Sunday, October 7, 2012

Sometimes I Remember To Blog Summer Recap

Having just wrapped up one of the busiest summers of my life, it occurs to me: that was nutsssssss. Also: super fun, a bit of a whirlwind and, most definitely, blog worthy.

Early in the summer, on a whim, I submitted one of my soap designs to a soap swirling contest and won! My winning design was my tie-dye soap onesie, a great seller and one I'm particularly fond of.

Contest winning soap design... hellz yahhhhhhh
I was super honored to win this contest, especially since brambleberry is, well, kind of a big deal in the soap making community. So, yah: cool!

In Rancheroo news, we hosted out-of-town visitors galore (one of our most favorite things to do) including lots of lovely friends and family, our usual end-of-sumer Burning Man contingent, and an awesome family of fellow unschoolers.

A gaggle of free range kids, roaming the woods
Speaking of Burning Man: we busted ass all summer long, prepping to haul the whole family out that way (something that has been in the works for almost a year). In typical crazy-burner-family-with-a-strong-touch-of-geek fashion, we built a geodesic dome from scratch. Fabulously nerdy family fun! And then, sadly, two weeks before our departure date,  I fractured the sesamoid bone in my foot.

Ouch. And crap. And oh well, next year. The upside, of course, being that we now have this super cute 15 foot geodesic. We're in the process of painting it rainbow.

As yet to be rainbowed geodecic
With no more Burning Man prep to do its all consuming vortex thing, I then spent a month straight canning fruit. Now I know that sounds very domestic, but it's actually totally bad ass. Because, in the case of the apocalypse, we're totally set (assuming the zombies don't get us, and I can find a way to synthesize cortisol).  I've discovered I especially enjoy canning goods that you will in no way ever find at a grocery (star crimsom pear cardamom jam and peach ginger honey come to mind). I also discovered that as much as I enjoy an afternoon alone in the kitchen canning, it's even more fun to do it with friends.

My girls, S & M, working their way through 70 plus pounds of peaches
To support my canning addiction I acquired a fruit picking one. To the local farmers I've become known as That Chick Who Will Come To The Farm And Pick More Fruit Than We Even Knew We Had (Yup, that's me. I just really like to pick fruit) And Whose Children Sometimes Pick Enthusiasticly Alongside Her While At Others Hang Out In The Car Playing Video Games Rolling Their Eyes About How They've Already Picked Enough Fruit This Season To Feed A Small Country Well A Small Country Of Fruit Loving Zombies, Hahaha! Hahaha! (Yup, that's my kids).

MiniM, showing off his blueberry harvest

We did have our own garden which, sadly, fizzled out due to a combination of a month straight of 95 plus degree heat and a gardener with a fractured sesame seed. We didn't harvest much but it was lovely to look at.

SUMMER GARDEN MASHUP
Other summer odds and ends: as summer progressed, our local deer population could increasingly be found lounging about outside our garden fence making longing faces. Wild turkeys were everywhere all the time causing a ruckus and raising their ridiculously cute turkey babies (at least we didn't have one try to mate with my dad's car this year... true story). We enjoyed numerous family bike rides, read the Harry Potter series from start to finish, and the chiddlers and I decided to forgo our weekly trip to the pool in favor of weekly trips to the river and creek. It was spectacular.

Favorite swimming hole: Evans Creek
To boot, D started a hackerspace, won the obfuscated c coding contest for the 5th time, and got an awesome new programming gig.

Now, it's almost fall and I'm still spending altogether too much time in the kitchen, most recently filling cute lil' jars with various pear concoctions. But, like I said. it's fall. And I think we should celebrate. Maybe we'll set up our rainbow geodesic and deck it out and and throw party and eat canned goods. Wanna come?