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Autumn blew in today, blustering great whirls and swoops of redgold leaves every which way.

Time to harvest the ‘maters:

…and make salsa:

Holy Jalapenos, Batman! Yum.

My freezer is now full of plump, delicious blueberries.

Rita and I picked ‘em out at Blueberry Blossom farm in Snohomish. Yum.

I also took her nettling for the first time yesterday out in Discovery park, with my other new foraging convert, Rachael.

The secondary growth is not as lush as the spring pick was so we didn’t overpick the colonies, but we all harvested enough to have a few good yummy nettle meals. Rita and I celebrated later that evening, with sauteed nettles and shallots as a side for sweet potato bisque and smoked gouda grilled cheese sandwiches. Mmmmmm…

Berrying pics.

It’s a berriful world out there right now and I’ve been taking full advantage of it.

My friend Seb teaches classes on the wild things out there. What’s edible, what’s medicinal, what’s tasty and what’s bleeeah. Rita, Ben, Kevin and I trailed her across Tiger Mountain last saturday and learned all sorts of secrets and treasures.

We feasted on a multitude of delicious(and a few not so delicious) offerings. Huckleberries, blackberries, thimbleberries, blackcaps, lichen(imagine dry, sweaty paper), licorice fern, cat-tail root(sort of potatoey), wild plum leaves and other strange forest delicacies.

I especially loved the blackcaps-deep maroon/black raspberries-and the thimbleberries, which were surprisingly plentiful and quite tasty.

Kevin discovered a sleeping snake(you can see it on flickr with the rest of the picture parade) and we worked up quite a thirst with all that tromping about in the hot sun, so we hit the Snoqualmie Brew Pub for lunch and pitchers of rootbeer.

The rootbeer is excellent, which is fortunate, since we ended up consuming way more of it than we’d intended as the waiter’d forgotten to put in our order and thus we sat for several hours in sun-dazed conversation until we finally mentioned that we were starving and he, mortified, confessed his error and gave us a free extra pitcher.

All in all though, it were a grand day and we floated out of there on a haze of rootbeer bubbles, with heads full of foraging knowhow.

So, the morning after Rita’s party(see below), we crawled out of bed-er, well, more like out of couch, or floor to the joy of Ben’s delicious pancakes. Happily stuffed, we waddled down to the fair and waded through massive herds of determined fairgoers.. And waded, and waded and…

…finally found a spot to sit at near the very end of the parade route. And waited and waited and waited.. A sporadic mostly naked biker popped by now and then, but by the time the parade came our way, Ben and Dawn had given up and deserted. Sam and Rita and I stuck it out, but the floats were so sparsely spread out by the time they got to us that about two thirds of the way through we thought it was over and our whole tail end of sweaty, slightly irate humanity started heading back down the route only to get shouted at when we met the rest of the parade rounding the bend. Eep!

Oh well. Our patterned butts were glad to get a short respite from the pebbly concrete and we jammed ourselves into an edge of crowd to enjoy the rest of the show.

It wasn’t as spectacular as some years, but I rather liked Ol’ Spaghettihead and the Pirates.

This is my favorite picture though-not because of the cockpole guy and his lovely muscles, but for the three lookyloos with the cameras in the background gawking at the nekkid chicks. Priceless.

More Solstice parade heah.

Laloo’s-it’s goatmilk icecream believe it or not, and it’s far and away the mostest, bestest, chocolatiest icecream I’ve ever reveled in.

Sam gives it a rating of Godly!

Now if only I could find some of their wackier flavors, like chocolate cabernet, black mission fig, lemon chiffon or molasses tipsycake! Oooooooooh, shivers.

Ben and Rita had a ridiculously fun party last night.

The theme was terrible costumes and great homemade pizza. Ben used his amazing sourdough to create the pizza crust and we all brought a multitude of yummy toppings.

Sam and I had a blast dressing up hideously for the event, as you can see. We fit in smashingly with the rest of the fashion atrocities.

When we weren’t sucking Ben(spiffy turquoise slacks and all) into the puppy puddle on the couch, Sam persuaded Rita to spend much of the evening boinging on the giant trampoline behind the house, extravagantly topped pizzas kept popping out of the oven, a crazy cacophonous jam session developed in the music room and we held a nun chucking tower demolition in the living room.

A most excellent party. More pics…

Sam and I made this mandala of stones to celebrate earth day tonight in the beautiful little rock and glass sculpture park that graces our humble ‘burb.

Then we ate lots of yummy desserts.

And threw some tasty bits in the blackberry brambles behind the park, as an offering to Momma Earth. I’m sure the rats and squirrels will be happy to serve as her priestly mouthpieces and accept the sacred morsels of baklava, macaroon and lemon bar.

Thank you, Earth. I love you so, your strong roots and beautiful rocks, your swift streams and luscious waterfalls, for your soft green moss and rich dark soil. For sand and clay and snow to play with, to frolic in, to sculpt. For plants and gardens, fruit trees and wild beasts. My eternal gratitude for sustaining and nourishing us foolish humans, even as we proliferate and perpetrate past all sense or justice or even sanity.

Thank you for being there every time I fall, exhausted, heart-broken, depleted and lost, into your leafy lap and every time I leap, excited and coursing with energy and life, bouncing with joy, dancing and sparkling with creativity, renewal and purpose.

May I serve you as you have me. May these hands, this heart, mind, body and soul nurture, protect, encourage, delight, celebrate and sustain you.

So mote it be.

I love nettle season.

Took my good friend Rachael out to Discovery park for her first nettle harvesting experience eveh. Discovery’s excellent nettling. You barely even have to get out of the car-the abundant masses of stingy green-bronze nettlesome goodness are everywhere! Yum.

She got the hang of scissoring off the tips pretty quickly, with a minimum of stinging(I did warn you, did I not?). A fabulous excursion, all around. We clipped our bags full rapidly, tossed ‘em in the car and then hiked down to my favorite beach to clamber about on the wonderful driftwood snags and fill each other in on our various and sundry current doings. Even the weather gods favoured us with lovely warm sunshine until a few choice drops warned us to scramble back through the driftwood and briar maze as the beach was disappearing with the rising tide. The rain sweetly waited ’til we arrived at Fisherman’s terminal, then when we were safely inside perusing smoked trout, scallops and oysters, the downpour began in earnest, dumping buckets like it was determined to flood all the fish back into the sea!

Then, inevitably, the gourmet she devil tempted me back to her place with her delectable food porn. She smoked, sauteed and creped us up magnificent marvels of culinary delight(smoked chicken and mushroom crepes topped with truffle sauce and nettles a la Rachael) while her bf Travis delighted mine ears with a heavenly selection of music from his excellent, vast collection of cds as we daintily(well, as dainty as you can get with a food so made for greedy slurpage) sucked down the fresh oyster appetizer.

I shouldn’t even mention dessert(no fair to get y’all drooling uncontrollably for naught), but I can’t help it. Guinness brownies! Yeah, I couldn’t believe my ears either, but you read me right. Guinness.

Nothing like what you might think though. Not with Rachael’s exquisite epicurean artistry at work. These were wonders of dark chocolatey goodness, tipped with an ever-so-slight pinch of sea salt(though I wasn’t quite sure if this was for the perfection of the dish, or just to mess with the non-salt lickin’ tastes of her Travis), standing tip toe(the brownies, not Travis) in a creamy peanutty sauce, accompanied by succulent banana slices-fried to crunchy gooey sweet lusciousness.. Aaaaah. Mmmmmm…

Such scrumptious, artistic perfection.

I asked her what she’s planning on doing with the rest of her nettles and she says, all nonchalant-like: ‘oh, maybe ravioli.’ Woooooot! Nettle Ravioli!? Yum. Double yum.

I’m waiting, Rach.

Sharon’s site is up!

(nice job Ellen, on the webbery and illustration!)

Go, flock to her! Bring her your aches, pains, ailments and most especially, your unhappy tummies… You’ll be glad you did. Her sweet, gentle, delicious combination of acupuncture, massage and nutrition is just the thing for bellies(and whole bodies) in need.

Aaaaah, balance, love, healing.

Hurray Sharon!

Happy Holydays, everyone!

Mo’ pics.