You are invited to join us at The Weed Patch for the Country Village Ladies Night Out! This year, Country Village Shops are holding several Ladies Night Out events, each targeted at a different theme. This Thursday, June 7 2012, is the "Home Decor Gala."
Of COURSE The Weed Patch is taking part, as are most of the other decor shops in The Village! Come in between 6pm and 9pm and enjoy some yummy treats, some fantastic sales items, some exclusive event-only deals, and a whole lotta fun!
Tonight I was going back through old photos and I stumbled across these fun pictures from back in 2009. I honestly cannot believe these never got blogged before, but I just had to share them...
Back in 2009 we had been doing a lot of work on our house, and ended up leaving a stack of empty boxes in our carport for several weeks. In day I was outside working, and I heard the most AWFUL noise - it sounded like an angry raccoon. Actually, it sounded like a full grown, completely ticked off raccoon, and it was coming from the pile of boxes. It went on for a good while, and finally we decided we needed to see what the heck was going on. So I put on two layers of gloves (one a nice, thick leather) and grabbed the longest handled tool I could find (yes, this thing sounded HUGE). I knocked the box off the shelf, and out tumbled this TINY little raccoon... so young its eyes weren't even open yet! Wow!
Soooo.... using my nice thick leather gloves I picked the poor thing up as gently as I could, put it back in the box, put the box back on the shelf, and sat back to wait. Sure enough, pretty soon mama showed up, and I was able to grab some great photos! Mama was pretty used to us, as I had seen her around for weeks, talked to her when I saw her, and generally tried to make friends - so she wasn't all that concerned to see me standing there with my camera.
After watching me for a while, she decided it made sense to move her young elsewhere. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed the memory!
Allow us the great pleasure of introducing you to Rust N Roses Antiques located on the far corner of Country Village (it's TOTALLY worth the short walk up there!). Owners Jeanette Crooks & Colleen Cole describe themselves this way (on their Facebook Page):
"We are two middle aged picker chicks that have a knack for selling antiques and other fine vintage junque.
We carry a variety of vintage items from rustic to classy. Vintage jewelry, country kitchen decor. You name it, probably have it! And if we don't, we can find it! We even have a mantiques cabinet filled with tons of cool old guy stuff! Visit our seasonal Vintage Christmas shop with items you may remember from your childhood."
For lots of GREAT information about them, be sure to check out their website at http://www.rustnrosesantiques.com/; also, check them out on Facebook! We hope you'll be inspired to check them out - we're pretty darn sure you'll be glad you did. In the meantime, here's a bunch of photos from their shop...but even before that, here's their shiny new TV spot (it has a few seconds of empty black at the start, so be patient...)
Friday June 1, 2012 was the Opening Day for the Bothell Farmer's Market, located in Country Village Shops! Here's some photos from the day; we have lots of stuff on the Farmers Market coming down the pipe soon! In the meantime, here's some pages for you to check out:
Here at The Weed Patch we are SO excited to be able to be a drop site for Tonnemaker Farm's CSA program for 2012!
Before we get into everything, you can check out Tonnemaker Farm's website, as well as the CSA program details. Their blog features tons of great information as well as some very tasty looking recipes...
So who is Tonnemaker Farms, and what is a CSA? Tonnemaker Farms is a certified organic family farm located in Royal City, Washington.
From their website:
"The Tonnemaker brothers, Kole and Kurt, currently farm 126 acres on the north slope of the Frenchman Hills in Royal City, WA, and grow over 400 cultivars of organic fruits and vegetables.
Mission & Philosophy:
Our mission is to provide fresh, great tasting fruit and produce in a sustainable way at affordable prices.
We want to develop a direct relationship with those who eat our food. Customers have the opportunity to know the farm and the farmer.
We feel the responsibility to use the resources we have in such a way that the land can continue to produce healthy food for generations to come. In a sense we do not own the land but instead have borrowed it from our grandchildren.
Our family strongly believes that organic food should not be priced beyond the reach of the average consumer."
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially, a CSA is a way to both a) support a local farm, and b) get your produce slightly less expensively even than a farmers market. When you join a CSA, you buy into a program where fresh produce is delivered to you directly; some programs will deliver to your door, some have a community drop site. You can check out the full Wikipedia CSA article here, if you're so inclined for a more in-depth answer.
Tonnemaker Farms has participated in the Bothell Farmer's Market (facebook page) here at Country Village (where our shop is) for the last several years. We have tasted the fruits of their labor (get it???) and we are proud to participate in their CSA program. We have no hesitation to recommend them to any of our wonderful customers. In part, that's because we have known some of their key people for years and years; we trust them, and we know their passion for sustainable, organic produce. Win-win!
If you're a local and you're interested in more information, we encourage you to visit the Tonnemaker Farm's website (facebook) and check out the CSA fliers. We would also highly encourage you to come visit the Bothell Farmer's Market and say hello to them in person! If you can't make the Bothell market, check their website for other markets they are involved in!<
Hello all!
Hope you are recovering nicely from your holiday weekend. We ended up having some truly lovely weather, and enjoyed lots of visitors at the store. There seemed to be more focus on the actual memorial part of Memorial day this year - either that, or I've just been paying more attention this year. Yesterday, I really thought a lot about people who have served our country, what their lives and the lives of their families must have been like, what things they went through, etc. We've experienced some challenging times in our personal life recently, and I find myself thinking more about how we're all in it together in this world, and how much I appreciate what our veterans have gone through to serve our country, as well as those currently in service. I appreciate our teachers, who go through so much for so little tangible benefit, with what seems like so little support from all those people who decide where our tax money goes, in order to give our children the knowledge, experience, and confidence they need to make it successfully in this world. I think we all deal with so much in our own lives, and it is hard to remember that other people are also going through their own set of challenges. It's so easy to focus on ourselves, to dwell deeply in our troubles, maybe even to take things out on those around us. I don't know that any of this has anything directly to do with memorial day, but I guess the holiday is a time for rememberance - of thinking beyond ourselves for a day, and to consider (and maybe even appreciate) others. I'd never really thought too much about Memorial Day before, I guess this is the year it has clicked with me. I hope it was good for all of you too!
Anyway, I meant to just let you know that I updated the Weekly Specials! All this week, another set of products are on sale for 10% off. Here are a few:
Americana Star Kitchen Gift Set
Family Table Dinnerware - Cookie Jar
Bird Perpetual Calendar Set, by Lone Elm Studios
Black Sheep, by Blossom Bucket
Olde Forge Placemat, by Park Designs
The rest are all online here. Enjoy! :)
--Janene
Perform, then, this one act of remembrance before this Day passes - Remember there is an army of defense and advance that never dies and never surrenders, but is increasingly recruited from the eternal sources of the American spirit and from the generations of American youth. ~W.J. Cameron
I am PROUD to be an American. I'm proud to live in a country where everybody is welcome to their own opinion, their own beliefs, and their own lives. I'm proud to live in a country where everyone who chooses to can have their own voice, free from worrying about persecution. A country where a person can work to make a life, regardless of their background, if they're willing to work hard enough for it.
And I am eternally thankful for those men and women who place themselves in harms way to protect my rights, my beliefs, my life. They chose a high road, a hero's road. Each and every one of them is a living, breathing, modern day hero. Those that have made the ultimate sacrifice, those who we owe the most to, let us never - EVER - forget these brave soldiers. Let us never forget their spouses, their kids, their familes - for their sacrifice is exponential.
Today is a day to remember the fallen heros. Today is a day to remember their families. Today is a day to be thankful that there are those among us who are willing and able to step up to be our defense. So to all who have ever served, and who ever will serve - thank you.
Many thanks to Matt Mathews Photography for the generous use of his images. Check him out on facebook, and take a gander at his website!
“The best time to plant trees was 20 years ago. The next best time is NOW.”
~ (so many people have said this, I'm not sure who to attribute it to. If you know, drop a comment, please!)
In addition to the store, Janene and I are quite passionate about living a simpler, less complicated life. We've been learning and moving towards an urban homesteading lifestyle. I am incredibly passionate about gardening - both vegetable and floral / landscaping. Among the goals that we have is to turn the house into an urban homestead - we had even discussed bees, goats, and chickens for this year, but decided that was far more than we could handle. Which, given the way this year has gone, turned out to be a VERY good decision.
One thing we HAVE managed to do this year, however, was to plant some fruit trees. We were blessed to receive some trees from a friend, and also to find a smokin' hot deal at one of our favorite nurseries (The Plant Farm) on bare root trees. This is something we're especially excited about, and wish we had been able to do a few years ago when we first moved in, as we would be that much further along... But now we have a start, and over the next few years we'll be able to harvest more and more of our own apples, pears, and prunes. In the meantime, farmer's markets it will be!
Ben was SO excited to help plant them, and he CONSTANTLY is asking when he can pick the fruit off the trees. This is so important to us, because we feel strongly about teaching the kids the importance of environmental responsibility, and that includes growing our own food and understanding where it all comes from.
So, what did we end up planting?
Honeycrisp Apple:
"Honeycrisp Apple has become increasingly popular in American grocery stores over the past few years. Primarily due to its explosive crisp texture and well-balanced sweet/tart flavor, it is said to be the "fun to eat apple". A relatively new patented variety, Honeycrisp Apple has a texture similar to a crisp watermelon or Asian Pear. The fruit size is very large and predominantly red over a yellow background." ~Willis Orchard Co. (http://www.willisorchards.com/product/Honeycrisp+Apple+Tree)
Dwarf Early Italian Prune:
"Similar to Italian, but sweeter, slightly larger & more productive. Shorter growing season than Italian. Originated near Yakima, Washington in 1935. Self-fruitful." ~The Plant Farm (http://www.theplantfarm.com/trees/plums.htm)
Grafted Dwarf Apple:
Jonagold, Yellow Delicious, Gravenstein, Melrose, and Liberty. How cool is it that we can get five different apple varieties from one tree, and that the tree will self-pollinate? Given our limited space, these grafted trees are an awesome option.
Grafted Dwarf Pear:
Anjou, Flemish Beauty, Conference, Bartlett and Red Bartlett. These trees are wonderful; we'll get a variety of pears from this beauty, and (since we have limited space) we can plant just the one tree and it will self pollinate! (Apparently European and Asian pear trees don't cross polinate well, which doesn't necessarily bode well for the Asian Pear tree...
Shinseiki Pear:
"The Shinseiki Pear Tree is a round, medium sized, golden pear with white, sweet, crisp, and juicy flesh. The fruit of the Shinseiki Pear Tree ripens in late July, to mid August and stores extremely well until March. The Shinseiki Pear Tree bears fruit at a young age and requires 250-450 chill hours to set it's good quality pear fruit. Zones 5-9a." ~Willis Orchard Co. (http://www.willisorchards.com/product/Shinseiki+Pear+Tree)
Unknown Apple:
We're not sure what this is. This is one that we inherited from our good friend, and the tag on it is completely faded off. It will be interesting to see what develops!
Depending on how our landscaping comes together, maybe next year we'll look into some espalier apple or other fruit trees... I've got a GREAT spot for them, if things come together the way they might ... and a living wall of scrumptious edibility is extremely appealing! The other thing I'm very excited about looking into is columnar apple trees - I can grow them in pots; they get to be 8'-10' tall, but only 3-4' wide... and I have an AWESOME spot between us and our wonderful neighbors that gets full sun - but I don't want to plant anything right on the property line. These would be PERFECT!
Do you have any fruit trees? What's your favorite?
Welcome back to our "Featured Shop" posts! Here we'll be once again introducing you to other shops that share our home at Country Village, in Bothell Washington (find the Village on Facebook, too!). We'll do this roughly once a week, so keep your eyes peeled, as there's a whole lotta great shops around us - all small "mom and pop" shops that we know you'll love!
Today we'd like to introduce you to Quite The Find. Nancy Stoll took over the space where Gina had The Well Dressed Home (Gina's life went a different direction back earlier this year), and we are SO loving having Quite The Find across the street from us. Nancy and her team have done a beautiful job with the store, creating a beautiful mix of antiques and new finds in an inviting and comfortable space. You can find Quite The Find on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/quitethefind and on the main Country Village Shops website at http://www.countryvillagebothell.com/quite-find
And now, because a picture is worth 1000 words, here's a small gallery of Quite The Find - we hope you enjoy it, and we hope you walk across the parking lot and check them out the next time you're here at The Weed Patch!
