Observations, and such

Four Batches of Homemade Granola Down, And the Recipe for You, Finally

2010-07-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

So, I owe several people the recipe for homemade granola . . . and have been negligent in keeping garden posts up this spring . . . so to hop back into the ol' blog I will start there.

First I have to say that I discovered the basic recipe when served by Rhonda Stone, Pasadena City Council member Haderlein's Field Rep. She used a version of the Barefoot Contessa Recipe, which I dutifully looked up, and massively modified. (If you want to see the original, with some commentary, try here, at The Cookbook Critic. )

Moontree Granola

4 cups (apx 1 lb or 450 g) organic** Rolled Oats

2 cups slivered dry-toasted almonds

1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup good olive oil

2 cups toasted unsalted cashew pieces (whole cashews are more expensive, and need to be chopped a little; but even salted whole cashews can work)

2 cups raisins

1 cup dried cranberries

Mix dry oats and almonds together in a large bowl; be sure there is room to stir the mixture after adding oil and honey.

Mix the honey and olive oil with a hand or stand mixer on low, or light whisk. The goal is to evenly distribute the honey and oil so that it will evenly coat the oats.

Pour a portion of the honey-oil over the oats and stir it in. Add some more honey-oil mixture and stir, to coat the oats and almonds. Continue adding honey-oil and stirring until (a) all the mixture is in and (b) all the oats have been coated. This may require some stirring well after all the honey-oil is added.

NEXT:

Cover a baking sheet (with edges) with parchment paper, or be prepared to scrub after baking. Spoon the oat mixture on the parchment and spread evenly.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place sheet on middle rack, and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes check cereal color and stir on the sheet. Cereal should be just tan. The final bake time will be between 20 and 30 minutes longer, but check the cereal every 10, then every 5 minutes.

Once the cereal starts browning it can go from lightly brown, to nut brown, to burnt in a few seconds. When the cereal is a light brown remove the cookie sheet from the oven. If the cereal cools on the sheet, it will continue to brown. If the cereal is already brown enough, slide the parchment off the tray and onto a heat-proof surface.

Let the cereal cool until cold, crumble into a bowl. And the cashews add dried fruits, mixing well. Store in sealed kitchen or Mason jars; makes about 3 quarts by volume with these add-ins.

Variations

Nuts: Substitute any nuts that you like, or leave them out entirely. Dry nuts (such as dry- roasted almonds) can go in with the oats, and are great with the honey-oil mixture. Oily nuts, such as cashews, peanuts, or similar, should go in with the dried fruit and not be heated. If nuts are omitted from the oats, reduce the oil slightly, by about a 1/8 to 1/4 cup.

Dried Fruits: Any dried fruits will work. I have used home grown dried apples and figs; my wife prefers no nuts and a mixture of Trader Joe's Raisins and "Golden Berry Blend"

Other Stuff: Leslie also likes to sprinkle ground flax meal on the spread out oats before baking (1/8 to 1/4 cup). Adds some good omega-3's and fiber, and a little nutty flavor. To turn it into candy, add a few chocolate chips. Really, the issues is to add what you like!

Eating: Great as a filling snack (a handful in a wax paper bag goes a long way) or as traditional cereal with milk. Or with vanilla or maple yogurt. Greek style yogurt is interesting too, and you can add fresh fruit for a change from time to time.

** All ingredients are organic or otherwise cleaner versions where feasible. The organic oats are easily available at Wholefoods at modest prices; the other ingredients all come from Trader Joe's, of course.

Spring Planting Redux: Summer's Salads

2010-02-15T10:04:00.001-08:00

Four-day weekend -- with no rain and warmish sunshine -- let us get some things done and finish up the garden layout.

Tilled up a 4' x 10' patch of back lawn, and another 8' x 8' patch to add to the approximate 200 sq ft. of raised beds and tilled front lawn. Puts us at around 300 sq. feet, exclusive of of fruit trees and a dozen large pots. When we finish Spencer's patch we will be looking at about 350 sq.feet, a respectable space if I do say so.

Put down today (into the one of the new rock-walled beds) are lettuce starts (Romaine, red Romaine, oak leaf, red oak leaf, head lettuce) and spinach, all interplanted with some interesting English (Kew Gardens Brand) organic carrots.

Also down today a long strip of green beans (purple seed) adjacent to last week's snow peas, so two thirds of that box is planted. The last third will be some other nitrogen fixer (maybe a yellow wax bean) or some shelling peas or both.

Spencer's watermelon patch will get interplanted with potatoes for fall, and maybe a corner of broccoli.

The girls have requested more Roma tomatoes, and we will be definitely put Big Jim New Mexico chilies in from saved seed. Possibly bell peppers, and likely some red cabbage somewhere, although the cabbage may be headed for a big pot, as they are heavy feeders and we don't want them to compete with other stuff, or the soil-fixing effort on the south 40".

Still debating putting in a stand of broom straw somewhere, likely the front lawn . . . just contemplating how to make it decorative . . .

First Pass on Early Spring Planting; Hungry Already! Is it Summer Yet?

2010-02-06T18:44:00.001-08:00

Last weekend hand weeded about half the original "south 40" raised-bed of buckets of grass starts; after six or seven years of home compost, home worm compost and some store compost, and cover greens tilled under, the soil is now quite dark and crumbly, alive with worms. Great stuff!

Mid-week, we soaked some snow-pea seed we saved from last year's crop overnight and stuck it into a couple of long rows to beat the rain. A few seeds have floated up, but a quick finger poke has them back in the ground. Should be buckets of peas in a couple of months, and we will keep adding seeds every 3 weeks or so. Each new wave of plants should give us peas well into summer. Always fun to cruise the back yard for dinner, and steamed or stir-fried vegetables -- and especially the snow peas -- are really yummy.

Last weekend we also put a bunch of stuff into the ground.

Genovese Basil, about twice as much as last year, went in as seed. Until last year I had no luck with basil from seed, but these plants were champions. We whipped up and froze buckets of pesto (with HGO Garlic) in the fall, and if we are lucky, the new plants will be up and usable about the same time we run out of frozen stuff.

Kathryn thinned and transplanted last year's leek starts, and she should have plenty to grill up and put in her soup shortly; Hannah planted purple-seed green beans in her planter box, with second generation saved seeds. Spencer put down a watermelon patch, which we hand-tilled into the back lawn and surrounded with some of the river rock we collected on our permit a while ago.

We also took up a three-foot by 40 foot stretch of the front lawn with the mantis tiller, and put down two rows of corn (about a hundred plants), interplanted with Anasazi beans and sugar pumpkins, yellow squash and green squash. The plan is for the corn to act as trellis for the squash and beans. The beans will grow all summer and be picked and saved as dried beans for use in other dishes later; the squashes should be producing by late spring or early summer, and the pumpkins should be ready by August for eating (both savory, like squash, and sweet, as in pumpkin' pies) and saving for Halloween.

Leslie has tidied up her herb box and has several new and returning items to add to it.

If it dries up this weekend, will finish weeding up the south 40 and consider what to put in . . . I am tending to broccoli again, although last years crop was a big disappointment and I need to do some research to see what would be good as an alternate-year crop in that space.

We started the new year with only about 5 inches of rain on the season (since June 09) but have had 10.50 inches additional since January 1; nearly 3.50 inches in the last 24 hours.

All the other perennials -- especially fruits -- remain, and are beginning to show signs of spring. Mandarin oranges are fully ripe and quite delicious. What we have not eaten or handed out by March 1 or so, we may make into preserved fruit, or jam or marmalade. Might try juicing some too, but they are kind of small. Really fascinating juice though!

The scant five gallons of hard cider we put down late fall is nearly clear enough to consider bottling. It has promise, but it won't be clear what we have until at least May. This batch was all wild caught yeast, a strain that developed in a bottle of juice on the counter, which we cultured and then fed to the larger carboy. I actually drank most of the new cider that came from the wild caught (it was only a half-gallon) but came to my senses with enough yeast left in the sludge to feed and culture for the larger batch.

As we contemplate spring and summer harvests we are seriously considering two or three more of the hanging fruit dryers -- very effective and store nicely. I even dried racks of apples in my classroom over a rainy weekend -- which my students loved.

COMING SOON: What goes into the remaining South 40? How much of the back lawn will get tilled into river-rock raised beds? And will my neighbors complain if I put more of the front lawn into broom corn?

We "Tie One On" Without the Master Craftsman Nearby, and It Comes Out Okay.

2010-01-10T18:44:00.000-08:00

Been working on a new skill for the last several weeks. Back in September, took a broom tying class from Little John, arranged by the folks at Adams Forge. Didn't quite finish the broom we made in class, and needed to find the materials to sew it down. Which proved a but of an odyssey, but worth it in the end.

Tried making a broom needle out of various objects, but none did the trick. Finally orderd a flat steel "needle" that worked really well. Except that it had very sharp edges and a very sharp point and it had a tendency to cut the sewing thread. But what are a blacksmith's tools for if not making and fixing other tools. (Grin.)

So: filed off the edges and rounded off the point of the "needle" a bit, and it worked great. Used some heavy black hemp line from Michaels' for sewing down my first "class" broom ($1.50) and it worked great too. Trimmed the corn ends with heavy snips, and the first broom was done.

It was really fun to do, and the end product looked great, even if it was a mediocre outcome. So I figured I wanted to do it again. But one thing I had learned was that the proper equipment makes a big difference.

So, the first thing I needed was broom corn. Ten pound box from from an online store: arrived well before Christmas. Buying broom corn was far easier than you'd expect. Turned out buying the right twine was another matter.

The sewing line wouldn't work: Not really strong enough to support the needed tension. Couldn't find anything very workable or attractive in several local stores, but thankfully Little John made free with the name of his secret only-from-Mexico-in-10-mile-spools brand of nylon net-making twine. Now it isn't supposed to be available easily -- but one quick Google, and there it was, in 200 yard, $6.00 spools! That arrived just after Christmas.

Unfortunately, to properly tie a broom you need to pull on the string pretty hard while turning the handle -- which requires a "tying wheel."

This is basically a big spool that you can step on to hold down the roll of twine while you pull sharply. I had some ideas on how to make it, then I noticed that I had some barrel staves and a table saw . . . After a couple of false starts, I cobbled up this tying wheel: Solid oak, and it smells like wine. (Grin.)

So now I needed a handle.

We have some large branches of apple wood and also of holly, so I cut off a nice curved section of holly branch, sanded it down to near white (a little mottling for visual interest) and off we went.

Since I had a pile of undifferentiated broom corn I spent an hour sorting it into four piles: Small, medium and really long -- plus broken bits. It took a little while to do as I started out with "long" and "short" and discovered that the straw came in three distinct lengths, not two, so had to restart at one point.

After a while Hannah came out to help, and we made her a quickie "flying broom" out of a stick in the backyard and the broken broom corn bits. Turned out nicer than I expected, and proved that the tying wheel worked.

So, long story short, I finished the broom I started at home from scratch. It has some serious flaws in execution, most of which are not visible. I did leave off the second layer of straw, and so had to undo one whole layer, add the middle layer in where it belonged, and then redo the top layer -- but it made a big difference in the fullness of the broom.

At the end, I clamped the broom in the post-leg vise between two more barrel staves to sew it. Came out pretty ok, given all the oopses and redos.

Oh, and naturally I saved some of the seeds that fell of the broom corn and we will have to see what we can do with that this spring.

The Holly-Handled First Solo Broom

Cider, Woodsmoke, Soap Bubbles, Beef, Barley & Guiness Give the Illusion of Fall in SoCal

2009-11-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

A deep bed of white-orange hardwood coals throws its heat six, maybe seven or eight feet, warming my waterlogged and cold fingers despite my distance from the fire.

Darkness has arrived, and is impatiently settling into full night, despite the parting comments of the sun written in the bright blue glow of the twilight sky. There is just enough light left to finish cleaning the cider press without resorting to the jarring eye-noise of the backyard floodlights. The last pressing bag is hung to dry.

Two fresh logs on the fire flair with surprise as they settle onto the coal bed, then transform themselves into the hot, steady flame befitting the tree from whence they came. Cider is in the kitchen; homemade Beef, Barley & Guinness stew is simmering; fresh cider-bread is in the oven. Fresh coffee is on the table and I have a few minutes to make some notes and observations on the ol' electronic kitchen calender here.

Another Round of Fall

At the more northerly latitudes of Europe from whence we Americans borrow our seasons, it is winter. Late August through about Halloween are the transitional time, and the traditional start of winter in November can be quite bitter. Around here, if we have nights in the 40s and days in the low 70s we consider that winter has truly begun. (Ah Southern California!) Overnight we had our second lowest temp since last spring -- a mere 42F or so -- and a high not much out of the 60s. We almost had rain; a few places had a cloudburst on Friday, but here we got nothing but some pretty clouds scudding around on a brisk breeze. This is the second patch of "fall" that we have had this year -- after the last patch we had a week of temps in the 90s. Sigh.

Oak Glen Apples

Made the annual pilgrimage to Oak Glenn for cider apples last weekend. Didn't buy as much as we usually do -- maybe only half to two-thirds. No particular reason. Feelin' thrifty I guess. The Snow-Line cider seconds look quite nice this year -- very little in the way of rots, moths, etc. (Some years there is more carving done on the apples than not. Today in a bushel I had maybe two cups of parings -- and most of those precautionary. )

The mix appears to be Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pippen, Rome, a couple of Honeycrisps, a few Winesaps, the odd small Arkansas Black, a couple of the cloyingly-sweet Golden Delicious and one lone Red Delicious in that first box. Made a sweet but not too sweet mix over all. Nearly two gallons out of the bushel, wish is good.

Hannah and I pressed up one box this evening -- just to get some cider for dinner. And breakfast. And midnight snack tonight. (Grin). Nothing quite like cold cider with apple-wood smoked bacon, and some really fresh eggs, fried potatoes with HGO garlic, onions and peppers.

"Dinner is almost ready," Hannah tells me, singing a song about cider she invents on the spot as she blows her soap bubbles. The hot smoke from the fire carries the bubbles high into the sky, and we laugh.

Garlic Madness Under the Moontree

2009-10-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, madness I say. Garlic everywhere, and not a vampire in sight!

This is, I think, my fifth fall planting garlic. (It all started with some sprouting store-bought stuff several years ago; several garlic related posts here.)

Today, I just finished planting 175+ cloves of five varieties of garlic. Next summer there will be much deliciousness. Last year's crop is being consumed even as you read this, and, well, we may be reduced to buying garlic by late spring. No chance of that in fall 2010 though.

This year we bought a two-pound sampler pack from Filaree

Farms, plus planted our own planting-stock of last years Cuban Purple/Rojo. Sampler included several hard neck and softneck varieties (links on both the variety and specific cultivar give detailed information):

Chesnok Red a hardneck purple-stripe garlic said to
be good for baking;

Killarney Red another hardneck, a true rocambole;

Cuban Purple / Rojo de Castro, a delighful hardneck creole that we love in pesto;

S&H Silverskin, a softneck, braidable, silverskin variety;
Lorz Italian, a softneck, braidable, artichoke variety

Planted 25 of each of the four, plus 50 of the Cuban

Purple/Rojo (we really really like them). Still have Silverwhite Silverskins from last crop to eat, and plant if we decide too. A couple of little spots left with finishing fall stuff that can go to garlic in a week or two.

The Cuban Purple/Rojo we planted was ordered from Filaree Farms last year, then grown by us in '08-'09 and saved for replanting. (We have some to eat too, but we really liked it, so a third of the best bulbs were saved for "seed" for this year.) Our planting stock was much brighter red than I remember the mailorder Rojo planting stock; maybe we should call it Rose City Rojo? In any case, we love the stuff -- great flavor, easy mild "burn" in pesto, easy to peel. One of our four-year-old's favorite jobs this summer was peeling the Rojo garlic for dinner.

In taste testing the planting stock, the Killarney Red had a nice, easy but complex flavor. Haven't tasted the others yet, but since we have 1-10 cloves of each left, we will soon. (Grin).

We have planted 25 cloves of each variety, plus an extra 25 cloves (total of 50) of the Rojo, plus a "green garlic" plot of an additional 25 miscellaneous cloves.

Green garlic is what it sounds like: Garlic that has not been dried or cured, and in some cases may not even have really started forming bulbs.

It is surprisingly delicious, and is like a mild garlic-flavored green onion. So, since there where lots of odds and ends (at least 5 cloves of each variety) I planted a patch to pick before the bulbs mature without regret.

Growing garlic also provided the interesting discovery that chopped greens -- just some of the leaf or even the stalk of a pulled green garlic -- make a lovely garlic-flavored chive sort of effect!

Last year we ordered late, and put in about 40 Cuban Purpe/Rojo and 40 Silverwhite Silverskins in two batches; one location did pretty well, the other, not so well. Our one-pound investment in planting stock yielded about 12-15 pounds of garlic, if you include all the sampled green garlic and greens. We still have eating / planting stock from the Silverwhite's, but I think we may have enough garlic in the ground, including one silverskin variety allready.

Now that the bulk of the garlic planting is done, there are always a few cloves extra for the available space, so we will be having a small side by side taste test comparison soon.

Coming Soon: Cider Season!

Fall Arrives for Real; Summer Recap Part II

2009-10-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Fall arrived for real last week. Two weeks ago daytime temps peaked out between 90-100 F; last week the morning low was 46F and the daytime high all of 67F or so. Good grief. But welcome to Southern California, neh? For the last two years Halloween has had a daytime high right around 80F, although one year not long ago it bucketed rain. Go figure.

We are recovering from numerous colds in the house, and trying not to cross contaminate, and so far I am the only one who has missed all of the bugs. So everyone is home, lallygagging about, resting up. In the cool overcast I am casually cleaning up outside for fall planting as my form of rest.

The basil we started from seed last April is still going great guns, and, in fact, had taken over a significant part of the raised bed. We pulled and cut back about half the basil, and topped the rest so it would not go to seed, and have picked and cleaned about 4 quarts of basil leaves. The job this morning is to make up numerous batches of home made, home grown pesto and freeze it up for winter enjoyment.

Took two of us nearly an hour to pick and wash the leaves, but the pesto should make up quick after a short trip to Trader Joe's to stock up on sheep's milk Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. We have plenty of HGO (home-grown organic) garlic.

Of course part of the clean-out is to ready space for fall garlic; five or six varieties on tap this year, more on that in a later post.

Granola Making Day . . .Mmmm!

Yesterday was granola making day. I hate to admit to it as it is such a stereotype, but its good, and really healthy, and really easy to make. We have "his" and "hers" flavors made from the same basic supply of organic rolled oats, olive oil and honey, baked on a tray in the oven. In "his" mix slivered toasted almonds go into the oven too, and the mix is cooked a little darker. Amusingly, the "hers" variety has, er, no nuts.

The "his" variety has, in addition to almonds, unsalted cashews, dried cranberries and organic raisins; "hers" uses a Trader Joe's "golden berry" mix with golden raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, and cherrys, plus some additional organic brown raisins.

Really good as cereal with milk, as a hand snack, with a few dark chocolate chips as dessert, on top of or mixed into yogurt (especially the TJ maple yogurt) and vanilla ice cream. And as it happens the whole oats are pretty good for fiber and cholesterol reduction, if those items are a concern.

A Very Dry Summer Means Good Drying Weather

All the basil smell reminds me that we had a great summer drying things in the new hanging food dryer from Path to Freedom's web store. Figs, tomatoes, some grapes-to-raisins, all eaten already. Also, in the photo below, we dried more of that same HGO Genovese Basil, various HGO apples and HGO New Mexico Chili's. Also marjoram, and a wonderful lime-basil that has the unfortunate tendency to attract bees (lots of them!) when made into pesto and eaten outside. It's hard to keep up on the apples as people chomp them up almost as fast as we can dry them.

Our apples were done a month ago, and we canned up many jars of applesauce (plain and honey) and new apple butter. The Oakglen run should happen at the end of October, first of November, with cider and more apple goodies. Alas, it will be harder to air dry apples that late, but we might try the hanging dryer in the kitchen.

Speaking of Dry: Seeds Dry on the Vine

In addition I am reminded that we harvested dried coriander seeds, and dried celery seed (I let the celery get away from me, was slow to remove it, and found the seeds quite easy to harvest), as well as saved seed for planting from the "Bee" Basil. I still have a huge store of saved sunflower seeds, and really hope to get some in the ground at school in the spring. We enjoyed beans and peas all spring and summer from seed I saved last year. We have some pepper seeds saved too. It's really pretty rewarding to grow things from seed that you grew and saved, rather than having to go to the store each year for a new commercial packet.

The 'Tween Season: Summer Came, Went, and Lingers On; RIP the Car

2009-09-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Busy busy busy spring and summer; so busy living it, no time to write about it. Whew.

But since may main purpose on this blog is to create, for myself, a "kitchen calendar" of jotted doings and observations, I will try to catch myself up. Might take two or three posts, but here we go.

The Engine On the Car Goes 'Rrrr Screeeet Thud' (All Over Town)

Back in May, we lost a car.

The timing belt on the KIA separated, got wound up in the external moving engine parts in such a way as to become one with the internal engine moving parts, killing the engine at 65 on the freeway one afternoon.

This proved to be the equivalent of a stake through the heart for the KIA (the fix was more than the car was worth; there were no active repair bulletins, warranties, insurances or other dodges to get it fixed at lower out of pocket).

So, since May we have been a one car family. Works out pretty well so far.

Driving Bikes to Work, School and Preschool

Most days, Hannah goes to school in the bike trailer (apx 1 mile one way) and the delivering parent (usually Leslie) goes on to school via bike. Kathryn drives her own bike to school (apx. 1.8 miles) riding part way with a parent. This happens most days whether the van is available or not.

I either ride my bike in the early morning, or, when Spencer is with us, ride with him in the van to school in La Verne (25 miles away). He gets himself home on public transit three days a week, and I pick him up via minivan and deliver a band friend to his home on marching band practice nights. Later, Spencer has a bike and we often ride en famille to the park for free concerts, or to South Lake avenue for groceries or just to window shop (especially at the bookstore!

The trailer is parked at school, and both parents have a trailer hitch on their bikes, so either can pick up. And the trailer folds flat, so in the event that an unexpected car pickup is needed, it pops into the back of the mini-van.

We are preparing for inclement weather, and plan to purchase an L.U.V. (or someday maybe two) to get to school(s) on really cold *and* wet days.
What, you may ask, is an L.U.V. ? Its like an S.U.V. only completely opposite. :-)

That is, its is a "Local Use Vehicle:" Small (2-4 passenger), easy to park, low top speed, and best of all a pluggable electric. Although there have been really excellent all electric freeway cars, with 100 mile range no less, since 1998, we do not need that car. We need a car to supplement the bikes -- for when the weather is too cold and/or too wet, or even too hot for Hannah in her trailer (many LUVs have AC). We might want two LUVs because in bad weather both adults might need to go separate places at separate times. But for now, one will do.

Oh we'd still keep the mini-van, but pretty much just for running thither and yon via freeway. or if we needed to go somewhere with the whole family in one vehicle and bad weather.

So, we used Hannah's first bike trailer for the summer (being it's third year in use); it was sufficiently worn, however, that we bought a new, bright yellow trailer for the coming school year, along with a patio chair cover.

The chair cover is exactly the right size to cover the trailer and protect it from rain and UV light when it is parked at Hannah's school. And it only costs $14 instead of $75!

So, we dropped our other car off the insurance and now pay about 45% less than we used too. No gas or upkeep on a second car, and no tickets for forgetting to pull it onto the driveway at night. We aren't car-free by any means, but we get pretty close.

Bees Back, Hot Hot Hot & A Garden Tour

2009-04-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Near record heat today, 90.1 F a little after 1:00 PM PDT, the record for the area being 92F. Last week, no record, but a high temp of 59F and overnight into the 30's. Welcome to Southern California: Today it is high summer, next week, it will be cool. March and April snow in the nearby mountains is not unheard of at all.

Spring planting is mostly done, and we are still waiting on the fall garlic to mature to free up the space for a late spring planting . . . Since I'd like to enjoy some of the spring space hogs before late summer, I am anxious to get the garlic beds back.

We have been eating green garlic from a small side plot, and the bulb formation is nil. The plants look like large green onions, and have a surprisingly mild, lovely garlic flavor. We also, of course, have been eating garlic greens all winter, stealing the odd leaf from various plants and chopping them like garlic-flavored chives.

Garden Tour

As a periodic check in, and for my own amusement down the road, it's time for the garden tour. Mundane, even boring if you aren't me, but this is as much my record as something to amuse any of you (grin). Clockwise around the garden then:

Boysenberries have doubled their fence coverage this year, and are deep in fragrant white flowers, buzzing with bees. Volunteers under the orange tree and further down the fence augment the canes growing on the fence and gate. July and August boysenberry feasts beckon!

Mandarin Orange is mostly played out for this year; a dozen late fruits remain, which I threatened to turn into marmalade. My hand has been stayed by the discovery that late-season, super sweet Mandarins are really good in a salad; the mandarin juice is quite good too, and I may just clean the tree this week and freeze the juice. Next winter's oranges are in bloom now, and the tree was a-buzz with California (and some European) honey bees. Since boysenberries were bee-full too, this is a good sign, as I had not yet seen many bees this season.

Peach trees are still dormant, a cause of some small concern as they were just planted this past spring. Some buds starting, some tell-tale darkening of stems, but no solid signs of life. Fingers remain crossed.

Loquat has large fruit and a medium heavy crop; last year was a heavy crop, but smaller. I like the larger fruit, as the seeds are so large the small fruit are a bother to eat, even if very sweet.

Apples are bloomin with the potential for a heavy crop in a couple of varieties. Much depends on how the others bud-out, and how bad the June Drop is this year.

Grapes have leafed up and have heavy fruit. The south side -- the neighbor's side(!) -- has the heaviest fruit, but the yield looks good. Researching raisin techniques, to, hopefully, repeat the successful raisin making experiment. And we are parceling out last year's Grape Preserves to make it to the next harvest (grin). Fortunately, we have apple butter and fig butter to keep us going on our own preservation work for awhile.

Figs are leafing in slow; it looks like a modest crop after last year's bumper. At least we are not yet as heavy with immature fruit as last year, so I am predicting a light crop.

Elephant Garlic is still going. Getting impatient to harvest, but done to soon and there will be no bulbs.

Yellow Onions have been adding to salads as we thin them (grown from seed) and use the very strong green onions; Green Bunching Onions are ready to use, but waiting for the yellows to be all thinned out before we go after the bunchers. The bunchers will stay small and "green onion" style even as they mature, whereas the round onions just grow badly if left too crowded.

Silver White and Cuban Purple Garlic currently fill about half the garden space. They are dancing close to harvest time, but the leaves are staying green, and so they stay in the ground.

Cabbage stuck into a couple of bare corners have produced a few nice heads; cabbage is one of those things that requires more space, however. One head of cabbage can be a couple of feet across, with all it's outer leaves.

Hannah planted a patch of edible flowers in the horse trough early this spring, which have greened up great guns but nary a snack-able flower petal yet. Hannah also planted a window box with shelling peas and carrots. Peas are up and looking for the promised trellis, and the carrot sprouts have been emerging all week. Her volunteer Sunflower is now officially taller than her, and should have an open flower any day now.

Kathryn planted leeks and some fascinating carnival carrots -- old style carrots that come in orange, white, red, and purple! Each is sprouted, and the waiting begins.

Bell Peppers in Red, Orange and Green have survived the transplant shock and are putting out flowers. We planted several plants, as we discovered bell peppers freeze really nicely if cleaned and cut first.

New Mexico Chili Peppers, really tasty and a special project by Leslie also are hanging on. We have five plants, so come fall there may be chilies for everybody.

My patch of Italian Basil is sprouting, and if we see a mature plant or two at TJ's we may find a pot for 'em. We really grew to love the home grown pesto last year! We also have some Lemon Basil seedlings inside, waiting to transplant.

Chives struggle. After going great guns as seedlings indoors, they are not thriving outside side. Frustrating, as these could be a perennial.

Bok choy starts have new growth after the transplant; bush bean starts are struggling but holding on, while the pole bean transplants from in the house have mostly all died. Amusingly, additional seed planted alongside the transplants has germinated and is doing fine. Go figure, same seeds! (The seeds are from last year's crop, saved by us.)

Pickling Cucumber starts are in, and hanging in; Slicing Cucumbers started in the house all died, and were replaced by store starts -- and some seeds from the same package, which have sprouted already.

Broccoli is a disappointment this year; planted 10 plants, expecting a bumper crop, but the output has been meager.

Snow Peas, originally a pair of volunteers, augmented by additional plantings of our own seed, produce a reliable bowl or two of pea pods every 2-3 days.

Asparagus has run its course, and the three stalks that shot up today have been allowed to go to seed; funny stuff 'cause it grows by INCHES per day.

Romaine Lettuce starts have been harvested from time to time, and the stumps are regrowing leaves for the second harvest. Need to do some lettuce starts inside ASAP if salad is wanted this summer! Oak Leaf Lettuce doing similar. Both are in red clay pots on the patio.

Celery, first time item for us, are quite pretty, and doing well in another big clay pot. One can pick the outer, strong flavored stems one at time, and it is hoped that the six plants we have will see us well along before they try to go to seed. For flavor in stews and chopped in salads the celery leaves are quite tasty.

Hannah has a strawberry plant that struggled all spring, and is now sporting a half dozen berries. The other plants did not make it over winter; the one big red berry she was eyeing vanished over night to backyard marauders.

Finally, last but not least in the back, the lemon has the last of a crop, a new green crop, and fresh blooms -- all at once -- as it often does.

The front yard herbs, and especially the rosemary, thyme and oregano, and lilac continue to produce reliably. The lime was all a-bloom, but we have yet to produce a single mature fruit. Mostly it is neglected and gets insufficient water.

Once the garlic is up and drying, lots more getting ready to go down in the same spot!

Still More Weird Hot Weather (Sigh); Volunteer Sunflowers and Mystery Plant Invade The Garlic Patch

2008-11-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

Fall keeps teasing us -- or is it Summer? -- as we move from temperatures in the 40's overnight and daytime highs in the mid-60's only, to the 90's this week. Again. We even had .12 inches of cool rain two weeks ago; not much, but it seemed like a start on the winter season around here. Today we are looking at humidity right around 15%.

Fires everywhere today, but not right here in Pasadena, at least not right now. This morning the Sylmar area was hit by fires, and we watched the wind gusting as the Mayor of Los Angeles spoke on TV.

When we went to the http://www.wunderground.com/ weather map, you could see sustained winds at 25 MPH with temps in the mid-60s at the top of Kagel canyon, with lower wind speed but temps around 80-85 three or four miles out into the valley. We hear on the news about the dry desert air bunching up then expanding as it comes over the mountains, and the expansion resulting in warmer air (as in Santa Ana winds) but have never seen it so graphically on the weather map.

Tomorrow the Inaugural Pasadena Marathon is being run, and we will

pretty much have front row seats -- three times. The course loops around the city, first passing

one block to the west, going three or four miles up hill, coming by the same spot, then passing one block to our south. We will probably go down for at least a little bit and have a look-see. Since most of the roads will be closed encircling our house, we are trying to get our basic errands done today.

Can't wait to see how that goes, too, with 90F weather and two fires. [Update: 6:30 PM Mild smoke here, coming at as from three directions, but mostly moving away from Pasadena. ]

This morning we biked en famille (less one child, who is off at his mother's) to a backyard craft sale being held at the home of a colleague. Saw at least one other teacher from our school there, and one of our staff members with some excellent pottery on offer. Found some lovely local-made items for small Christmas items. Usually these sorts of things are pretty dreary, but the quality of the homemade items was high, and the company convivial. Even in the 90 degree heat it was a pleasant ride along tree-lined streets.

Garden Goings-On

Garlic is sprouting but not yet above ground. Quite a few volunteer sunflowers have come up in the eastern planter box; the watering and warm weather have them all confused. We will probably transplant them out, might even grow them in planters in my classroom. Soon as we get the first serious chill they would be done, but I want them out before they have a chance to damage the garlic crop.

Similarly, over in the south-40 [inches] that we planted in garlic some small volunteer has come up in profusion. Can't tell just yet what they are going to be. The seed-leaves could be anything from a failed salad green planting last spring to latent volunteer broccoli. Or maybe just weeds. We will watch them for a while, and if they look like something edible, will transplant them. If not, they will be simple enough (albeit annoying) to pluck out of the way of the nascent garlic.

Sometimes, like the original accidental cider, the volunteers make the best crops.

More Weird Weather; Garlic In the Ground, Waiting for Early Spring Garlic Greens (Yum!)

2008-11-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

The weather under the Moontree has been crazy for a month: High 40's overnight one week, high 90's all day the next; 12% humidity many days.

Today, high temp 63.9 F, rain and drizzle overnight, with 80% humidity at the moment. Still, we are late enough into our traditional fall heatwave that the worst should be about over.

Garlic in the Mail, and in the Ground

In years past we have had great good luck and terrible luck with garlic. Our first crop was planted from store garlic gone sprouty, apparently planted at just the right time of year. The greens were great chopped in salad and for cooking (a very mild garlic flavored green, mmmm mmm). And the fresh, undried garlic bulbs were extraordinarily mild and flavorful too.

Spring planted garlic was a failure, bolting before producing any useful bulbs.

This year, I ordered up a pound of seed garlic from Filaree Farms, an organic seed garlic producer in central Washington. Since they have dozens of varieties I asked for a starter pack suitable for our area consisting of one hardneck variety and one softneck.

Hardneck varieties have stiffer, woody stems and cannot be braided into those beautiful garlic braids. Softnecks have floppy green stems, and dry into something like rafia -- ideal for braiding.

The starter pack came with about 40 "seeds" (garlic cloves) for a creole softneck variety called Cuban Purple and a silverskin hardneck variety called "Silver White."

Half of each crop went into rows in the south forty (forty inch wide raised bed near the south facing wall of our house, that is) and half into the similar sized planter box with a little bench built in over by the fig.

(That seat-planter was so rich and full of too-hot compost it killed most things we planted for the first six months, although the mini-pumpkins did well. Currently, the box is so rich with earthworms, it is almost as dense as our purpose built worm-bin! Since this suggests to me that the dirt is less hot now, we will give it a try. )

Eating Garlic, Saving Seeds; Trying Not to Eat the Seeds!

A few of the smallest cloves went into the horse-trough planter, near the basil. They were planted tighter than they should have been, as I plan to eat the greens and the early garlic before the bulbs have a chance to grow over-large. (I wonder if hardneck greens are edible? Hmmm. Well only one way to find out!) And this way, maybe we will have enough left in the two main plantings to eat and save seed for next year's crop.

And I can always order more from Filaree next year.

Speaking of eating the seed, I couldn't resist tasting both varieties of the seed stock. I took one or two of the smallest cloves (smaller cloves = smaller plants, so I felt less bad about the whole thing) and warmed them up in a little butter. Delicious, and each really different. Can't hardly wait for spring. (Grin.)

For now, the weather is supposed to stay cool for a while. Here's hoping that winter is here to stay. Cool weather is better for the garlic. Now I wonder where I put my broccoli seeds . . .

Accidental Hard Cider, On Purpose

2008-10-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we pressed cider, put 10 gallons down for fermentation, and have been drinking or have given away another six gallons of sweet mill cider.

Two years ago when we pressed we had a happy accident; three gallons got left in a carboy on the back porch on Sunday night, by Monday night the heat of the day had started the natural yeast fermenting and blown the stopper off, further exposing it to our local wild yeast.

Not knowing what else to do we let it work.

It sat on the back porch for a week, blowing its cork daily for awhile until I jammed a fermentation lock into it. Still we didn’t have time to get it into the house and settled, and since it had sat for several days in 90 F weather, with at least an hour or two of late afternoon direct sun, we figured it was pretty much ruined.

So we let it work.

By the next Saturday, we had a three-gallon carboy full of pretty clear cider with an inch of sediment working vigorously. Although we considered dumping it, it seemed to be doing fine, so we brought into the house, topped up the lock, and let it work.

We fussed and fiddled with the remaining 10 gallons we put down, adding honey and other exotic ingredients. Five gallons were undrinkable for nearly a year; the remaining five proved explosive (popping pint beer bottles from time to time in the basement) and not very good.

The little jug of forgotten cider, however, sat on its lees for several weeks (or was it months?), as we just let it work.

When it finally slowed up, and we racked it and bottled it, it had the best unmatured flavor of the bunch. And in fact as it matured it developed into a delicious, clear, sparkling, strongly apple-tasting cider with no hint of the usual yeast overtones that take months to die in the bottle.

That year, the day we pressed had been an unusually cool weekend. We had a fire in the fire pit, and the wood smoke wafted over us as the family washed and sorted apples and watched as the cider poured from the bottom of the press. Then, on the Monday after pressing, with our little lost three-gallon carboy sitting outside, unseasonable 90F + weather struck.

We had already resolved to try to recreate our happy accident, so it was lovely and fitting when, the Sunday of our big pressing. we had an overnight low of 45 F (!) and the Monday after it dawned 90F plus!

I left the cider in the heat again, although I did pop an air lock on sooner this time to avoid getting vinegar and general contamination (hoping that our wild yeast either came on the apples or lived on the press or settled during pressing).

Yesterday, I brought both bottles into the house after a week of sunshine-semi-pasturization. This morning, they are both working well, and clearing, indoors. Cross your fingers!

If all goes well we will be bottling 10 gallons on our semi-traditional Christmas Eve (or at least Winter Break) with good drinkable cider by February and great cider by March.

Or not. The brewing gods are like that; stay tuned!

The Mild Summer is Ending, Let the Preserving Begin!

2008-08-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

Found an old horseshoe in the garage while cleaning some things out. Don't know where it came from, no one here has horses. And although the house is 104 years old this year, the garage dates from the 1940s.

For no good reason I put it up over the side door to the garage. Kinda jaunty if I do say so myself.

Fruit Fest, Part I

Things are coming ripe around here, and this year I vowed not to let the overabundance of fruit go to waste. So we have been doing lots of preserving, of various sorts.

Apples

We get three distinct crops of apples around here, depending on the variety.

Grannysmith's come ripe first, and get eaten out of hand first, as we have been watching the darn apples ripen all year. The Grannysmiths are done by the end of August.

They are great dried, and using our little core-it-slice-it-peel-it machine (hand cranked, of course) the apples come out in perfect little disks. (They actually come out in a spiral, but through the miracle of geometry the spiral becomes a stack of rings with a single downward stroke of a knife.)

We also eat and dry slightly under-ripe Winesaps and golden delicious. The goldens are more tart when under-ripe, and dry better when less ripe, and are not even bad out of hand. Once they are ripe they go mealy quickly, and tend to go browner when dried, so the goldens are mostly done too. (In point of fact, I have a few on the tree and many in the eating bin, right at this moment. )

The Winesaps go from green to mixed red and green, the redder they get the sweeter they get too. Since we have been eating and drying solidly since the first week of August, they actually have stayed on tree long enough to get good and red. They are a very white-fleshed, crisp, juicy apple, close to my favorites. They usually finish in the first week of September, but since that week will be pretty busy, I think they will come in to be dried then too.

Grapes

The Seedless purple Grapes have come on in great profusion this year; the neighbor harvested those on his side (at my invitation) several weeks before ours. We have been cutting and eating or giving to friends all summer, and the grapes have gone from tangy-tart to super-sweet. As the last 20 pounds or so were starting to drop, we cleaned the vine last week. But what do you do with all those grapes?
Well, for starters, the other half made grape jam. Yes, jam, not jelly. Came out so good we bought more jars and made a second batch. If you are lucky we will share.

Then, more as an afterthought and experiment than a serious effort, I laid some grapes out to dry in the sun. After about three weeks, we have a small batch of delicious home grown raisins!

If I had put out 20 pounds of grapes to dry, it would have been a failure; but like all our best experiments, we only made one tray, and will have about two cups of raisins. Still, watch out next year.

Indeed, the neighbor likes the grapes well, and we may have to plant more vines along the same fence in the spring. Alas, they do take two or three or more seasons to start producing well, but I think it will be worth it.

Stay tuned for Part II !

Grape Jam, Homemade Raisins, Both From Backyard Grapes

(The mini pumpkins are decorative, also grown here. Anyone have a recipe for mini-pumpkin? )

Grapefruit-ade, Ver. 2.0

2008-08-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

After a little trial and error, the Grapefruit-ade recipe needs a little revision. Instead of the 1-2-3 proportions noted, the following works better:

Roger's Grapefruit-ade (Ver. 2.0)

2 cups fresh white grapefruit juice

2/3 cup sugar (up to 3/4 cup, to taste)

4 cups water

Be sure to mix the sugar into the juice and water BEFORE adding ice to help the sugar dissolve completely.

Much better at these proportions. . . by the by, my generous colleague and not-to-near neighbor Jeremy (who provides the grapefruit) swears by the old recipe, only he replaces the last 1/2 cup of liquid with orange or lemon juice. . . haven't tried it myself yet, but sounds pretty good too.

Moontree Glows on a Soft Summer Night

2008-08-01T07:19:00.001-07:00

Summer School ended yesterday, and only a few weeks remain of the summer; one of those weeks is given over to teacher training, but still and all this is the best part of the year.

On this, *my* first day of summer, the tall ladder is up to trim up the "moontree" -- a drooping acacia with bright yellow flowers this time of year and two-foot long rock-hard been pods that drop onto the wooden deck with a suprising "BANG,clatter clatter" later.

We call it the moontree because it holds the odd shopping-mall-sized spherical light fixture my grandfather retrieved when cleaning up after tenants renting my Great-Grandmother's house years ago.

For a couple of decades at least it hung in the ornamental pear tree outside my grandparents' kitchen and office windows in Pasadena, just at eye level. Lit inside by a single, naked 60 Watt lightbulb, it looked for all the world like a pale full-moon dragged to earth and wedged under the tree canopy. The warm, diffuse light it shed on the iron bench and damp green space below it gave the yard an aura of magic that always suprised me.

My startlement stemmed in part from the fact that my Grandfather was the sort of utilitarian and practical fellow who would (and did) take a saw to an old tiger-maple rolltop desk to remove the roll top and replace it with a sheet of painted plywood, the better to read building plans and blueprints in his trade as a building contactor.

I was at first puzzled and then amused by his frequent derisive comments about the tenants who had been crazy enough to mount it on the 10 foot cieling of their living room. He frequently called it "a piece of old junk" and his regular, nonchalant explaination for its continued presence in the tree decades after he found it was that he put it there to get it out of the way one day and forgot about it.

When Grandfather passed away (Grandmother had gone a little before) and the house was sold, dire rumblings about how to get rid of the moon fixture were heard; aghast I rescued it from oblivion, and when my wife and I moved into our house (also in Pasadena) it quickly took pride of place in our own tree.

(Turns out, by the way, the thing was hardly just "hung there," but carefuly mounted on a 3/8th inch bolt so as to withstand the strongest winds yet leave room for the tree to grow. Wonder how that happened?)

Now, our backyard -- and our tree -- abut a street with relatively heavy foot traffic (and not a few cars). And we often hear comments by people walking by, or are asked about the tree by our students at school, marveling at the "moon." We like it, and its diffuse light sets our yard aglow in the evenings without the harshness of other lights. And we have sort of adopted it as a logo for our homemade and homegrown products.

Although Grandfather Blumer had a decided utilitarian bent, and appeared not to have much in the way of poetry in his soul on first acquiantance, I often like to think of the first Moontree as "Jack's Folly" and proof that everyone can appreciate a little magic now and then.

Winter Went; Summer '08 Half-Gone: Time for a (First) Second Planting & The Yard In Review

2008-07-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

Life gets busy.

None of the winter crops did much; the front yard vegetable strip was removed, due to its proximity to the oak tree and lack of production as a result; there was some rain this winter, but not overmuch, some cold, but not overmuch, and the summer so far has been alternatively a little hot or just nicely warm.

Except for the day or two in early summer when we had hail and tornandos.

Spring saw Spencer and I build a pic-nic bench and a new planter box. The box is about 4' x 12', and about two feet deep, in the back yard. Along one edge we placed a 2 x 12 board as a long seat, to increase the number of places for folks to rest a rump when out back. The box was laid down on grass, covered over with weed barrier cloth, then filled with topsoil and compost. The combination was too "hot" and even though we let the soil mature for two or three months, the first plantings in it did not thrive.

After a couple of months, and some more plantings, the seat-box is full. Miniature pumpkins are emerging on the vine twining up the chain link fence. They started out slow, being part of the original planting, but have gone great guns lately.

Similarly, the yellow crook-neck squash and green squash were the lone survivors of their stunted plantings, but have begun to produce reliable food in the past couple of weeks.

The three bell peppers -- one each of green, orange and red -- were part of the second effort at planting. They started out slow, and set lots of peppers that did not mature, but have a lot of fruit coming on now and I have great hopes.

At the far end of the box, the Russian finger potatoes and single russet plant seem to be fairing well. The fingerlings in particular go well with roasted meats in the fall late fall. Potatoes are one of those surprising, fun backyard vegetables. Relatively hardy, and easy to grow, with free seed in your kitchen vegetable bin in the form of potatoes-to-far-sprouted-to-eat, there is something very satisfying about grubbing in the dirt and coming up with a chunk of something edible!

Lettuce grew but with great resistence, and some very few salads emerged before they gave up the ghost. (Some volunteer oak leaf lettuces on the South Forty (Inches) provided most of the salad greens.)

The hot soil also took its toll on the basil (Trader Joe's basil plants are amazing) which jumped right back into health when removed from the too hot soil. An earlier basil, from Wholefoods, has smaller leaves and an almost lemony smell. It too has boomed, along with a few rows of yellow onions in the old horse trough. (For once I planted the onions in neat rows, and pulled every other one for green onions early, and the rest are doing nicely, thanks.)

The TJ basil makes excellent pesto; I was just struck that the lemony basil would be very good on steamed red potatoes with some garlic and onion greens sauteed in butter. Yum!

The usual south-wall box did not get planted in the spring. A few cucumber plants there were neglected and died, and the grass has taken over. This weekend is dedicated to clearing out the box and putting a second-season crop in . . . not sure what to plant yet. I might take a risk and plant the fall broccoli and garlic crop, even though it is still a little early. Suggestions appreciated .
Meanwhile, the front yard lime tree too suffers from chronic neglect; this spring it set lots of fruit which never matured. If I can just get rid of the Oleander between the back and front yard, install a gate and work out a drip water line to the tree, we might have lots of limes next summer for G&Ts. (Grin).

The loquats this spring went crazy and while we ate a lot of them, many went to the critters and on the ground. Most mornings Hannah insisted on loquats off the tree for a snack, unless she was demanding a Mandarin orange.

The orange crop was fair sized, not as large as some years, but better than many recent years. Good fruit, and only a half dozen were not eaten by us right off the tree for lunch and snacks. The tree has already set next year's fruit -- it is shooter-marble sized, and will mature next January and February. We will have edible fruit from February to May (and even June, if you don't mind the dryness that comes with older fruit.)

The apples set a moderate crop too. Granny Smiths and some Winesaps are coming ripe. Our apples tend to finish in August with first fruit late July, and completely picked by September. The four columnar apples bloom, and set their odd-tasting fruit, later in the year and should be edible in September. Still not impressed with the fruit, and am giving serious thought to replacing the four columnars with one standard sized apple, or even two more of the Orchard Supply four-on-one dwarf grafts.

Boysenberries did quite well this spring. We also snacked on those as we passed in and out of the yard, and had a couple of big berry picking days. The non-fruit canes finally started doing my bidding and have moved down the fence line, dropping roots into the soil in a thick, prickly and poky addition to our back fence. Volunteers from near the original, temporary placement in a planter have come back, under the orange tree, and instead of fighting it I have stopped mowing them down and begun training them in a dense prickly circle under the tree. We should have even more second year canes for fruit next year. Yum!

Lemons have set their third crop of the year and have a fourth in flower. For awhile we could not keep ahead of the windfalls; lately we have caught up as the kids love making lemonade, and we fill a two-gallon glass jug that we keep on the counter in the summer.

A Pasadena neighbor and work colleague borrowed our chain saw to take down a dead plum tree, and returned the saw with a bag of big yellow grapefruit. Not too sour, but definitely not the super-sweet modern varieties. Unfortunately, I am the only one that likes grapefruit in our house; fortunately I discovered that they make great "grapefruit-ade" which I get all to myself!

My recipe is easy as 1,2,3:

ROGER'S MOONTREE GRAPEFRUIT-ADE

1 cup sugar, completely dissolved in warm water.

2 cups fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.

3 cups of water.

Mix Well; serve chilled or with plenty of ice. NOTE: Adjust the water and sugar from here 1/4 cup at a time-- more of each if a little too acid, less sugar and/or more water if too sweet, etc.

Weather Doings and Ancestral Ghosts

2007-09-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

After a blazing August, with several weeks of temperatures above 105 F and the near-record of 108.3 F in our backyard, we now have overnight temps in the 50s, daytime highs in the low 70s, and, last night and this morning, a burst of needed rain!

It feels great; wonderful, fall weather. Just what I needed to make me stay indoors, work on the house, grade papers, and all the other little chores that all the mild sunny days of last week pushed away.

Overnight, as of 6:30 am today, we have had .71 inches of rain according to my little backyard weather station. Looking at the weather radar we should get hit with another ran cell in about 10 minutes. The last couple of cells that headed this way veered off to the west toward Glendale at the last minute, but I think this one has our name on it.

I took a moment during the lull (and in light of the impending rain cell) to pop outside and check on things in the backyard. I always miss putting something away for the first storm, but I sure didn't see anything this time. I'm sure something sodden will show up later though. (Grin.) Just the way it seems to work.

In any case, I find I am compelled to point out that to see current live-weather from under our Moontree, just look at the little box on the right margin of the blog. That's what's happening right now -- or at most a couple of seconds ago -- just outside our door.

To see more, there are two additional ways to check into the weather in our yard: (1) Go to the main Pasadena weather page at weatherunderground.com, then scroll way down, find Madison @ Mountain and click on "Make this my default location." Then when you go to the Pasadena map, you will get our weather on the top of the page, and the history of all the area stations at the bottom. Or you can go direct to our very own cool graphs page, which has 24 hour graphs of observations, links to weekly and monthly graphs and data, and a live feed box too.

I have spent all this time on the weather observations because that was precisely the sort of thing various of my grandparents, great-grandparents and one great-grand-aunt did when they made their own daily observations of their doings on their kitchen calenders and diary books. It's sort of a family tradition.

In fact, although my father and grandfathers are all deceased, I can't help but think they would be tickled by this technology. I can imagine my Dad sending me an IM bragging that the weather up on his hill was more interesting than mine down here in the flatlands of Pasadena; I can imagine long chats with my Grandfather Blumer about the underlying workings of this new technology, and the vagaries of the micro-climates you can spot on an area map of all the stations in Pasadena.

I imagine, even if the rest of our family is not currently living in town, that they might check-in from time to time, just to see what's happening here. I'm not really sure why they would want to do that, but it comforts me to know that they can -- and just might.

Ahh. Here comes the rain I was expecting.

Time for a coffee warm-up; why don't you click on over and have a peek in our backyard. It's good to know you're there.

..............

UPDATE: 7:30 AM raintotal up to 1.06 inches, and the rain has moved on.

Spring Results, and Summer Second Planting

2007-07-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

Summer's second crop is in the ground and rolling right along. Alas, the digital camera is still dead, which is a great disincentive to writing at all. But great gaps in the record mean it is no fun to check the record next year, so will try to keep up.

The lettuce (ice berg, oak leaf) did well and provided salads all winter until we allowed several heads go to seed in June. Did not collect seeds soon enough, though, so we may have some volunteer heads next year. In any case, will try some starts from seed for the fall to see what happens.

Beans, Beans, Beans

Pole beans and bush beans, and flat-Italian pole beans all did nicely, but the yellow-wax beans didn't even sprout. The modest plots of so many varieties made it tough to have a meal's worth of one kind -- and they require various cooking times, another headache. But the experiment was helpful.

Have saved dried beans from the best ones -- the standard pole variety, from "Seeds of Change" -- and may also save some of the flat Italians. (Caught young, the flat beans were very tasty, but turn woody quickly if allowed to mature at all.) Next year, a larger planting of pole beans coupled with some edible marigolds and something shade tolerant in the row away from the fence are definitely in the plan.

This will be easier than it seems since the south-side chain link fence did indeed make an excellent "pole," and at our invitation, the neighbors enjoyed the beans on their side of the fence. White flies were a small problem, and (edible) marigolds planted late in the season have scaled the invasion back. Note to self: inter-plant the beans with marigolds at the outset!

The bush peas grew well, and we ate them for several weeks, then let the last of the crop go to seed. Almost enough planted this time to easily make a meal, but would work a little better with about double the planting. Seed dried and saved for next year.

Watermelon

Having had no success planting watermelon from commercial seeds, spent $3.99 on a flat of starts, and they are going great guns. This was a second crop for the summer, and the first flowers have just now appeared. But given the long, hot SoCal summer, we should be getting melons in August / September -- just right for around here! A couple of extra plants put down in the front-yard garden, since they were extras, and the possibility of vanishing watermelons less distressing.

Front Yard Garden

Last summer, received some Yacón from a member of the San Gabriel Valley Freecycle Network, and planted it in the newly expanded bed in the front yard. Anticipating a first crop this fall, and it seems to be quite healthy and growin' up a storm.

Added several varieties of potatoes. Seed, once again, from food items sprouted before we could eat them. (Now we have large white baking potatoes on one section, and replanted Russian fingerlings.) The post-freeze crop did not do so well, and they were dug early too. That six-foot plot currently has some struggling volunteers, but the other patches are going well.

Just for fun, tossed a handful of sunflower seeds from last year's volunteer flowers into the bed, and *zing* up they sprung. After only three or four weeks they are nearly 5 feet tall and ready to make an impressive block of flowers. Looks like we might get to roast a few seeds this year after all.

Apples. Oranges, and Berries

The boysenberries came in nicely, with this second year expansion bearing significant fruit . . . now we are nurturing the runners along to cover the fence line -- providing both berries and a natural anti-intruder fence. (Berry thorns are pernicious.)

The pole apples nearby are producing well enough, but have not been impressed with them. The dwarf apples have a significant crop, much better than last year, but at least half of our flower clusters did not set fruit.

Mandarin oranges set a modest crop, to be ready in December and January, but have had to water more than usual due to the mere 2 inches of rain last winter instead of the 11 or so we would expect (and certainly less than the record 39 inches the year before!)

Weird weather everywhere.

Spring Planting, Budding & Bees

2007-03-03T18:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I quadrupled the 3' x 8' potato patch I had cleared in the front yard last fall; the Mantis Tiller we acquired made fast work of that chore! Today I planted about 3' x 12' of potatoes -- reds, purple and yellow steamers and Russian fingerlings.

All "seed" came from the market -- some as food we intended to eat but which sprouted, some bought as seed expressly. These should be edible by late summer and fall, and fall potatoes can go in again come October or November.

We just finished eating the last of the forced-harvest of potatoes after the Great Freeze of '07. Had the freeze not come, we would be pulling those first 'taters now, and the rest of the crop in May, June or so. But 'twas not to be.

South "Forty"

Also planted out the rest of the South Forty (forty linear feet that is, 2' x 20'). Two kinds of lettuce, spinach, some green onions all going great guns. Cauliflower has given up its three tiny heads, and in the morning the failed cauliflower patch will be planted in bush peas.

Also tonight put in two kinds of pole beans, standard blue-lake and something called "Italian" pole beans and marked "rare," both from the organic, sustainable folks at Seeds-of-Change. The pole beans are right beside the chain link fence, so no polls needed I hope. Two kinds of bush beans are along the front of the planting bed.

Of course, the last time I planted beans and peas it didn't work out so well. The peas were scrawny and vexed by the heat, and didn't get planted in enough quantity despite knowing that a pea patch did not do well on two or three plants. Last fall's beans never sprouted at all. (Or maybe got eaten. We shall see!)

Garlic Greens

Meanwhile, the horse trough is planted half to garlic and some green onions; in a few more more weeks I will plant the other half to spread the maturations. I like having garlic greens and even young green garlic for summer cooking.

If you have never tried garlic greens, you owe it to yourself to try 'em in salads or any place a green onion or chive would go nicely. Mild garlic flavor and a little crunch is quite yummy. You can snip them of with scissors judiciously and not harm the growing bulbs. You could even plant a few store-bought cloves in a little clay pot and snip greens all summer without worrying about the clove development.

Speaking of chives -- they are a perennial, and I didn't have a spot to dedicate to 'em just yet, so they were planted in a large pot on the patio. So far, no sprouts, and I would have expected them by now. With any luck they will be up by next weekend.

Weather has been mild, 30's and 40's at night, 70's during the day. A little rain last week and the week before. One useful trick is that I can now double check to see what the rain and temps have been like all week not just relying on intuition. Our backyard weather station is online at WeatherUnderground.com by clicking here.

Bee Buzz

Spring is always a time we anticipate the bees (a good thing) and maybe I'm just paranoid, but they seem a little sparce this year. Boysenberry and apple blooms usually bring them in in great droves, but the visitation seems a little light. Hope this is just my imagination and not a sign of the greater bee-catastrophe that is bothering commercial bee keepers.

Frozen Food, The Old Fashioned Way

2007-02-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

Speaking of the great freeze (mentioned last post) we lost a few food crops and some ornamentals. The philodendron out front and what was left of the lawn were damaged pretty well, as was the night-blooming jasmin. Only the jasmin matters, since we planted it and like it, but they all look like they are bouncing back.

The potato patch did the big death, though, and was not going to recover. Planted last fall, the potatoes were well on their way to a bumper crop starting in spring. With the tops dead, we got about 10 lbs out of the whole plot.

For every harvested potato I saw 8-10 tiny future-potatoes that could have been harvested. Very frustrating, but since we don't rely on these for food, only disappointing.

The bell papers that nearly croaked in the summer heat, and have been producing prodigiously all fall and winter, simply keeled over due to the freeze, dead, dead, dead.

Interestingly, the lettuce and spinach made it just fine; eventually we figured out that the raised bed is next to the house on the south side. Not only is it warm and sunny due to the southern exposure, but the house reflects light and heat back during the day and radiates it at night. (Not such a good thing in summer though.) In addition, the crawlspace has two vents right there, and the heater and the water heater were burning all night down there -- venting above-freezing air right onto the bed.

Serendipity for sure.

The Mandarin Orange crop was meager to start with, with only two dozen fruits on the whole tree, but the tree and fruit survived. I also started a good fire in the portable fire pit next to the lemon tree, then let it burn down and sit as coals all night. Don't know if it helped, but the lemons made it through just fine too.

The Weather Outside May Be Frightful, But at Least the News Arrives Wirelessly

2007-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

The Great Freeze of '07 is over, and now it's Summer in February. Ninety degrees in the backyard yesterday; a mere 89 degrees today. What is the world coming to? Apparently these February temperatures are breaking records -- most last set in the 1970s -- much like the record cold of a mere three weeks ago!

As weird as it is, the warm weather makes for easy gardening, helps one get stuff in the ground early enough to enjoy it for early summer. Of course a warm February usually means a cold, wet, even snowy spring around here and the local mountains. Except when it means a warm dry spring, or the occasional warm wet spring. See, our weather has always been a little, well, variable. Just not quite this variable.

Well, if you are interested in the weather in our backyard, now you can check up on us anytime you feel like it. With some Christmas money this year I indulged in a long standing wish and installed a small, professional grade weather station in our back yard. ( I went with Oregon Scientific WMR 968 largely because of its solar powered sensors.) Temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, rainfall etc. all reported wirelessly to the base station in the house, along with indoor temperature and humidity.

The wireless receiver with all the readouts is cool enough, but it attaches to the home computer and feeds its data to WeatherUnderground.com. So if you want to see how the weather is over here, you can check for yourself online.

Click on over to www.weatherunderground.com and search on "pasadena, ca" or just use this this link. If you like charts and graphs (I find the barometric strip chart particularly interesting) go view our historical data page here. The weekly and monthly charts are pretty fun!

It's nice to be able to get the weather info from inside the house, without having to run outside to get the rainfall information from a physical meter, or read an outdoor thermometer. And it's kind of fun playing with all the features of the weather software.

Wonder what the weather will be like next week? Tornadoes?

Summer, Winter -- Who can tell? But the food plants like it!

2006-12-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Garden is in an odd state; the blazing summer has given way to cold and hot weather all at the same time. Three weeks ago it was 90 degrees in Pasadena, a few days later the morning dawned at 29 degrees in the back yard.

Pumpkins produced a nice small crop, some of which have gone to the worm bin, the last two of which await metamorphosis into pie. Squash never produced much, apparently taken over by the pumpkins. Pickling Cucumbers produced nicely, but I did not hit on a pickle recipe that I really liked. A small patch of corn did well enough. Several volunteer sunflowers provided a visually interesting element. (Fed the seeds to the birds this year, though. )

Bell Peppers that nearly croaked over the super hot summer and produced nothing have bounced back during the cool-but-not-cold fall and are producing abundantly; allowed to go red, the bells are nearly apple sweet, and I have been slicing and freezing peppers for stir fry later. Here is today's haul with this many more ready any day and more still just developing.

Oak Leaf lettuce and spinach are in the raised bed, and doing well. The greens came from nursery starts, not seed, since I can't seem to get greens to make it much past germination without providing a meal for whatever pests we happen to have hereabouts. Now that the starts worked, we need a greater variety of greens, which I will try to put in over break. And we could use some other winter crops -- some garlic and onions, some brocolli, maybe even some cabbage, but haven't had the chance to put 'em in the ground.

Cauliflower -- also from starts -- is the new weird crop this year. Although they have been in the ground for awhile they seem stunted, and are growing slowly. Haven't taken the time to figure our why yet. A couple of the same plants in a terra cotta pot are triple in size.

The front yard potato patch is growing great guns, and I am inspired to de-grass another sector by spring for it. We have purple, red and golden potatoes in the ground. Bought a bag at the store for seed (Trader Joe's, so no anti-sprout chemicals or GMO.)

The patch looks a little rangy at the moment, but the big growth and light soil here mean we should get a pretty good result. Nothing quite like just-dug potatoes, looking forward to 'em come February or March.

Why potatoes? They take a lot of abuse and produce nicely, for starters. But also, since they are planted along the public sidewalk it seemed a good idea to plant something without obvious appeal for vandals or the light fingered. (I.e., a pumpkin patch might not do best here; potatoes keep the good stuff hidden.)

Time to wrap up the week for winter break; time to figure out what is going into the ground come late February for summer early summer. Standby!

Weird Summer Finally Ends (Amen!)

2006-10-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

W hat a weird and wild summer; and here it is, fall, with some fall like weather to-boot. (Well, almost fall like. Overcast, in any case. A little warmer than fall.) My last substantive post here was back in May, so we've a bit of catching up to do.

I am disappointed that I did not have the time to note the weather and the garden all summer. I have enjoyed looking back on the fall and spring entries, and this project did provide an interesting way to record those observations and doings.

In general, then, June came on cool and dry -- it was almost surreal, felt like fall back east almost. Then July hit the hot button, and hit it for a month with a vengeance. At one point in July we hit an all time record high temperature for Pasadena of 109 F. Most of the plants did not like the heat, and as I was teaching summer school, they did not get enough attention or water through the worst of it.

The lettuce was gone by June, and in July we replanted the horse trough with bell peppers. The heat demolished them, though, and the stunted, sunburned little peppers we got on the first round were bitter and inedible. (We did shade the plants at first with an 80% orchard cloth screen, but it just didn't save the crop.)

The pumpkins went completely nuts, and covered the back fence, and smothered the zucchini and yellow squash. We got a dozen mid-sized and small decorative pumpkins out of the patch, and will be carving home grown this year.

Interesting thing about pumpkins: They get left in the field to "harden" after they are fully ripe and cut off the vine. Some of ours were harvested too early and rather than "cure" they went mushy. The rest are just fine, and homegrown Jack-O-Lantern is on the menu.

The zucchini was a great surprise -- only three or four fruits from two or three plants all summer . . . but they are coming back now that the pumpkin vines have died off.

Same with the yellow squash. Almost now production, but not the plants are doing fine.

Unfortunately, all three crops had mildew problems. The organic treatment turns out to be the only treatment that is effective -- a spray of 50% cow's milk and 50% water. But I never mixed it up in a big enough batch to do the patch, so the mildew won out, I think. The few plants I sprayed with a hand spray bottle did better for awhile, but it was too much work for the entire patch, and I did not keep it up.

Had several volunteer sunflowers from a prior year's planting. Huge things, easily 7-8 feet tall before the weight of the flower head bowed it down. Harvested the best seeds for a deliberate crop next year. Tried to plant mixed miniature sunflowers and giants along a south wall out front, but first the snails et al. snacked on the sprouts, and when I got some to grow into maturity, watering was a problem. (Hard to get to, infrequently done.)

Planted green, yellow and purple beans at that end of the world. They did pretty well but, like last year's peas, should have been planted in larger numbers, to provide a bigger pot-full when beans were harvested.

I learned the lesson about peas last year, and so planted a pretty big patch in a large clay pot, intending to do its twin a few weeks later. Lost the seed-peas, so never did the second pot, and again only a couple of scraggly plants sprouted and braved the heat. Five or six pea pods and a dozen beans made for several yummy one-person lunch side dishes. But again never more than that.

The spring broccoli lasted well into June, but soon gave out. I pulled the plants and composted 'em, planted the area in a good nitrogen fixing manure crop (sweet peas and bush beans) There had been garlic for two seasons in one part, and then the broccoli next door, so I thought a little fix up would be good, and we would get peas and beans out of it. Must have been the heat -- but one measly been plant sprouted, and never did produce anything.

The apple crop was dismal too -- less than 1/3 of the crop we had last year. My biggest disappointment was watching particularly delicious looking fruit on on of the columnar trees, which always ripen late, and then having it vanish over night. I suspect a sidewalk passer-by; now I know why all those cartoons had grumpy old men shootin' rock salt at kids thieving apples (grin).

The figs, however, loved the heat, and produced a bumper crop. We gave some away, and tried to make fig wine. Unfortunately we got fig-wine vinegar right away. Was rather tasty too, but I didn't feel like trying to perfect it, so we wantonly dumped it for now.

Unfortunately, just about the time of the worst heat the mandarin orange was in bloom -- and the current crop, due to be ripe in December - February, is going to be smallish.

Potatoes are in the ground in a 4 x 8 foot patch of the front lawn. I had hoped to clean up twice that space, but did not, and with fall in full spring, planted white, yellow and purple small potatoes there.

Coming soon:

Need to check on companion crops for potatoes; plant a BIG broccoli patch; look for other winter/early spring crops to sow, and figure out where to put a new garlic patch. (Maybe another section of front lawn.)

Equinox

2006-09-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

The sun surrenders today, beating retreat on its battle with the darkness. Although it rises fiercely and warms us ardently all through the day , there is a hint of cold, a hint of night about the air. Soon the sun will rest, saving its energy for its triumphant, blazing return in the spring. As the sun sets, drowsy, the Greenman naps and the Holly King bides his time, restive.

Hodge Podge of Observations

2006-05-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

The first time we put a crop in the ground we always learn some lessons about how not to plant it, or how best to harvest, or how not to harvest it, etc. When it came to lettuce, we pulled some early plants to thin the rows and put them into salads along with fresh green onions and just-picked broccoli. Then we pulled some some grown heads before we discovered that lettuce is best harvested by cutting the head off at the ground.

Having cut the last two heads, the root-stump remaining has, in each case, sprouted five new heads. Oddly, both stumps have sprouted five heads each, although they are different varieties of romaine lettuce.

How Our Lunch Became Dirt

All last summer, grass clippings, leaves, and the contents of the kitchen counter compost bin went into the outdoor bin. (The kitchen-counter bin takes all the vegetable scraps we create making meals, bread products, coffee grounds and filters and the like -- rather than throw them into the pay-to-throw trash. )

Somewhere around the Autumnal Equinox (Sept. 22 or so) I shut that bin down and started a second winter bin. The summer bin was chock full of grass, newspaper strips, and the aforementioned stuff, full to the top. Aerated occasionally over the winter, it had been cooking all summer and was left to finish off for six months.

Last weekend I began to clear out the bin. It was only about half full, now, but instead of leaves and grass and coffee grounds we had lovely rich compost. New soil, in a word.

The summer bin has produced about 1o gallons so far, and should make a similar amount when I finish cleaning it out. Soon, around the solstice at the end of June, we will let the winter bin cook and start filling the summer bin.

The winter bin only needs to cook for three or four months over summer due to the heat; in fall we will clean it out, reopen it, and close the summer bin for six to nine months.

It all seems like a lot of work, but it isn't. And by putting much of our compostable rubbish back onto the earth here at home, rather than sending it to a landfill, we add to the nutrients of our yard.

>Ploink!< Summer Arrived Monday, Alright

2006-05-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Speaking of things going crazy in the in the backyard -- as I was earlier this very afternoon -- all sorts of plants have taken off. The water lily went from a surprise bud to full bloom from Sunday to Tuesday. Here is Sunday:

Here is Tuesday afternoon:

The apples have begun to bloom too. From the mearest green of buds to opening blooms in just two days:

Even the fig has sprouted, growing many new and many larger leaves seemingly over night -- and not to be outdone by the apples, has shown the first pencil-eraser sized fruit :

Bees, Berries and Brocolli Blooms

2006-05-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up little chores around the yard, several interesting Observations to make. With the greatest of anticipation, I noticed this past weekend that the boysenberries mentioned and photographed last week are now in full bloom, and the busy backyard bees have thrown over the broccoli blooms for berries. Here are two pictures from Sunday, May Eve.

The bottom of the barrel fell out when we last moved the berries here, and I have hopes for many years worth of suckers to populate the area just over our back fence -- for a yummy summer snack for us and to provide a surprise for anyone who happens to decide to vault our fence. (Wicked grin.)

If you look very closely at the berry blossom closeup picture at left you will be able to see two of the many bees at work for us. These bees are very mellow, and let me pick broccoli and take pictures up close without taking any notice at all.

UPDATE Tuesday, May 2

The yard, apparently sensing the May Day activities, has kicked into full speed ahead: Yesterday's full bloom berries have become, instead, today's first green berries. Look very closely at the "dead" flowers and you can see what the bees have wrought in just two days time . . .

In the Merry Month of May

2006-05-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Warm first day of summer weather this last weekend of April and today, May Day. (Fog this morning after a balmy evening.)

All the growing food that was just sprouted last week is well up, well flowered, growing and going where it needs to be. With a couple of exceptions: The watermelons have not sprouted at all, so I have little hope for them; the basil is almost all gone dead or dying, with one or two runty plants struggling along. Oh yes, and some cursed critter ate all my sunflower sprouts a few days after they sprouted.

Sigh.

I think we will start some new sunflowers in a tray and transplant them only when they can withstand the onslaught of the snails and other critters.

For organic controls we will try the traditional bowl o'beer (to drown the snails and our sunflower sorrows in) along with some organic bacteria called BT, and maybe a pod of Good Snails. (Although the UC Davis folk say even Good Snails eat seedlings. Sigh. )

At least one site suggests a spray made of garlic to repel slugs and snails, so maybe we will do an experiment along those lines too.

Hal an tow

This is, of course, the day which marks the Start of Summer for most northern European traditions; it is, not incidentally, also the "quarter day" upon which contracts came due, lease payments, taxes, wages etc. It just happens to be about halfway between the Vernal Equinox (~March 21) and the Summer Solstice (~June 21).

Traditional celebrations would have included all night celebrations outside of town last night, May Eve, with morning seeing the revelers return bedecking the themselves and others with May flowers.

It is a large gripe of mine that the Summer Solstice is NOT the start of summer, as it is usually termed on news shows and even some calenders. It is the MIDDLE of summer; indeed, the traditional Midsummer's Day is June 24, St. Stephens day.

So, while I am out quietly celebrating the greening of the world, with a nod to the Greenman on the wall, and debating whether I can convince our two oldest to dance a Maypole in the back yard (grin), the cycle keeps turning -- no matter what we call it.

Hal an tow

Jolly lum-a-low

We were up, long before the day-o

To welcome in the summer,

To welcome in the May-O

For Summer is i-cummin in,

And Winter's gone away-O.

-- Traditional Maying Song

And so, to all a Merry May! Perhaps this evening it will be a good time to bring a bottle of the Fall Cider up from the basement and see if it has gone drinkable yet.

Spring: Full of Flowered Promises of Good Eating for the Summer and Fall

2006-04-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

The past several weeks have seen multiple warm / rain / warm cycles around Pasadena, with cooler daytime temps this Spring than usual. The apple trees, as a result, have barely begun to show leaf buds (below) , and the fig -- usually well foliaged by this time of year -- has only a few smallish leaves near the branch ends. Leslie's struggling lime out front has set fruit, but we will see if this, it's third year, is the year we get to eat some. The lemon, of course, just keeps on chugging. A full tree of fruit is now decorated with a full tree of fragrant white flowers. (Below, left.)

Loquats are quite large this year, perhaps because we pruned the tree back sharply over the winter. We still don't know really what to do with this high-in-vitamin-C fruit; according to greenlagirl you can munch it like a snack. We aren't so sold on them around here.

The cool spring means we still have mandarin oranges on the tree, but this week will pick the last of them as they have begun to go a tiny bit woody and lose flavor. Just discussed making a marmalade of the remainder, and that may be in the works for the end of the week.

Meanwhile, current crops in the ground:

Romaine Lettuce -- two varieties, heading up nicely now. Will have to learn the hard way this year when they have reached max growth without having bolted; hot weather could set in at any moment and start 'em off, but I have learned the only way to know is experience: harvesting the wrong way or at the wrong time and learning what not to do.

Sugar Peas -- Up an inch or two, ready to spiral up the tomato cages in one pot; the second pot is not planted as I have managed to lose the seeds!

Garlic -- A few small cloves perkin' along; one bulb left from the fall planting which is huge and still growing.

Broccoli -- Allowed to go to flower; dozens of small heads are available for cutting, and will go into my dinner pot tonight. The pretty yellow flowers attract heavy bee coverage, all fat and happy from the broccoli flower feed.

Yellow Onions -- several rows of yellow onion sets, and a row or two of sets in between other rows. The "in-betweeners" will get pulled as green onions for salads, can't wait to see if we can hold off long enough to get some big yellows.

Yellow Squash -- Sprouted and transplanted along the fence line.

Zucchini -- Likewise, sprouts in the ground, waiting to take over the garden.

Cucumbers -- In the ground as seeds, just poking up. These are pickling cucumbers, which are tough but edible in salads etc. still, my secret intent is to be trying some pickles this fall. We have a big crock, and as soon as I can find a good lid and a brine recipe, off they go.

Bush Beans -- Also in the ground with a few seed-leaves showing. Three varieties all mixed up, a green, white and purple(!) variety all intermixed.

Basil -- Poor anemic looking little sprouts transplanted outside, probably too early, but they were not doing well in the containers indoors. Cross your fingers.

Pumpkins -- Carving and Pie Sugar Pumpkins in the ground and just breaking earth. Last year's pumpkins never set fruit, although they flowered large. Our next door neighbor from a big family farm in Mexico, keeps telling us how good the flowers are to eat. I felt bad that the flowers never fruited, and never got eaten either. Hopefully, we will have enough fruit set that we can trim some flowers and have those for lunch one day.

Watermelons -- Icebox sized watermelons, with weird colored flesh (yellow, pink and something else). Planted in the Cursed Planter, still not up yet.

Sunflowers -- Decorative mini flowers mixed with large full sized flowers along the side of the house out front; can be eaten, I overcooked the last bunch, but make good bird food and are quite decorative against the yellow house. And may make some fun souvenirs at Green Party events throughout the late summer and fall.

Mystery Gourd -- Either a white pumpkin-shaped squash or a classic orange pumpkin. The kid's Halloween pumpkins went into the worm bin last fall, and as the worms ate the flesh, the seeds fell into the worm castings and sprouted. I transplanted several of the mystery sprouts into the Cursed Planter and we will see what we will see. If all these die there too, I may try peanuts. The soil in the tub is quite sandy, and drains fast (which is not good for either watermelons or pumpkins) but is grand for peanuts. But how to roast them? Another project for the list.

Grapes are doing quite well on foliage and new vines, and even so signs of fruit! They must have heard me talking about this being their last year on this earth if no fruit (grin).

Over in the half-barrel by the gate the boysenberries are going great guns; the canes have not spread along the fence in the new location as hoped, but the old green canes are producing a huge crop of blossoms. We will see what the birds and passers-by leave us to eat.

Believe it or not, we're still looking for a scrap of yard to put into potatoes for fall; and I would really like to put some iceberg lettuce in for Spencer, who will not happily eat romaine or any of the other things in either a home grown or organic store bought "weed mix" salad.

Finally, we are looking at a low lying clover to replace our lawn, especially along the parking strip. Replenishes the soil, leaving it in good conditions for tilling up sections to plant in food crops, or even decorative stuff.

So much to do, so little spring!

More Iron in the Fire, and In the Dirt

2006-04-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite garden tool. (Not the coffee cup, look at the bottom of the post.) It came from my Grandfather, and the handle is a little loose, and the wood is dry and fragile, but it is a wondrously effective tool.

It is essentially five little cultivator blades that turn the earth to a depth of about six inches. One pass breaks the dirt up and turns it, a second turns it and breaks it up further, leaving nice, neat, loose, flat and level cultivated rows. It even takes out (turns under) weeds as it goes.

Sooner or later the handle will break, but I will replace it. I have not seen this tool anywhere for sale, and even if I did it would probably have a plastic handle and not be made of this nice iron.

I can fix iron, see. Just fire up the forge and fix it. Can't do that with cast aluminum.

Hooks and Hot Iron

2006-04-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend saw the opening of the Renaissance Faire at Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, California, and I spent the whole day with friends at the St. Andrew's encampment Blacksmith shop. Not only did I get a lot of hands-on forge time, and same great corrective advice from the two more experienced boyos who built the forge, I had a problem solved for me with one quick demo.

I had been making a series of hooks, to sink into wood and hold stuff -- like hanging plants or tools and the like. But I was using a plain right angle on the hooks, or sometimes an obtuse angle to transfer some of the hanging weight against the vertical surface instead of pulling the spike out.

It worked, but it wasn't very interesting or decorative.

After about 15 minutes of verbal explanation, I finally copped to the fact that I didn't understand the description I was getting. One 30-second demo later, and I knew exactly how to add the extra little touch with ease, and still use my special angle.

Later I want to try out a wooden bending jig -- which seems like a bad idea given that hot metal sets the wood aflame instantly when touched. But I intend to set up a scroll pattern using various diameter nails, and do a series of intricate bends roughly through the nails then fix the details. The wooden-jig should allow me to experiment easily with pin placement, changing the location or diameter of a pending post quickly and easily.

If I need to have a stable and hot-iron proof jig, I will simply drill out the nail holes through a piece of flat or angle iron, slide the appropriate nails into place et viola, a proper metal jig. Not sure how to secure them yet, but this could be accomplished any number of ways, from a high temp cement to a quick spot weld. So I might have to experiment on that too.

Rain Rain Goin' Away and Naughty Garden Tools

2006-03-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

It must be the rain, again. In looking over a few months posts here, I see that rain always sends me running for a coffee cup picture that includes a comfortable chair and reading material. It's raining today.
Shrug.

We had a gentle 1/2" over night, with probably another 1/2" today, interspersed with some non-rain, and even a few days of sun. Overall, great growing weather, and the weed-carpet we call a lawn needs chopping down. [*Update: By the end of the storm we had over 4"]

We have been talking about putting in a perennial clover instead of a grass lawn. Certain varieties do well with low water situations, it can be mowed to be acceptable for play, but the clover is said to push out the weeds.

It would also not be an accident that such would be an excellent nitrogen fixer to bolster the soil, and could be turned under as an excellent green manure if one wanted to plant a food crop on part of the lawn area.

And I was just thinking about that today, actually.

We have an area of the front / side yard that I would like to till up and plant in potatoes. Turns out potatoes are stupid easy to grow, produce a big crop of usable food, and are kind of fun to harvest.

Meanwhile, although passers-by will pick our raspberries that grow along the fence, there is nothing to pick from a potato plant.

Of course, to do this fun thing, I would not want to have to prep all that ground by hand. Oh I *could* and I *should* but I have found a naughty toy that I would really like to have. (Its naughty because is it gasoline powered. Sigh.)

Actually found it years ago, but never had a need. Could use it now, though. (Hint hint). Its called a Mantis Tiller. Just the right size for our yard (narrow) and just enough more powerful than my middle-aged physique to make it an ideal tool. Of course the fact that it is gasoline powered is a serious negative, but at the moment I could get over that for the sake of the potatoes.

Big Purple Potatoes Please, With A Side of Horse Trough Salad

2006-03-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

R ain is on the way again; the second or third storm in a row since last post. Couple of days of modest rain, followed by clear, cool, sometimes quite cold weather. March has seen a lot of frost -- and a couple of agriculturally significant frosts overnight too.

Last fall's potatoes are begging to be dug, but I am looking for a several day stretch of dry for that. We should, if the cycles continue, have fine 'tater diggin' weather by the end of the week. Will have to get Kathryn and Spencer to help with the digging; although they know where their food comes from, it never hurts to get your fingers in the ground and really know.

This afternoon's lunch is a giant purple potato. I didn't take a picture of it, I guess I was just hungry. We planted baby purple potatoes from Organic Express last year when they sprouted. This year's purple crop was a volunteer from a missed spud from last year! Although usually sold as small, "new" potatoes, this one was the size of a medium baker -- and went quite well for lunch baked, with just a little butter.

Although the purple color makes me expect a berry flavor, they are quite mild, and buttery even without butter, and mash pretty well, but keep shape when steamed.

Main crop are some red potatoes that went off last fall -- so we planted them rather then composting them. The vines are looking wilty (probably due to the frost) and I would like to get the red crop up and a new crop in the ground pretty quick.

Wouldn't mind finding some more of the Russian fingerlings we planted last year either. Yummy steamed; do well in soups and stews.

The rest of lunch consisted of a salad of corn salad, escarole, and a couple of leaves off of an immature head of romaine lettuce -- plucked from the backyard. These, like the potatoes, were planted last fall. Too late to mature for late fall, but such that they are ready to eat right now, when everything else is just going in the ground. (Yay!)

Hard lesson: Corn Salad needs to be eaten young. We have two large plants, but the large leaves are just too tough for salad enjoyment. Today I thined the box a little and pulled the whole plant. I need to see if I can harvest the outer leaves while they are still young, and keep the plants producing young leaves for awhile.

Squash into the ground after this weekend; seedlings have a pair of leaves after the seed leaves, and I have been reacclimating them outside during the day for the last day or so.

Bush peas planted last week in one of two big pots, and a tomato cage placed over it; learned the lesson last time that peas do better when planted heavily, and taking up some ground. Something we are loathe to do with our small vegie space. Maybe some of that lawn will go this summer after all.

The basil seedlings are *tiny* and I am jealous (a little) of our neighbor, Jill, who started her basil back in the late fall, and had sprouts by mid December. Ah well, perhaps we will still have later summer pesto under the moontree.

Sunny Weekend, more rain

2006-03-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

Friday's ran brought another 1/2 or so to the backyard, Saturday was clear and Sunny, Sunday likewise.

Everything is budding. The grapes that have never produced fruit are planning to primp and show and tease as leafs begin to show. The fig that no one really likes to eat is throwing up green leafs and tiny fruit, the first of both of the spring.

The loquat has new growth and fruit on the way; the berries are showing new growth buds, and the first stirrings in the apples and oak are showing.

In the window, basil is sprouting and yellow squash and zucchini. Another week or two and they can all move outside.

We may have pumpkins on the way, as some pumpkin seeds that were left after the worms in the bin ate the pumpkins from last Halloween have sprouted. Two or three seem to be surviving the transplant to the barrel where nothing grows. (Sigh.) Last year's pumpkins there grew, flowered, but never set fruit. Sigh again.

Will have to eliminate or fix a lot of food crops this summer. (1) growing spaces that are not working or have the wrong crop for the condition (2) food crops we don't eat and (3) food crops that stubbornly refuse to produce -- such as our stuck grape vines.

A black thumb weekend, it seems!

More Rain, More Sun, More Food

2006-03-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

More rain overnight, starting about 4:o0 AM; it woke me up, as the house was very quiet and the pitter pit pat of new raindrops set off the "parent sense" as a wrong noise.

Nothing wrong, just another fun rain. The last rain was followed by a day or two of warm sun; the plants are loving it. Today, more rain, with part sun for Saturday, sunny Sunday and more rain by Tuesday.

This keeps up, we will have a great spring crop, so more planting is in the works.

The broccoli has about petered-out; there are abundant lush greens, though, and I find on the web that the more tender, younger leaves are edible. May have to try them. I've never been one for limp piles of green stuff, but sometimes spinach or Chinese cabbage is good in a stir-fry, so maybe we'll try some of the leaves there.

It was suggested that broccoli leaves crushed up make a spray to keep down certain weeds, but I haven't been able to confirm that -- and seems unlikely for an edible leaf.

Meanwhile, the potatoes are going great guns. Last fall I planted a number of red potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen, and the plot is bulging with potatoes. Alas, I wish I had held out and planted the Russian finger-lings or some of the richer golds out there, but these were what went off and volunteered to be seed.

New garlic in, and already 2 inches up; need to add some more garlic to the bed and some serious nutrition -- worm compost, some home-grown compost, and maybe even a little commercial steer manure for good measure. Garlic is said to really take it out of the soil.

Also planted a few red onion sets couple weeks ago and those, too, are pushing up. Only about half of the planter is planted, though. This weekend will have to prep and plant the rest of the spring garden. Provided the sun really does come out.

Warm Rain, Hot Coffee

2006-02-28T05:36:00.000-08:00

After a week of overnight temperatures in the 30's the so-called "pineapple express" has brought some warmer wet weather to Pasadena. Overnight temperature was about 50 degrees, and the backyard rain gauges agree: As of 5:30 AM PST we've had 3.5 inches out of this storm.

It has been raining heavily and steadily all night, with only the occasional lull; the water was loud enough that it woke me at 2:00 am or so, but has not "dumped" loudly since. A good soaking, all in all, without too much rain for the hillsides.

One day, I would really love to have a weather station hooked up to the ol' PC. I always track mud in when I read the rain gauge.

Cold Air, Rain, Broken Clouds and Solar Peak!

2006-02-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

The cold air and rain of this weekend, and the broken clouds today, created ideal conditions for the solar cells -- and we peaked out at 2510 watts, riding at peak most of the day. Of course, our system is only rated at 2403 watts, and the inverter at 2500 watts, so we can't do much better than that!

When we had a gravity feed heater, and no air conditioning, we used a little less electricity than we do now. Last year when we installed the solar cells we were looking at doing 100% of our electric usage, with little or no compromise in terms of lifestyle. (We are a family of 5 in a somewhat drafty 1903-built house.)

With the new baby last June we installed central air and a new forced air furnace. We still don't use it much. In winter, we keep the house at a comfortable 65 at night, 67 tops during the day (although the south facing windows keep the house at 70-74 most winter days when it is not super cold outside) and around 78-80 for the AC setting in summer).

April 7, 2006 is our one year Net-Metering Anniversary, and will be getting our first electric bill in a year. (Well actually, we have had some tribulations with the billing, but we haven't had to pay one yet.) On that date we will close out our one year contract and see how much we owe for the past year.

Right now, with our peak production yet to come, we owe about $50 for the whole year. At the moment, even if we peak out every day from now until April 7, we will not likely hit 100% of our usage. But we may yet come pretty close.

Actually, if I used the older microwave a lot less, and used the electric coffee maker a whole lot less, we'd probably get even closer. And we haven't run around pulling phantom loads offline, or even always turning off the computer printer, or dealing with insulation and leakage at unsealed doors.

As BP says, "energy doesn't grow on trees -- it falls from the sky!"

Glass Handgrenade with the Pin Pulled

2006-02-15T13:37:00.000-08:00

Three bottles of cider exploded in the basement sometime in the last two weeks. Didn't hear 'em, but had a bad feeling about 'em.

The Oak Glen Cider was pretty sweet, and we goosed it as it went down to assure a fizzy end result. The last two bottles we opened ever so carefully shot 4 feet in the air, and all but about 250 ml was lost!

It was good stuff though; and oh what a wallop!

Still, especially with the recent spate of warm weather, I should have been expecting the problem and opened and re-bottled all of them.

When I went down to the basement to put away some empties, I noticed we only had one bottle standing.

Yikes!

Since that one bottle was essentially a glass grenade with the pin pulled, I lifted the remaining bottle out of the shards and carried it, ever so slowly, in gloved hands, wearing eye protection, out into the backyard. I set it carefully on the table, and gingerly popped the cap. As I am getting better at catching air borne cider, I got nearly 300 ml of the 600 or so in the bottle.

It made a lovely meter-tall spout of out of the bottle, though.

Meanwhile, the TJ cider is cloudy, skunky, and low on alcohol too; nice fizz though. So we will give all that cider another six weeks or more before we open another tester.

'Course, this happened last time, now that I think of it. The bottling was so undrinkable at the early test that we got discouraged and let it age another two or three months -- at which point it had clarified and was quiet yummy. Stand by on this one!

Moonlight

2006-02-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

The full moon came up tonight through the branches of the oak tree down the street, with just a swirl of white clouds brightly lit by the lunar glow. The night is cool, though the day was warm, and using the laptop on the WiFi under our own Moontree is a real delight.

We have spent many long days cleaning up for summer; chopping down the overgrown vines and weeds behind the garage, mowing, trimming, and pruning everything; losing a couple of plants we've been meaning to ditch for some time.

The winter salad garden has started to grow, finally, but something is eating the shoots off to the dirt pretty darn quickly, so I have little hope. Weirdly, some of the heirloom squash we planted and at least a few of the watermelon seeds have germinated -- although none of them came up at all over the spring and summer after we planted them last year! Go figure.

Broccoli is doing well, and I have had more than a few meals of organic home grown broccoli, especially yummy on the organic linguine noodles from Trader Joe's sprinkled with the sheep's milk TJ brand "powdered cheese" in a green can.

This being my first crop of broccoli, I have learned that the heads come out a little smaller under less than ideal conditions (like my random watering) and how to tell when a stem is ready to cut, and why it is poor eating when cut too late. Next batch will do better. I will also discover an organic antidote for the lovely cabbage worms/moths.

Oh, the kids love the little white "butterfly" that visits us. Any time they see one they pretend that it is the same one and say hello to "Cabbage." Yes, they named a moth Cabbage. (I think Spencer may have started that one; Kathryn likes to name the worms in the worm bin. )

But when I find as many little cabbage worms doing battle for my broccoli as there was broccoli on the last batch, a solution must be found!

[Update: Soaking the heads in salt water dropped three broccoli green 'pillars off of my dinner; alas the steam of cooking killed two more I missed! At least steamed caterpillar is gray so it is hard to miss in the pot. Makes me wonder though what I did miss on the broccoli I had raw on my salad yesterday!]

The winter garlic and onions never made it, although that could be due to my habit of pulling green garlic to use the chopped stems and subtle fresh baby garlic in salads and the like. (Grin). Similar fate for the shallots.

The red potatoes have been going great guns. One plant began to die off, and so I pulled it, and have five "shooter" marble sized new potatoes fresh from the ground. Meant to have them for dinner yesterday, will tonight.

Mandarin Orange crop is in full; the family love to grab a "cold one" off the tree in the morning on the way to school and work. Weirdly, they are also good and kind of fun to eat picked hot in the full afternoon sun.

Recently, I found that I could print a label on brown paper bags, and so have been giving away little collections of "Moontree Organic Mandarin Oranges" and lemons too. Kinda fun.

Now I wrote "Organic" on the bag because they are; we follow the organic farming guidelines. Or rather we use fewer even "natural" chemical inputs than the guidelines allow, and under USDA rules, we could actually sell these with this label. (We "make" less than $5,000 from sales of organic produce, so may use the label if we comply. One can only use the "USDA Certified Organic" if one has been certified.)

Wonder how the City of Pasadena would feel about the kids setting up an Organic Fruit Stand each February?

Blustery Day, Blustery Night: Busy Month

2006-01-24T05:33:00.000-08:00

Whew! The big wind blew; branches broke, trees (elsewhere) toppled! The yard is a mess. The moontree stayed put, but morning zazen is on hold until February for clean up. This was to be a long January-was-crazy post from a coffee house somewhere, juggling the baby and the laptop. Instead it is a placeholder, a promise, to me and a few readers, to get back to work here just as soon as we recover from the Big Blow of '06.

Happy New Year!

2005-12-31T18:31:00.000-08:00

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld ang syne.

We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Clean Coffee, Extreme

2005-12-26T16:04:00.000-08:00

Today I drank a sustainably grown, organic, fair trade, sustainably ground and sanely brewed cup of gourmet coffee.

I think I may have saved an entire square meter of polar ice from premature melt all by myself.

A combination of comments on other blogs -- both by me and other bloggers -- lead to this simultaneously cool and revolting turn of events.

First, playing me-too to GreenLaGirl's Starbucks Challenge reawakened my awareness of Fair Trade certified coffee and the value in not turning to an exploitative commodity for my middle-class American daily coffee fix. Indeed, because of the zealousness with which I joined the challenge game, GLG and CityHippy rewarded me with a package of Monkey & Son fair trade certified, organic certified, whole bean coffee.

This was very cool, because I had exchanged emails with the Monkey and had meant to come try a sample, but never did. Of course, as good coffee should, this arrived as whole bean coffee, which left a new dilema -- how to render it brewable.

Next, since the cool prize arrived last week, just at the height of pre-solstice/Christmas madness, it sat a few days to be admired -- and pondered -- as I set about finding a way to grind it. (We grind ours at the store, usually, and use it in a few days.)

I considering digging out the electric "spice mill and coffee grinder" I'd had for years, but I could hear the echo of some forgotten coffee gourmet scoffing about "chopped coffee" versus truly "ground" coffee, and the distinct superiority of the latter. Since my "spice mill" was, clearly, a simple whirling blade in a container, I could not, as my first choice, lower myself to drink chopped coffee. My second choice, the use of the amusing "magic bullet" mini-blender received as a wedding gift was no better. Another classless bean chopper!

(As an aside, the Bullet makes a sublime, quick, smoothie out of frozen fruit, milk and honey. A smoothie is just viciously chopped fruit and ice and does not need to be ground.)

Then, of course, I had been blogging over on Easy Green about electric appliances and how some were excessively juice-eating when a non-electric alternative was usually available. There was another strike against both mill and bullet.

Then I remembered that I had a hand-cranked coffee grinder from my Stepmother's recent return to her native England, a heavy, hand cranked iron device, that slowly slid the beans down a giant screw until each bean was pressed between counter-rotating ribbed steal plates, to emerge as lovely, truly ground coffee on the bottom.

Now this was not one of those dorky decorative faux antique coffee mills. This was the real deal, a serious kitchen tool, with three bolt-holes to bolt it to the wall for heavy duty and daily use, or a removable clamp to temporarily screw it down to the table top.

Just for fun, I went on the web to find a cool picture and discovered that these mills are coveted and ebayed like crazy -- in Australia and New Zealand (!) and the following additional history, according to the folks at www.coffeehouseinc.com:

"James Osborne Spong started a small family business in 1856 in London, England to make economic household utensils. His coffee grinders have changed design very little since the beginning as he found no improvements necessary."

Mine appears to be from modern production, due to having a red plastic hand grip not wood, but otherwise looks pretty well identical to the one shown here. There is a LOT of interesting coffee mill and coffee history at this collectors' site.

In any case, I clamped the ol' Spong Mill to the table, filled it with beans, and "gave the crank a whickity wank" as the song says.

Et viola, hand-ground, Fair Trade, Organic coffee.

Not only actually ground, but ground without all that coal-based electricity they sell us here in Pasadena. (And who wants coal-based electricity in their coffee, hmmm?)

The next amusing coincidence came about in that my In-Laws gave me my very own French press for Christmas. Mom-I.L. had been reading this space or the SBX, Fairtrade & Me blog about my adventures trying to get French pressed coffee. Now, all that time I was not looking for French Pressed coffee per se -- it seems too strong to me when the Starbucks crowed makes it -- rather I was looking for the right answer on their willingness to press Fair Trade coffee, without prompting.

Still, truth be told, I had wanted a French press for home, but could not justify it with a new-ish Mr. Coffee gleaming on the counter top.

Still, too, back at Easy Green, I had griped particularly that my plain Mr. Coffee draws 900 watts of power, sucking up some 1.8 kWh when left idling for the preset auto-warm designation. Now, once again I say, who wants coal-fired coffee?

I was also feeling a little guilty that ArdentEden gave me part credit for causing her to feel terrible guilt when she used her coffee maker, yet I had not yet given up my own electricity-sucking devil even as I had named it demon.

Unfortunately for us, most of our electricity falls from the sky, and is sustainably grabbed up by our solar cells. The rest, if there is any that the sun doesn't supply, comes from Green Power, which in this case is wind-generated power supplied by the city.

So sometimes I feel we can afford to be a little cavalier in our use of electricity, what with most falling, free, from the sun and the rest coming cleanly from the wind. But since we want to try to come in at 100% solar, net for the year by April 7, and we have added both forced-air heat and central air conditioning since the solar install, I'll take the potential 300 or so kWh a daily cup of coffee would cost and save it, thank you.

So, out comes the the cool new French press.

Of course, I still boiled the water on a gas stove -- I joked that I was going to boil the water by burning recycled paper grocery sacks, but nobody laughed. At first I thought it might have been that I was being ridiculous because the gas stove was perfectly workable; now I'm not sure that I didn't get a polite laugh because it was obvious that the green house gases and particulate matter generated by a grocery bag fire would be far worse than burning a little natural gas. Sigh. Like anything, fundamentalism just leads to absurdities.

But there it is, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Sustainable Cup of Coffee (more or less).

Fair Trade, Organic, Hand Ground, French Press brewed. With just a nibble of Trader Joe's Fair Trade, Organic extra dark chocolate on the side. Mmmmm mmmm. Good Monkey.

The coffee itself: Next Entry.

Wherein we wonder why all FT coffee we have tasted so far has similar bright overtones, but not the deep, rich mellowness of say the TJ house brand Organic . . . curiouser and curiouser!

Lights & the Season

2005-12-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

T he light is special this time of year.

Seems that, no matter where you are, the brief, bright winter light has an impact on people -- around the globe and down through the ages.

This winter has been dry and bright and cold for Southern California, but even without the gloom of rainclouds it gets dark pretty early.

I've been noticing the light a great deal this year. The track of the noontime sun changes from a 45 degree elevation across the southern sky, to a 90 degree overhead-noon in summer. This affects our comfort, and our electric bill, as the lower winter angle generates more power from our solar cells while the higher summer one is a longer trek, and hotter.

I am trying to grow some winter salads, too, but it has been cold enough at night, with a couple of soft freezes, that the salad patch is not doing so well. I blame the low light.

The broccoli and garlic and shallots, planted three feet from a heat-and-light reflecting southern wall, are doing well.

As a "farmer" and a user of solar energy, I am more keenly aware of the light than ever, although I have always been partial to indoor light less harsh than the average Edison-bulb.

Dimmer switches, candles and oil lamps usually cover my house; I lived in gleeful anticipation of power outages, just to have an excuse to fire up the candles and the oil lamps. What a beautiful, relaxed glow they provide for light.

Some mornings, when I am up before everyone, I need to see in the dinning room area but do not want to turn on the bright overhead light. Our 1903 house has the bedrooms directly connected to the dining area, so I risk waking the big kids, the wife and the baby. So I have been known to light an oil lamp -- just one, because more would be too bright(!) -- and pad around in the glow preparing for school or Saturday chores, or, with a certain deliberate irony, reading the newspaper online before it has washed up on our front porch.

We will note and celebrate the Winter Solstice this year, December 21 or so each winter season. Contrary to what some calendars might say, it is not the First Day of Winter, merely the moment when the sun reaches its shortest appearance in the daytime sky, shudders to a halt, and begins to lengthen, again, the time it spends warming my broccoli plants.

That's right. Everyday from the solstice on is a bit longer than the day before. Just like the Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year in June, and two days later it is "Midsummer" of A Midsummer Night's Dream fame, the Winter Solstice marks the half-way point.

In ancient Celtic traditions, Midwinter marked a mythical battle between the Holly and the Oak, won each year by the Oak, the bringer of spring and the green.

We will note and celebrate the Winter Solstice this year, with a bonfire in the yard. The ancients marked the return of the sun with fire, some say calling the sun to return. (And what do you know, the sun always answered the call!) The cycles of the sun, more so than ever, seem important to our household -- notwithstanding that most of the rest of our modern culture is unaware of its importance.

Amusingly, the light-festivals of the ancient cultures can be seen all around us, and all cluster at this, the darkest time of year:

The Jewish "Festival of Lights," Chanukah, falls in winter months; Hindus celebrate Dipavali (Diwali and Depawali) in November, again "The Festival of Lights", Swedes celebrate St.Lucia Day on December 13, again, a festival of lights; Ramadan for Muslims falls in the winter space, as does the previously noted Bodhi Day, a day not of lights, but enlightenment and awakening. Kwanza, a modern invention, involves candles and the winter dark time. Modern Christians, and the secular Christmas-ians, celebrate with lights on houses and trees, even, in recent times, invoking the older phrase Festival of Lights frequently.

The light is special this time of year.

Enlightenment

2005-12-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

Today, December 8, is Bodhi day. This is the day traditionally marked by Buddhists as the day Shakyamuni, Prince Sidartha, gained enlightenment sitting under the pipala or fig tree. The teachings of the Buddha or "enlightened one" are well documented easily available on the web; in the end the teachings offer an end to human suffering through enlightenment -- clear awareness about the nature of things, the interconnectedness of all beings and things, and the cessation of suffering through release of greed and grasping.

The folks debating whether stores should announce "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" miss the point. They would do well to leave off the debate and focus on becoming the pillar of brotherly love, acceptance and non-judgment that their Jesus worked to be; the debater's would do well to head the Buddha's comment on organized religion that it is important to remember that "the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon."

Christ's Mass is just a finger, pointing, for Christians to the ultimate goals of that faith. It is not salvation itself, nor is a magical phrase the key to a good and holy life.

On this Bodhi day, whatever your religious affiliation or none, may you live this day with greater awareness, open to the interconnection and interdependence of all sentient beings, and the causes of suffering in ourselves and others.

The Eensy Weensy Cider: One Gallon of Oak Glen Blend Into the Bottle, Heigh Ho!

2005-12-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

Six bottles of hard cider bottled and capped from our gallon of Oak Glen cider tonight. The natural yeast just wasn't robust enough, so we added a tiny dollop of English Cider Yeast, and it went to town.

Going into the bottle the cider was very clear and still, after only two re-rackings, so after after a little goose to get the cider to work in the bottle and produce carbonation, into the bottles it went.

This Oak Glen blend was also a little thin on flavor, and tasting like it would be more dry than sweet. Since the cider had only about 8% potential alcohol based on initial sugar -- and we didn't add any sugar -- that makes perfect sense.

Since six bottles of cider is hardly enough for us, we also put down the wedding cider today.

At our wedding we had Trader Joe's unfiltered cider as one of the main libations, and we happened to have six gallons left over after the event. Since our basic corboy holds five gallons with one in reserve for topping up, we have had the cider in storage since the wedding.

A couple of days ago we dumped it all into the big fermentation bottle, along with the rest of the English cider yeast, and let it roll. It is in the "boiling over" stage now, where the yeast eats and eats and eats the cider sugar, and the cider bubbles and foams almost as if it were in a pot on the stove.

There's a good head of foam on the top, and the fermentation lock is going "blurp . . . blurp . . . blurp" just about as fast as you can read this. In a bit we will rerack it to get it off the sediment, and then watch for bottling day to announce itself by slow fermentation.

Funny, but this is the first time we have hardened-up store bought cider, and did so only because we like the TJ cider well enough. Every other year we pressed our own raw cider, and if we did not have enough cider to put down -- or didn't press -- then we had none hard for the spring.

Leslie and I were laughing at ourselves, betting how long we could hold out before we have to crack the first bottle. She thinks we lasted six weeks last time, but that the five gallons we put down was gone by week 16 or so.

I said that if the store bought hardened-up any good, that we would have to put more down almost immediately upon opening the first bottle. I have this fantasy that we could put enough cider down cycle after cycle to not have to suffer being out of cider for any length of time. (Grin.)

Kitchen Beasts

2005-11-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

We've captured a wild beast in a jar; we've fed it, and even now it gnaws ravenously at its meal perched on our kitchen table. Farting and belching as it eats, it does our bidding.

Coffee-brown raw apple cider from our press has lightened to rusty red orange, and clarified as our wild yeast consumes the apple-sugars. Carbon and sulfer dioxides each stream upward in straight rows of tiny tiny bubbles, as the little eaters digest our juice and make alchohol.

Feast, my pretties, feast! They eat and make nectar, out-gas and reproduce. The bottom of my gallon jug is littered with the dead bodies of past generations. Soon enough they will all pay for their gluttony by the extinction of the species in their little glass universe.

The wild yeast that came in on the Oak Glen apples, the critters hiding in the cracks and crevices of our old cider press, a few hitchhikers on the wind on Pressing Day -- all trapped, our slaves making our raw cider over into hard cider.

In a few weeks we will decant this scant-gallon into sealed brown bottles, trapping the dying breathes of a million yeast critters as disolved CO2. And by summer we will have sparkling hard cider!

Next weekend, we will put down five gallons of good store cider -- alas, not our great raw home-pressed, but quite good. No preservatives, unfiltered. Pasteurized, though, so for this batch we will have to import guest yeast, a commerical strain from somewhere far off.

Meditation Makes Your Brain Grow; Coffee? Not So Much.

2005-11-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

News outlets from Fox News to CNN and back again are reporting a recent study that shows that daily meditation can alter and improve the part of the brain that, as it thins, results in age-related dementia.

It doesn't matter what kind of meditation you do, they say, but the study tracked folks who did "insight" meditation, where the goal was simply to sharpen awareness and focus the mind. This is done by following the breath as you sit silently, discarding distractions as they come up.

I knew I liked this Zen thing.

Cider Flows Under the Ol' Moontree

2005-11-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

We have cider!

Spent the holiday Friday getting the press finally limbered up. After a week of cleaning and finishing the new pressing tray, and on a whim refinishing some of the other press wood, which added another day's delay, Friday came and I was *ready* -- at least mentally -- for that cider.

Went to slide the new tray into the press, gave it a push and -- oof. It stuck. No worries, hand built wooden press, imperfect tolerances, check to see that everything is aligned and -- no joy. That pressing tray was a solid eighth of an inch too big on one corner, and it just was not going to fit.

Sigh.

Out comes the ancient wooden Stanley plane; out came the little spoke shave, which proved more useful. Forty minutes of judicious trimming and sanding later, the pan now fits. But of course the finish is compromised, and so although we are talking about a three inch strip, it has to be refinished. Which means two coats, four hours apart and another twelve hours to cure to food-safe. Sigh, again. Saturday we really will press cider.

Saturday Cider Day -- At Last!

The press is assembled; Leslie is in the house sterilizing bottles, the kids are washing and culling apples, and soon it will be cider.

The washing process gets all the stems and dirt and leaves, but also any agriculture residues. Fortunately, about a third of our apples are organic, so that helps. And these came straight from the orchard, before they could be sprayed in waxes or oils to make them look pretty, so we don't have to wash quite so hard to get that off. But they are seconds, and so we have to cull the few with rotten spots, and those with open holes, or cuts.

The cuts can (and often do) breed mold and bacteria, but these can often be removed. Similarly, a small hole on the outside generally means that a critter has moved in, and spoiled some or all of the apple. Out of four bushels, we had about a half bushel of "suspect" apples, and out of that wound up with about two gallons of rotten fruit and cut off bits. Not bad at all.

The big kids took turns feeding apples into the grinder and turning the grinder crank. The crank can be hard work, although the fly-wheel helps keep it rolling. Every so often an apple would get jammed in just right or one sibling would joyfully feed too many apples to crank, bringing the cranker to a stand still. Eventually it came down to the adults to finish the cranking.

Sometimes, the apple-feeder would forget to feed the apples, watching, in fascination, as the "apple eater" grinder chopped away at a whole apple. It only takes one reminder each year that the apple-eater eats fingers too. (Wicked grin.) Watching a very solid apple slowly vanish as it is turned to mush is a good reminder too.

Once the ground apples were ground, the kids (and then the adults) took turns turning the screw that pressed the cider.

This year, we bottled gallons -- in part to deliver several to my mom, and in part because we only did four bushels. The bottling process involves swapping out the metal pan under the press for an empty one, and walking the cider, carefully, over to the funnel in the gallon jug. We do pour the cider through sieve to trap large apple bits, and any other debris that might have gotten into the catch-bowl. But 99.9% of the suspended apple solids go right into the bottle.

In years past we have pressed a 50-50 of Granny Smith and Red Delicious. The cider was darker than even unfiltered store bought, and pretty darn sweat.

This year's cider came out of the press even darker, a rich cinnamon brown. Really dark. To the degree thatin a certain light it looked like a jug of coffee. The flash in these photos lightened it up a great deal, but here it is compared to Trader Joe's unfiltered apple juice. And most people consider that a little dark!

Out of four bushels we pressed about 8 gallons, drank most of a gallon during pressing and gave four to my mom. Not a bad yield, but not as high as we sometimes get.

Still, we have cider!

Woo Hoo! Peak Experience

2005-11-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

Today we peaked!

As the winter sun transits lower in the sky and hits our solar cells close to the perfect angle, we produce 100% of our cells rated capacity. Or rather, in this case we produced more than that, because the sun angle is right, the sun is bright (between clouds) and the temperature is cool.

Not only did we hit more than the 2403 Watts nominal at which our system is rated, we peaked past the 2500 Watts for which the inverter is rated. No worries, as the peaked out production is transitory, but indicates that we are getting the most out of the system possible.

Last spring, from mid-February to late March, a bright sunny, cool day would produce the same result. On the brightest days over the summer we only got 80% or less rated capacity, because he sun angle was much higher and the heat of the summer reduced production.

So: With luck it will turn out that we have from early November to late March with peak production; we have covered about 90% of our usage so far (since April 7, our contract date). We were at 110% plus during the spring, but are currently about one months worth of electricity "behind" due to slightly lower production over the summer. At this rate we should be able to hit 100% by April 7, provided there are not too many cloudy or rainy days.

Woo Hoo!

Donner und Kopfsalat

2005-11-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

Thunderstorms, flash floods, torrential rains and mudslides all predicted by forecasters finally arrived, but disguised as their mild-mannered alter ego: Light drizzle and the odd brief cloudburst. So much for the science of weather forecasting.

The broccoli is growing great guns, and should need thinning by Sunday. Several of the salad greens, now, are up, with three tiny romaine sprouts and a bunch of other miscellaneous peeking out. No corn salad (maché) up yet, which gives me pause. Still, I tend to plant too deep, and the other things are up just fine.

Almost to confirm my unfortunate sowing skills, two new garlic bulbs have sprouted among all the 6-8 inch plants; it apparently took awhile for them to grow enough to get past the depth of the soil (sigh).

Cider Press Repair

Took apart the cider press yesterday, to install a new pressing tray. Found a couple of small unpleasant surprises, but nothing too major.

First, when we purchased the press I built then sealed it with “e-z-do” a food-safe butcher-block sealant. As a result, I did not get sealant on the parts where wood touched wood. Under the pressing tray, one section had a little mildew; the other had a small wood eating creature making its home.

Cleaning up these two bothers delayed re-installation of the drip tray and our cider pressing by another day

We will press cider in the morning, as it is a school holiday and everyone will be home. Might even have a little fire in the outdoor fireplace to take the morning chill off. If I can find enough scrap wood. (We haven’t either picked up or purchased significant firewood this year. Just plain busy, what with the new baby, and not a lot of spare change for a cord of wood from the local supplier.)

Share the Road

Just noticed today that Share the Road signs have gone up all along Mountain as promised by the city. We really needed them on this little strip of road, as it is a major linkage between two bike paths. And the local folks did not seem inclined to follow the law and allow bikes the use of the roadway. This should help some.

Rain, no rain; or was it rain again?

2005-11-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

Rain has begun to fall in the last few minutes; the weather people have been beside themselves with indecision, even at one point saying that two different computer models came up with very different forcasts. As it was the rain was supposed to start yesterday evening.

Guess I'll just stay here, warm in the house.

Sippin' Cider

2005-11-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

Spirited email exchange with my mom, and some apple rancher's in Oak Glen. Her Aunt and Uncle used to own an apple ranch, and when she was a little girl she lived there awhile, her mom and dad working on the ranch.

She tells some great stories about the one-room school house she attended (I have seen it, but I remembered that it looked a lot like the classic little red school house in all the free Word graphics, -- only weathered gray. Turns out it was gray because it was built of local river rock. Hmmpf. ) The old school house has been made into a museum.) And of course the story of riding in an apple crate on the rollers in the packing shed is a classic, which I must have tried a dozen non-farm ways to duplicate.

A one-time family cider pressing when I was young, just after her Aunt sold the place, made a deep impression on me. I have eight apple trees on my city lot here in Pasadena, and after decades of lusting after it, a few years ago bought myself a double-tub cider press.

We don't produce enough apples for cider, we got about a bushel this year, which is great considering four of the trees were just planted this year after several years elsewhere stunted in pots (not my fault). They only produced a half dozen cider quality apples between 'em. And one of the remaining four trees either has bad grafts that have kept it stunted, or is affected by the oak tree litter from the street tree near it, and any apples that do grow on it are swiped by passers by while green anyway, 'cause the poor little tree is the one next to the street.

So we decided to go up to Oak Glen to get some apples, go crazy pressing cider, and put down five gallons for hard cider if we get that much, or just drink it ourselves for months. (For larger views, click on any picture.)

There is nothing more satisfying than raw, hand pressed cider. Whether caught in a cup straight from the prss, or mellowed a few weeks later. Mmmmmm.

Apple Picken'

The apples in our yard start and finish early, and we don't have enough trees for a good cider making quantity. So, and to get special apples for my mom, we made the trek to Oak Glen, California. An online acquaintance of nearly 15 years now has a ranch up there, and although the "u-pick" apples are all-picked for now, there are still apples to be had.

We tried to make arrangements to meet at the back of the Riley ranch to glean the last of the crop and pick up several bushels of windfalls -- generally sound apples that have dropped off the tree. Alas, we came up the dusty back road, as did a van full of another family, but no farmer. The pickers in the field didn't know about the arrangements we'd made, so we drove back down the back road, and came around into the main part of Oak Glen.

Apples can be had several ways, here. In small fractional bushels, that wind up being $30-40 a bushel -- considerably more than the retail cost at our local produce market. Or you can go to a "u-pick" orchard, where, as the name implies, you pick the apples off the trees yourself. Unfortunately, pretty much all the "u-pick" sites were "u-picked" out. So we resorted to the third way, which was stopping and asking the price for several bushels of cider apples, what some people called seconds.

Now, cider can be pressed from ugly apples just fine. Even ones with a little rot or spot can be cut apart and the good part pressed. Hand or eating or table apples (depending on who's namin' them) are essentially perfect, and often sorted by size, so they cost a bit more.

But by asking for cider apples or seconds, we got the ugly apples at a one-half to one-quarter of the price of the pretty ones. So, we now have four bushels of apples sitting in the back yard, waiting for all the kids to be home to press cider Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Back at the Apple Ranch

We drove the Oak Glen loop, from Riley's to Law's, with stops along the way at the Los Rios Rancho (now called Riley's Los Rios Rancho, as the Riley family has leased the place. All the apple production on the Rios Ranch is organic, which is good news. We stopped too at Snow-Line, which is where we got our good deal on seconds.

Our bushels contain local organic Fuji's, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Rome and Jonathan. Those happen to be the varieties that "the ladies" were sorting that day, and so a box of mixed seconds was available.

We stopped in to have lunch at Law's Coffee Shop, and to my great wonderment, an old packing label was up on the wall from the ranch run by my Great-Grand Uncle Mills B. Clapp, and his wife, Lila McConnell Clapp. I asked if anyone knew where the old Clapp ranch used to be, and the ladies at the counter ran back and dragged a gray-haired but not old looking fellow in an apron covered in cooking debris. Mustard was prominently visible on the front.

Turns out, this ol' boy is Kent Colby, step-son of the founder of the ranch, and current proprietor of the coffee shop. The shop was started in about 1953, while my Gr-Gr-Aunt and Uncle were still operating. Kent, and his wife, took over the coffee shop in about 1974, and he's been at it ever since. Seem that he is the local historian too.

Kent said the ol' Clapp place was just off the Harris road, the first road on the right past the bend. The old Clapp house could be seen in the woods, he said. The property had been sold a couple of times since Lila Clapp sold it in the late 1960s or so.

Now the last time I recall going to Law's had to have been 30 or more years ago -- probably about the time Kent was taking over. Great Aunt Lila used to come up pretty much weekly for a few years. She had no children, and her only sister had one surviving son, my grandfather. He used to drive Lila up to the Glen from Riverside, in her '51 Cadillac, for lunch at Law's every week.

"Oh yes, I remember Mrs. Clapp," Kent told me. "Used to come up here every week for awhile for lunch with her chauffeur or something." Ooooboy. Granddad would have laughed to hear himself described as the chauffeur. 'Course that's what he was, for the day. But still, its quite an image of ancient Mrs. Clapp, dressed to the nines, driven up by my 6'4" construction-worker-physique grandfather.

So we chatted awhile, and he didn't have a firm grip on my mother "little Lila", but had a sort of vague recollection. Frankly, I couldn't tell if he was being polite or if he was a heck of a lot older than he looked, and he might actually have had a faint recollection of my mom's family. Hardly matters; we remember Law's, and its right where we left it.

The apple pie was of course quite tasty -- although there was a moment of surprise to be gotten over when it dawned on us that this was fresh apple pie, from apples picked a 100 yards up the hill. There was no corn-syrup sugar goo -- just sweet, good apples and a flaky crust.

Having taken Hannah Lila up to see the apple groves where Grandma Lila and Great-Great Aunt Lila pressed cider, I think we'll have to go back to Law's in the future, for no particular reason.

Meantime, I need to finish getting the cider press oiled up and cleaned off, replace the drip pan that was shipped to me in February, and get ready to squeeze off 10 or 12 gallons of cider!

Slipping Into Fall

2005-11-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

Cool, damp morning today; a hint of winter moisture in the air, after two or three days of 90F heat. Because it gets cool at night our 102-year-old house never got hotter than 74 for most of the day, and I was able to leave the air conditioner off. (Until this summer, we didn't have an air conditioner; between the hotter falls we've been having and the new baby, we thought it was time.)

Lettuce has sprouted! Two very tiny little plants -- and only two -- have sprouted in the horse trough salad garden. That's a 200% increase over the last crop, where none of the seeds sprouted before the heat of the composting topsoil and ants got 'em. There may be hope yet for the winter salad garden after all.

Broccoli is up two, much better growth, lots of plants, due to be thinned soon. Or rather moved. Some sections of the broccoli patch are bare, others have crammed in seedlings. (Shrugs) The seed was pretty evenly sown, and there is little difference that I can detect in the Broccoli patch sections that sprouted and those that didn't, but there you have it. So the crowed guys will get thinned, and if they survive it, transplanted to the bare spots.

We made a trip to Oak Glen yesterday, about which I will do a separate post; came back with four large bushels of apples for cider, though. Now I am scurrying to clean out the patio and clean up the cider press. We will probably press early next week, when Spencer is home.

Spencer is off at an Outdoor Ed camp, part of his 5th Grade science unit. Hope he enjoys it; I didn't have the heart to tell him that a lot of what they are going to talk about is eco-systems, composting, watersheds, recycling, map reading, tracking -- all those things we do around here or I am forever telling him about. I expect that the activities will be fun, however, and I know that at least some of it will seem new to 'em 'cause it won't be preached by Dad. (grin).

Your Mouth Says “No,” But Company Policy Says “Yesssssss”

2005-10-31T11:25:00.000-08:00

Eeep!

My Most Excellent Starbucks nearly let me down today, the encounter being saved by a partner whom I have heard the big bosses discuss in positive terms.

(Hey, when you do back office business out in the store, the privacy-of-stranger-anonyminity we grant each other is just not the same as a locked door. I broke the social rules, and listened to the animated conversation occurring 18 inches behind me instead of tuning it out! Sorry.)

It was a perfect day for a renewed challenge. I was the only customer in the store at Foothill and D Street in La Verne, California. four Partners were on, and I only recognized two of them.

"May I have a venti Fair Trade drip?" I asked perkily of the boy at the register.

"Uhm. A what?"

Damn. Feelings of disappoint, embarrassment, horror (how could I been so wrong about this store?!?) flash through my mind. Do I march over and pick a pound of the Cafe Estima prominently displayed at the entrance to the store, and grasp the teaching moment?. No. Again I cave; sort of:

"Never mind. Can I have a venti cup of the Mexican Shade Grown Organic that was Coffee of the Week last week?"

"Uhm, were not brewing that right now."

Silently I look the register boy square in the eye and smile. And wait. He looks nervous. Confused.

"Would you please press me a venti Shade Grown Organic coffee?"

Momentary terror crosses his face. I have used some of The Words from the training manual, he has recognized that. But he has no idea what to do. Confused, he turns to read the coffee listings that day.

Mexican Shade Grown Organic decaf is brewing. I clarify: I would like the regular coffee, not decaffeinated. More confusion.

"I, uh I don't know if, uhm, uhm, I don't know if we have any!" he finishes in a rush, relieved apparently at having found an out. I point out that there is a large display of it up front, and that if he doesn't' have a five pound bullet open already, he can use a smaller one.

Oh oh. I have used more words from that long forgotten training. Slightly misused, slightly out of context, true, but my use of the Words of Power makes him look nervous again. Who are you? I can almost hear him thinking, looking for an out.

Register Boy (his obvious fear negates calling him "man") turns to the barista pulling shots: "He wants the regular Organic Shade Grown. Can we do that?" "What?" she says. "Press a cup of that. Can we? " "Sure," she says after confirming that Register Boy has not simply misheard my request for the already brewing decaf. (A not unreasonable assumption, actually. Partly why I threw that twist in.)

Register boy asks the Positive Evaluation girl if they have the regular version; she takes pity on him and says "I've got it."

And she does; she presses my coffee, promises to bring it to me in "about 3 1/2 more minutes" and apparently teaches a different, un-aproned new partner how to do it. Whew.

This encounter, though, underscores at least one non-neferious reason for the uniformity of negative replies. People everywhere want to seem competent and knowledgeable, even if they aren't. If the person doesn't know what Fair Trade is, it can be short hop and skip to "if I don't know about, we must not have it." Similarly during the "will you press a cup" press, if a barista has never been asked to do this, either because they are really new or no one has challenged them, the odds are fair that they will say "Oh I'm sorry, no can do" as a face saving tactic.

This is not an excuse for making me squirm to get the fair trade stuff, just an observation that might help one work helpfully through future challenges.

This, by the by, is probably my last (reported) challenge unless I am in a different Starbucks and feeling really snerky. (Grin). Although I do like coffee, it is not my intent to make this Kitchen Calendar into the "Asking the Hard Green Questions" sort of blog that greenLAgirl and others do so well. And this close analysis of Fair Trade and (for me) organic issues does not fit into the Easy Green format, 'cause, well, it isn't Easy.

I may, however, link back to the Starbucks Challenge as an example, later, of how the simple actions of one person -- aided, abetted and amplified by the marvelous communication facilities of the internet -- can move the immobile, and evoke positive response from even a relatively huge corporate juggernaut.

Furnace Fun & On and Off the Wagon

2005-10-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

Mid-fifties over night -- chilly for SoCal -- and the new furnace has me all confused. Ours was broken for a couple of years, and although it ran, it stank, so we didn't use it. So when the weather started turning cool, so did our house.

Even on the coldest nights (high 30's) the house never got cooler than 60 or so overnight, and we got used to piling on the winter blankets and saving on natural gas.

Last winter it got SO cold for SO long that we finally caved and got a new furnace. Now with the new baby, it was good timing to have done so. But I still can't quite get used to the heater, and we keep the overnight temp around 65-66F as it is.

"Why?!?"

Last winter, for one holiday or another, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, who keep the thermostat at 72 or more during the day, and cool it down to 70 at night. The kids -- used to bundling up and a cool sleeping temperature -- were tossing and turning in the barest of sleep wear.

"I'm hot," the oldest complained, "I can't sleep."

"Well, Grandma and Grandpa have the heater on," I explained reasonably. Without even a pause, the indignant reply came back "Why!?"

Broccoli, On the Wagon

Broccoli is sprouting; I was lazy and planted from seed outdoors. None of the lettuce is showing up yet, and if THIS whole crop goes south, I am going to assume it is the horse trough and give it away. It should make a nifty little planter, especially now that I have found the drain plug and it does not stay wet.

More garlic has come up; no sign of the chives, but they were planted later.

Leslie spotted a cool garden wagon as we drove by a garage sale, and picked it up for a mere $15. One of those lovely, heavy gauge wire things, fold down sides, sliding trays and tool holders. Looks like a real boon for doing front yard work -- hand tools and planting stuff can ride out, debris can ride back.

Maybe this will be the toy that helps us set up the Xeri-Native-Scape in lieu of a lawn we've always wanted to do . We'll see.

Off the Wagon

I have promised myself that I would put down our hard cider every weekend for the last several -- and then, like now, I remember that our online yeast purchase hasn't arrived yet. Apparently the cider yeast we ordered happened to be out of stock, but nobody mentioned it. So now it is coming November 1, but with free shipping. Yay! But really, I just want my cider down!

Which is too bad, too, because starting the cider was going to be my bribe to myself for finishing up the yard work.

Me Pick Up

And so it is out back to remove some more of the trash and debris that is driving our fence-neighbor crazy, and to make a home for the wagon. Just as soon as I finish my coffee . . .

More (Coffee) Pressing Business, and Diaper, Diaper, Who's Got the Diaper?

2005-10-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

This morning Hannah and I stopped at our usual Starbucks in La Verne, at D Street and Foothill. I was kind of interested in having that Organic, Shade Grown Mexican coffee, but was disappointed to see that it wasn’t brewing, even though I understood it to be the COW from my Pasadena store.

“Oh,” I said “isn’t that shade grown coffee supposed to be the coffee of the week?”

“Yes,” the girl at the counter said “We don’t have any brewed right now, but I can press you a cup. What size would you like?”

Oooo. Cool, thought I. I didn’t even have to ask, and wasn’t going to, I had just expressed my spontaneous disappointment – and she offers to make it all better without even a blink. This store has *definitely* read the email!

Hannah and I find our seat, and endure the usual round of moms and grandmas and at least one dad cooing at and talking to Hannah. I start doing some writing, when I realize that I am sitting next to a Big Boss (some sort of regional boss, I’d guess) and the store manager in a big confab.

Coffee Command and Control

I eaves-drop shamelessly, but hear nothing at all about Fair Trade, or pressed-cups or the like.

Eventually, Hannah is a little fussy, and food isn’t working, toys aren’t working, The Blanket isn’t working – and then it dawns on me, she needs a diaper.

Starbucks (I have now learned) does not install diaper changing tables in restrooms as standard equipment. As I am changing the baby on a chair in the middle of the store, as per my usual, I turn to the Big Boss (who has been cooing at the baby) and say “Man, you guys could really use a diaper changing table.”

A short discussion ensues regarding same, in which I point out that many older DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) are having children late, but still want to come for coffee, and that any store, like this one, with a kids' table and chair and some toys is going to attract patrons with poopy diapers too.

Now That's Customer Service

Big Boss tap-taps on her laptop and says without missing a beat “we’ll order you one.”

Buzz-whir click. The mind is busy boggling. I consider asking if it will be a Fair Trade diaper changing table, but figure the joke will be lost on her.

“Don’t forget to put it in the men’s room.” I quip instead.

“Oh, that’s right. We’d need to order two,” Big Boss says. After a few more tap taps on the laptop, she says we can do one right away: "Would you be able to use one in the women’s room.?"

Now I guess she didn’t see the irony: Here was a dad asking for a diaper changing table, which Big Boss assumed (in a fit of unconscious sexism) needed to go in the women’s restroom.

“Well, you might not want to do that, my wife in particular will give you grief for that,” I say. “She even had these special postcards printed for sexist managers.” [Click the Photo at right for a readable view]

“Would you use it if it was in the Women’s room?” she asks, determined to stick to her gender-biased reality.

“Sure,” I say laughing.

Now in fairness, their restrooms are of the one-room, lock the door type. But still I want to add “of course, your women customers will hassle me; I will need to knock on the door each time and might find it embarrassing to disturb a female potty user, and therefore will continue to use the chairs out in the main part of the store, and other dad's won't even know it's in there. And of course you are sending a subliminal message that diapers are women’s work."

But I can’t; she has been so nice and so unconsciously clueless at the same time, making her really aware of what she was doing would be pretty rude. So I give her one of our postcards (hoping she will think about it), and in a further fit of cowardice, give her the URL for this blog and greenLAgirl’ s Starbucks Challenge.

Maybe she’ll put the diaper changing table in the men’s restroom first.

Mandarins & Odd Fruit

2005-10-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Recent rains have got everything sprouting again. The lawn we don't water -- especially in the dehydrated and heavily trafficked front parking strip -- has started to sprout, like so much green hair on a shaved head.

The weed-lawn will start to grow to, so it will be time to whip out the ol' solar-powered, electric lawnmower and chop 'em down.

The forecast of 75F days 58F at night has been pretty off base. It has been overcast much of each day, with a little drizzle or fog. I used to love rain and fog and cloudy days in fall and winter, now I just see it as wasted electricity because the solar cells don't put out much juice on a cloudy day. (We do get from 1/4 to 1/3 or so of normal, even in the rain, but I really want to see a surplus so we can have a ZERO electric bill come April 7. )

Meanwhile, the Mandarin Orange set its winter crop a couple of months ago, and the first hint of orange is showing through the green fruit. By Christmas these will be bright orange, and may even be ripe enough to enough to eat. Certainly by January or February. Always love grabbing one of these intensely sweet oranges -- or two -- off the tree for breakfast on the way to work.

The loquat is also flowering. It will take a long winter's effort to produce fruit in spring, around March or April. Very sweet, large pit. Interesting but not compelling fruit. Makes a fair ice cream sauce, but that's about it. The tree was here when we moved in, and we hate to cut down a fruit tree, but the tree is in conflict with another, and the fruit, while prodigious, doesn't do much but feed the yard squirrels.

All the sprouting and budding and ripening put me in the mind to go check on the salad garden. Nothing is up yet. Nor would I expect it in three or four days. But all the little buds made me so hopeful, especially in light of the complete death of all the seedlings planted in the horse trough for the summer.

Speaking of the horse trough, I found a drain plug and removed it, so over winter the water can get out instead of filing up and creating a bog like happened just before I replanted it. Hope that does the trick.

Starbucks, Breastmilk & Me

2005-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

I like coffee. But then you might have guessed that, given all the coffee cup graphics here. So I have been watching the Starbucks Challenge over on greenlagirl with some interest, and think the idea of Fair Trade products is not so bad. I wanted to play too, so today, when I stopped for coffee, I resolved to ask for a Fair Trade cup. Here's what happened at the store in La Verne, California at the corner of Foothill and D Street today:

SBX Challenge: My Turn

The line was out the door – nearly 20 people – so I had plenty of time to screw up my courage to ask for the Fair Trade drip. And I was really going to do it too, long line or not. I felt like I could because I kind of know this crew because I come here so often.

“Can I get something started for you, sir?” the counter guy asked as he worked his way down the line. I was six patrons away from the register.

“Yes. I’d like –” I began, thenhen silence: Tic tic tic, the quiet stretched out longer than the line. “Uhhhhhm, a venti mild drip, please,” I finished, caving to the self-imposed pressure of the line behind me. And a venti hot water, half full, please. ”

“Yes, sir,” he said, “The mild is almost finished brewing, I’ll bring it over to you; here’s the water.”

“Uhm, thanks. Say – oh never mind.”

Just Like Mother Makes

See, I’m a stay-at-home dad this semester. My four-month-old daughter Hannah and I drop big brother Spencer off at 5th Grade down the street, but the traffic home is abysmal at that hour. So I stop at the nearby Starbucks for an hour or two, writing, using the WiFi to email, etc. And I order Hannah her “mama latte” – a venti cup half full of hot water.

The half-cup is just exactly right to float a four ounce bottle of frozen breast milk in. With the lid-on, the bottle floats so that the hot water covers the entire bottle, with the hot water just a fraction of an inch below the screw top, which is important because, frankly, all baby bottles seem to leak a little. In about 10 minutes a frozen bottle is warmed to perfection, a thawed bottle in about three.

The baristas all know Hannah, and greet her by name. If I order an espresso drink, they have taken to writing “The Dad” on the cup in place of my name. In fact, I don’t think they know my name anymore.

A man with a baby is apparently such a novelty, in fact, that every mom with older kids at home and any grandparent with a grand-baby “just about her age” feels compelled to say hello.

To Hannah, not me.

Inevitably they coo at the baby, smile, and wave and say “Hi!” in a goo-goo voice, and then they make The Statement.

“Oh, having a day out with Dad, hmm?”

Okay. They know she can’t answer. I know she can’t answer. They know I know they know she can’t answer. So even though they also know that it would be impolite to say “So, first time out with the baby?” to me, they get to ask anyway by pretending to ask her.

I have considered taking ventriloquism lessons. “No, you sexist pig; dad is my primary caregiver," she would say, in a cutesy-falsetto preternaturally mature baby-voice.

“And if you don’t believe it just watch how fast he can change the nipple on a bottle one-handed, and see if he doesn’t unconsciously do the “mommy mambo” swaying back and forth to comfort me (even if I am asleep in the stroller) while he talks to you.

“And don’t even get me started on this man’s skill as a diaper slinger.”

But no. Usually I smile and say something benign yet subtly cutting: “Yep, just like every day.” (“Aha! Sexist pig!” is the subtext of course, but I smile nurturingly, and coo at the baby. No one can accuse me of anything!)

So this day, we’re settling in to our usual spot in the corner at the table with the computer plug, and the perky counter guy brings my mild-drip over. Maybe three minutes have elapsed, but the rush of 20 people is down to 2 people in line. I am emboldened.

Really Going to Do It This Time!

“Oh, hey, uhm, excuse me. “ I say, calling him back to me from halfway back to his station. “Would you be able to get me a Fair Trade drip?” I ask. He looks puzzled. “Uhm, a second cup,” I add lamely.

“Sure. I’ll hafta brew it; it’ll only take a minute.”

I’m floored. I had my “didn’t you read the email” shtick all practiced. I was prepared to politely but firmly grasp the teaching-moment and point out the fair trade label, explain the best way to “say yes” and see if he put his foot in it.

A perky “Sure!” was not in the script.

“Uhm, no, that’s okay. Next time. I didn’t want to ask before with such a long line,” I explain sheepishly. “No worries,” he says, more puzzled than before. “Just ask!”

Guess he read the email.

Way to go greenlagirl and cityhippy! Way to go Starbucks!

Salad Down, Garlic Up, Compost Gloriously Rotten!

2005-10-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday, lazy Saturday. Overcast this morning; the high temperature for the next five days is forecast at 75F and the overnight low at 58F. No really, those exact temperatures, every day, for five days. Even the weather guy was a little taken aback. Given the fog earlier and now the overcast, I'd be surprised if we hit 75F. Either way, I'm done outside. My broken toe hurts from too much urban homesteading. Time for coffee and the newspaper -- both paper versions and electronical blogs and newspapers I like to read.

For all my pain, the Broccoli is finally in the ground today. Planted in the side yard planter -- a 4 foot wide by 20 foot long raised planter bed -- on the south side of the house about two feet from the house. It gets full sun, especially in the winter, and heat and light is reflected back onto the plants by the house wall. Should have the effect of extending even our extended growing season. Broccoli is said to be frost hearty, so should be fine over there all winter.

One catch: The roof drip-line is square in the middle of the planter box. May have to work up some sort of silent drip deflector. (Could do a rain gutter, but that sounds like so much work right now. )

Garlic is Up

Several garlic plants are up, grown to about 4 inches, but not always where we planted them. The rows are all off, and thus far there are some bare spots too, so we may replant more later when it is clear those spots are actually bare and not just "late sprouters." A couple of shallots up too, similarly skewed. (Our grub-hunting critter friends dug up and deranged our fresh planted garlic and shallots.)

Salad is Down

The endive, radicchio and escarole are in the dirt, along with red and green romaine lettuce and corn salad (mache). Planted in an old horse trough I got free on Freecycle. I had originally intended it for a water garden addition, but it was just too shallow. Tried to grow lettuce in it over the summer, but (1) ants colonized it and ate the seeds and (2) the topsoil I bought to fill in with had so much hot compostable material that it was actually hot, and drew flies, for weeks. The heat may have killed the seeds as it would in a compost bin, or the ants may have enjoyed them, or both. But not even a sprout.

Compost is Well Rotten!

The summer compost bin is closed for the nonce; we have two small ones, and it is time to let the spring and summer material finish, and spend the next six months filling the second one. I should have (once again) made the swap over to the other bin a few weeks ago, and stopped adding kitchen scraps to the summer bin. Ah well. Guess I need to get at the heavy grass growing there too.

There are other ways to do compost. For example, we could just keep adding fresh material to the top and, using the sliding door on the bottom remove the finished stuff, but I like to clean the bin out completely at least once a year. No good reason, just like to see what's in there, and if I don't like it, send it home.

Worms, Spiders, Redwoods & Politics

2005-10-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Clear and 55F this morning, on its way up to 80F. Hannah and I will do some more precinct walking this morning. Then home for household chores and, with luck, time to finish the winter garden.

Interesting observation walking door-to-door in San Marino for a political campaign:

1. An amazing number of people in this affluent community are apparently not registered to vote, or don't vote regularly. On my list of registered voters, sometimes there will be one house out of four with a registered voter.

2. When the incumbent has been in a not-very-sexy community college board position for a long time, people are really interested to hear about a new candidate. We will see how that translates into votes.

The Redwood Forest

The Sequoia (giant redwood) saplings in our backyard have enjoyed the rain and cooler weather, have turned a deep green and are sending out new healthy growth. Overall, our SoCal winter is much more agreeable to them, as it is more than a little hot and dry for this coastal rainforest tree. But I am a bit sentimental about them, as I picked them up in Big Sur, one of my favorite childhood vacation and camping spots. I will have to wax eloquent one day about both the Big Sur Lodge and the Big Sur River Inn, as well as the tent camping.

Ah, see? These two little five-year-old saplings are another vehicle in my little time -machine garden. (See Night Blooming Jasmine, previous.)

As The Worm Turns

The worm bin needs to be revitalized, cleaned up, fixed up for the winter. Perhaps some castings harvested and some new bedding material added. Need to swap out either the base or the nozzle for the worm tea, but will try to outfit it with a strainer. A certain amount of the castings fall out into the tea, and run through the spigot, and cause it to work only with difficulty and eventually to jam and break. Until today I hadn't found a source for the spigot, but may have today while looking for worm bin graphics.

I will have to do an Easy Green screed on simple worm composting.

Spiders
We don't use pesticides or chemical fertilizers on the yard. So we have a lot of creatures -- the good kind and the bad kind, but mostly the good kind. We have some amazing outdoor spiders, with a body as big as the tip of a man's thumb. They spin webs that span 20 feet from a tree to the house, classic circular spider webs. On a misty morning they are fascinating. Every now and then a person will look overhead and see one of local pest-catchers working overhead. Although they are mostly benign, spiders still have an effect on one. Here is one of our big boys found the other morning.

Electricity Doesn't Grow On Trees It Falls From the Sky

2005-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Today dawned crisp and clear and cool and sunny. Ooooh bright it was, and the ol' solar panels were cranking away, putting out nearly 1500 watts at 9:00; we are back to partly cloudy now (sigh) but it is still a pleasant day.

On today's agenda: Hannah and I will be precinct walking for Hillary Bradbury-Huang, a candidate for the local non-partisan community college district with good green ideas mixed with a corporate sensibility. (Should have finished two weeks ago, but various maladies interfered.) Then back to put in some of that winter planting this afternoon and finish securing the back yard against the rest of winter.

In summer the backyard is our outdoor living/dining room; winter here is enough like winter that we mostly move indoors, especially for meals. All summer, we have a tendency to eat outside under the tree with the big light in it -- what we call the moontree.

Speaking of the moon, last night was intensely clear (no clouds, rain washed air) and the moon only a little past full. No stars were visible in the city competing with the very bright moon, but Mars, alone with the moon, shone out just below our near neighbor. And it was oh-so-clearly Mars, for it was big and bright as stars go, and red. Yes, mars is distinctly red when seen with the naked eye. Tonight, if it is clear, I think we will have to track down the ol' telescope.

If there is a chance, we will stop for tea or a little fair trade drip coffee at Starbucks, and make use of the WiFi link to update the Easy Green blog. There are ten articles in the draft cue that need to be polished up. and published!

Rain Grows the Garlic-O!

2005-10-18T06:23:00.000-07:00

Over night we had another .3 inches of rain for a total of 2.6 this three-day storm. Whew! But this morning is overcast and essentially dry. And the good soaking has pleased the garlic and shallots which are poking their heads up out of the dirt a good inch or more since I last ventured out to have a look. Yay!

We need more garlic, planted in a couple three weeks, so the next bed comes ready later than this bed. Garlic dries and stores just fine, but green garlic -- fresh from the earth -- has less bite and a more subtle flavor.

Also garlic greens make a sort of garlic flavored chive or green onion type vegetable. Very nice on salads, in stir fry etc.

Also, would like to avoid eating all the crop this time in order to let some go to seed. (Grin.) I have read that the flower tops when young are excellent stir fried.

Today: Overcast, threatening but not raining. Temps in high 50s, 67 in the house all day without heat on. On the broadband: Celtic Radio http://www.accuradio.com/celtic/

October is a Crazy Month for Weather

2005-10-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

October is a crazy month for weather in southern California. Scorching heat, hot dry winds one day; torrential rain, hail, flash flooding the next. Unless the whole month turns out to be a scorcher, which does happen, although just about as often as its opposite: temperatures in the 40s and 50s straight through to Thanksgiving.

This year is a flip-floppy sort of year.

Friday was clear, hot, very dry (down near less than 10% humidity). Saturday morning was hot, but by noon a cold south wind (!) pushed the temperature down below 70. By Saturday evening and Sunday, spectacular thunder and lighting, buckets upon buckets of rain.

Monday, even more intense rain; clouds so dark it looked like night. The streetlights actually turned on, it was so dark. Then sunny. Then crashing thundering buckets of rain.

In the 48 hours since the rain began we've gotten 2.3 inches in my backyard, which does not include the 45 minutes or so of marble sized hail splattered all over.

Now for people with regular weather, this may not seem like a big deal. But this is Pasadena we're talking about, Southern California, where it never rains on New Year's day for the big Parade to celebrate the great year-round growing climate. Hail, indeed!

Summer's End / Winter Planting / Heat

2005-10-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

90F + today, hot hot hot dry wind. Forecast? Flash floods and rain! We'll see.

Summer Debris, Winter Sowing

Meanwhile, the last of the summer garden came down today. Dried cornstalks uprooted and added to the compost pile, dried sunflower stalks likewise. Crunchy sugar pea vines threaded out of the chain link fence-cum-trellis, a last grope for rogue potatoes that might have been missed. Also weeded out first of the winter garden last weekend and put in garlic and shallots.

Garlic is amusing as "seeds" come from the produce department. In this case, organic garlic from Organic Express. And Von's. Took the largest cloves from several bulbs and sowed them. Learned with last crop that size of the starting clove is a big factor in finished clove. Shallots also came from produce department. Not organic, so not as excited about those.

Mid-week our Marauder -- probably a skunk, but could be a possum or even raccoon -- got into the water garden. He loves to shred water lilies while fishing. The mosquito fish, fortunately, breed prodigiously, and in the four years our water garden has been up, we've never had a 100% die off. Or any mosquitoes.

Marauder also had a dig in the garlic bed, disturbed a few, but was probably looking for grubs or earth worms in the turned dirt. (Once I left the lid on the worm bin too loose, and someone had a feast. The worms are back, but I keep a brick on the lid now.)

Salad Days of Winter

Sometime this week will get the rest of my winter "Salad Garden" in the ground: Chives, Broccoli, endive, escarole, radicchio, corn salad (aka mache or valerianella locusta), green and red romaine lettuces, Italian arugula. And French carrots.

It's a lot, I know, but if half the crop does half what it should in the temperate fall here, we will do okay. 'Course, these should have gone in the ground three or four weeks ago, but that just wasn't possible due to various maladies.

I went kind of crazy at the Renee's Garden display at the hardware. Some great seeds that are hard to find, and it made me happy to put back all the "Miracle Gro" seeds I had reluctantly been gathering, and go with Renee's.

Summer Finale

For the past several weeks, the Night Blooming Jasmine we planted two years ago has been in crazy-bloom! Intense, lovely perfume drifts for blocks when the plants are blooming, and of course they only bloom at night.

The scent is a little heavy, almost cloying, but I love it -- probably the only thing of that kind that I do. It reminds me of later summers and early fall as a boy at the Great Grandmother's house on Balboa Island. After a long walk around the island, we'd get within a 100 feet of the house and there would be that smell; and my mother would say, sniffing the air vigorously "Mmmm. Night blooming jasmine!" And we would breathe deep as we passed through the creaky old wooden gate, and in a few seconds we'd be indoors, getting ready for bed in a house that smelled of ancient mildew and salt spray as only a beach house can.

Night blooming jasmine is my own little time machine.

Just Like the Great-Grands

2005-10-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy, my Great Aunt and her sister, my Great Grandmother, kept daily notes on a kitchen calendar or calendar book. They would make observations about the weather, who they saw, what they did, and, most interestingly to me, notes about which plants had come into bloom and what had been planted or taken up.

This is my version of the same thing.

I could keep it in a private book in my house, but I have tried that before and find that I give up. Not sure if I will give up here, but I hope I will not.

This is mostly trivia, encompassing the afformentioned garden notes, weather observations and natural history. I will probably also include periodic posts in Journal form that will be duplicated to my "Easy Green" site.

You are welcome to comment, ask questions, offer suggestions. On the other hand, I do not expect anyone really to read this but me.