A Morning at Denison Farms (Photos!)

It’s probably hard to believe that a couple weeks ago, I absconded one morning to a cafe for an hour of blog-planning and latte-sipping, no babies on board. I had more than a dozen ideas for posts I was excited to write—and then life happened, as it always does. Since that glorious hour of alone time, I’ve had no time to sit and write. All the normal life stuff got in the way, as did almost buying a house (!), and receiving all of our stuff from Sweden (far more stressful than anticipated, yet somehow at least half the boxes remain unpacked).

Alas.

But here I am now, stealing a quiet moment while Zoë sleeps.

We joined a local farm’s CSA (community support agriculture) program a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been thrilled with the produce. We get a fantastic box of local fruit and veggies every week along with a sheet of recipes. This is something—local farms and CSAs—that I really looked forward to as we prepared for our move to the Pacific Northwest. Ever since leaving California so many years ago I’ve been longing for the fresh, local produce of the West Coast.

Yesterday Zoë and I went out to Denison Farms to check out where our fruit and veggies come from. We spent a lovely hour wandering the grounds, peeking in greenhouses and enjoying the fresh morning air and views of the mountains. Here are some photos, if you’d like to see.

The boys would have loved the tractors, so it's probably best that I didn't try to bring them along.

There's something about railroad tracks, am I right? When I was a kid, we used to go to the Kalamazoo Nature Center with my grandmother several times every summer. Railroad tracks traversed one of the hikes we would take, and I used to daydream, even as a kid, about carrying a knapsack on a stick and using the tracks as a guide to walk across the country. 
I bought several pints of these raspberries at the farmers' market last week and took them to the kids as an after-school snack, and then to our weekly neighbor dinner. The kids all went crazy for them (if only we could hand out fresh raspberries instead of packaged candy on Halloween tonight!)

I found something so captivating about the fallen fruit and vegetables, decomposing on the ground, never to be harvested.

I hadn't realized until this day quite how beautiful fig leaves are.

How lush is this Swiss chard photo? The ground thick with leaves that won't be harvested, and all that green and purple and yellow and pink? 

I'm a sucker for orchards. Why are they so beautiful? This was a small persimmon orchard on the edge of the property, and I found it so inviting. 

This lettuce! I hope it's in our farm share box this week. Seeing these gorgeous rows reminded me of a salad I ate years ago at a restaurant called Vermont in LA. Green butter lettuce, avocado slices, orange wedges, manchego shavings, and hazelnuts in an orange vinaigrette: it was divine. Funny how walking around a farm can take you back to a meal, a man, an era of life so long past.

Have a fun and yummy Halloween, everyone!

For more pastoral pics, check out these from my in-laws' place in Devon, England, or this old abandoned dock we used to walk by almost every day in Sweden.

All photos by me.