House Construction

This blog was intended for updates about the farm, but every once in a while, other things in our lives become a big part of the farm as well, including the ones that take away time from weeding and planting fall crops. A lot of people have asked to see pictures of our major construction project, and although I will write an entire entry when we are finished, I thought a picture of the little house raised 10 feet in the air was rather striking. (This is Anna writing, by the way. I'm not sure it is as striking to Vince, who has more work to do after each major step.) This picture is post-excavation when the footers for the walls were being poured. Needless to say, this project has brought a lot of attention (and assistance) from the neighbors and our family, which has been helpful. They even built a ramp to get in and out of the house with a railing and traction for the pregnant lady. Now I call that service!

Beautiful Vegetables

Proof that food can be beautiful. We have a purple theme going in the garden. The purple tinged cauliflower draws many comments at the market as well as do the huge rutabagas. We have been very impressed with the Red Sails lettuce. It has withstood the heat without bolting or tasting bitter and lasts for weeks in the fridge after being picked. We have made lots of pesto with green and purple basil (and sold quite a bit to people making basil, tomato and mozzarella cheese dishes.) One of the varieties of sweet corn has purple tassels. We are very excited about having corn ready this early in the summer and ate the first ears yesterday.

Mukilteo Farmers Market

Faithful customers, Branda and Theresa, picking out their dinner

The last two weeks we ventured a little farther from home to the Mukilteo Farmers Market. It is in a beautiful location on the beach and draws a pretty large crowd of both local residents and beach-goers. We are impressed with the clientele as well as the other vendors. We are perfecting the art of knowing what and how much to bring as well as how to display our produce. It makes for a busy morning harvesting, washing and packing all of the produce to ensure freshness, but we are getting more efficient at that as well. It helps to have Mom the Market Farm Hand to pick and evaulate produce as well as help set up and be an enthusiastic salesperson. This week we brought lettuce, garlic, turnips, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, new potatoes and peas. The market is on Wednesdays from 2-7 at the lighthouse.

Demolition time

We're raising the roof! (and knocking down walls)Yes, in between farmer's markets, weeding, and preparing for a baby, the long anticipated project of adding more space to our house is becoming reality. The plan is to lift the house and pour a daylight basement foundation, doubling our square footage. This has long been in planning thanks to Dina & co. for the inside floor plans and Nathan for the CAD drawings that got us our permit.


The 4th of July weekend afforded 3 long, hot days to tear off the porches and addition in preparation for the house lifter.
When you're 9 months pregnant you get jobs like peeling up old flooring. When you're a strong mama, you get to knock down walls.