My dog has taken a fancy to putting her paws on the sink and watching the flies wander around the window. They are easy to see from her angle, black against the Oregon grey or white sky. It is a bad habit but it's so cute so I have difficulty negatively responding.

Happy Easter!

Happy easter everybody! We decided to try making eggs with found natural goodies + onion skins as seen here. It's pretty simple- you take an un-boiled egg, put wet things on it, wrap in onion skins and tie with twine and boil!

We used our chickens' green, blue, and brown eggs and red and yellow onion skins. 

We tried it with

leaves

flowers

lichens

buds

feathers

and many other goodies!

It is really fun to open them after they've boiled because they turn out so differently. Even the easter bunny approves!

Micro Worlds

I spent several long sunny hours in the sun today, turning compost and coffee grounds under the soil to prep the ground for artichokes. For the first time this year it really looked and felt like Spring. Not only did the chickens lay their first eggs, but the sky was cloudless and blue, daisies were blooming on the lawn and the cherry blossoms were pink and alive! I also noticed some smaller things starting to bloom... Lichens and mosses that looked like tiny landscapes! So I took advantage of the beautiful light and got out my camera.

Moss fingers

In this tiny jungle, a giant lady bug grazed

Home things

So my exciting gap-year adventure train has briefly slowed to a halt with the news that I would have to do several weeks or months of intensive physical therapy because of a foot injury. (Which is going well- just discovered I'm allowed to go on 1 hour hikes! wooo) I was bummed to hear this at first as I was planning all sorts of cool things, but have really enjoyed some time at home, catching up on 4 years of sleep, to-do lists, doing lots of reading, studying, mixed martial arts, tutoring etc... Here are a few images that I have taken in this period of rest and recovery! 

Carrots: I planted all of these (in addition to many other root veggies, lettuces, peppers, fruits etc...) back in the late summer. We've started harvesting them and they are SO weird! Very tasty and healthy, but of course, the carrots I plant would end up looking like chubby orange fingers:

Or in the case of this one, fat little gnome legs!!!

I've enjoyed exploring the woods I used to play in every day when I was little. 

I've been working intermittently as a slave administrative assistant for my dad's office and have taken pictures of some of their properties. Here is a spooky picture I took by accident!

I stepped backwards into this hole, further complicating my recovery process...

Went to the Oregon Logging Conference where they had a cool photo archive of Oregon logging!

Woke up one day last week and noticed flowers have started blooming! I went out to take a nice picture of Lila but she just wanted to eat them

and play with her ball

We had several hundred kiwis sitting around that my mom harvested a few months ago (they take a bit of time to ripen after harvesting). We got a new blender so I spent several hours opening every single kiwi, testing them and pureeing them. We have about 5 pounds of frozen kiwi mush that I make into smoothies. 

So that is what my January/February are looking like. Pretty simple, but restorative and nice.