first efforts

Monday at the Arboretum

Pretty good for a cellphone camera...

Dinner at the farm

Since last summer the folks at Prairie Fruits Farm, our local purveyors of awesome goat cheese, have been hosting public farm dinners at their place just north of Urbana. My beloved and I went last night for their vegetarian dinner (menu here). The food was fabulous, as was the ambience. What a joy to live in a place where Saturday night means you can dine outside with 46 other goat cheese fanatics, watch a lovely prairie sunset, and drive home to the flickers of fireflies. Reminded me yet again of how much I have come to love this place.

The pre-dinner entertainment was, of course, the goats themselves. Here they are, fresh from a day in the pasture, heading inside to get milked. They definitely get a little antsy as they wait their turns. As you'll see, there's even a little head-butting.

Prairie Easter

Mahomet, Illinois

Saturday morning at the goat farm

 

 

Sunday afternoon walk

Lake of the Woods park, Mahomet, Illinois

Locavores, Ripped from the Headlines!

This past week I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. In the book Kingsolver chronicles one year in which her family went totally locavore. Locavore? That's eating only locally grown, organic food - what you can grow yourself or find in your area farmer's market, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and, well, wait a sec - let me have Robin Williams explain it to you:

Not only can eating local save the world, it can also help you beat a murder rap! (That Law and Order. Always on the cutting edge of cultural change.) For the record, I ran across this clip when I got online to search for recipes for the chard that I picked up at the farmer's market this morning. I'm a chard virgin so it was important to start out small. I found one for chard and another for the stems. Now that's maximizing your local returns!

We had an earthquake here this morning. Honest to God.

Earthquakes do happen here, but they are rare. It's even rarer that you feel them. We felt this one.

(image courtesy USGS)

Barn door askew

Admit it - you're dying to go in there and poke around, aren't you?

Study in yellow

Allerton Park, Monticello, Illinois

Eat local

Tis the season for eating locally! Last night I had Bengineer over for dinner. Apart from the broiled fish I served, which was decidedly not local, here was our menu:

sliced tomatoes with goat cheese and basil

corn on the cob

roasted green beans with thyme

homemade zucchini bread

Very organic, very local. The tomatoes and goat cheese came from our local farmers' market (my own tomatoes aren't ripe yet). The basil came from my garden. And the corn, beans, and zucchini came from the thriving garden of G&J, who like nothing better than to stuff my car with fresh produce when I go down to their beautiful place for a visit.

Yum.