The first fruits.

We came back from Portland to ripening tomatoes.  We knew that would start happening while we were gone.  Look a that monster at the top!  Probably the biggest tomato I've ever pulled out of the garden - it weighed in at a pound and a half!  It is either a Brandywine or an old heirloom called Stump of the World - I think it's the latter.  The second picture is a Cherokee Purple tomato, which always keeps its sexy green shoulders, even when it's ripe.  So pretty.  Of course our first meal w/tomatoes from the garden:  pizza w/ sungold cherry tomatoes, cherokee purples, our basil, homemade 30-minute mozzarella from local milk (Johnson's milk!), trader joes crust, olive oil & balsamic vin.   Trader Joes's frozen pizza dough does come in handy.

Poppies in Portland

David took us to Portland, OR for four days last week, just 'cause.  We never travel like that, so this was a big treat.  And I apparently mostly took pictures of poppies.  We stayed with a great girl who lived near the Mississippi Ave. district on a small urban farm -- we found her through airbnb.com, the greatest thing ever.  Talk about traveling for cheap.  All the houses in the neighborhood had the greatest little flower gardens.  Lavender everywhere, and poppies.  So, here are the pictures:  poppies, Stumptown Coffee (delicious!), a pride parade, and us.  The night we got there, also, Portland was having a naked bike ride.  10,000 people from all over the world biking naked through town.  I, ummm, didn't take any pictures of that.  ;)

Flower bunching

This week, I listed "flower bouquets" on Athens Locally Grown, and I got orders for two.  So great!  When I worked on Waterpenny Farm, Rachel Bynum, one of the farm's owners, taught me to bunch flowers for the Washington DC and Charlottesville farmers markets.  I really enjoyed it.  Learned the rule of 3s with flowers, etc...apparently three of each flower is more pleasing to see in a bunch.  And for over a year, I've been following the blog of a flower shop in New York City -- Saipua -- that couldn't be prettier.  Sarah, the owner of Saipua and writer of its blog, could not be spunkier or more hilarious.  I love LOVE reading her writing, and the flower bouquets she makes are impossibly beautiful.  There really are no words.  So romantic and whimsical and ethereal.  Dunno how she does that with flowers.  So, when I got these orders for these two bouquets, I couldn't wait to make them.  Of course, they don't look like Saipua's.  But they do look like mine :)

Apparently one can be a flower farmer.  I've already ordered a book on Amazon about it, because as soon as I have an idea, of course I have to research it.

I didn't take a picture of the finished bouquets until David and I were in the car on the way to deliver them to Athens Locally Grown, and then I only had David's IPhone.  But here are the flowers picked into buckets.  Can you believe that blue hydrangea?  Or those orange mexican sunflowers? 

I feel like that top picture looks like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens that door and the whole outside world's in color.  Except it's at my house, which is neat.  

The Athens Family

(shamelessly culled from the facebook profiles of mwah, ethan, asher, katherine, jessica, bridget, and rob.  Uh, thanks guys. :))

These Mexican sunflowers have been blowing my mind.  There are surely over a hundred blooms, and the flowers are about eight feet tall.