Lisa Zahn

Things are shaping up in the garden for an imminent harvest of many things. Here are some photos: The first is not from the garden, but today's farmer's market purchase. Cukes and dill for pickling later today. I'm going to do some fermented sour pickles in a crock and some with vinegar because the kids prefer those. Advice to parents of young children: don't start your kids on store-bought foods if you want them to prefer homegrown and home-preserved! Or at least, by age 5 have them eating this stuff if you can manage it. Our kids already have strong preferences for what they're used to eating. I understand because I was like that as a kid. We'll turn 'em around eventually... We've got two broccoli heads almost ready to eat, and two that are slower-growing. They look beautiful! This was the only green bean I could find to photograph, but I'm sure there are more hiding in there somewhere. And the sauerkraut-to-be. "We" are picking many ca...

A couple nights ago was supposed to be the best night to see the Perseid Meteor Showers . I had gone to bed before 9 p.m. but when Rose came up and crawled in with me around 10, suddenly I leapt out of bed and said "tonight's the night for the meteor showers. Let's drive out to the country!" The kids and dad were up for it, tired as we were, so we hopped in the Subaru and drove about ten miles out of town. We pulled onto a country road and George and I lay on the hood of the car while the sleepy kids stretched out in the backseat. Unfortunately, after about 1/2 an hour of trying to keep our eyes open we hadn't seen much. It was too early, I think. Elijah said he saw "one" but the rest of us didn't so we gave up and drove home. Before leaving the house, Eli innocently asked "if they know this is the night, why don't they turn the streetlights out?" Good question. Why don't "they"? I love our neighborhood, our place...

Or so that's what my new Stairwell Sisters t-shirt says! We spent last weekend at the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival . On Thursday we set up camp. Here's George setting up the solar shower and its enclosure (thanks to our friend who works for Coleman we got it for 10 bucks!). We did some relaxing, reading and knitting ( Wisconsin Winter Socks ) and lounging in the hammock... Of course Rose only "attempts" to relax! After a few seconds of "snoring" in the other hammock (one of several forgotten items I drove back home to get, after much fighting over the one hammock...), she spent most of Thursday helping to decorate the Family Area of the Festival. All weekend we listened to lots of awesome old-timey and bluegrass music. Our favorites included the honky-tonky girl band the DitchLilies from the Twin Cities: Another all-girl band, the Stairwell Sisters from San Francisco, were a huge hit. Their music is old-timey and that's my persona...

Goldie and Lucy The chickens are good. They are incredibly easy, as everything I've read and heard about them has said. Just check on them in the morning, give 'em a cup or two of food and make sure they have water. Check on them once more in the afternoon, refill food and water if needed--the water usually lasts a couple of days so even that's easy. Danu and Lily They do love to eat and go a little nuts when you bring out food. Unlike other chickens I've seen and about which I've read, though, they're not really eating the weeds and other compost we're putting in their run. Picky chickens? Well, join the family...They like to climb on top of their feeder as soon as new food is put on, in spite of George building a funky little stand for it. We also find them snuggling up together a lot. They don't seem to be hen-pecking much and really appear to like each other. I guess that's good. They definitely have their personalities. Goldie and Lily are the f...