Solstice Picnic

Hi out there! I hope everyone enjoyed the Solstice yesterday and (if you're in the northern hemisphere) are looking forward to the summer season. I know I am...among other things, I can't wait for local summer fruits and berries to start popping up in the markets.

Yesterday couldn't have been a more perfect day for the first day of summer around here: 78 degrees, sunny, blue sky and puffy clouds. Originally, split pea soup was on the menu for dinner last night, but as I was out for a ride on my bike,  it struck me that spilt pea soup seemed incongruous with the summery nature of the day. Instead we decided to pack a picnic...and although the pics might lead you think that we ended up on a sail boat...alas no, we headed to a nearby park that overlooks the city...lovely just the same.

Sail boats, and boaters in general, were out in full force enjoying the evening breeze, lots and lots of other picnickers too.

I didn't have a lot of time to get the food together so I just made a quick salad of bulgur wheat with parsley, red onion, cucumber and tomato, dressed with lemon juice, black pepper and olive oil. I also tossed some cherry tomatoes with fresh basil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and black pepper, boiled some corn on the cob, and to round it all off, picked up some falafel at Whole Foods. With some olives, lemon-tahini sauce, and lemon wedges it was a perfect picnic affair. I also made some garlic crostini (not pictured) and of course we had a bottle of wine.

Oh, and we had a fruit salad, blueberries, Maui Gold pineapple, and a few strawberries from the garden:

Those Maui Golds are the best...if you run across some, I recommend giving them a try. I snap them up regularly when they're in the markets around here.

We stayed until sundown...

... and well past:

Happy Summer!

Bookmark Swap Fabulousness!

Last month, Cassie of Vegan Fox in the Snow hosted a vegan bookmark swap and I jumped in to participate. It is such a good idea: swappers exchanged homemade bookmarks with a vegan or animal theme.

I received my bookmark yesterday, from Michelle and Lilly of DirtyDuck blog. And it's extra-special because Lilly generously contributed some of her errant feathers...anyone who reads Michelle's blog is smitten with Lilly and the rest of the household over at Michelle's place, and so I'm sure can understand how special and fun this is. The feathers are attached with beautiful white ribbon and pretty beads:

This is a deluxe bookmark; the three ribbons allow you to mark your place in the book on three separate pages, and you can even adjust the lengths by pulling on the beads at the top:

And, it's attached to a special dealy-bob so you can use it as a bookmark or a hair pin! It's fabulous! Thanks Michelle and Lilly, you're a clever and creative pair.

I forgot to take a picture of the bookmark I sent, but you can see it over at Molly's blog as well as her fab bookmark creation too.

Thanks again to Cassie for hosting this fun swap! 

Thoughts of Love for All Animals

Dr. Tuttle guides a lovely meditation on our connectedness with the earth and all the animals:



Happy New Year to all. May it bring Peace, Love, and Happiness to all of us, our beloved animal friends, and our beautiful and living planet.

We have a giveaway winner....

The time has come to announce the winner of  the Gilding Lilies 2011 Calendar giveaway.

Eleven people entered (in chronological order):

1. Alessandra (I left your name in because the rules say it's open to all the planet)
2. Michelle (LovinLivinVegan)
3. Melody
4. Laloofah
5. Michelle (DirtyDuck)
6. VegSpinz
7. Carissa
8. BlessedMama (in whose dreams I wash dishes very slowly...lol)
9. Lizzie Bordello
10. Jenny
11. Thiên Ân

( I couldn't assign numbers to the comments because I commented in between etc...)

Part 1, the set up:

Courtesy of atmospheric noise and Random.org:

Lucky number 7! Congrats to Carissa!

Email me with your address, and I'll get the calendar on its way in time for 2011!

Merry Christmas and Happy Stephen's Day to everyone! (We're still celebrating!)

I really feel fortunate to be part of  such a wonderful blogging community.

I'll leave you with a little holiday interlude brought to you by Mr Dandelion:

'Tis the Season for a Giveaway

Hey everyone, it's a celebration giveaway!

To celebrate the season, and in looking forward to the New Year, I'm excited to give away a beautiful 2011 Calender from Gilding Lilies. If you aren't familiar with Jennifer of Gilding Lilies' art, you're in for a treat. I've been reading her blog for a while now, and have been admiring her work ever since. She couples fine art photography with stunning graphical effects that end up as greeting cards, prints, jewelry and other items. Definitely, check it out!

I originally ordered this calendar as a gift...but then I ran out of people to give it to! So, I figured offering it through a giveaway would be a way to show my appreciation of all you interesting, fun, talented, and wonderful people out there in blog land.

Here's the calendar packaged up all lovely upon arrival:

I didn't want to open the package and get my grubby mitts all over the pages, so here's a sample of the inside taken from Gilding Lilies Etsy shop:

Image Source: Gilding Lilies Etsy Shop

...and of course, there are 8 more months worth.

To enter, leave a comment about your favorite ways to celebrate a holiday. It can, but doesn't have to be a December holiday, tell us about any celebratory traditions you especially like. Or, you can talk about anything else you want instead.

One of my favorite things to do at any holiday/family celebration is play games...charades, or balderdash, or even the limbo. Sometimes it's difficult to round people up, which is where nieces and nephews generally come in handy :)

I'll announce the (randomly picked) winner on St. Stephen's Day...Boxing Day if you prefer, or I guess here in the US, it's just plain old December 26th.

Official Rules and Regulations:

Giveaway is open to everyone on planet earth. Interplanetary restrictions apply---giveaway prize will be awarded to earthlings only. Oranges and nuts not included. 

Treats! Treats!

...Cheezy Baco Treats!

Here's Scamp (aka Daffodil). She's a little on the rotund side...ahem... see how she fills up her play tube so nicely?  But as you can also see, she's dutifully eating her carrot sticks--she's on a little weight loss plan at the moment. Notice her good-natured, sweet demeanor in spite of it all.

Diet or no, everyone deserves a treat sometimes, especially when they are healthy, delicious treats like these from Molly at It's a Vegan Dog's Life. The recipe was for muffins, but she also gives conversion instructions, so you can make them into cookies, bagels, etc. (Very handy)

I'm sure a lot of you already know about Molly's recipes and her recipe book of vegan dog treats, but if not, definitely check it out! The treats are rat approved too! :D

Cheezy Baco Biscuits

Look at those cute little toes and fingers...or is it just me?

Here's Scamp as she finds the cheezy baco treats and tries to get two big pieces in her mouth at once:

Treats in mouth, she runs up to her nest to hoard them...that's what she does with prize booty:

I tried to get a sweet picture of her happily munching away on one of the biscuits, but her sweet demeanor seemed to vanish...

"Back off, These are my treats!" 

Vegan SnoFo

Yaay, for snow days! I spent last weekend getting my garden winterized for the snow... and it's here. I haven't had to go into work, and that is good. We've been out playing and wanted to make a snow creature, but the snow is too dry and it won't pack, so we wrote messages instead.

Here's a little hummingbird at the feeder, which looks empty, but it's not.


Stay warm little hummingbird!

Here's a kitty paw:

Here's a kitty:

The hoop house, housing what are surely frozen veggies by now:

We walked down to the lake and saw that someone else was one his way down there too:

Some pretty flowers along the way:

The lake is lovely in the snow, especially on a sunny afternoon:

Bottoms up:

Two bottoms up:

I guess it was rude of me to take pics of their hineys...they swam off in a huff...who can blame them?

A pretty tree, who likes to grow sideways into the lake:

These guys are Canada geese. If you look closely in the background, you'll see the Seattle Space Needle.

Icicles:

If you're in the US, happy holiday weekend, if you're not, then just happy happy.  

Random Road Trips + Halloween

The first day of November has arrived, and Vegan Mofo 2010 is already well underway. I can't wait to check out what everyone will be up to and discover all sorts of new and incredible blogs and bloggers.

My theme this year will be a random road trip. The idea is to use the random geo-location generator from random.org to generate the destinations. Basically, I'll go to the random location generator and click Pick Coordinates. This will provide me with the locations for the "road trip"--provided that the location is not in the middle of the ocean or on a polar ice cap. If you play around with the locator a little, you'll probably find that about 60 - 70 % of random locations end up being precisely in one of those places. So, I'll keep clicking until I get a land location and go with it.

I am hoping this will take me to many exotic and interesting places, but I can't vouch for the authenticity of anything I come up with...I won't have a lot of time to research each destination, but I'll do my best. And, I'll probably stick around at each location for a post or two.

Last year I somehow managed to post all 31 days, but I'm feeling a little dubious that will happen this year. I think the rules technically say that there are no official rules as to how often you need to post, but should aim for at least 5 days a week, or 20 posts in the month, which is what I'm aiming for.  At any rate, 20 posts in the month will be about 4 x more than my average.

So without any further ado, the first location is:


¡Bolivia! Tune in tomorrow for some comida boliviana.

In the mean time, here are some pics from Halloween.

Lots of vegan Halloween booty, including Yummy Earth Lollipops that come in flavors like Mango, Apple Tart, and Pomegranate. Lollipops have come a long way since I was a kid:



All tolled, we got about 15 groups of Halloween revelers...not bad compared to years passed.

Here's my favorite trick-or-treater:



Spooky porch...enter if you dare:



Of course, you need some friendly pumpkins to guide the way:

And some not so friendly ones:

How's this for an attitude? -->

Here's a little visitor, who snuck in on a flower and decided to stay for dinner:

He/she munched on that flower while we had chili in pumpkins...probably the spookiest photo of all:

That's it, ciao for now.

Random Stuff

This post isn't about anything in particular--just some random stuff that I've snapped recently.

 Random Garden

I love the vibrant colors of these zinnias.

One of the Anna's Hummingbirds that live in our neighborhood alighted at the feeder to give her wings a rest and have a tipple.

As small as they are, the Anna's Hummingbird is described as medium-sized and stocky in the world of hummingbirds.

I'm definitely growing this variety of zucchini again next year; the variegated skin is pretty.

There are spiders everywhere at the moment; their webs are truly amazing. Be Kind to Spiders!

These garden lanterns are fun and easy to make. I saw a how-to guide in some magazine a few years ago. All you need is empty jars and some wire. You can make them as pretty as you like by using interesting colored/shaped jars, shaping the wire into pretty flourishes, and adding trinkets. Mine aren't  pretty, but they add a nice ambience nonetheless hanging from the branches on a summer evening.

Random Food

Veggie and tofu kebabs marinated in Thai flavors:

The marinade was roughly 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp dark brown sugar,  6 inches worth of lemon grass with tough outer sheaths removed, 2 kaffir lime leaves, 1 smallish piece fresh ginger, 1 large shallot, 1 large garlic clove, hot chili pepper and a dash of sesame oil,  liquified together in a blender.

Thai marinade before blending

Seitan in lemon and caper sauce:

( a bit greeny in hue, but very delicious)

We eat this Vegan Pho on a regular basis. If you like rich aromatic broths, noodles, and garnishes...I recommend you try this.  I've never had traditional Pho, which I gather is not vegan, so can't testify to the authenticity, but whatever you want to call it, it is good.

I describe more about how to put it together in this post.

Random Rats

Hey, that's a catchy title.

I have two rats that I adopted from the animal shelter. Rats are extremely intelligent, social, and sensitive.  My rat friends know their names, have great personalities, and enjoy many different activities. Here's Daffodil (aka Scamp) peeking out of a play tube:

Check out those whiskers:

Some of you may remember Harriet from this post. She's a bit older and wiser now... and better at hoarding treats! She's enjoying a piece of corn on the cob.

And here's some rat action, Harriet is in a blur grooming Daffodil...usually it's the other way around:

Rats are dexterous and the digits on their front paws are nimble, much like human hands. Check out Scamp's cute fingers!

One more random snap:

A heron I saw on my lunch break.

Happy Weekend!