1880’s, the majority of this land has been harvested for timber since 1940. Non-harvested land consists of pastureland and non-forested wetland. There is a single-family residence with a barn and other farm buildings, and approximately 50 acres of the property are used for agricultural purposes.

The Bear Creek Basin is one of the last high quality lowland systems in south Snohomish County. Long-term protection of Paradise Valley will ensure that its Native American archaeological sites are preserved, along with its populations of Chinook, Coho, sockeye, and Kokanee salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout, and freshwater mussels.

We plan to explore the trails and the land and learn more about the beautiful area in which we live.

Summer Sauces

During my second cooking class today at Williams Sonoma, we learned how to make summer sauces. The French may not have created the concept of sauces, but they have certainly elevated sauce making to an art. After the French Revolution, many chefs who had been employed in the kitchens of the aristocracy opened restaurants in Paris and other French cities. They competed with one another for customers, each one attempting to create the most memorable dishes. Sauces were one way to stand out in the crowd.

Sauce, in the most basic terms, is a flavored liquid designed to accompany food in order to bring out its flavor. Most sauces fall into one of five categories called Mother Sauces--by adding or substituting different flavors, thousands of sauce variations can be created. The five categories are as follows:

1) Bechamel--milk-based sauces

2) Espagnole--brown stock-based sauces

3) Veloute--white-stock-based sauces

4) Emulsified sauces

5) Viniagrettes

Today in class, we made Cucumber Raita, a yogurt-based dip for pita and a complement to the hot spiciness of Indian food. We toasted cumin seeds, and separated the whey from plain yogurt to get the consistency we needed. Next, a fresh raspberry sauce was created in a VitaMix blender, and we tasted this poured over home-made ice cream. A Mango-Pineapple Salsa is my next recipe to try, and I'll serve it with fajitas.

The final sauce was a "Mojo", a Cuban sauce prounounced "mo-ho". It can be served hot or cold. It can be used as a marinade, a table sauce or a dip.

A Creme Anglaise and a Classic Caramel Sauce finished up the class today, so I'll be using summer ingredients to put these together in my meals over the next few weeks.

Yum!

Summer Fairs in Rural Areas and Seattle

Today opened the Bite of Seattle, a long-standing festival where one can descend upon the Seattle Center and try out small portions of just about any type of food you can imagine. While we didn't want to drive in to the city again after working there all week, we opted instead for a trip to a small town and its arts and crafts fair. Next week, the Bellevue Arts Fair, a very large and sophisticated show, will draw us to that large community east of Seattle. We always find something wonderful to take home, and we're looking around this weekend for a wall that might support a new addition to our already large collection. In mid-August, there will be the Bite of Edmonds, held in a lovely community located on Puget Sound. It's a wonderful place, and the food and art work are exceptional.

Grab a friend and celebrate summer with all of the events happening each weekend through Labor Day. This season ends all too soon in the Pacific Northwest, so carpe diem and make some memories!

Barn Art in Duvall, Washington

While visiting Duvall, Washington today, I enjoyed the many different types of art that adorned the old restored buildings. There were sheep and birds carefully painted on tromp l'oeil scenes, and a large Guernsey cow occupyed the side of an old barn now turned into a restaurant with outdoor bistro chairs and tables. This restaurant was surrounded by a riot of beautiful summer flowers, and the place just seemed to beckon me in. I resisted, however, and moved on to the next attraction, but came back and take a picture of the scene.

Walking down the street among the many shops, there was metal art and beautiful metal benches along the sidewalk, carved with scenes from the early 1900's, and pained a lovely shade of wine-red. There were hand-hewn picnic tables and chairs, and the old train depot, built over 100 years ago, was still standing and in good repair. The bench outside of the Duvall bookstore was made entirely of old books glued together on a frame. They were real books!

It was a perfect day for an adventure in a new town.

The History of Duvall, Washington

Living in Maltby, we often like to explore the small towns near us. Today we headed east through the Paradise Valley Conservancy area, and down into the valley where Carnation and Duvall are located.

The area that became known as Duvall was historically the home of the Snoqualmie and other ancestral Tulalip Native American tribes. Following their relocation under the treaty of Point Elliott, the area was homesteaded by veterans of the Civil War. The center of the present-day town was located on the hillside homesteaded by James and Francis Duvall, loggers who arrived in 1871.

An early milestone in the settlement of Duvall proper was the relocation of the town of Cherry Valley. Around 1909, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad agreed to move Cherry Valley homes and businesses to Duvall in order to continue the construction of the railroad along the Snohomish River. The newly-relocated town, originally called Cosgrove after Samuel J. Cosgrove, underwent a real-estate boom--streets and sidewalks were laid and and a train depot was constructed. This was followed by a movie house, a drugstore, a new schoolhouse, and several hotels. By 1911, the Duvall Citizen began publishing regular editions of news in the town.
The town of Duvall was officially incorporated on January 7, 1913.

On this beautiful Saturday, we ventured out around noon to explore the town of Duvall. Duvall is a place we often drive through during our evening rides, but we've never stopped to really take a close look at the town and the shops and restaurants. As we pulled into town, the posters proclaimed that this was the weekend for the Duvall "Sand Blast Days". This was their annual art and music fair, held on the sandy beach along the Snohomish River. Before checking this out, we first stopped at the Duvall bookstore, a quaint and wonderful old shop absolutely filled with books and old photographs. Next we hit Duvall Antiques, where I found a vintage shower curtain and a book on The Grateful Dead. Lunch was at the Duvall Grill, where organic meats and vegetables dominated the menu. It was a wild and noisy lunch crowd, but our salad and sandwich were wonderful.

Next we walked down to the river and listened to a young male performer sing like Bob Dylan. It was a perfect summer day to kick back, hear the music, watch people, and enjoy the view of the Snohomish River. The site of the fair was a lovely spot to just stop and enjoy it all.

On our way back to the car, we stopped for ice cream at the expresso shop, then browsed through a couple of antique malls in the north part of town, and then drove home, enjoying the beautiful day and our explorations in the town of Duvall. We'll be back there soon!

Vintage Perfume Bottles

For a few years, I have been looking in antique shops for beautiful old perfume bottles. I've had fun discovering the ways in which perfume has been bottled over the years, and each perfume maker has devised unique ways of presenting their fragrances to entice the public to buy their particular brand.

I recently inherited a very old bottle of Chanel No. 5, and the bottle is shaped like a prism, with an elaborate stopper. The amber liquid inside the bottle is over 40 years old, and it makes a beautiful display on my antique medicine cabinet in my bathroom.

At a garage sale last weekend, I found a great collection of tiny perfume bottles, and I bought them all. They bring back such a feeling of elegance, and I could imagine women years ago using the bottles and the perfumes to complete their toilette.

Picking Raspberries on a Tuesday Evening

Tonight was a beautiful, cool summer evening, and we went out to the raspberry patch just to pick a few berries for our breakfast tomorrow morning. The birds were singing loudly, and we were enjoying being out in the yard after a work day inside air-conditioned offices.

Before we knew it, we had filled seven baskets full of our beautiful berries! Tomorrow night after work, we'll stop at the store to replenish our canning supplies, and pick up some new jars and sugar and pectin. We have more raspberries this year than in any of the past 9 years, so I am prepared to create all of the jam possible to preserve this bumper crop for the coming year. It's also fun to share this bounty with family and friends. Nothing tastes quite like home-made, home-grown jam. Mmmmm....

Antique Flower Box

While shopping last week at the Antique Rose Farm, I found a unique flower planter filled with nasturtiums and a background provided by an antique window. It was a clever idea, and as I dragged this creation to my car, I was already plotting where I could place this to full advantage in my yard.

After checking out a half dozen spots, I finally settled on a location in the corner of the back yard. I set the planter on my blue garden bench, and the colors of the flowers and the painted bench looked nice together.

I'll enjoy this unique flower box for the rest of the summer, and over the next years. I like knowing that these things that fill my yard were made by local artisans right here in Maltby.

The Fine Art of Making Jam

When I was a little girl, my mother got me into the kitchen at 8 years old and began teaching me the fine art of baking and cooking. By the time I was 12 years old, I was doing the cooking and baking for church social events and family dinners at home. Desserts were my specialty, and my collection of cookbooks at that age was impressive! I still have my battered but trusty "Joys of Jello" cookbook, and I still make recipes from it.

My family had one acre of land within the city limits of Seattle, complete with a barn, a chicken house, and a very large vegetable garden. We'd spend the spring months planting the garden, and summertime was filled with picking the produce from the garden and the large number of fruit trees on our property. The two Royal Anne cherry trees were huge, and my brother and I would climb onto the top of the tree on hot days, find a comfortable position on the limbs, and eat cherries until we were almost sick. Funny what I can remember after all these years!

My mom was an expert at canning fruits and vegetables, having grown up on a farm in North Dakota. We'd make literally dozens of jars of jams and jellies, and they'd find their place on large shelves in the basement. "Putting up food" is a lost art today, but it certainly was imporant when I was growing up to have food from the summer last all year in the beautiful glass jars with the gold-ringed tops.

While my canning is limited to making jam, I still enjoy growing the raspberries, picking them, and turning them into something that I can savor all year long.

Maltby Strawberries

Once a year, during the month of July, beautiful locally-grown organic strawberries are available at the Maltby Market. Last weekend, I picked up a couple of baskets of these berries so I could make some strawberry jam. I bought the last of the strawberries from the first crop, and in a couple of weeks, the second crop will be available for purchase at the market.

I've never found strawberries with such a juicy, ripe taste as these berries. They are a beautiful dark red color, and slice easily. I began my jam-making process by putting the berries into my Cuisinart and pureeing them. I added the sugar and pectin, stirred it all for three minutes, and then poured them into their sterilized glass canning jars. I adorned each jar with a flag-motif cover, and put them on the sideboard for 24 hours so the jam could set.

The next day, I took several jars of the strawberry jam to work for my friends, and dropped one off at my neighbor's house. Round One of my summer jam-making is complete!

Antique Rose Farm in Midsummer

One day last week, I had a vacation day, and the temperature soared to 95 degrees! Those kinds of temperatures are unusual here in the Snohomish Valley, and I wanted to celebrate the summer season by getting out and doing something I don't usually have time to do during the work week.

After breakfast at the Maltby Cafe, I headed north through Clearview and turned off onto Springhetti Road. This route offers an unobstructed view of the Snohomish Valley and river, with the foreground filled with farms and cow pastures and old antique homesteads. It's a beautiful glimpse into an area that has not changed much in the last several generations.

The last time I visited the Antique Rose Farm, summer was not yet upon us. Last week, however, every rose on the farm was in full bloom. It was an incredible sight! Every type of rose imaginable was growing wildly toward the skies, and some grew up arbors and gazebos, while others just grew where they were planted. The still, dry air was filled with the scent of hundreds of roses.

In the next few weekends, I'll go back to the farm and pick out a couple of white climbing roses for the picket fence that surrounds my front yard. And if I can't find just the right rose, I can peruse the hanging baskets or the window boxes and find something just right for my yard. After all, The Slow Life is alive and well at The Antique Rose Farm!

Breakfast at the Maltby Cafe

In 2006, the Maltby Cafe in Maltby (Snohomish) won the award for the "Best Breakfast in Washingon". Over the years, the small, unassuming restaurant (it is housed in the basement of an old schoolhouse) has become well-known because of its great breakfasts and lunches, and boasts an array of home-made pastries and food, including their Giant Cinnamon Rolls (fills one dinner plate) and their Maltby Bread, sliced thick and topped with home-made raspberry and strawberry jam.

While on vacation last week, I decided to treat myself to a Maltby Cafe breakfast. Even on a mid-morning weekday, the cafe was crowded, and I had to wait a few minutes for a table.

After ordering a latte and a Vegetarian Frittata with Maltby Wheat Toast and raspberry jam, I settled down to read the paper while waiting for my food. The aromas from the kitchen were mouth-watering, and I watched with interest the procession of the food from kitchen to table, and the appreciative looks the patrons were giving the beautifully-prepared plates. It felt good to have breakfast in my own neighborhood with folks from my community, and it was a wonderful start to a relaxing and unhurried day.

The Agate: Volcanic Beauties

Agate is a variety of quartz (silica) characterized by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates can be found in many different types of rock, they are usually associated with volcanic rock.

Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and naturalist, discovered this stone along the River Achates in the 3rd century BC. It had widespread use in the ancient world as a material used in the art of hardstone carving, and has been found at a number of ancient sites.

Agates develop as deposits in hollow cavities, called vesicles. While they can form in all types of rock, most agates developed in ancient volcanic lava.

There are thousands of named agates found in almost all countries of the world. Some are named by their formation type, such as 'fortification' agate. Others are named for the location in which they were found, such as Brazilian Agate. Sometimes, the name is derived from a combination of the two types, such as a Brazilian Fortification Agate.

A friend of mine recently moved to Castle Rock, Washington, a small town near the base of Mount St. Helens. While he was building a new home on a large parcel of land, he picked up handfuls of gravel with small visible veins of agate in them. He put them in a rock polisher for several weeks to see what would be left after the grit and sand removed the soft outer layer of the rocks. The result was a beautiful collection of some of the nicest agates I have seen.

I have been a rock collector since I was a small child, with a little help from my grandfather Ernest and his brother Benton. They spent years in Oregon collecting agates and thundereggs, and had a rock shop where they could polish and cut slabs of geodes and petrified wood and agates. These beautiful agates will be a wonderful addition to my own rock collection.

The History of the Gazebo

Gazebos have been fixtures in gardens for centuries. Their popularity and presence have become more widespread with every generation, and they have emerged as the most prevalent outdoor garden structures in the world. Originally called summerhouses, screen houses, kiosks, grottos, or pagodas, the existence of gazebos has been traced to the earliest gardens. Gazebos actually started out as towers or lanterns on the roofs of houses, and were built specifically to provide advantageous views of the surrounding areas. It wasn’t until years later that the structures were built on the ground as summerhouses.

Gazebos were common in Egyptian gardens 5,000 years ago. As you might imagine, members of royalty were the first to have them. In fact, many thought of their gardens as earthly paradises, and believed they could take them to the afterlife. The structures were also popular in ancient Rome and Pompeii. As the population of Rome increased, the affluent and aristocratic began building summerhouses along the Mediterranean, complete with gazebos. Also flourishing in the East, gazebos in tenth-century Persian gardens were anything from colorful tents with mats on the floors, to ornate, two-story structures with cupolas, marble columns, and golden seats.

China’s gazebos were also quite elaborate, while those in Japan, often called teahouses, were used in conjunction with the revered Tea Ceremonies, and were the places to rest, get in touch with one’s spiritual side, and absorb the beauty of the garden. During the Renaissance, gazebos became popular in the gardens of monasteries, as shrines and places of meditation.

Today, gazebos are made of many different types of materials, such as wood, stone, canvas and fabric. They can be permanent structures or summertime shelters. They carve out a space in a yard or garden for quiet retreat and relaxation.

Ultimately I'd love to have an octagonal wood gazebo in my backyard, creating a vantage point for me to view my yard and garden. For now, I've purchased a canvas awning that gives me some shade on hot summer afternoons. I can lie in my lounge chair and read a summer novel, and sip iced tea. It's become a place I can contemplate my flowers and garden and yard, and mentally make my future plans for next year's crops and plantings.

Petunia Baskets

This year, I have about 30 hanging flower baskets in my yard. As the summer moves on, the baskets just about double in size and fill the corners of the deck, the garden fence, and the shady areas under the trees and arbors. They provide beautiful color from May through September. These flowers are one of my favorite things about the season.

I bought a lovely red, white and blue petunia basket at Flower World in Maltby about a month ago, and it seems to love its location near the shade garden, hanging up against the beautiful fence my neighbor Roger built several years ago.

The pink and purple petunia baskets that adorn my garden fence make a nice contrast to these bold colors, and you can smell the fragrance of these flowers all over the yard. One just needs to slow down for a moment, enjoy the colors and savor The Slow Life.

Farm to Table Cooking

I attended my first cooking class at Williams-Sonoma yesterday, and we learned how to pick out ears of corn and fresh tomatoes at the local Farmer's Market. Then we learned how to make summer salsa from fresh tomatoes, and a Roasted Corn Salad.

It was fun trying something new, so later this week I'll make corn fritters (made from fresh corn), and a Vegetarian Frittata. It was fun to buy a roasting pan for the gas grill, and corn on the cob tasted so good prepared this way.

My class next week is on "Summer Sauces", and I'll learn to make sauces for meats and vegetables, and chutneys and relishes. I see a dinner party in my future!