To-Do List; Plus Urban Chickens

I dug my garlic last night. It's a bit earlier than usual, and it never did fall over like it usually does when it's getting ready to harvest. It just dried up, still standing in place. But the bulbs are nice, big ones and are now out on a rack in the shade drying out a bit. The cloves on some of the driest ones started to separate, and some even have little bulblets growing inside the stem just above the main bulb (never seen that before). Those won't store well, and can't be braided so they'll get used first. But I think after a day or two, the rest can still be cleaned and braided to finish curing. I do so like the look of a garlic braid in my pantry.

The whole month of June was cooler and wetter than normal here. Most of the salad greens are still doing great (the arugula, spinach, and a red leaf lettuce have bolted, starting to flower). I'm harvesting whole lettuce plants every other day - for me, for friends and neighbors, and some for the chickens too. The snap and snow peas are starting to produce, and the English peas should be ready soon, if they can withstand the July heat. The corn, beans, and squashes are up and just starting to grow; the fruiting bed is slow getting going.

I'll be spending the holiday weekend pretty close to home - I've got lots to do to keep me busy. Here's my yard & garden to-do list:

Get the netting over the Reliance grape - soon! if I want grapes, and raisins, this year.

Pick, pit, and process more pie cherries - I've got a bowlful dehydrating on screens in the sun, but the ones on the inside branches are almost ripe.


Pick raspberries - these are new plants I got from a friend last summer, so they haven't set much of a crop, but there are a few red ones down low on the branches that grew last year.

Cut and dry oregano and marjoram. I made that the subject of today's post, just written and posted, over on the SGF Co-op blog - which is why I'm still inside on the computer.

Pack more straw around potato plants, and fill in bare spots in the row with the last of the ones from last year sprouting in the cellar.

Thin fruit, head back overlong branches, and remove suckers on the fruit trees. I did the Freedom apple a couple of days ago - it hadn't been pruned for a couple of years. The Gravenstein should be thinned, and then the Liberty and Macintosh. The Asian pears and plums need it too. There are dead branches (borer damage) on the nectarine and peach trees that need to be removed - those trees aren't looking too good (they're about 20 years old), so it's time to start thinking about replacements.

Get the extra tomato and pepper plants off the deck table. I need to either call the neighbors that said they wanted them, plant them outside my fence as u-pick freebies, or put them out of their misery.

Weeding, weeding, and more weeding - I got around the brassicas and the early bed looks good. I just wear my Ipod set on Shuffle, sit cross-legged on a foam weeding pad, scoot it along the row, and hand-weed around each plant. It's easiest after the soaker hose has run the night before, and I have to admit, I do enjoy the satisfying crunch/pop when you pull a weed out by the roots.

But I can hardly see the beets and carrots (they need thinning too, as does the strawberry patch). The fruiting bed really needs it next, especially inside the Wall-o-Waters (the nice little micro-climate inside is also very conducive to weed growth). It will be easier if I get the WoW's off first and then just do it all at once. The corn could use a quick going-over with the hula hoe before I hill-up the plants, and I should run it around the squashes before they really take off. I can't believe some people actually grow purslane intentionally! Sure, it's tasty, but here it grows like the weed it is!

Oh! and one other little interesting item: urban chickens are now legal in Carson City! My birds have always been legal, since our lot is larger than an acre. I've been interviewed a couple of times regarding urban chickens though, and always helped push for changing the ordinance. Our City Supervisors did just that yesterday - allowing up to four hens or ducks (no roosters), or two pot-bellied pigs up to 150 pounds each (the mayor has one - he abstained from the vote) anywhere in the city. It's now safe for some chickens I know of to come out of hiding!

Short Season Tomatoes and Peppers

Summer's finally here, and daytime temps are reaching up towards the 90's. But high desert nights cool off down in the 40's in June, and the 50's all summer long. Add to that a frost-free season averaging only a little over 100 days, and crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and okra can be a bit difficult to grow here.

Forget vine-ripened Brandywine tomatoes - they'll still be green when the nights turn frosty in mid-September. I grow Early Girl for salads and sandwiches, and Sweet 100 for snacking, usually grazing on them right there in the garden. Both are hybrids, so no saving seeds, but I like the taste of each of them so buy a packet of seeds every few years. I also plant at least six paste tomato plants - my main crop for canning in many different guises. I started with an Amish Paste tomato, and about 20 years ago started saving seeds from the biggest, earliest fruit each summer. I consider it my own personal heirloom now - I call it CC (for Carson City) Paste. Many of my pepper plants are also grown from saved seeds - I just smash open one of the peppers hung to dry in various ristras. I haven't yet been able to save viable seeds from my eggplants or okra, so I buy seeds for them. Black Beauty eggplant and Clemson Spineless okra do well here.

I start all my fruiting plants from seed in late March to early April. The tomatoes get transplanted once, into deeper pots burying part of the stem, in early May. The plants are still quite small by the end of May, but I think that lessens the transplant shock and once into the garden they'll settle in quicker. I start hardening them off just before Memorial Day - setting them outside for longer periods each day, bringing them back in at night.

I rotate the type of plants - early, fruiting, vining, roots & brassicas, corn & beans - around through my five garden beds so that the type of bed will be the same every sixth year. Tomatoes, in the fruiting bed, and potatoes, in the roots bed, are in the same family however, so I try to put the tomatoes in a different part of the bed than where the potatoes were only a couple of years ago. In early June, it's time to get everything into the ground. Each of my 50' planting beds get an inch of compost and a light dusting of my all-purpose fertilizer mix (equal parts bone meal, blood meal, and greensand) every Spring, so I level the surface and lay out a soaker hose.

Into each planting hole, I also add some crushed eggshells (for calcium), some Epsom Salts (for magnesium), and a bit extra of the fertilizer mix. Then I get the hose, fill each hole with water, and start setting in each plant. Most of the plants are set in as deep as they were in their starting pots, but tomatoes will form roots on any part of their stem if it's buried. So I pinch off some of the lower leaves and set them in even deeper, leaving only the top couple of leaves above ground. More and deeper roots on the tomatoes help alleviate problems that our temperature swings and dry climate can cause.

Next come the cages. The little cone-shaped tomato cages really aren't big enough to support my tomatoes, but they work great for the peppers and eggplants. For the tomatoes, I've made cages out of welded hog wire fencing. For extra support (we do get some pretty good winds out of the west), each of the tomatoes gets a metal stake (2.5' for the determinate paste tomatoes, 6' for the indeterminate Early Girl and Sweet 100) pounded into the ground, and then a cage, the same diameter as a plastic five-gallon bucket, goes over the post and is secured with a twist-tie. And then, the secret for getting a decent harvest from these long-season plants: a Wall-o-Water (WoW) is placed over each cage.

The Wall-o-Waters are stored through the winter in a five-gallon bucket in the shed. Once they're in place over each caged plant, I sit on the up-ended bucket and start filling each little tube. It's tedious business, but a pistol-grip nozzle on the hose makes it easier. It's tricky to get the WoW's to stand up when you first start filling one. If you have new ones without leaks and no cages, put a five-gallon bucket upside down over the plant, the WoW around the bucket, fill tubes on alternating sides until all are full, and then pull the bucket out. Okra doesn't need the support of a cage when growing, so if I don't have enough cages I'll make sure the WoW's over the okra are ones without leaks (I clip on old clothespins to mark which ones have leaks - one pin means only a leak or two, two pins means they'll work best over the big tomato cages). I have a piece of smooth wire fencing in a perfectly-sized circle I can use to support the WoW when filling. It's even easier than using a bucket, but make sure all the wire ends are bent to inside the circle. Once filled, the WoW is self-supporting. But I've found having cages inside each one make things easier, keeps the ones that have leaks from falling over, and provides extra support in our winds.

The WoW's, even the ones with leaks, provide wind protection and a warm little micro-climate inside to get my little plants off to a good start. Around the Fourth of July, our nights are warmed up enough to get the WoW's off the plants. It takes two of us to lift them up and over, off the cages. The water inside is dumped onto the plants, and the WoW's hung up on the clothesline to drip-dry, then stacked up, rolled up, and stored away in their bucket.

Save Some Cherries for Me!

Frost nailed the blossoms on our sweet cherry tree this Spring, so no black cherries for us this year. We have a standard-size self-pollinating one. It's 25 years old, and I think it's called a Garden Bing Cherry. The aphids go really go for this tree though, at least until they die off in the summer heat. I've looked occasionally at other sweet cherry trees, but any Bings I've seen are either extra-dwarf or need a pollinator. I might have to try a Sweetheart Cherry - they're supposed to be a really late bloomer and self-fruitful as well. Anyone have any experience with them - especially in zone 5-6?

I also have a Montmorency pie cherry tree, and this year's crop is looking pretty good. They're just starting to color up - it'll be time to start picking in a few more days. So I needed to get the bird-scare tape out there. If you get the tape on the tree too early, the birds get used to it; too late and they'll clean-pick the tree just before the cherries get ripe (notice in the bottom photo: the earliest-ripening cherries, in the top of the tree getting the most sun, are already almost gone). Scare tape is a flexible shiny 1" wide tape; some red on one side and silver on the other, this particular roll is silver with holographic angles that flash different colors in the sun (beware: 8-year old neighbor girls find it fascinating - they'll be asking to steal the tape right off your tree).

I headed out to the tree with the tape and some scissors. The birds have started on the upper-most cherries - only bare pits left clinging to the branches. But I find it a bit odd that the ground underneath the tree is also littered with pits - birds don't usually drop the pits. Cutting long strips to flap and flash in the sun, I tie one end (with a loose overhand knot - I reuse the tape all summer, moving the pieces to other trees as their fruit ripens) to outside branches all around the tree. Then I duck under the branches, adding a few more strips hanging down the inside. I step back to see if there are any glaring tape-free sections. And am a bit startled to notice a ground squirrel, high up, clinging to a thin top branch, holding perfectly still. I've been out there at least 20 minutes - I can't believe he's been swaying over my head all this time.

He was still holding so still - not even blinking. I got a stick and reached up to tap him to make sure he was still alive. That was enough to scare him down out of there and off into the brush. I don't mind sharing my harvest - the birds will get the cherries above where the scare tape is, and there should be enough this year to put out the "free u-pick" sign for the neighbors too. But I've found that once ground squirrels (not cute fluffy-tailed tree squirrels - these are more like rats with scruffy tails) get a taste of something, they won't share with me. So I put the little plastic owl in the lowest crotch of the tree, hung a few mirrors on the bigger branches, and got out the box trap - time for greedy squirrels to go bye-bye (and since yesterday, I've "relocated" three to over by the creek away from any other houses - plenty of cover, natural food and water). Oh boy, cherry time! Dried (my favorite!), pie, flavored vinegar, and maybe even enough to try making some hard cherry cider?

Soaker Hoses Save Water

Risa, blogger at Stony Run Farm, posted her friend's Homage to Lizards poem in comments for the House Lizards post below - I like the imagery of her "lizard paparazzi". Chris left a tip on catching lizards - unfortunately, it involves shading them when they're lying in the sun, which wouldn't work for catching house lizards. Albert, the cat, must have heard my admonishments though, because the very next day he kept a lizard entranced in the bedroom until I could trap it. All the outside doors were closed, so this was one already in the house (hmmm - wonder how that happened). I used the empty bathroom wastebasket and got that one relocated outside too.

Melynda, over at Mom's Sunday Cafe, has noticed the soaker hoses in my yard and garden. She wants to conserve water in her garden, so asked for more information about using them. Since I manage to grow a pretty good garden in an area that averages 7" precipitation annually (and most of that comes as snow in winter), plus have a weak well (needs 35-40 minutes recharge time to fill 50 gallon tank), I probably have some tips and methods for others that need to make every drop count in their own gardens.

Spraying and sprinklers are extremely ineffective watering methods, especially with our hot, dry winds. Half the water ends up blowing away from the area you're trying to water, and a lot of the rest of it evaporates before getting to the roots of the plants. Soaker hoses keep the water where it's needed, at a rate the ground and the plants can absorb. By clustering plants with similar water needs, closely spacing vegetable plants to shade their own roots, and infrequent deep watering we manage to get by.

Using different lengths of soaker hoses gives me flexibility in how and where I put my plants. In my vegetable garden, I use free-form raised waffle beds. I saw no need for the expense of building structures for the beds - I just groom them into shape with a rake each Spring, after digging in the compost and before planting. The beds are in the same place year after year, and I walk only in the pathways, so the soil never gets compacted in the growing area. For ease of cultivating, the beds are a bit more than two rake-widths wide, with a single rake-width for the interior paths. I pull the edges up a bit above the planting area, dishing out the center, to help hold water when getting my seeds to germinate (the only time I use a hand-held nozzle). I then run a single 50' hose down the center of each bed (although this year, I'm experimenting with a double-hose set-up on my early bed to lessen heat stress and perhaps stretch the harvest out a bit longer).

The soil here is called DG - decomposed granite. What that really means is coarse sand with very little plant nutrient value. My garden beds get at least an inch of compost dug into them each Spring, providing nutrients plus helping to retain water. Light, frequent watering makes plants form shallow, spread-out root systems. I want my plants to make deep roots so they're better able to withstand the heat during July and August. So after the vegetable plants are up and growing, they only get watered every third or fourth day, for 8-10 hours at a time. The top inch of the soil may look dry, but checking a bit deeper shows plenty of moisture. I don't water straight from the house faucet - I can't take the chance of running the well dry and burning out the pump (it's 212' feet down - a bit hard to repair). Instead, I use a gravity-fed system run from a couple of tanks that are filled from the house faucet using a very low-flow restrictor (more on that in another post).

My system can easily handle 100' feet of soaker hose at a time. I don't like the restrictors included in new soaker hoses - I pull them out and use new rubber washers instead. Besides, using a gravity-fed system means my water pressure is quite low to begin with. If I were using water straight out of a city-house faucet, opening the faucet only 1/8 turn would provide sufficient pressure for a system like mine. The seeping moisture of soakers attracts birds and other wild creatures, so I water the vegetables, two beds at a time, all night long, and then switch over to hoses in the landscaping during the day (no use inviting trouble). Using a series of y-valves and a few 4-way manifolds, it's easy to change where the water goes.

By taking up my hoses in late fall and storing them out of the weather, they last for years. In the Spring, it's easier to get them placed where I want them if I first stretch them out in the sun to soften up a bit (a smaller 25' hose coils round and round in the square strawberry bed above). Just about all the gardens and landscaping (except the fruit trees) are on soakers. I'll write about watering the orchard in a later post.

No More House Lizards!

The cat brought in another live lizard a couple of days ago. I heard him mumbly-meowing in the living room, went to see what was the matter, and was just in time to see him spit out the lizard and away it went.

I saw it once yesterday, running across the living room; and then could hear some scuffling behind my desk last night while at my computer. Then, this morning when I sat down and reached over to turn on the computer, the lizard was looking at me from atop the computer tower. Ack! I startled and so did he - he ran over the top of the computer and back down behind it. I could peer over the top and see him back down there amid the cords and dust bunnies, but had no way to reach him. Later, this afternoon, I saw him a couple more times up on the guest bed but wasn't fast enough to trap him (too nervous to pick him up bare-handed - I flinch and he's gone again). But with persistence (buoyed by the fear that a lizard is going to run across my face in my sleep), I managed to turn the coffee can I keep on my sewing machine as a scrap catcher into a lizard catcher - trapping him atop the pillows, slipping a magazine underneath, and gently transporting him out the front door. No more live cat toys in the house! Do you hear me, Albert?

Dad's Apron?

I was back in Colorado earlier this year, visiting my mom. She was going through the basement, garage, and closets, getting things together for a garage sale. She told me to look through what she was planning to sell, to see if there was anything I wanted. As a kid, I vaguely remembered seeing this silly old apron, hanging in the broom closet way back when. I now have it hanging in my pantry. I don't really remember anyone in particular wearing it, but just seeing it brings a smile to my face.

I always tell people I really did grow up in a 1950's sit-com family. Mom quit teaching school when I was born and stayed home until the baby, five kids later, started school. Dad worked, Mom did the shopping, laundry, and cooking, us girls did the dishes and cleaned house, the boys mowed the lawn. But Mom didn't wear aprons like my grandmothers did. If she was canning or cooking something splattery, she might wear one of those backwards shirt-type smocks, but not a tied around the waist-type apron.

Dad would cook on camping trips and outside on the charcoal grill, but didn't do much cooking inside the house. I don't remember if he ever really did wear this apron. The one thing I do remember though, is that sometimes on a weekend morning, wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, he'd cook pancakes for us kids and let Mom sleep in. That was something different, something special, a treat - having Dad in the kitchen. Now that I'm older and think about it, after taking care of five kids all week, getting to sleep in must have really been a treat for my mom too.

High-Desert Choi

I work in the garden; I volunteer in my community; I get out and about in the area walking and hiking. I take photos and write blog entries in my head just about every day. But lately, when I'm back at my computer, I end up checking e-mail, playing games, and surfing the 'net instead of writing about my adventures and observations. Then, I feel guilty it's been so long since I posted. Do I try to play catch-up, or start fresh from today? The decision paralyzes me, and another day goes by without a post.

I really want to get back into the habit of writing here. I enjoy it; I enjoy the feedback; I like to feel I'm contributing some of the things I've learned. I have managed to get something written each time it's my day to post on the Co-op blog. Right now, I've got a bumper crop of lettuce and greens (netting that bed really did the job), so today I wrote about my latest kitchen treat: green smoothies.

This is the photo I used on that post. It's of the only bok choi I've found that won't bolt to seed when our days get long and our high-desert temperatures shift into summer-mode overnight. I started the big plants inside and set them out, but have more little ones seeded in place alongside the peas ready to move as I start harvesting the biggest ones. It's called Joi Choi, and really worth searching out (I often have to order the seeds online) if you like making summertime stir-frys out of the garden.

Scattered Thoughts, Scattered Showers

Eleven-thirty a.m. and the rain drove me inside. I was out trying to get my "fruiting" garden plants set in - my tomatoes, peppers, chiles, eggplants, and okra. Nights are still quite chilly, so I haven't seeded the corn, beans, or squash yet, but the fruiting plants will be protected until the Fourth of July so they should be ok (as long as I can get everything done later this afternoon - the rain doesn't last too long at a time so I jump out and in as necessary).

I've been keeping busy with various meetings and social gatherings lately. My Soroptimist Club had a Bunco Night, with wine and desserts. Most of us had never played before, but it didn't take long to catch on. It was really fun. Our fiscal year ends June 30th, so as Treasurer I've also been busy with Budget Meeting preparations and our annual dues billing.

Then, the Democratic Women's Club had a Games Night, with potluck supper. That too, was lots of fun - I ended up in a group playing a strange old board game about the Titanic sinking. You had to maneuver about the ship gathering up passengers, food and water, then get to a lifeboat, and then to the rescue ship, while the other players were trying to steal your supplies and the ship sinking kept cutting off routes about the ship. Interesting what games people invent.

Saturday, a group of home-based artists south of here held open houses. A friend is looking for more art for her home, so I went along with her to check them out. I was more interested in seeing others' gardens and studios. It made for an interesting afternoon, but neither of us saw anything that really reached out and grabbed us.

Lastly, Aries took a week's vacation time. Our home is supposed to be barn red with terra cotta trim, but the last paint we used faded so badly that it's been more of a fuchsia for the last few years. Aries has always hated it, so when he saw exterior paint on sale, he decided to repaint the house and outbuildings. Little did he realize that we'd also see rare, scattered afternoon thundershowers all week too. So he gets up early, paints a bit, and then hopes it has time to dry before it rains. So far, so good. He's off to Reno for beer making supplies now. The rain has stopped for a bit, so I'm headed back out to the garden.

Poultry Update

Tweedit, our guinea hen, has been patiently setting on her nest out front since the middle of April. It's way past time for them to have hatched though. So a few days ago, when she was off the nest to eat, we picked up the eggs. She came back to the nest and was calling the rest of the afternoon, but that evening Aries went out front and walked her back down to the coop and she went right in. All three guineas are now flocking together once again.

For the last three years, both Tweedit and Missus have brought in clutches, but it's looking like no keets this year. Missus is Grey's mate (that's Grey, above, in defensive papa mode); Tweedit was the only survivor from Missus' first clutch, hatched in late September four years ago. This Spring, our neighbor found Missus' nest in his shed and threw all her eggs away. They each might lay and set on another clutch late in the summer, but it's hard to raise the babies when the weather starts getting colder so if we catch them at it we'll clean out the nests too.

The chickens are now spending their days inside the pen instead of free-ranging. It's easier to find all the eggs (9-12 a day now) when they're in the nest boxes, and it saves a lot of destruction to my landscaping. PheasantFace and Junior have been flying out, but they've pretty much stayed out of the flower beds and the garden, and are both laying in one spot up by the garage, so I haven't tried to clip their wings. The guineas fly out first thing in the morning, but they prefer to range out in the sagebrush. Last year's hens, the ones raised with Coach, our bantam rooster, are looking pretty rough. He's been getting on them so much he's taken most of the feathers off their backs. I saw an ad in a poultry magazine for little protective chicken jacket/vests that fit across their backs and then velcro around their chests. I might have to make some for Coach's girls if he doesn't let their feathers grow back.

This year's new girls, Flopsy and Mopsy the Buff Orpingtons, and Cottontail and Penny the Red Stars, have now adjusted to life in the coop. They're lowest in the pecking order, so they're always on the move, staying out of everyone's way. They're the last ones in at night - taking advantage of everyone else going in to get an extra bit of food from the feed box.

We have a routine around here. Aries gets up early, so he goes down to the coop to open it up in the morning. We'll often let the flock out to free-range a bit in the evening, and then I'm the one that makes sure everyone is back inside before closing it up for the night. Last week, Aries had gone to work and I was sitting out on the deck later. I could hear Coach crowing non-stop, one right after another. Finally, I went down there to see what was going on. Aries had forgotten to open up the coop that morning. Everyone came piling out when I opened the door, and since the guineas were bullying everyone away from the food and water I went ahead and opened the pen gate too.

As I started back up to the house, I called to Boris, our hound dog, to get away from the nest box hatches and follow me. He wouldn't, despite my yelling at him to leave the chickens alone. He still just stood staring at the nest boxes, so I went back down to see what was so interesting that he wouldn't leave. One of the little Buffys was standing in the lower nest box - I figured she must have been hiding out from everyone, trapped inside the coop like that. But she wouldn't come out when I opened up the hatch - I had to get down and pick her up and set her outside. When I did, I noticed Cottontail had wedged herself headfirst in between the nest box and the wall, with the tip of one wing up around the edge of the box. Poor thing!

I managed to get her wing back next to her body, and then had to get inside the coop and crawl under the roosts to get my hand back in there to where she was. I had to reach underneath her to lift her up enough to pull her back out of there. If her feet touched the ground, as soon as I'd get her a bit backward she'd try to push forward again. I finally got her up and out, but her wing got scraped up pulling her backwards out of there. So I took her in the house to check her over, spraying liquid bandage over the scraped wing to protect it until it could heal. Within an hour she was out with her buddies like nothing had happened. I'm just glad Coach, Flopsy or Mopsy, and Boris made sure I noticed something was wrong.

Where Have I Been?

After spending a week visiting Mom in Colorado, without computer access, I got back with one day to myself. I spent Friday doing laundry, a bit of grocery shopping, catching up on mail, and writing about tomato problems for my turn on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op.

Saturday, I was up and out the door early enough to catch a hot-air balloon trying to land north of the garage. I was headed over to pick up Donna and then we were going to work a display booth for Muscle Powered in the Health Fair section of the Oodles of Noodles street fair in Dayton, Nevada - about 20 miles east.

May is Bike Month, and Muscle Powered had put together lots of events the following week for Bike to Work Week, so it was perfect timing to get the word out to lots of people. Probably not everyone has to contend with our afternoon winds - the Washoe Zephyr - but if you're putting together an outside information booth you might take note of my bungee cord set-up. Originally an idea from my mom for restraining a camping tablecloth, it works really well for keeping handouts in place and still easily available. Large bungee cords are wrapped width-wise around the display table and hooked together underneath. During a wet Earth Day street fair a few years ago, I had a piece of clear plastic the same size as the table I just tucked under the end bungees. Items were visible and it was easy to just reach underneath the plastic to pick up anything. It sure beats chasing litter down the street.

Sunday morning I was up even earlier. I spent the next six days working the early-early morning to mid-afternoon shift as a shuttle coordinator for the Intel Science and Engineering Fair in Reno. The tourism destination management company I work on-call for was manning all shuttle bus pick-up areas, back and forth from the hotels to the convention center from 5:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. plus all outside tours. The sagging economy and the proliferation of Tribal Casinos in California means tourism has really dropped in my area, so I was glad to get the chance to pick up some hours.

According to our pre-Fair briefing, about 1,600 high school students from 50 countries participated. Counting parents, teachers, and judges, around 6,000 people stayed the week. Four million dollars in scholarships were awarded. About 20% of the kids already have patents on their projects and inventions (I was talking to one of the judges - lots of major corporations send representatives to this fair. I was thinking "how nice, they're looking to recruit these kids when they get out of school." Wrong - they're there to steal ideas - thus the need for patents).

After a long week, I got home Friday just in time to get my things together for a weekend on Lake Tahoe's north shore.

Our friends own a time-share in a little resort up there. It's a funky little place - this building was originally built in the late 1950's as athlete housing for the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, plus little old-Tahoe cabins. The time-share management hosts a pre-summer season work weekend - feeding us on Saturday and Sunday in exchange for work raking the beach, painting, flower planting, and various other fix-up chores. My friends often attend, and this year had reserved a two-bedroom unit so asked if I'd like to go with them (Aries was working until Sunday).

I rode with Larry to pick up Krista at the airport in Reno that evening, and then up to North Shore via the Mount Rose Highway. The summit of the two-lane road between Reno and Tahoe is almost 9,000 feet. The ski areas are all closed for the season, but there was still snow in the trees alongside the road and covering the mountains above. We had a nice dinner out in Tahoe City, and I spent all day Saturday and then Sunday morning setting out annual flowers and working on the landscaping.

Aries came up Sunday morning on his motorcycle. He pitched in working for a while too. He brought my helmet and jacket, so after lunch I let our friends take my things back to Carson and Aries and I took the long way home. We went west and then south around the Lake, stopped for a while above Emerald Bay, and from South Shore headed south away from the Lake over Luther Pass. At Hope Valley, we turned east to head down the canyon. At the bottom, as we came around the corner from the canyon out onto the sagebrush valley, the temperature increased a good 20 degrees - it was over 90F! I was so glad I'd missed most of the heat up in the mountains all weekend. And glad to finally have some time at home again too! I've had lots of things to catch up on around the house and out in the garden - more on that later.

Home Again

Miss me? I've missed all of you. I just spent a week in Denver visiting my Mom. She doesn't (didn't, anyway) have internet access, so my only time online was a couple of 15-minute sessions at the local library - just long enough to check my email. But all five of us siblings (I also have a Colorado Brother and a California Brother) had pitched in together and bought Mom a new laptop for Mother's Day. Colorado Sister lives near Mom, and California Sister flew in for a visit the same day I flew out, and she brought the new laptop (and even put together a personalized how-to manual). So in between our flights we three sisters went to lunch with Mom and gave her her present - with a new email address already set up for her and all her contacts notified. California Sister will spend her time there getting Mom's new internet access all set up and give her some internet lessons. I think she'll really enjoy it once she learns how to maneuver in cyberspace (and that means there will be home internet access next time I visit).

It was a wonderful little get-away for me - the perfect little space on my calendar, spent just hanging out with Mom and Colorado Sis. I walked with Mom when she played in her 9-hole golf league one day (great view of Red Rocks Amphitheater from a high point on the golf course - top tiers of the seats visible between the two big rocks on the left, Lookout Mountain beyond),

and spent another day with my sister out geocaching up on Lookout Mountain (even nicer view of the Rockies from the parking lot for Buffalo Bill's grave).

Now I'm back home again, with bunches of things to do in the garden and my calendar booked solid for the next two weeks. The lilacs are in bloom, and so are the last of the fruit trees - the apples and the pie cherry. The netting is still intact over the garden, and my peas and lettuces are coming up. Guinea Tweedit is still sitting on her nest out front - I haven't heard any peeping out there yet, but it should be any day now. It was my day to post on the SGF Co-op blog. My Colorado Sister has had problems with blossom-end rot on her tomatoes, so I thought I'd write about Troubleshooting Tomatoes for her over there. And with that, I think I've done enough writing for today.

Lizard's Alive

I'd just hung the big laundry items out on the clothesline, and came back in to get the little collapsible rack to set out on the patio for the socks and underwear. Albert, the cat, met me at the bathroom door with a mouthful of lizard (see last paragraph of April 27th post). He promptly spit it out, but this time I was faster. I scooped up the lizard and took him back outside (the cat is still looking for it in the bathroom). Most of our lizards are a dull dark color, but this one was quite pretty, light and dark grey with some almost iridescent turquoise scales on his back (and with his tail still intact). Let's hope he's learned to stay away from the cat!

In Pursuit of Peas

I garden in a pretty harsh climate - it can freeze any time until early June, and then the daytime temperatures can be up in the 90's overnight. Nights cool down to the 40's so using mulch too early in the season cools the soil too much for effective germination of many seeds. We average only seven inches of precipitation annually, and most of that in the form of snow November to March. Most years, we have no rain at all from May through September so everything has to be artificially irrigated. Afternoon winds and hot daytime temperatures make spray watering wasteful, so I use 50' soaker hoses on my wide garden beds.

The land also slopes downward towards the east so instead of long rows, I've free-form shaped each bed into a flattened "S" shape to create a terraced effect on the slope, and arranged the four "S" shapes of the main garden into a decorative four-square. With wider paths between the beds and a small central circular flowerbed with a sundial, my garden is attractive as well as productive (bottom center on the aerial photo of our lot; the grey roofed buildings are our neighbors' below us). I rotate my crops around through five beds, so don't have any permanent structures as part of any one bed. Everything gets taken apart and stored at the end of the season, and reconstructed anew each Spring. And this year, I've resorted to something different in my ongoing pursuit of peas.

Fresh-picked home-grown peas - nothing like what you buy in a store: memories of shelling English peas in the backyard as a child; flat Chinese pea pods still crunchy in a stir-fry; grazing on raw Snap peas right there in the garden. I love peas, and haven't had a decent crop for years. The past couple of years, I was able to protect the young plants with wire until they got tall enough to survive assaults by bugs and birds, but wasn't getting many peas. Finally, I caught the guineas in the act of stretching up to eat the flowers before they had time to set fruit. And then this year, sparrows or quail got under the wire to the little pea plants as soon as they emerged from the ground (they got all the lettuce seedlings too, and almost destroyed the spinach that overwintered). Desperate for some fresh green things myself, it was time to take desperate measures!

It's getting late in the season for pea planting - if I wait too long the summer heat sets in, and that's it for the pea plants. So before replanting my pea patches, I soaked the seeds overnight and then kept them wet down with paper towels a couple of days until they started to sprout, then planted the sprouted seeds (I reseeded various lettuces too). My pea support trellises are t-posts pounded into the ground and then wire fencing wired between them - strong enough to both support pea vines and withstand our afternoon winds. And then, something desperate - I draped netting, originally designed to cover an entire fruit tree, over the entire "S" shaped bed, supported by the pea t-posts plus a few more here and there, held down with rocks and bricks. I think this just might work! I can leave the netting in place, and sit underneath when it's time to harvest. As long as the wind doesn't tear it apart, or a late heavy snow rip it down, I just might get good crops of both greens and peas. The heart of a gardener is ever hopeful.

Countdown to Denver

I've had so many different things going on lately, I feel like every day is just something more to cross off my list of things I have to do. I'm planning on taking off for a week to go visit my Mom in Denver, so I'm also trying to get garden things onto automatic pilot so Aries won't have to worry about plant stuff while I'm gone.

Saturday, the Democratic Women put on our annual fundraising Spring Luncheon and Fashion Show . In previous years I've been one of the models, but the past couple of years we've had local celebrities as models instead, so I was part of the raffle prize committee (which involves begging prize donations from local businesses). Sunday I spent in Reno at the Soroptimist Region Conference, with a few hundred other women from 60 clubs throughout Nevada and California.

Today, Aries helped me finish getting compost spread and dug into the last of the garden beds. I dug the last of the leeks from last year, put a few into the leek nursery bed to make more leeks for subsequent years' plantings, put some down into the cellar to keep for a bit, and made potato and leek soup for dinner (with cellared Yukon Gold potatoes, still keeping nicely down there, and my last stored garlic bulb; plus One-Hour French Bread). I thinned some of the seedlings I've got under lights in the guest room, and am debating whether I want Aries to start setting some of the cole plants out to start hardening off while I'm gone or just wait until I get back to do it myself. It snowed night before last, so there's really no hurry.

This year's four new little chickens - I guess they'd be called pullets now - are fitting in with the rest of the flock and spending their nights out in the coop. They still come back up to the dog run in the evening, so I catch and carry them down to the coop each night and then they go right in. Pretty soon, the dog run will be taken over by guinea Tweedit and her clutch - she's still patiently setting on her nest in the Oregon Grape out front. I hope she waits until I'm back from Denver to bring in her babies.

And one more thing: the cat brought something in the house this afternoon. I had the doors and windows open, and could hear him meowing inside when I was outside. I went in to see what was wrong, and he was squatting down with his back to me in the living room. I thought he might be sick or something, but when I came up to see if he was ok, something (not sure if it was a mouse or a lizard - I'm thinking the latter, I haven't seen mice around here since the owl moved into the pine trees across the street) scurried away from him and under the couch. So now I'm paranoid that I'll find out what it was when I go to put on my shoes in the morning.

Echo Summit and a Birthday Party

We took off for a couple of days to visit some of Aries' relatives near Sacramento. This trip, we took Highway 50 over the Sierras. First, we drove up out of our valley, over Spooner Summit and then down to and around the south end of Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe is said to be a Washoe Indian word, meaning Big Sky Water, and scenes like this make it easy to see why they named it that. The natural lake, more than 6,000 feet above sea level is so deep that it never freezes, and almost always reflects the color of the sky.

Once around the lake, we start to climb up out of the Tahoe Basin over Echo Summit. This narrow mountain road is one of the major routes between the Lake and California. The snow is finally starting to melt from the hillsides above, sending rivulets of water cascading down next to the road. The granite rises straight above the road on one side, and drops more than 1000 feet on the other; rooftops and trees dot the valley far below.

Dropping down the western slope, Desolation Wilderness is north of the highway. Despite the name, this wilderness area is one of the most accessible in California. It is 100 square miles of glaciated granite, dotted with many small lakes. Above the Twin Bridges trailhead, a quick glimpse of Horsetail Falls (in the middle of the photo, right below the saddle) shows quite a bit of water coming down. During the winter, the falls are sparkling white, blue and green ice; by September the water will slow to a trickle sliding down the rock face.

As the highway drops lower in altitude the snowbanks get smaller and smaller. By the time we've dropped down into the American River canyon, they're gone completely. As we continue westward, Springtime advances and by the time we reach the Apple Hill area above Placerville the trees are in full bloom; the Sierras just a snowy line on the eastern horizon.

We had a nice visit. One of Aries' cousins hosted a barbecue for her dad's 85th birthday. The brother of Aries' dad, his uncle is the only one of that generation left on either side of Aries' family. His other cousin flew in from Salt Lake City for the party, so it made for a nice reunion. While Aries and I had visited his uncle and aunt before, I'd never met these cousins. They're all great people and we had a wonderful time.

It was sooooo hot and humid down there though. After a couple of days, I'm so glad to get back to my cool and dry desert. I can wait a bit longer for summer to arrive, thank you.

Good Day, Bad Birds

I spent the better part of today working a garage sale. A little over a week ago, my Soroptimist Club decided to put one together as a fundraising event. We all needed to do some Spring cleaning anyway, and one of the members had an empty rental house we could use to stage it in. So, this past week we've used her empty garage to gather all our donations and get everything priced and sorted and ready. We made $1,200 to put towards our next year's Service projects! And we have the local domestic violence shelter coming by Monday to pick up everything left for their thrift shop.

When I got home, I went out to check on the early plantings out in the garden. The peas were (notice the past tense) all just starting to come up, and it's supposed to get hot the next couple of days so I turned on the water on them for a bit. This evening, when I went out to turn off the water, NO PEAS! They were covered with 2"x3" wire, shaped into boxes a few inches above the plants - just in case one of the the chickens got into the garden, they wouldn't be able to reach the new little plants or scratch in the wet dirt. But something (I'm thinking quail), got in under the wire and ate up every little pea sprout! Arrrrggghh!! I really want fresh peas, and haven't had much of a crop the past few years. I really thought the wire would do it, but now I'm thinking I'll have to try some kind of netting. I want peas!

Longtime readers of this blog might remember I occasionally write about my concert-ushering adventures with my sister. I expanded that idea for my most-recent post over on the SGF Co-op blog - lots of ideas about free fun by finding volunteer opportunities in your community; spending time instead money. Check it out!

Our Real Easter Egg Hunt

Now you see them:

Now you don't:

We get the fun of real egg hunts around here. Last week (April 10th) Tweedit, one of our guinea hens, stopped coming back to the coop at night. That meant either something got her or, more likely this time of year, she was now setting on a nest. So I started looking for her, and found her out front between a shed wall and some very prickly Oregon Grape (that's her tail feathers in the second photo - pretty good camouflage). Then, yesterday, when I saw her eating and getting a drink of water I ran to see what she was setting on. I counted 22 eggs. Usually a few don't hatch, and a few of the baby keets won't make it out of the nest, so I'm predicting she'll bring us a dozen babies on May 8th. My Old Farmer's Almanac says 26-28 days for a guinea incubation period. Anyone else care to place their bets?

April Update

Now that that Spring is peeping 'round the corner, I've been busy out and about. This means more things than ever to post about, and less time to post.

Monday was Aries' birthday, so I made him an apple pie (he'd rather have that than a cake). I used an unknown variety of apple, gleaned from an old tree in the old part of town (probably planted some time between 1880 and 1920), stored in the cellar since fall. The apples have kept well, and made a wonderful pie. After reading the post by Matron of Husbandry about grafting fruit trees, one of my projects this summer will be to grow out some crabapple shoots to use for grafting stock for scions I'll cut from that old tree next January. It's a wonderful apple - does well here, stores well, and works for applesauce, pies, and fresh eating. By grafting to crabapple rootstock, I'm thinking I can have those apples in a smaller-size tree in my own orchard.

I've started doing Pilates a couple of times a week. Each day after, I've been a bit sore but feel good about doing something for myself (this getting old is not for sissies). I've got this year's baby chicks out of the living room and into the dog run full-time now, moving the dog crate into the doghouse out there to shut them up in at night for predator-protection (great horned owls live in the pine trees across the street). I've started my garden seedlings in the bedroom, so made a lights set-up using a couple of old shop lights, drapery rods, a plank, and ladderback chairs. My daffodils are in full bloom outside. Some big double ones are too heavy for their stalks, so I use those for bouquets inside. I think a single blossom floating in an antique dessert dish on the bathroom counter looks like a water lily. Tomorrow, Oz-time, is my turn over at the SGF Co-op blog, so I posted about my pepper plans for this year. I've got a chicken roasting in the oven for dinner, and I'm off to Reno for a Sierra Club meeting this evening.

Can You Believe This?

I've been writing about our little Missy chicken - a Brown Leghorn that was given to us at least 10 years ago that just died a couple of days ago. When she died, I asked Aries if we should call or email Alan and Mary, the couple that gave her to us, to tell them about Missy. They'd moved over the Sierras, to a town hours away, years ago. Aries had no idea how to reach them anymore, so we just said oh well. That was two days ago.

Today, Aries' day off, we decided to go for a ride over the Sierras to Daffodil Hill (I'll write more about that shortly). So off we go, up over the snowy Sierras via Carson Pass. About an hour into the drive, I ask Aries for a potty-stop (I'd been drinking coffee) at the Snow-Park just past the top of the pass. Most folks stop at the rest area on top of the pass, but I like the parking area where no one else stops, just a quarter-mile down the other side, better.

So we pull into the almost empty parking lot - only two other cars there. One is empty - they must be out cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. The other car is up near the restroom, both passengers out near their open trunk, as we pull in. "Can you believe this!" Aries says, "Look! That's Alan and Mary." He honks and parks, they're looking at us wondering who's honking at them until we get out of the car. I ask if their ears have been burning - we've just been talking about you! Really!

They were driving the other way over the Sierras to spend the day at Tahoe, and had made a quick restroom stop. It was freezing cold out - not really a place you'd want to hang around any longer that it took to get in, get out, and get on your way. Now, really, what are the odds that we'd run into anyone we knew in that particular parking lot at that particular time? Each of us headed in opposite directions. And then, have it be a couple we hadn't seen in years, but had just been thinking and talking about? Can you believe it?

A Quick Update

Just a quick update before I turn everything off for Earth Hour. Nevada is notoriously slow to get on any bandwagon, but amazingly enough, it said in the paper this morning that the Capitol will go dark (and the Las Vegas Strip - that should be interesting). Carson City itself does not plan to do anything - not too surprising. Aries is resistant to turning off the television, but I think I can get him to do it again this year anyway. I have to confess, despite turning everything off in the house, we're not really cutting our electrical use down to zero. As with last year, I think we'll be out in the hot tub. It's the biggest energy-sucker in our household, but with the night temperatures below freezing I don't want to take the chance of cutting the switch on it and having it freeze up overnight. Oh well, at least it makes it easier to get Aries to turn off everything else. I guess we all have our justifications.

Missy was dead in the nest box when I went out this morning. We can't really remember how old she would have been - at least 10 - 12 years, and we think closer to 15. We buried her out in the sagebrush part of the lot.

The four baby chicks are all feathered out now, looking like half-size chickens. They spend the day out in the dog run, but with the nights still so cold I'm still bringing them into the dog crate in the living room each night. To try and get them on a daylight schedule, when I bring them in at night I've been covering their crate so they'll settle down and sleep. Maybe next week they can go outside for good.

More of my daffodils are blooming, the grape hyacinths too. There are a few more blooms on the apricot each day, but I'm not sure if they're surviving our night temps in the 20's. There were a couple of honeybees and one big black and yellow bumble bee working the blooms early this morning before the wind came up, so we might, just maybe, get apricots this year. Once the flowers get fertilized and set fruit, the fruit can take colder temperatures than the blossoms can. And I know winter isn't through with us yet.

Our Little Missy

At least 10 - 12 years ago (maybe more?), one of Aries' co-workers asked if we'd like a chicken. A little Brown Leghorn hen had flown into their yard earlier in the year. They started feeding her and she stuck around so they named her Missy. They had no idea where she'd come from - no one nearby had chickens. She was already fully grown and laying eggs. But they didn't really have anywhere for her to stay, and they didn't think an only chicken would be very happy. Firesign Farm has long been known as a home for wayward chickens, so we said sure, we'd take her.

So Missy came to live with us. She always did fly well, and after a year or two she figured she didn't need to stay in the pen with the rest of the flock. For a few more years she'd lay her little white egg in a nest box, then fly out, spend her day scratching about around the lot, and then stand waiting to go back into the pen in the evening.

Then, one evening, she wasn't there. We thought we'd lost her to a coyote or a loose dog. But maybe a week later, I spied her getting a drink of water from the birdbath. I went out to give her some feed, and she quickly gobbled it up and then took off. I casually followed her, pretending not to be looking in her direction, but she was really sneaky - she lost me. A few days later, we did it again. Eventually, I found where she was hiding. The next time she came to drink, I snuck over there to see what she was setting on, and figured I'd better make our dog run into a brood pen. Three weeks after she first disappeared, she came down to meet me at the feed shed trailed by a dozen day-old babies. I put food and water in the dog run, and she marched them all right in.

This happened every April for years. She'd disappear, and I'd mark the calendar. I'd usually be able to follow her and find her nest eventually. In three weeks, she'd come marching back with another clutch. Half our flock are her offspring - some from when we had a RI Red rooster, later from an Amerucana. And they all drive me crazy. They all can fly out of the pen and it seems like I'm always chasing them out of the garden. They'll all go broody on me too; stop laying and want to hunker down in a nest box for weeks (so far, none of them have hidden and set on a nest, although last Spring I did find 25 eggs under a shed).

Missy stopped laying a couple of years ago. She's always had spurs, and she's so old now they're grown into complete little circles. Every day when I'm out in the yard, she comes up to me squawking and talking, begging for a handout. But today when I was outside, giving the girls a bit of corn, I noticed she didn't come over. Then, when Aries got home, he agreed with me that she didn't look like she was feeling very well. She let him pick her up (she never does that - she'll eat out of our hands, but she doesn't like to be held), and then when I offered her some corn she wouldn't eat. We put her in a nest box for the night, but I don't think she'll last much longer.

An Award from my Fellow Soroptimists

My Soroptimist Club made me cry yesterday. Our Foundation Committee put together a presentation to honor this quarter's high school Girls of the Month and the recipients of our club's various Soroptimist scholarship and recognition awards - the Women's Opportunity Award, the Making a Difference for Women Award, and the Violet Richardson Award.

This program meeting is a favorite of everyone in the club, so there were lots of members and guests. The high school girls honored are always such amazing young women - active in both school and the community, exemplary students, and their plans for their futures are always so inspiring. Then, in the middle of the presentation, the MC said, "This year, we are starting a new award for our club, called the Above and Beyond Award. Our first honoree was born and raised in Denver, Colorado."

I was born in Denver. I'm trying to think who else in the club is from Denver. The MC goes on, "She spent 10 years tending bar in Leadville, Colorado."

Oh my, she's talking about me! The MC continues (she gave me a copy of her presentation speech. Since we rarely hear how others see us, please indulge me as I quote her):

"She worked at Harvey's Casino, then at Eagle Valley Golf as Administrative Assistant. She met her husband through friends at a party - they married October 11, 1989. She has two children (no, I don't) - Boris the dog and Albert the cat (oh, ok). After 25 years, she received a degree in Human Ecology from UNR (ok, it took me a while. I worked full-time, and incurred no debt).

"She loves pizza and cheeseburgers (she's right - I don't eat them very often any more, but I could happily live on either). She's been all over the world: Tanzania, Tahiti, Honduras, Costa Rica, Machu Picchu, Belize, Curacao, Rarotonga, and has even taken a barefoot cruise on a real sailing ship (the girls, their parents, and the other guests just listen, but my club members start turning their heads to see where I'm sitting).

"She has 15 chickens - if you like eggs, let her know. She has three guinea fowl that love her and follow her all around (did she interview my husband?). She has her own garden and orchard - pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, Asian pears, plums, apricots, cherries, figs. She even has her own root cellar.

"She has a Honda Pacific Coast motorcycle which does not get out much (so, she did talk to Aries - he never said a thing!). She lives with her husband at the Firesign Farm.

"Please congratulate the first to receive Soroptimists' Above and Beyond Award. She loves to volunteer. She is involved in Muscle Powered, the Democratic Women, and Soroptimists. This year, she's been busy as our Treasurer, started a new fundraiser for our club selling garters during Nevada Day, and she is always willing to help out."

I was so surprised! The MC called me up to the podium. Recognition by your peers can be so moving - it's a good thing I had a handkerchief in my pocket. All I had to say was, "Thank you. I'm honored."

Ash Canyon

It was a bit chilly but the sun was shining, so I got out for a walk with a couple of friends yesterday. We met on the edge of a subdivision on the west side of town, to hike a mile or two up Ash Canyon.

We parked next to a couple of city water tanks and walked up the dirt road heading up the canyon. Behind us, the silver dome of the capitol building in the center of town glints in the rays of the afternoon sun. This area burned in a wildfire four and a half years ago - the lower hills are covered with last year's dry grass and weeds; the sagebrush still small, just starting to grow back.

Just over the first rise, we left the road to take a small dirt trail down to the creek. Snow still lingered on the north-facing sides of the canyon, but had melted away on the south-facing sides. The creek sparkles in the sun shining down through the leafless trees. The water was icy cold - in fact, icicles still hung where water had splashed up and froze the night before.






It's been five years since the Waterfall fire burned through this area. The underbrush next to the creek has come back. But many of the big pines and cottonwood trees are gone - only skeletons standing against the sky.

We could see the tracks of mountain bicycles on the damp trail. It's still a beautiful place, close to town, to hike or bike. In the black and white of the winter landscape, the black peeling bark, the bleached dead wood and the charred interior of a burned poplar tree becomes nature's work of art.









There are signs that Spring is coming. Small plants and grasses sprout in the damp soil. In sunny places alongside the creek, we stop to stroke the fuzzy little catkins on the willows.












We see an odd pile of rocks, a small branch sticking up out of the center. Upon closer examination, we see there's carving on the stick, and realize it's a grave. "Hear [sic] lies the stinky dog RIP," it says.


The trail crosses the creek, and meanders along the shady north side for a while. It's colder on that side, but the effort of the uphill climb keeps us from getting cold. Another bridge brings us back to the sunnier side. We're warmed up enough now to take off our top sweatshirt layers and tie them about our waists.








We stop often just to listen to the sound of the creek as it tumbles down the bottom of the little canyon. It's obvious that someone else comes here for the same reason when we come upon a little rock chair, just big enough for one person to sit and meditate on the sound of the water below.









As we follow the creek uphill, the canyon gets narrower and the walls steeper. The trail climbs farther above the creek. Finally, we come to where the trail switchbacks up, away from the creek, to meet the dirt road above. We decide we'd rather return the way we came, so turn around and retrace our steps alongside the creek. Such a wonderful outing, right on the edge of town.

New Things for the Garden

I sat down with my box of garden seeds this morning, checking to see what I'm lacking, and then put in an internet order for the seeds I know I can't find locally. One hybrid I just had to have was Joi Choi, the only bok choi I've found that doesn't bolt to seed once our summer heat gets here. I also wanted Kuroda carrots, an Asian type that handles our summer heat nicely, yet keeps well in storage until the following summer. And I'm trying Delfino Cilantro in my on-going search to find the slowest one to bolt.

I also ordered seeds for a few more heirloom vegetables. I'm trying to move more and more to heirlooms, so I can save even more of my own seeds. This year, I'm trying Lutz Green Leaf for my beet crop, and Danish Ballhead for storage cabbages. I found the things I wanted in the Jung Seeds catalog.

I like additions to my perennial plant selection even better. I ordered a Wolfberry herb plant, also called a Goji berry. It's supposed to be a hardy, drought-tolerant, vining perennial shrub, and the berries, high in anti-oxidants, are commonly dried like rose hips. Sounds like it will fit right in around here. I wanted a couple more blueberry plants. I already have a dwarf Northland that is doing ok in a little bed where I've added sulfur, plus mulched with pine needles and coffee grounds, to make the soil more acid. Blueberries are supposed to do better with three varieties cross-pollinating each other, so I'm trying a dwarf Northblue and a Rubel to complete that planting group - I need to find varieties that can both take the heat of our summers and survive our freezing winter weather without snow cover.

Then, I'm trying something new for my sweet husband. He likes to make beer, getting the ingredients from a brewers supply place in Reno, but has always wanted to play with home-grown hops. So I ordered both Nugget and Willamette plants. Before they get here I'll have to decide if I want to just grow them as summer privacy screening on the fence and treat the hops flowers as a bonus, or set up a trellis system designed for efficient harvesting of the flowers. I've thought about growing them up a string outside the south side of the chicken pen to a pole just inside to give the chickens some more summer shade, or maybe I'll design a hops arbor. Aries is pretty good at figuring out how to make my design sketches a reality, and we've got quite a bit of salvaged wood for building projects.

The Second Day of Spring

Oh, brrrrr! Four inches of snow this morning, cold wind all day, and temperatures forecasted to be way below freezing tonight. At least the days are getting longer!

This is our normal Spring weather. Just as something else comes into bloom, it snows on it. Oh well, we really do need the moisture. This is high desert - we only get an average of seven inches of precipitation annually; all of it as snow November through April. Those black hoses you see in all my garden photos are soaker hoses. Just about everything I grow here has to be artificially irrigated, all summer long. So whether it's recharging our ground water or filling up our reservoirs, we'll take all the "weather" we can get.

Hello Spring!

The first daffodils are blooming, and buds are swelling on the lilacs and plum trees. The first apricot blooms opened today, just in time to get snowed on tonight.

Nights have still been chilly, but the days the past week have been sunny and warm. I've been able to get out in the yard, cleaning up some of the landscaping and moving a few perennials around while they're still dormant. To me, gardening is the slowest art form, so if something isn't quite working where it is I'll move it. I also use a part of the garden edging as a tree nursery, moving little self-seeded trees around the property to where they'll get plenty of water and protection from the wildlife for a year or two, and then transplant them back out once they're bigger.

The new chicks are now almost seven weeks old. They've been spending their days out in the dog run, running and flapping about; and then back inside every night. I was talking to my neighbor over the back fence today, and he told me a couple of days ago he'd found a nest with a dozen eggs in it, hidden by one of our guinea hens. He cleaned it out and threw the eggs away. I wouldn't mind not having any keets this year, but I figure they'll probably both bring in a clutch sooner or later this summer - they're pretty good at sneaking and hiding, and the reproduction urge is quite compelling.

The clouds moved in today, the temperatures dropped, and it started to rain at nightfall. It's expected to turn to snow tonight, and be cold for the next few days. As soon as the nice days come back, I think it will be time for the chicks to go outside full-time, time to plant some peas and lettuces out in the garden. In the meantime, it's about time for me to start my tomato, peppers and eggplants inside. C'mon Springtime!

Leeks for the Lazy Gardener

Over on the Co-op blog I wrote about my leek-growing method. I don't bother with seeds. Instead, I let my leeks start themselves and then just transplant the the plants to the garden every Spring. Check it out.

Anything Oatbran Muffins

Muffins are the quick bread-of-choice around here. In the winter, I'll leave the oven door open afterwards, to warm up the kitchen; in the summer a 20-minute baking time won't heat up the house. With my flours and grains kept in gallon glass jars and various measuring cups for scoops, it's easy to just scoop and mix, and have hot muffins in 30 minutes or less.

Last night, for dinner, we had sausage-stuffed squash. There was enough room in the pan to roast a little butternut squash along with the two Carnival squash we had for dinner, so I had some fresh mashed squash to make breakfast muffins this morning.

This is a great whole-grains recipe and is endlessly adaptive. It can be a sweet breakfast bread or a savory dinner muffin depending on what you have on-hand. I'm always changing up the fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be), the herbs or spices, and the extra add-in(s), which is why I just call them my Anything Oatbran Muffins.

Anything Oatbran Muffins (12 muffins)

1⅓ cup oat bran
1 cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
½ cup sugar (white, packed brown, raw, whatever you've got)
1 tablespoon baking powder
up to 3 teaspoons herbs or spices (today I used 2 t pumpkin pie spice + a bit more cinnamon)

¾ cup fruit puree (I mashed up the squash and didn't have quite enough so made up the difference with some applesauce)
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil (I substituted more applesauce)
1¼ cup milk (I used buttermilk)

½ cup chopped nuts or dried fruit (I added a handful of raisins; sometimes I'll add both nuts and fruit, or fresh corn kernels, or whatever else sounds good at the time)

Preheat oven to 400º, grease or non-stick spray muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together in a large measuring cup. Stir wet into dry, just until moistened. Stir in the extra add-in(s). Divide among 12 muffin cups (cups will be almost full, but that's ok). Bake 20-25 minutes, and try to cool on a rack before your husband burns his mouth snatching one up as soon as it's out of the pan.

First Onions of Spring

I still have a few yellow onions stored in the cellar. I've found Copra onions, purchased as plants from my local garden center (they'll be in next week, they said), keep very well when well-cured in the fall, and grow well in my climate in my regular summer garden. Those (and shallots - my own, set out in the fall) are my winter-time storage cooking onions.

For lunch, I had a package of imitation-crab surimi, so I decided I'd make some crab salad to put on a bagel. I diced up some celery to mix in, but it still needed something. It's starting to feel like Spring, and I'm starting to crave Spring foods. I needed some green onion. So I headed out to the garden to forage.

I have to admit - I'm a lazy gardener. If I can get my plants to grow themselves instead of me starting them from seed each year, I'll do it. Luckily, onions and other alliums are so easy to keep going that I have a special perennial bed just for them around one corner of the garden. The bunching onions are up, but I want to give them a chance to multiply. I'll eat those in the summer. In very early Spring, I go for the walking onions (sometimes called top-set or Egyptian).

Last fall, I planted the little top-set bulb bunches in spaces left by those I'd harvested. They're just now starting to grow (left side, below the hose). But I also leave some big clumps alone every summer. Right now, the big clumps I didn't touch last year have multiplied - each onion making two or three new ones - and they're already up and growing strong. Later when the heat of summer gets here, each onion will be more than an inch thick. Then, they'll start to get tough and really hot-tasting, and send up stalks topped with little bulbs. But right now, peeling away the tough red outer skin reveals a sweet little scallion - just what I needed.

A Lovely Day

Today was a nice day. After having weather nice enough to get the baby chicks outside for a few hours a couple of days ago, we had an overnight snowfall, yesterday a miserably cold, cold, cold wind, and then a low of 15F (-10C) last night. Today was chilly but no wind, and the sun was shining. I had planned to sit down with my garden seeds and start planning this year's garden, but decided I needed to be outside instead.

So I bundled up and went out on an inspection tour around the yard. The crocus that were flattened yesterday by the snow had perked back up and were looking lovely. There are buds starting to form on the earliest daffodils, and a few tulip leaves starting to poke up through the dirt. The buds are starting to swell on the apricot and the plums. They need to be pruned, but the nights are still too cold to start on them. The apple trees should be pruned now, but I didn't feel like tackling any of them today. But I did prune the Reliance and Himrod grapevines back to their four-arm kniffin shapes (note to self: I should write a post about taming a grapevine).

I wandered over to pick up the eggs, and had to go back up to the house for a basket. Nine eggs today! Aries got home from work, and I headed out to meet some friends for a walk. After getting some blood tests taken at his Employees' Health Center a couple of weeks ago, I'm now under doctor's orders to get more exercise and lose some weight, or face the possibility of having to go on medication sometime in the future. I don't even like taking aspirin - exercise it is! So I've been lining up exercise buddies to make sure I get out and do something.

This evening's hour-long walk was over at the Silver Saddle Ranch - a 700-acre ranch from the 1920's now part of Carson City's open space. The ranch lies east of Prison Hill, with the Carson River running along its eastern edge. We walked from the parking area outside the gate up around the ranch buildings and then on a trail along the Mexican Ditch, now part of our city trails system. At Carson River Road, we started to cross the road to continue on the ditch trail farther north, when a car stopped to tell us there was a bald eagle in the field just a bit farther east. We walked over to see - I'm so sorry I didn't have my camera along. The eagle was standing about 30 yards from the fence, a cow with a new-born calf still unsteady on its legs standing nearby. The eagles come here to feast on the afterbirth during calving season. As we walked back up the road to the trail, another car stopped to let us know about the eagle - this town is so friendly that way. Later, as we continued our walk, the eagle circled overhead, eventually disappearing to the south along Prison Hill.