Portland for Easter Weekend

We visited Portland last week to deliver broadforks to Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply and take a break, and got a preview of summer with warm, sunny weather all weekend. Naomi's bustles with activity, plants, and baby chicks.

We were thrilled to meet Binga (pictured) and Oona the goats, who help out in the store and go home with Naomi at night.

We brought more forks for the energetic gardeners of Portland. 

We bought Eric Toensmeier’s new book Paradise Lot, a delightful introduction to permaculture  through the down-to-earth story of building a diverse garden ecosystem in the backyard of his shared house in Holyoke, Mass. (It got a great review in the NY Times, with a cute slideshow of Eric and his gardening partner, their families, and the amazing garden they built.)

I totally dug staying at the Kennedy School. Especially the art.

 

Cider Tour: Finnriver

We took an overnight up the Quimper penninsula to Chimacum and Port Townsend to get away and visit cideries, starting with Finnriver in Chimacum. Chrystie was incredibly nice to us, the tasting room is beautiful, and the cider is AWESOME. We'd tasted the black currant cider in Seattle and were excited to get some to bring home.

Christie offered the dry and delicious pear sparkling cider -- it's would be great with dinner. For an apertif, or a sweet fiend like me, add a drop of pear wine with apple brandy.  Wonderful. My favorite is currently sold  as "spirited apple wine." It tastes like an excellent, applish port, but apparently it can't be called port for abstruse liquor-law reasons. We bought a bottle and I had a drop before my evening bath. We call it Not-Port.

Chimacum is beautiful and the food/cider/farm scene around there flourishing. We talked to many enthusiastic participants, and enjoyed abundant locally-grown food and drink.