He likes to see all the islands, so island-hopping he goes

HAPPY WEEKEND!

We're excitedly gearing up here for a weeklong trip to the San Juan Islands, to celebrate my parents' (40th) anniversary. We're looking forward to exploring a new place and spending some time around trees!

While letting the chickens out yesterday, I noticed that a Meadowlark

had built a nest under the eave of the chicken coop - it appears to

be made of polyester stuffing and feathers and holds 3 beautiful little eggs

Something delicious: I got super excited about these when I read the article at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago. I don't know about pretzel dogs or hot pockets, but a good soft pretzel is a beautiful thing. I'll bet Silas would like them too.

Something neat: This is a story about how one of my dearest college friends, and incidentally one of the most brilliant women I know, runs a creative, inspirational, and (deservedly) very popular business. She has worked amazingly hard to create something truly special and beloved, and I admire her immensely.

Something to read: This is a totally fascinating article about studies into how microbes and their colonies in our bodies benefit our daily lives, specifically those in our gut (sidenote: I love that gut is the scientific term for our digestive system). He especially focuses on this currently running study, sampling gut microbiota around the country, with the hopes of eventually drawing correlations between these colonies and our overall health. Such, such interesting ideas and so much we don't yet know.

Something to make: We got our first strawberries this week (yippee!) and I've got a batch of this underway in the fridge. I have at least three other strawberry jams I'd like to try this year - hooray for the onset of jam season!

Chocolate will cure most of what ails ya

And I just ate some kind of mushroom

Well, I can't quite seem to get myself back on schedule here, maybe next week. Until then, hope you all had a 

HAPPY WEEKEND!

We picked these yesterday  - it was our first time finding

morels since we moved out here and totally awesome

Something delicious: Tres and I have had this twice in the last week - it is seriously excellent (as is pretty much everything we've tried from that cookbook, it's a goody). We did make a few adaptations, cooking the popcorn in all of the fat from the bacon (decidedly more than the 1 T. she recommends) seemed to eliminate the risk of burning, we added a little chili powder (cayenne could also be nice) and nutritional yeast, and we left out the extra butter and salt, since we had plenty of salty fat already. Vegetarians, or those not feeling bacon-y, this is a delicious alternative.

Something neat: I'm not sure I could tell "artisanal" honey from what you buy at the store, but I thought that this story was quite interesting and inspiring. Can't find what you want? Make it yourself (don't worry, I don't have any commercial honey production plans)!

Something to read: This book, along with some internet research of course, is the main resource we've been using for our bees. It's not quite as detailed as I'd like (as in, I'd prefer a step by step guide for dumb dumbs), but an excellent guide and introduction to the basics of beekeeping. His advice is to observe and learn from a skilled beekeeper, which is no doubt wise. Ahem.

Something to make: I took a one day bookmaking class in college and really loved it, but haven't done much with it since. This series on bookbinding has re-piqued my interest. Upon rereading the linked entry, it turns out that she went to Sarah Lawrence. What a small world.

Now, where are those mushrooms?

Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor

Well, some weeks offer more blog inspiration than others. That said, Silas and I have both been very happy to have Tres back and we've all been enjoying spending some time together (in addition to getting back into a more regular routine and getting some things done around here). Hope the weekend is treating you well!

I didn't get a lot of photos this week either, but here's

a sweet one of him reading with his Opa last weekend