A Backyard Salad in Greeley

We are just starting to get our small harvests in, but it has been enough to net us a good lunch. We went out and weeded the garden, planted the summer seeds (like watermelon, cucumbers, cantaloupe and basil) and harvested the early summer bounty.

Raw Materials for salad

The Raw materials from the garden for our backyard salad included: eggs from the Leghorn, strawberries, radishes, spinach, lettuce (arugula, romaine and bibb), mint and garlic scapes.

Backyard Salad
The Prepared Lunch

I think lunch was about 90% from the backyard. We only added suntea, lemon and homemade dressing that included the scapes. The rest was washed, chopped up or, in the case of the eggs, boiled and served. It was very delicious and reminded us of why we spend so much of our time toiling in the soil. I love making these locavore meals. I can’t wait till I can do it year round in the tropics. You truly reap what you sow! Yum.

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Greeley Corleones plus Star Trek

Last night Britton hung out with Clifton for a bit while Shana and I went out to the restaurant/bar Corleones in downtown Greeley. I didn’t know it until we were there, but apparently this was the last night of blues and serving drinks for Corleones! They are changing their business model from a blues bar and Italian restaurant to strictly catering which is a shame. It is kind of a neat place similar in style to the old New England pubs with the brick walls and the low ceilings. I took this video incognito from the tiny bathroom out to the bar where they were playing music. It’s not the greatest since I wasn’t watching what I was doing, but you get a feel for the place. There must have been 50 to 75 people at one point all crammed down there. There’s another video of the band playing as well.  Greeley has an annual Blues Festival on June 13 where some of these bands will be playing, but we will be coming back from a conference in Phoenix that day.


Hidden Camera Scene in Corleones 🙂

Because it was Corleone’s last night of serving alcohol in addition to their last night of Blues, they were giving everyone free “dirty bomb water” drinks in addition to cheap regular drinks. So Shana and I called Britton and Clifton to come pick us up downtown and went out to see Star Trek at the 10:30pm showing. It was ok. I was expecting much more after all that hype. I still like the old 60’s shows better and I thought they cheated a little with the whole time/alternate universe cop out.  Leonord Nimoy is the man, but I was disappointed William Shatner didn’t make a cameo. But overall, it was a fun night.

at-star-trek-greeley
Britton took this pic with his phone at the Theatre.

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Living in the Caribbean

Well we are looking into other properties in Puerto Rico since we think Awilda is going to try and sell the Lares Property to someone else without the proper title work.  We had asked her to call us back if anything had changed, but we haven’t heard anything. We figure that since we spent much of our time on the beaches that we should look to somewhere closer to Rincon.  We are looking at Aguada.  I think we can find something that has a few acres and we would still be close to all the ‘action’.

This NYT article lists PR as one of the more affordable places in the Caribbean to live.  We would like to be out there in 2 years or less.  Its a big goal for us.   I keep looking back to a picture we took on our last trip.  (mainly because its my desktop pic..lol) and it reminds me of our goal often.

steps

Its a good thing that spring/summer is here in Colorado though.  Its been really nice out and this weekend is rainy.  I love rainy days.  The mountains look beauitful and I am going to try and get up there quite a bit this year.

Mountains from I-25
A shot of the Rocky Mountains taken from the car while we were on I-25

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Friends, Farming, and Fun

We had a pretty busy weekend. We went out to lunch to see  some friends who were visiting from Tuscon, AZ. We went to a good Creole food restaurant in Longmont called Lucille’s Creole.

At Lucille's Creole
Me, Britton, Isaac, Koabi and Sara at Lucille’s Creole in Longmont

Later that afternoon we painted the new house and then went home to a beautiful sunset. Here’s a picture we took from our backyard.

Sunset in Colorado
Backyard Sunset

We have been letting the chicks stay outside lately. We were worried how the big chicken would react to them, but so far it has been peaceful. We had to play musical chicks for a while to allow the big chicken time in the coop to lay her egg. I knew we wouldn’t be able to do that today because of work so we just thought we’d wait and see what happened. Well, I went out to check on them and she had laid an egg! Seems to be working so far.

Integration of the old chicken and the new pullets is not going quite so smoothly. The chicken has found a way into the greenhouse even when we shut the door (through the secret cat tunnel), so she hasn’t been sleeping with the pullets. When they are playing/pecking around in the yard, the big chicken does her thing and the little girls do theirs. I think eventually they will form a flock. I hope so! I hope Big Chicken AKA Salt is not left out!

Here’s a few pictures from around the yard today. Plus our first small “farm” harvest!

Kitty in the yard
Kitty in the Yard watching over the chicks (he’s the manager)

Pullets in the yard
Pullets in the yard (FYI- when a chick is too big to be a chick, but too little to be a chicken they are called pullets!)

First Harvest
The First Harvest -the strawberries and lettuce are just coming in. The mint and eggs are ongoing and plentiful.

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