Estes Park Wool Market

Our local fiber festival is up at Estes Park every June, and seeing as how we were still living in Portland this time last year, this was our inaugural visit. Each tent/barn was divided by fiber animal - goats, sheep, llamas, alpacas and sharing a bit of space with the sheep were the angora bunnies.

While we were mingling with with the animals, Stinker was trying desperately to break out and join us. Little did he know we had a surprise in store for him.


This isn't exactly the most graceful of poses, but considering that it was well over 80 degrees, I don't think this ewe minded losing her winter sweater.


Check out the locks on these guys. Curls for the girls, as my old friend Susan used to say.


...and did I mention we added another four barely discernible legs to the family? We're officially outnumbered.

Too busy to blog

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. We've been hiking and camping and gardening and even got to entertain my parents for a few days.

One exciting bit of news is that I'm beekeeping again! My friend Kayla captured a beautiful swarm of bees, and we introduced them to a new home two weeks ago. They were amazingly docile. Pouring them out of a box and into the hive was a bit surreal. The mass of bees stayed together forming sort of a thick river that flowed slowly down and into the brood chamber. We have been feeding them honey water from their Maine bee cousins, and they seem to have taken to their new home just fine.





Kevin and I have been hiking up a storm recently. The crazier the terrain, the better.


Splendid views in Rocky Mountain National Park.


We stumbled upon the remnants of an old home along a trail near Heil Valley Ranch.


We did a bit of camping with Traci and Cris over Memorial Day weekend in a secluded area between Lyons and Estes Park. The odd and slightly inappropriate looking thing on the left is our new favorite camping treat, "Biscuit on a Stick". In case that isn't clear enough, here are some directions. Place biscuit dough on the end of your favorite campfire roasting stick. Be sure to secure the dough around the end of the stick. Cook over the fire - preferably in an area of indirect heat. Remove biscuit from stick, slather with butter, jam, honey, or whatever you like, and eat.


Kevin's roasting stick has two points for double the s'more fun!


Yay for camping!

Mmm...salad

Spinach. We have lots of it. Lots. But this is all about our first salad of the season. In the process of thinning the spinach, chard and peas a couple of weekends back, we found ourselves with a colander full of young greens.


We gave them a good rinse, removed the roots and towel dried them in our finest linen.



They were then dressed in just a bit of super special olive oil, brought back from Spain by my other mom Barbara, and a dash of Himalayan pink sea salt. Kevin declared it the best salad he'd ever had, and I had to agree. We may just start growing extra peas for their greens. Yum!

Busy weekend

What can I say? My kitty is very talented.

We took our first trip down to the Boulder Farmer's Market on Saturday. Lucky for us, the weather was a bit grim, so it wasn't the shoulder to shoulder traffic I've heard is the norm. Everyone there seemed to be in good spirits despite the snow.

Kevin and I caught up with Amy and Wyatt, the owners of Red Wagon Organic Farm, and my former bosses. They take serious pride in their produce, believe me, and the greens they had on sale were gorgeous. Aside from some Red Wagon spinach, we also picked up some fabulous bread from Udi's and some exceptional cheese from Windsor Dairy.

For as long as I can remember, lilacs have been my very favorite flowery item. When May rolled around and it was finally warm enough to sleep with the windows open, the lilacs were blooming just outside in all of their perfume-y glory. We have a few lilacs in our backyard here in Boulder. They are a bit on the small side, which is to be expected in this climate, but I think they should be in full bloom by the end of the week.


And in today's gardening news, we have baby spinach!


And baby Swiss chard!

Making things

Check out Kevin's latest handiwork. I would like to point out the hand sewn magazine slings. Brilliant!

Snowy Spinach

With the spirit of spring in its step, our spinach stood strong against the few inches of snow that fell yesterday. Boulder is green, perhaps the only time of year it's green without silly people trying to have the greenest grass on the block in a climate that just isn't suited for it.

This weekend marks three weeks before the generally accepted last frost date, so we'll be planting all sorts of goodies - sunflowers, nasturtium, corn, crookneck squash, yellow zucchini, delicata squash, beets and carrots. All of this waiting is killing me. I can't wait for fresh veggies!

Growing things

Spring fever has officially hit! We're growing things like crazy here at Melvin HQ. We have two small gardens going. One at my place of employment and one at home. Perhaps you're puzzled by the idea of growing things at one's place of employment, but the super fabulous owners of Schacht Spindle Co., Barry and Jane, decided to turn a strip of land previously covered in grass into a series of employee garden plots. They painted little radishes on the edge of the curb surrounding the land to demarcate plots, and each spring employees are given the option of signing up for a plot. There are two rules. You have to weed your plot, and you have to garden organically. They provide us with compost, garden tools, and irrigation. Water is conserved by limiting the watering times to early and late in the day when the sun is a bit less apt to evaporate the water intended to irrigate your plants. I'm working for a couple of very cool people.

So far we have peas, lettuce, spinach and stir fry mix all starting to grow. The garlic and shallots from last fall are up and doing well, and with a stretch of 70+ degree days on the horizon, I suspect there will be more to report.


We're sharing the apartment with lots of little seedlings: tomatoes of various sorts (including plants from the seeds I saved last fall), peppers of various colors, beets, lettuce, thyme, dill, basil and lavender. April 20th marks the date when I'll plant a few more things in the ground, with Mother's Day being our generally recognized last frost date after which we can really go crazy.


Last night the first of the tomatoes were transplanted. We're growing black krim, red zebra, a mystery heirloom and some cherry tomatoes. After a long stretch of saving our yogurt containers, all that was needed was my trusty dusty awl and a bit of soil, and we had the perfect first step transplant containers.


Next step will be transplanting them into poo pots (dried, compressed cow manure) which can be planted directly into the ground when ready.

We also spent a good deal of time last weekend giving the worm bin a once over. The net result was happier worms and a nice little bucket of castings to use in the garden. There will be lots more to report in the very near future. Yay spring!