Days Off

Days Off- basically I have too many of them right now. For the third week in a row the fruit has refused to ripen. Average temps in the desert this week were 75-80 F, which sounded pretty good to me for ripening, but I was wrong. So Leigh and I are off work Monday through Friday this week, working the weekend only again. We've been all but promised there would be a full load of fruit for weekend markets. I hope the Farming Gods smile upon us this time. It would be kind of OK if we just had a ton of fruit to unload this weekend because our customers are waiting with baited breath and I'm sure they'd be excited enough to buy more than normal amounts of fresh fruit. This means high commissions for me, almost enough to make up for so many lost hours of work.

It's nobody's fault, of course, but frustrating nonetheless. In about 7 weeks I need to pack up and head to Anchorage to get an apartment and start my job. I'd like to have a nice savings to do this, but it all depends on the fruit at this point. Leigh and I have been talking about her staying down here a few extra weeks to get the farm through the tail end of fresh fruit season. That depends on other factors, of course, but we're talking about it.

So we're going to Plan B, trying to find other work but that doesn't seem to want to happen during the week. All the events are over weekends when we actually work markets, so it's tough. I tried to get a retail job two weeks ago but all the shops were looking for long term employees. I'm not that good of a liar to say I was sticking around, plus I've promised my weekends to my family for the markets and shops tend to require you to work weekends.

In the meantime, we're trying to keep busy. I bought some yummy whole grain spelt flour at the market this weekend and decided to make a strawberry pie using strawberries from the market and a homemade pie crust a la moi.

The crust turned out pretty great. It's hearty and nutty in flavor with a great texture. It's like pastry crust but with a little extra characteristic I can't quite put my finger on, sort of like bran muffin or that great cereal Cracklin' Oat Bran. I kept the strawberries more whole than normal and used a fraction of the sugar called for and it turned out great, maybe even better because it's naturally sweet and not sticky sweet. I can't wait for the fruit to come in so I can start trying to make apricot and peach pies and tarts, but my next spelt projects include pancakes and scones.

Leigh and I spent yesterday afternoon exploring Ballard. It's a lovely neighborhood now on our list of places we'd like to live. It has a small town feel with lots of fun businesses. We visited a few shops to poke around and bought some tea at a neat tea shop that sells pastries, pots of tea, cold drinks and loose leaf tea to take home.

While walking back to our car we found a restaurant called Bastille. They had a 1st anniversary party for the restaurant tonight with a very impressive $1 menu. I was so excited that I decided to make an evening of it and get dressed up and Leigh wore the sweater I bought her in Spain for the first time, which made me very happy.

Bastille's special happy hour menu included a champagne-based cocktail, crottin chevre with beet salad, croque monsieur sandwich, mussels, fancy mac'n'cheese, and a few other items for only $1 each. Leigh and I each had a drink and a few munchies (they were in the "small plate" category, but very hearty because of all the yummy cheese) for only about $7. Awesome.

So we still have 3 days off. Tomorrow we want to do some hiking and I'd love to find some work for Thursday, Friday or both, but I really don't see that happening. Maybe I'll just do some more baking....