split in two...

Yes, this ancient olive tree is fabulous although split in two and holey.



Feeling split in two and holey myself lately, my two worlds yet to collide, but like the wonderful olive tree surprising new branches have sprung in spite of; some from the roots and some from the branches.



Love the contrast in the fields between the vibrancy of the new growth with the dullness of the olive tree branches.

Has really cooled off here...windy...brrr...this is when I miss central heating!

Good talking to you today my dear family...miss u terribly...

Making new holiday traditions?

Well, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous here next to the Aegean Sea. How can it possibly be December without a snow flake in sight or an obnoxious/fabulous scene of consumerism? Merry Christmas anyone?

How do you celebrate holidays in a country that doesn't celebrate the ones that are dear to your heart?

This will be my first Christmas away from my family in 31 years but it will be my first with my hubby, second with our baby girl and first together as a little family...

How can I bring Santa to Turkey? How can I get my husband who has never celebrated this before and has no idea the colossal scale of it stateside/ familyside into it?

Where is my father to go chop down the tree?

Well I'm starting out by decorating our cafe...



Since everywhere you look there is green popping up all around. The vibrancy of new green, new growth(filiz) is gorgeous. There are many of the green trimmings around the neighborhood that my mother would get from my auntie working at the greenhouse to decorate with; huge pepper berry trees, vines, different types of pines. So I will start there...I love gathering, scavenging...



There are lots of pines cones to work with too, fabulous ones of different shapes and sizes... and there is my best little helper, who needs rudolph:)

I've been singing her lots of Christmas carols as we gather.

I made some wreathes today with pictures to follow.

P.S. super annoying that again blogger host of private domains is banned in Turkey because they didn't like one then the rest get banned too??? So I can post my blog but can't look at it...uggg...get it together people! Any suggestions on moving my blog? etc?

Purple findings...

Since I was young I have loved findings; gorgeous examples of nature noticed surrounding me.

At our house initially you look out and see three colors- that beautiful blue water reflecting whatever hue the weather is that day, green from the shrubs and bushes struggling to grow from the beige rock beneath it.

Of course if you look closer there is much more to behold. Today I found purple.
Not lilacs and violets from my youth but sea urchin shells, olives, greens with hints of purple stems, shells, broken lighter (plastic seems to find it's way in wherever you are), heather flowers, thistles(it got me...ouch!), and daisies.

Fall here is like a spring again. I have to be honest...I did go swimming yesterday. It was a freak hot day and my hubby talked me into it after he went fishing. Chilly but great.

The winds have found there way back though. They will blow the rain in soon. Following all the rain and a week of hot weather life is popping up everywhere. Seeds dormant during the long, HOT, dry summer.

Inspiration for this shot from resurrection fern, Andy Goldsworthy, mother nature herself:)

Didim is...

...because one loves what one knows...

This is my first wild flower bouquet of the season. I am happy to see I picked it on Earth day, April 22nd but didn't realize it as it is not celebrated here but I plan to spread the love next year!

I particularly love the sort of hops looking grass that looks too heavy for it's thin stem as dangles wildly in the wind...

I have recently stumbled across a blog, Resurrection Fern. She posts photos of her wonderful crocheted stones and the beauty that surrounds her. She recently posted about getting to know your local patch of earth.

"What can turn us from this deserted future, back into the sphere of our being, the great dance that joins us to our home, to each other and to other creatures, to the dead and unborn? I think it is love. I am perforce aware how baldly and embarrassingly that word now lies on the page—for we have learned at once to overuse it, abuse it, and hold it in suspicion. But I do not mean any kind of abstract love (adolescent, romantic, or "religious"), which is probably a contradiction in terms, but particular love for particular things, places, creatures, and people, requiring stands, acts, showing its successes and failures in practical or tangible effects. And it implies a responsibility just as particular, not grim or merely dutiful, but rising out of generosity. I think that this sort of love defines the effective range of human intelligence, the range within its works can be dependably beneficent. Only the action that is moved by love for the good at hand has the hope of being responsible and generous. Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows."
— Wendell Berry

...BECAUSE ONE LOVES ONLY WHAT ONE KNOWS...

must read more of that man?

tired...enough...many more thoughts but enough for today...

good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite:)

Squash or pumpkin?

This yummmmmy salad I made is a hybrid between the Farro and Butternut squash recipe from 101 cookbooks and the Warm butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad from Smitten Kitchen.
Both are awesome foodie/recipe blogs!

My hybrid consisted of roasting together:

- 2 kilo piece of squash or pumpkin cubed that I had bought at the pazaar(roast until kind of caramelized on browned on sides)
- Two white onions(didn't have red) cubed
- 3 tablespoons olive oil from Mehmet Amca's trees
- Sprinkling of thyme we gather from low lying bushes next to the sea (reminder to go get more to share!
- sea salt of course
Roast all together then when done add-

- Garbanzo beans(otherwise known as chick peas)
Didn't have any Farro (not sure what it is actually) or I was thinking wheat berries but then I found the smitten kitchen recipe so I used garbanzo beans(Also wonderfully nutty). Here in Turkey canned bean are kind of expensive. Fresh are better anyways but they take a long time to cook, especially chick peas. My mother-in-law will just make a big batch and freeze them. So I just pulled some out of the freezer.

Modified the dressing(had hoped for the tahini but we were out); pressed some fresh garlic,
2 lemons, more olive oil and of course salt on everything!

Serve a little warm but I bet it is great cold too! Yummy I really could eat the whole pan!

I must admit I think it becomes all the more delicious when I know that the lemons come from the tree out back, the olive oil is from the old man on the corner's trees and the thyme grows wild next to the sea!



































Good news that hubby is coming down from Eskisehir tonight! I am going to quick try to get some chocolate cookies made before baby girl wakes up from her nap!

Also thanks to Keryn for explaining how to get my pictures larger!

Fall...

It is fall in MN. Normally in mine and I believe many Minnesotans opinion the best time of the year with squash, pumpkins, apples, crisp fresh air...













And of course the colorful leaves, reds, yellows, oranges and everything in between. The most gorgeous as the sun shines through warming the crisp air.

Minnesotans know that you really have to get ready for the long cold winter though. Unfortuanatly it might be coming earlier than normal this year but we hope to get another warm spell!

Mom and I readied the gardens. Picking the carrots and beets. Tearing out tomato plants. Harvesting the herbs and honey crisp apples(probably the best apples I have ever had!)all before the EARLY snow we are supposed to get.

Gardening and working outside is so therapeutic. The smells of the soil and the fresh crisp air in your lungs.

Most Minnesotans are busy canning or freezing their gardens right now. My aunties and sister made salsa. So much you can do to preserve the garden delights for winter; canning, freezing and pickling are a few.

I have previously written about Turkish Turşuci, The pickle man. They pickle anything and everything in Turkey and have whole fabulous shops dedicated to this art. I recently came across and article through Istanbul Eats from Today's Zaman about the best Turşu in Turkey and even how to make it yourself...so for those of you drooling over the thought of pickled everything check out the article here and make some yourself...


















We had our little Mavisu Pumpkin Lovely out for some sunshine and fresh air. My darling Turkish in-laws might be upset to think she was out in the cold but I promise she was bundled up tight and I am being a good mommy. I love her more everyday! We miss her Baba (Daddy) though!

Winter showers have brought April flowers...

The seasons in Didim are a bit different than the rhythm I an used to...April showers bring May flowers. There have been flowers popping up everywhere for weeks helped by the previously rainy winter season and all this sun we have been having. I am pretty sure the rain is finished and the temperature will escalate from here on out! I am going to be a hot pregnant momma...whew! The above tree is fabulous right now with it's playful pops of yellow puff balls. I like the light in this photo too. It was dusk and Çağlar and I were out for a nice romantic dinner :)...


















One of my favorite passed times recently is walking Tequila and picking bouquets of flowers to stick anywhere people will let me. There is always some new bud or variety to notice. These I placed on the cafe tables outside. I think it is a welcoming touch.


















The wild poppies with there vibrant red hue and translucent paper like leaves still impress me every year! The grow all over the Aegean seaside this time of year. The above photo is from one of my husband and I's first road trips together two years ago(how time flys) through Ephesus historical site and after it was on to meet his parents for the first time. The funny thing was my hair had streaks of red about as vibrant as those poppies from my first encounter with a Turkish hair dresser, (seriously funny other story!), but his parents still welcomed me, the punk rock American girl with open arms.

Back to being a puppy...

Good morning! I woke up at 6:30 AM to Tequila(reminder:who is our 10 month old German shepherd) eating everyone's shoes. I groggily took them all away and went back to bed. Woke up a few hours later to this lovely mess, charcoal bag ripped wide open, shredded mother-in-law's pillows, broom straw strewn about the patio and Tequila looking at me like what? I was bored you shouldn't have taken my shoes away...ahhhhhhhhhh puppies! I actually asked my husband whether he thought it was going to be easier to have our baby or to have a puppy? I thought a baby will be easier... but he disagreed ...

Then the anger from the destruction cleared when I realized she's not bleeding anymore!!!!!She's not in heat anymore finally!!!! Yeah!!!!!No more isolation techniques, no more mangy, crazy, male dogs lurking around, no more bored Tequila because we can take her for walks free off leash again, and let her run and play with the other "boys" in the neighborhood. After all, I need to remember she really is still just a puppy...

To let off some steam for the both of us we took a long walk around the neighborhood and it has definitely become our daily ritual. There has been tons of rain lately and the country side is bursting with greens and flowers. Although I don't find Didim a perfect city it does have a lot of natural beauty.


















These small purple flowers make me happy while we are walking on the beach. They pop out of the sand with these wispy, curly iris like leaves. I imagine they stay so small to protect themselves from the intense seaside wind we can get. The vibrant pops of purple nicely surprise the eye against the neutrals of the sand, and muted greens of surrounding low lying shrubs.


















The abundant yellow flowers are mustard greens(Hardal in Turkish). They seem to have a cooperative relationship with the olive groves. It is beautiful the subtle muted tones of the olive leaves rising above the lively yellow flower speckles all against the backdrop of the Aegean Sea.

As you drive down the road to our house the fields are blanketed with a beautiful emerald green and then the patchworks of olive groves dappled with the yellow. There are several edible greens, including mustard that people dig up and saute with onion and tomato paste. My husband's favorite is to fry eggs sunny side up into the vitamin packed greens(see earlier harvesting post)













Tequila and I's daily walking adventures go something like this, taking in the little things, the natural beauty of Didim with my friend, my puppy.

harvesting...

I have talked about before the community my in-laws have retired to. Where we are staying is mainly summer homes(cabins for my midwesterners). So we basically have the place to ourselves and this makes for great harvesting of the bounties around the area. Ali is still picking roses for his ladies everyday. He walks around the neighboorhood clipping every color of the rainbow roses. There are lemon trees, spicy pepper plants and now is olive time especially. We have picked many bussels of black olives for eating and some to have processed into oil. I love it...my in laws have the whole neighboorhood scoped out where the good this or that is growing.


















Tonight Ali and I sorted the good olives and the wormy ones. The bad ones can be processed into oil. The good ones are washed and placed in big containers between layers of course salt. The green ones from the previous post you change the water everyday but the black ones just get treated with the salt and after 15 or 20 days are ready to eat.


















The day was beautiful for harvesting. It had been raining the days before and there were big beautiful clouds in the sky. These trees are right on the sea. The rain had cleansed the air and the mountain across the sea was so clear. Also I had wonderful company.

































There was also a little shooting practice going on with the baby gun(mom and dad he-he) I mean bebe gun. Caglar is practicing for Minnesota. I tell him stories of all the hunting and fishing he can participate in there!(motivation!)


















Today Ali picked arugula from somewhere and yesterday he brought home some other leafy green. Birsen sauteed it up with a little onion and but some fried eggs on top. It was delicious and so very healthy! I like to think of my own grandma picking dandelion greens for dandelion salad.

I love it...I just went into the living room to see what everyone is doing and Ali and Birsen are sitting on the floor cleaning Ayva(a fruit) to make jam with.

Zeytin=olives

First off...Hero(Our poisened neighborhood dog, see the below post) is feeling a little better! I think he is going to make it! He was still in the bushes this morning but I fed him some beef broth. Also later in the day he ate some chicken. He moves a little. He tried to play with shero and tequila today as they wrestled but it's too early for that. Anyways slowly he is coming back!!!














But olive trees are all over Turkey especially by our house. Birsen and Ali picked some HUGE ones today. The would taste awful if you ate them as is so...


















Birsen washed them up and Ali got to work! Thank goodness he has been feeling great lately!


















You slice every olive in two or more places(depending on who you ask of course). Ali went with two. Then you place them in a container and fill it with water. You change the water everyday. You must be careful because the gas builds up inside the container and when you open it...boom...like a little bomb! Anyways change the water everyday for a few weeks or so and the olives soften and get rid of their bitter taste. Olives are eaten every morning for breakfast by most Turkish people. Healthy but took me a while to get into. Also olive oil is reserved for salads and times when you really taste the oil. They don't cook with it, heat it that they use less expensive oils. For having tons of beautiful olive trees olive oil is still quite pricey. Anyways I am eager to see how our olive curing goes.

I made chicken soup today and it turned out pretty yummy! The weather here is still great during the day but quite chilly at night so the soup tasted great!

Nar

There are pomegranates growing in our neighborhood. I ate this one while Tequila and I walked by the sea. The are just starting to sweeten, still a bit tart. Cok guzel.

Mehmet amca

He is either 85 or 95 depending on who you ask. He speaks in a Turkish accent that my husband can barely understand. He always says "bana bak"(look at me) but it sounds like "merhaba"(hello). This little man has lived here all his life in a tiny house on the corner before there was even a corner(before this housing site was constructed). He smokes one cigarette after another-butt to butt, never married but knows everything about the land here. He is a wealth of knowledge. He brought Ali a huge jar of 'get well soon' pine nuts that he had personally plucked from the pine cones around his house. He then proceeded to tell us how the birds put the sap on their cuts to help the healing process and we should to. He remembers meeting my dad with his big smile and told my dad(although my father didn't know it because mehmet was speaking in Turkish) all about the virgin Mary's(yes Jesus's mother) last resting place which is located literally an hour away(This is not a secret, come visit me and we can go). Birsen, my mother in law brought him some dinner the other night. There were tons of clouds in the sky. She said how she thought it would rain. He looked up and said no we won't get it. Of course no rain the neighboring city got it. When Caglar and his friends were teenagers they saw this old man fishing with a string. They teased him about not catching anything with that little string. He reached into the sea and plucked out bait of some sort. Baited his hook and little while longer guess what...a huge fish. That shut the boys up.

I want to write his stories down, these secrets of Didim.

Caglar's really cute too!

I love water...

Tequila, Caglar and I have been taking lots of long walks along the coast. Tequila follows us tripping on our heels, sniffing, swimming, tasting things. It is beautiful here. It is pretty remote where his parents house is with lots of air and space. We walk amongst low lying shrubs, olives trees and look at the expanse of blue sea. When the sun is setting the whole environment seems to take on pastel hues, pink, blues, purples, yellows. As we walk along the water though there is always trash, plastic bottles, broken glass, fishing nets, etc. I have been picking some of it up as we walk(even got Caglar into it sometimes). It seems ironic that I want a pair of plastic gloves to pick up all the plastic.

A previous post I talked about the floating plastic garbage dump in the middle of the Pacific. My sister wrote me that she is happy that I am thinking about these issues but what am I going to do about it? I have been thinking about this as well for a while. Especially since I am currently residing in Turkey, and it's different here. I saw recycle bins at the government building the other day but then looked inside and it was treated as a trash can, food etc. in there. Here there is alot of re purposing. Using plastic bags from the grocery store for the garbage bag. Using all the glass jars to hold other home made treats but no city recycling that I have seen. Another of the many reasons I need to learn Turkish better.


















Anyways what I have personally decided to do in my current situations is to always fill my nalgene bottle with water instead of buying plastic containers. For our new cafe I want to buy water pitchers for customers instead of the norm here of putting a liter plastic bottle on the table. I will continue to pick up the beach little by little every time tequila and I take a walk. Also to further investigate the state of Turkish trash removal, recycling, and dumping. Also it is so dry here I wonder where the water comes from? In our little community they re purpose shower/toilet water to water some grassy areas. So his mom tells us to not play in the grass. Also here, everyone in every city I've lived in (3 Istanbul, Eskisehir and didim) People always buy the big culligan water jugs...is the tap water safe to drink?

People are doing things, talking! there is this guy named Dave who decided to save all his trash for one year. It causes him to be extremely aware of how he is living.He write about it on his blog 365 days of trash Here's the kernel for his project...

The idea for this project came about six months ago as I was throwing something away in the garbage. It occurred to me that I was doing nothing more than that. I was making it go away, not dealing with it, not accounting for it, simply removing it from my sight. When you think of it in simple terms like that, it’s really quite insane. I came to the realization that if we were all accountable for our waste, if we couldn’t simply make it disappear, we’d have to deal with some pretty ugly truths about the way we live. And in so doing, it would cause us to start making better decisions about what we buy, where we buy, and what’s left over when we are done with that purchase.

Here's more specifically about plastic water bottles

seviyorum ve nefret ediyorum...

So I started taking Turkish language classes. Turkish and English sentence structure basically flips, the -um translates to 'I' etc. The above translates into I love and I hate. I love that I am learning Turkish so I can better communicate in and understand the culture which I am living in but it is tough. I love that I when I walk up the gigantic hill from the Marmara sea to my house I see at least ten fig trees getting ready to burst with plump delicious figs. I have visions of harvesting around my Istanbul neighborhood like I used to harvest lilacs and violets in Minnesota. I had the whole neighborhood scoped out different varieties and colors plotted in my head. The figs are coming...
















I love this stained glass work from the train station, Haydarpaşa, on the Asia side of Istanbul.
















I love that riding the ferry across the sea is a form of public transportation in this city and that there are seats outside.




















I hate that I have had so many electrical problems here, my new computer got zapped. Does anyone know a cheap way to ship to the U.S. and why shipping a broken computer might be a problem through customs?

Also I hate trash. The trash build up in Naples is amazing. What if everywhere the garbage men went on strike and we were unable to get rid of the trash, out of site out of mind? It just kept piling up and piling up. Would we change our consumption habits? Would we reuse more? Here in Turkey it seems to be culturally acceptable to litter. All the time throwing things out the windows and off the ferry into the sea. They reuse a good amount but their consumption levels are rising and there aren't recycling systems. The plastic water bottles around the world what do we do? So much water everywhere but none to drink. Also plastic bags, I try to say 'pakette yok'-no bag- because every little item is automatically put into a plastic bag. When I was young my reoccurring nightmare was that tons and tons of stuff was falling on me, suffocating me with stuff and I would wake up crying.(sounds funny but I am serious)

random rant for the day...
What do you love/hate?

Spring time!

I don't know the name of this flower but it looks like a creeping sweet pea vine. It is a lovely spray of lavender color around Istanbul.


















Yildiz park is across the street from my house in ortakoy. Tulips are blooming left and right. It is a wonderful natural area in the heart of the choas that is Istanbul. Huge beds of multi colored tulips have popped up and every time I turn my head I think that color must be my favorite...


















or is it this one?

Happy four twenty friends.

Switzerland

Even when you are there it seems fake. The Swiss people have created this wonderful harmony with nature and modern life. They have nice cars, trains, showers, every modern thing yet preserve this amazing nature around them. We were able to drink from the water falls and the fresh spring feed faucets all over town. In many cities around the world you can't even drink water from the tap let alone an outdoor faucet. I love it! My sister, her man and I hiked the SHARK'S FIN. It deserves capital letters and we freaking rock! This vertical climb took us 3 1/2 hours up and 2 1/2 down. It is worth the pain because when you get to the top...this is your view! Imagine the panoramic! We caught our breath, devoured some peanut butter sandwiches and took a small nap amongst the wild flowers. Then it was back to Turkey.

Olympos

Just a spoonful of sugar...














Friends...














and a beautiful beach...

Helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down. Well actually that is the medicine. Olympos is tucked into a beautiful wooded valley. You feel like you are on an island because there are no big hotels blocking your view. Everyone stays in small pesions with treehouses or small cabins as your accomadation. You can walk freely around the ruins of the ancient city or jump off rocks into the sea. The salty sea is great for floating on your back and dreaming. cok guzel! I like surprises!

Spring is in the air...

Deniz(Sea) and Güneş(Sun) are very sweet. Especially when you are sharing them with good people. I took this photo in Didim. It is a small spring Iris popping through the rocks and sand along the Aegean Sea. Çok Güzel(very beautiful)...