hump day nuggets: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week
We just can’t stay inside for too long these days as our bones know a big weather shift is imminent. We’ve pinched off all tomato flowers hoping to encourage a few red lovelies, outside morning coffee first requires a sweater. I have urges to do things like bake bread and finish the quilt I started for Margot when Ruby was snug in my belly. We have hot springs trips planned.
But before I do cozy inside things, there’s all this outside to be enjoyed. And in being outside and giddy and engaged, I haven’t been taking many photos….I adore my camera as a tool that allows me to be present and aware, framing sweet moments. And there are also times when it’s nice to participate without a tool, when I frame sweet moments in my heart with both hands free to give an underdog.
So on to nuggets from the last week and then I must go back out.
:: Morning booty shakes continue to occur almost daily. I don’t ever want them to stop. Do you think that when my girls are in middle school they’ll still wake and shake with their mama?
:: Our family had the most fun at our local water park. On the way there, Margot said, hey guys, today is going to be the most wonderful day ever.
And it was.
:: Somehow, the towels didn’t join us, so, Ruby napped in her dad’s t shirt.
:: Epic salad made entirely from local produce! Make it. It’s killer.
Cherry Cucumber Salad
(Mike Sherrin’s recipe in Food & Wine magazine)
2 cucumbers (1 1/4 pounds), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pound sweet cherries, pitted and halved
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pound sweet cherries, pitted and halved
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
In a medium bowl, toss the diced cucumbers with the white wine vinegar and olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the halved cherries and cilantro leaves, toss lightly and serve.
:: Not much better than backyard dining and sipping and gabbing with best friends.
:: A weekend of carousel rides and face paint with Grandma Joan. Oh I am the luckiest girl alive with the family I married into.
:: I just plain love morning walks around our neighborhood with my daughters.
The way Margot ambles, stopping to study rocks and count ants. The way Ruby hangs on her big sister’s every movement. The way Alice is so patient and gentle with my girls. The very idea that I get to go on morning walks with my daughters. It’s the little stuff that makes me sing.
:: And my favorite part of end of summer? Harvest. All that hard work delivering nourishment to my family. For fruit it’s strawberries and then cherries, apricots, raspberries, plums, peaches, apples, pears. We don’t have fruit trees but thanks to the generosity of strangers (and an incredible peach orchard in Paradise), we always end up with more than enough of everything.
Last fall’s weird early frost killed raspberries and plums. This week an email went around offering apricots and this mama strapped a ladder to her roof and hauled her babies to fetch some fruit. (Thank you, Karen!)
^ photo by generous apricot owner, Karen ^
I remember picking pears last year on that same ladder when I was quite pregnant. My boiling water canner has emerged from the basement, the jars are washed. Oh the excitement of putting up food for the cold months. But, first, the rest of summer.
My raspberries didn’t make it this year, but our plums did! Thankfully. Did I tell you I also made currant jelly for the first time and I adore it! Sweet with hints of tartness. I’m definitely trying your salad recipe – sounds delish.
Love this post! I’m so looking forward to the fall in NC. We played this summer for all it is worth. We need to shift gears!
A blog post just beautiful.
Tony
I have rasps by the load. They are so pretty. I have frozen a few so you can enjoy them when you come. We will put them over hot corn cakes for breakfast. Yes we must breathe in summer. I feel a desparate at this point to suck up as much as possible. Your children are just lovely. xoxo
I love how your eldest is swinging with the shoes on the wrong feet. Such a cute picture!
As always a great post! thank you
Ahh, great post, great stuff. Happy Fall Cline Family!
love, love and love.
especially, “outside morning coffee first requires a sweater.”
Ahhh!
Yes, your girls will have such sweet memories…..
Hey Nici~
Beautiful post (as usual). I adore the morning booty shakes. I dance with Theo and Sully all the time. Always puts me in a good mood.
Tomorrow I’m going to pinch the flowers off my tomato plants. I have tons of green tomatoes and had no idea that getting rid of the new flowers speeds along the ripening of the exsisting fruit. So glad I came here tonight. I learned something~and think I just might want Margot’s haircut. Love you guys…
that recipe sounds … intriguing.
hm.
margot’s comment is adorable.
SO happy that HDN are here for me to read before I hit the hay…..I will write more tomorrow, I am one tired mama….nite ~ xoxo Mom/Gram
,,,mmmmm, the salad looks yummy as do the glasses of “adult beverages.” margot’s hair looks so soft, i love her little “bob”. thanks for the “nuggets.”,,,
,,,can’t think off the top of my head of a song for her travels to montana, but i think her blog *header* should read:,,,
“MI meets MT”
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I am simultaneously appreciative of both the fantastic photo of the fruit tree, AND your desire to just put the camera down sometimes. So many times, I am a little bit outside the action, wanting to catch the perfect shot in this late-summer late. The times I can put it down, I have to remind myself that it’s worth just BEING.
I’ve put the camera down a lot lately and just tried to soak up any summer around me. We’ve had our coolest summer in 40 years, so those moments of heat and peach juice on my shirt and tomatoes under my fingernails and cocktails on the patio and sand between my toes from beach romps with the dog and wind on my legs during sunny bike rides have been much enjoyed.
I refuse to go inside for things “that can happen when the weather turns to shit”. This is a common refrain around our house.
Glad to hear you’ll be putting up good stuff for winter (you put up GREAT STUFF – hello, green tomato chutney!), but not until summer’s gone by.
Enjoy it all
I was also lucky to have a generous Missoulian let me harvest her apricots last week. I’m on batch 3 of drying them to snack on the rest of the year! We’re so lucky to have a fruit-laden and considerate community willing to share summer’s bounty. However, jealousy got the better of me earlier this summer so I planted 4 fruit trees in the backyard hoping one day to return the favor.
Quick question: do you use bpa-free canning lids? A friend of my family posted on her blog that she’s switching to Tattler (http://www.reusablecanninglids.com/) because they’re bpa-free and reusable. I’ve ordered them to use this year. Didn’t know if you already knew/used them or something similar.
We are the same here, spending every minute outside because a big weather change will be coming soon… *sigh*
So, I just opened the package that contained my Argentina shirt. Omg I’m in love with it! It is seriously PERFECT. I’m sure the southern tip was a pain but you totally nailed it =) I’m sooo happy I got it and that both of my girls will get to wear it. My whole fam is going to love it. Thanks!
We are so knee deep in harvest here too, I just wish I could shake the seasonal melancholy that stalks me this time of year.
I love to see that a nested baby doesn’t stop you from harvesting fruit – gotta teach them young!
Melinda,
I am thinking about getting those. I haven’t yet and have a ton of lids I want to use up first but I love the idea! And was super bummed when I found out bpa was all up in my canned goods. No fair!
Daniele,
YAY! So glad you like it. Yeah that southern tip was a bitch but it doesn’t have anything on Maine, Louisiana and Alaska. Those give me a run for my money!
Oh an I love that people love Margot’s haircut! I do it and it is an evolutionary cut, meaning I cut a bit weekly as I can…ha, literately a chunk here, a even-up there. And I layer the back up a bit. Yeah, she’s cute. I like her.
Those girls look like they had some serious fun at the water park. Soooo cute! Little wet summer people.
Love the wake and shake! I loved dancing with my kids when they were little. Connor doesn’t dig it as much, but I’m going to keep trying!!!
And the middle school thing… I actually found when my daughter was in middle school that offering to break into a rendition of Dancing Queen would get her to toe the line right quick in public. ;-D
Now at 20, she’ll sing at the top of her lungs, skip and dance down the street or freezer aisle with me, so I’ve decided they do come back around. We crank classic rock when she’s driving… Journey is the absolute best!
Lovely girls, lovely home, lovely life. Yay! AND!!! I got your package in the mail today at last!
I love that August is coming to mean harvest for us, too. The little ladies love the finger-stained work of blackberry picking. Those December smoothies will taste so much better with their hard work. And since I have zucchinis coming out my ears, I’ve been making mad purees for baby food bases and, well, I don’t know what else but I got a lot of the frozen green liquid.
Your girls are growing too big, too quick.
Smooch!
I love this post.
I have been trying to savor every moment left in this summer knowing that the grey, wet days of the Pacific Northwest winter are coming too soon.
I have left my camera behind and savored “being” in most moments for the last week.
We were lucky and spent the last official day of summer at the pool…we were the only ones at a normally crazy, packed pool.
On to apple farms, pumpkin patches, football, and indoor fun…after a few more sunny days.
{Secretly, I look forward to getting the little guy (and maybe even baby girl) up on the slopes of Mt. Hood this winter!}