Mommy and Evie were fully engaged in Swiss Kids Kamp. I wish I had some pictures of it, but I wasn’t there and they were both pretty busy the whole time. Swiss Kids Kamp is an annual kids camp held at the Swiss Sportsman’s Club in Bonney Lake, where kids can stay for a week and learn about their Swiss heritage, sample Swiss cooking and learn traditional Swiss skills (cheesemaking, canning, sewing, basketmaking, wrestling, dancing, etc.)
Ellie is still too young to go to Kids Kamp, but she likes wearing her dirndl when we go up to see the parade and play at the end of camp on Sunday.
Actually, it will probably be too short for her to wear next year. Here she is helping to make breakfast after Mass on Sunday morning (fried cheese and potato donuts [Mommy made a batch of donut dough on Thursday after she picked Daddy up from the armory and then finished washing dishes at the Swiss park. She sent Daddy back up to the armory on Friday with a huge bag of potato donuts, none of which survived the morning] and we are just finishing up the last of the donut dough.)
And here she is, sanding a spoon Daddy carved out of a cherry branch.
Monday, Mommy had to be back at work. Daddy took all the kids up to Enumclaw to pick blueberries at Aunt Dude’s house. But first, they roasted the duck carcasses from butchering back in May, (they’ve been in the freezer since then) with onion, carrot and celery (this is the first celery we have ever grown and it is beautiful!). After roasting them at 350 for about an hour, we filled the roaster with water and turned it down to 225-ish.
We are going to make duck stock.
Now to switch gears, This is a very good blueberry year. Last year Dude’s bushes produced very little, but Uncle Pat pruned them hard this spring, and this year they are producing gallons a week.
Seppi doesn’t pick very much. He mostly just likes climbing on the ladder. Evie is wearing Dude’s bucket on a string, which is a clever way to keep both hands free for picking.
Winnie, actually, is a great blueberry picker. For a not-quite-three-year-old she can actually put a lot of blueberries in a bucket.
But then she takes them out of the bucket and puts them in her tummy.
Ellie is the best picker among the kids. She can focus on the task the longest, and has more attention to detail.
Back at the farm for lunch, we had a nice picnic and then stripped the beans again. This meant we were snipping beans in the car while waiting for Evie to do her violin lesson.
Monday night we had our work cut out for us.
Oh yeah, and the zucchini Dude gave us. Still need to do something with that. We will probably just shred it and freeze it in small baggies for zucchini bread/muffins throughout the year.
Blueberries we washed and put on trays to sort/dry, and then froze them the next day or two. Almost three gallons from one picking.
The beans we canned on Monday night. 10 quarts.
Duck stock is well on its way.
This picture will become plot-significant over the next few days. Stay tuned!
Little Farm in the Big City 