Sylvia's Scenario

Today, a new chapter in our lives begin. Our house is officially for sale and we are moving back to Seattle. Our life on our little "mini farm" has come to an end after 17 years. It has been a process that we have been planning for a long time, over a year. We've been planning to downsize for awhile and to return to the place where we came fro m, where Bruce and I met, where we got married, where our children were born.  Thinking back over the years, we will never forget all we've learned about caring for chickens, gardening, raising fruit trees, canning the fruit from the fruit trees, raising dairy goats and a horse getting rid of wasps nests, getting rid of gophers, repairing fencing, repairing sprinklers, keeping the neighborhood pump and irrigation system running (Bruce has been President of our Neighborhood Association for several years) and I - starting this blog. It has been a journey. Nick and Lauren have been long gone, both returning to

Today, I am dedicating my post to my mom, as I do every Mother's Day.  She has been gone now for 6 years but it doesn't seem like it has been that long since she passed away. I still think about her all the time and I feel like she is with me giving me the guidance to make the decisions I need to make in my life.  She gives me the strength to face what's ahead, to face challenges that will be rewarding and those that are difficult. I can't pick up the phone and call her to tell her what just happened at any given time but I can talk to her in my mind letting her know what is going on with me and then listening to what I know she would say.  I miss talking to her and sharing my life with her.  I will occasionally read her eulogy that I wrote for her and then read at her funeral in 2009.  I still love re-reading it to remember all that my mom's life was about. Today, Mom, this Mother's Day is for you. 5 Daughters 2 Sons We are here for you today, Mom. We

This is the dessert we had at our  first barbecue of season  and everyone loved it.  It is a great summer dessert to take to a large gathering or pot luck because of it's size and it can be made with all the different summertime berries and fruits in season. Or you can make it as a fall dessert with apples for a Apple Slab Pie.  My neighbor says that she has made this recipe with apples, cherries (both sweet and pie cherries), blackberries, peaches/nectarines, and raspberries or some combination of these fruits. Some of her favorite recipes are  from   Smitten Kitchen  and this particular recipe was adapted from the  sour cherry slab pie   recipe and the   apple slab pie  recipe.  She says she will need to adjust the recipe to fit her pans, both pie crust and filling but I will include here the amounts from Smitten Kitchen adding in her little changes she makes.   Serves 20 Pie Dough  3-3/4 cups flour 1-1/2  tablespoon sugar 1-1/2 teaspoon salt 3 sticks or 1-1/2 cups unsal

We had our first barbecue of the season last night with some of our neighbors and served barbecued teriyaki salmon.  We are still eating the salmon from Bruce's last  fishing trip . I used teriyaki from my teriyaki flank steak   recipe , the only teriyaki recipe I ever use because it is always such a hit and last night was no different. Bruce has been President of our neighborhood association for several years so we had this barbecue to pass over the files and responsibilities to the new board.  We actually got 4 new people to volunteer to make up the new board.  We've been trying to do this for years and for whatever reason, this year the neighborhood has gotten very excited to get involved and I couldn't resist to host a barbecue to start off our new board members in proper fashion.  We only have 33 properties in our neighborhood association so we're not talking about a large group of people here.  We've had some new people move in recently who volunte