solar success

in an email from sunrun today:

In the last 3 years, your system produced 45,051 kWh of solar energy

Your system’s lifetime production helped avoid carbon emissions equivalent to*...

74 barrels of oil consumed

1,382 bags of garbage

recycled instead of landfilled

3,593 gallons of gas

35,763 lbs of coal burned

81,846 miles driven

in the average gas-powered passenger vehicle

Your system is offsetting the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmopshere as

38 acres of forest in 1 year

creamy crunchy spring green bowl

i made up a thing the other day that makes me outrageously happy every time i eat it. i call it creamy crunchy spring green bowl.

i described it to artemis via text like this:

• i started off by cooking one cup of white quinoa with a few peeled garlic cloves
• while that was cooking, i got out a big bowl and poured in a pound of shelled edamame (i had a bag of frozen beans from trader joe's in the freezer)
• and tore some raw russian kale from the tough stems into it
• and crumbled a block of feta
• when the quinoa was done, i poured it hot into the bowl and stirred everything up
• including mashing the cooked garlic cloves
• what came out is what you see in the photo. i added a splash of lemon juice on top and some coarse kosher salt
• it was freaking delicious. protein-packed, tasty, with a bit of crunch from the edamame and kale and creaminess from the feta.
• amazingly, it tastes just as good cold as it did hot.

bloom

 

bringing the outside in

 ever since having a lesson in ikebana whilst living in northern california, i look at arranging flowers in an entirely different way. it really helps to have collected some gorgeous specialty vases in the most unlikely places.

cherry blossoms are from the tree in our front yard; azaleas from one of our many prolific shrubs.

eggytime

 

"cracks are where the love comes in"

springtime diversion

 

tulips

ander accompanied me to opening day of the festival of spring at burnside farms

it was unseasonably hot, and sunny enough to lightly redden my unprotected skin, with far too many sad small friends crying for all the various reasons that small friends cry.

but once we made it to the shaded area to wait to pay for the extra flowers and bulbs i picked, and then to the air conditioned comfort of the minivan, and then to a kfc drive-thru to get lunch, all was once again right with the world.

celestrina

this is not my photo. i didn't have my camera with me when i went outside the other morning to pick clover for littlefoot's breakfast. but i looked at it carefully and imprinted the image in my mind to look it up later on the computer.

what i saw was a celestrina ladon, aka spring azure butterfly. i am blessed.

photo lifted from wikipedia, which labels it thusly:
Male, Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park, Washington, United States

noodles are life

 

you can't see it, but there's ramen under all that

yakisoba with chinese broccoli, bok choy, mung bean sprouts, tofu, and nori komi furikake 

yakisoba