Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Olympic Game Farm

Last week Chad and I spent the most beautiful 5th of July together. We decided to fulfill a Washington-Long-Dream and go to the Olympic Game Farm.

Short story, it will be jumbled and partially wrong, but the Olympic Game Farm is a place where, back in the day, Disney stored, trained and filmed many of its animals and their scenes. Their most famous filming was the Grizzly Adams show. At some point they asked Disney to let them open to the public. There is a driving tour of the grounds, a walking tour and a barn tour. The driving tour is awesome cause they sell you loaves of bread and you can feed the animals who walk right up to your car!

It was great! We had so much fun. Feeding creatures wheat bread. Petting sheeps. Looking at four foot long fish.

 The bears were really smart. They would wave when you waved! Then when you threw the bread at them the were too lazy to bend down... so they would pick it up with their claw and bring it to their mouth.


This chicken came careening out of nowhere! to get a piece of bread!


It was all great fun until a llama tried to crawl into my window. Chad thought that was great, I thought otherwise.


It was a glorious, mellow day. I highly recommend it for people who are already planning on being in Sequim for the day. We had planned to spend a half a day there, but even after we looped part of the drive tour twice and took the barn tour (and petted the sheeps), we only used up 1.5 hours of our day.

So go! Have fun! Feed creatures! And watch out for the buffalo!

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Celebrating with Local Flavor

Happy 4th of July!!

Chad and I are celebrating more than just our country's independence - we are celebrating summer's first day of wonderful weather and our newest porch-garden harvest: lavender.

Chad has been tending to our two lavender plants for over a year now. Last year, our first plant was just to small to produce and the other one wasn't given to us until after it bloomed. This year though, his patience was rewarded - the plants are blooming like crazy!

I tried to take an artsy photo... but the front flower WOULDN'T FOCUS!
 
To celebrate our 4th of July in typical American mid-twenties (bordering on late....) fashion, Chad and I decided to make ourselves a lavender cocktail. To do this we made a lavender simple syrup.

Lavender Simple Syrup

  • 1 1/2 tbls fresh lavender flower buds
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup water
Put everything into a small pot. Heat to a boil, stirring till sugar dissolves, then remove from heat. Cover and let sit for one hour. Pour through a strainer, perfectly fits into a 1/2 pint mason jar, cover and keep in the refrigerator.


Wash the flower buds with water, if necessary before adding to the pot. It ends up being a delicious, very lavender-y but not soapy, sweet syrup. Now for the alcohol part:

Lavender Buzz

  • 2 tbls lavender simple syrup
  • 1 shot glass of vodka
  • 1/2 cup club soda
  • quick squeeze of lemon
Mix everything and serve with ice.

Yup, Chad bought me those flowers this week. He loves me!
 
This is not the first drink we've made up, but its definitely the most unique. It tastes like lavender smells, but not in an overpowering way. So, if you don't like the smell of lavender, then don't make this. We loved it on this warm 4th of July day!

Hope you enjoy!