Springtime in the great Northwest

That's right, spring is here. This weekend has been sunny and warm(ish). This has led to every person in Seattle going outside to try to rack up some much needed vitamin d. So, what have Russell and I been up to now that we finally get to experience seasons again? Well, yesterday we celebrated the wonderful weather by.......spending the day inside. This was not because we were hiding from the sun like some kind of mole people, but rather, we had agreed to help judge a beer competition. The competition in question was the regional finals for the National Homebrew competition. Judging took place at the Pyramid brewery downtown, so there we headed at 8:00am to help out. Here's a hint. When you have to judge beers at 8:30 am, be sure to have a good breakfast, and volunteer to judge porters or stouts. There is actually such a thing as a breakfast stout, and more importantly, both of them have "coffee character" which takes the edge off.

For anyone skeptical about the possibility of drinking beer at 8:30am, you're not really downing a bunch of beers, you're sampling and then grading them against a set of standards (like in a dog show), and each sample is about an ounce. It's surprisingly actual work as opposed to just drinking.

Judging went on all day, and in the evening we went to a friends birthday. Busy busy.

Today we got our "enjoy the outside day" with the rest of Seattle. YES! First thing in the morning: bake scones and make lemon curd for breakfast. Delicious!


Next proceed to the farmers market. We go every week, but now that the weather has been improving its even more exciting. THERE ARE NON-ROOT VEGETABLES AGAIN, YAY! Today's haul included early salad mix, wild watercress and knotweed, some pasture raised ground beef, chicken wings, eggs and this:

That's a goose egg. We're going to poach it and put it in salad tonight.

Spring being here also means gardening season. We asked our landlord if we could put in a few raised beds, and he was totally game. So Russell built some, we had some dirt delivered, and today we planted planted planted.




Planted are peas, onions, shallots, spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, mizuna, turnips, thyme, and some random flower seeds.

That was the weekend. Sadly its back to the grind at work tomorrow. Hopefully Frankenbike will come back from the shop in a few days so I can get back to riding (She's having her spring tune up).