The picture from the previous post (and above) are of Andy and our friend Colin in Colin & Brad's backyard show garden for their Seattle Urban Farm Company. There's so much well-kept produce back there that they don't know what to do with it all, and it's harvest time. Zuchinnis, squash, cucumbers, gorgeous collards, kale, sooo much basil, a huge blackberry patch, and tomatoes on the way. Lucky for them and for us, Andy has arrived with lots of culinary ideas and a bit of time on his hands. Even if we go broke before more money comes our way, we'll definitely be able to eat in style. They've been trying to freeze a bunch of stuff, so a turkey had to come out of the freezer on Saturday. We ended up putting it to brine and on Sunday, we had a bunch of friends over and smoked it. It's nice to be ready to pick up where we left off with about 5 or so friends from the homestead, and likely with a few more we haven't seen, and many of them have significant others we're meeting for the first time, or other couple friends that they're close with. One such couple is James and Karen. They both went to OSU, and Karen got her masters in teaching there, then they moved to NYC for 5 yrs. They just moved out here last year. We have lots in common with them and they're so nice. The whole group is happy to have us here, and it's such a tremendous releif to not feel alone in the venture. I'll try to start collecting pictures of the inevitable characters from stories to come, and post them with mini-bios.

Until we get a place, we are staying with Colin at his little 2 bedroom house: 3951 Evanston Ave. N.; Seattle WA 98103. Feel free to forward mail & send care packages etc. :oP More to follow in the next post about Seattle geography and our "find a place" challenge.

Love to all, -k


PS: Here's a picture of the view from Colin's back porch. We are in North Seattle looking south over Lake Union/portage bay toward the downtown area. Hope it's clear enough to see their garden overflow on the porch, and the skyline in the background.