Swallow

The 2nd painting in the series "Free as a Bird" is entitled Swallow.

The Souk

The Souk (translated as Marketplace) is a mix between a farmers market, a community yard sale, and a state fair. It runs during the weekends on the outskirts of Ifrane. The three of us went to see what we could find today after lunch. The first thing we found was some Heinz BBQ sauce, it was a major score. The guy we got it from gets imports from Spain without paying the import tax, so we got a good price for it. Pretty much everything in Morocco is bargainable, in fact if you don't bargain you're probably paying 2x the regular price.



This picture is an overhead view of the veggie/fruit/spices section of the Souk.





The second thing we got was a bunch of cilantro from this sweet guy. It only cost about 12 cents.

We also bought some red and yellow bell peppers, a yellow melon which hasn't been identified yet, and some bib lettuce.

The Souk has some really random stuff, including piles of random shoes (who knows if there are matches?!) seen below. I was able to find myself a really cute skirt and summery shirt out of a pile of random clothes. I don't usually look because it's just a big mess, but Matthew was patiently looking at toys with Zetta so I was able to take my time.

One last picture of the spices. Pretty much anything you need you can find in this madness. The guy even has uncommon things like dried pomegranate (used for dying things red) and argon oil which is made in the south of morocco.

We're in need of a new coffee pot and a small kitchen table, but nobody was willing to budge on their prices- so we'll be back next week to see if we can get lucky again.

Dinner is served

Zetta is growing bigger by the minute, and this makes her one hungry baby. She is now eating 3 generous meals a day to satisfy her ever growing body. She's been introduced to green beans, peas, pumpkin, zucchini, carrots, apples, bananas, oatmeal, and rice. Frozen veggies and jarred baby food are nowhere to be found in Morocco, so this means her food takes a bit of time to prepare. Produce here does not come pre-washed by any means, it's pulled out of the dirt and put into wooden crates and sold as is. So my first step is to rinse the food, and sometimes take out the little rocks mixed in! Then I peel/shell/chop whatever I'm making.

Then it goes into the pressure cooker for 15 minutes or so until its soft enough to put in the food processor. We usually make 2 or 3 different veggies at the same time and blend them all together.After it's all blended up I pour it into ice cube trays to freeze over night.

After it's frozen I stick them in a handy freezer bag to pull out whenever it's time for Zetta to eat. We have a special mini cooking pot for Zetta's food (its just the right size). We blend together the veggies with a little bit of oatmeal and a little bit of brown rice. Since the baby cereal here is practically pure sugar we make our own out of whole oats and brown rice. Our coffee mill works great to grind them up to a fine powder. The last thing we add before it's ready is a little bit of infants powdered vitamins. I usually repeat this process every 1 to 1 1/2 weeks. It's a lot of work, but its satisfying to know that she's eating well and we're giving her the best food that we can.

As free as a bird

I've been putting this off for far too long, but now I think it's time. For my debut post, I think I'll share with you the painting I finished today and some thoughts about it.


I've been itching to be creative, but I've been stuck in a funk. I'm glad this has passed because I feel so much better after I've created something from within me. I've always had a fascination with birds, so the subject of the painting came naturally. When I was younger I was interested in the things my Dad liked, and he had a pocket sized field guide on the birds of the U.S. that I loved to study. Ever since my obsession with that little book, birds have been magical to me. I think this is just no.1 in a series that I'll be doing. This one is called: Goldfinch