a week of obsessions

1. pearl barley. The texture is amazing! Why haven't I been eating this instead of rice all these years?! (more on this later)

2. getting a half decent picture of the super pretty waxwings that suddenly showed up. I was surprised to see that they were eating the juniper berries. So I'm sorry, junipers. Personal, heartfelt apology. I stand corrected. There is a purpose for you afterall.

not quite! damn focus

oh now we focus when the angle is dumb. awesome.

3. farmer's markets. T and I walked to our local one last night. It was it's first night of the season and you could tell. I think there were only about 10 vendors (and I'm counting the hotdog, popcorn, and mini-donut carts). We're going to give them a couple weeks to get their act together and then check up on them again. It would be so so so nice to have a useful farmer's market within walking distance.

4. the broken fence. I had a dream that we fixed it and then built a garage-like structure over our entire backyard. We couldn't see the motorhome, no one could see us, and everyone's garbage couldn't get into our yard and we sat out there all the time. We were like, haha! Who's obtrusive NOW?!

5. macarons. After making semi-successful ones, I only want to make more! Not to eat, just to make! I've never felt so satisfied and dance-around-crazy excited about baking as I was when I saw those little feet appear. Next time, I'm going to focus on fillings and I might might colour the shells! Eeep!!

6. poppies and peonies. My orange poppies are thisclose to opening.

poppy watch continues

Did I tell you how my neighbours mowed over their practically-a-hedge of orange, oriental poppies last year and subsequently killed them? And subsequently killed a little piece of me in the process? Well, this spring, I noticed a peony growing happily almost where their poppies used to be (never forget), and I've been watching it, excitedly wondering what colour and type it was. You know, since the peony easily ties with poppies as one of my all time favourite flowers (hey, guess what I've always dreamed of having an entire garden plot of!) And then Tuesday came (it shall forever be known as Black Tuesday), when he whipped out the lawn mower he suddenly owns (what?! what?! wait!!! NOOOOOO!!!), and, as I stood in my window and watched, vrroooom right over the peony. This man knows how to hurt me. Deeply.

7. lettuce and chives. I've almost given up on my poor tomatoes who've gone from getting kinda bad to are those dead? Oh wait, there's still a leaf growing. On the bright side, with all the rain and cooler weather, the lettuce I planted last year is doing extremely well! That's right! I planted this lettuce last year and it was so hot and sunny, that I gave up on all my lettuce dreams. The poor things kept getting majorly sun burned no matter what I did. Now that I've discovered these little lettuces doing their thing on their own, I planted some more seeds. If I can't have fresh tomatoes, at least I can have lettuce.

I discovered there were chives in the backyard last year, but I didn't use them as much as I should have. This year, I'm being more diligent. I love the way they smell.