Nevada Day 2011

On October 31, 1864, despite falling far short of the required number of residents, Nevada became the smallest territorial population to be recognized as a state. Towards the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln's political advisers thought that bringing another northern state into the Union would boost morale and add support for his re-election. In order to get the proposed state's Constitution to the President quick enough to be included in the national election, the document was transmitted by telegraph - the longest and most expensive transmission in history. Thus, Nevada became the "Battle Born" state (also called the Silver State, for the wealth of the Comstock Lode, as well as neighbor to the Golden State, California).

Nevada still celebrates its Admission Day, here in Carson City, the state capital. When I first moved here, it was still celebrated on October 31st; the local kids would trick-or-treat on October 30th to avoid being out on the streets after the adults had been partying all day. About 10 years ago, it was decided to move Nevada Day to the last Saturday in October to allow for easier attendance for those living farther away. This year, Aries isn't working, so he could join me out and about for the festivities.

The day starts early. Highway 50/395, the main drag through town running in front of the state Capitol, is closed off for blocks. Hot air balloons lift off in the still early-morning air, a pancake breakfast is served at the Governors Mansion, and the fun run finishes in front of the crowds awaiting the start of the parade.

The parade kicks off when real Top Gun fighter jets (based at the Fallon Naval Air Station, 50 miles east of here) do a flyby down the length of the parade route. The two-plus hours long parade entries run the gamut from politicians to local Cub Scout troops, Burning Man to the Bunny Ranch, and just about every school marching band in the state.

After the parade, per tradition, we head over to the Golden Nugget for the free Chili Feed, hosted this year by our Lieutenant Governor. This year, our chili was dished up by Josh Romney, son of presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Nevada is one of the early caucus states, the only one in the west, so most of the national campaigns already have a presence here, and in Las Vegas in the south).

After lunch plus some visiting with friends, we headed over to the Beard Contest in the Legislative Plaza between Capitol, Legislature, and the Supreme Court Buildings. That's always a rather raucous affair, especially the Virginia City contingent (that almost always gets the Most Bearded Community award).

After that, we wander through the crowd watching the hard rock single jack drilling contest - men pounding away for 10 minutes, with sledge hammer and drill bit to see who can drill the deepest hole in a block of granite - but that doesn't hold my interest for very long. The street party in front of the Old Globe Saloon is also hopping, but by now a bit too sloppy for my tastes. We decide to head over to the Governors Mansion for the open house. On the way, we stop by a private porch party, and visit some more - this really is still just a small town.

The line for the open house stretches most of a block, but moves quite quickly. Inside, Reno Rodeo Beauty Queens shake hands with Nevada's First Family, before it's our turn. The youngest daughter tells me she's going to be an angel for Halloween, as she hands me a commemorative coin.

Governor Sandoval has opened up the entire Mansion to the public for the day. A portrait of a clean-shaven President Lincoln hangs in the state dining room, set with silver cups and flatware made from ore from the Comstock mines. Boots, a tuxedo cat, sits in the Governor's office chair behind the desk, watching with typical cat-like aplomb as the crowd files through. The line snakes up the stairs, where we can peek into their private quarters as well. A desert tortoise lives in a terrarium in one child's bedroom; a guinea pig's cage is in one bathroom.

We make one last stop at the Brewery Arts Center to check out a Nevada artists' display and reception. It's been a long, but fun, day, and my feet are tired. We head over to where we parked the car early this morning, and head home.

Tragedy in the Neighborhood

I heard a series of loud pops. I thought neighbor kids had set off a string of big firecrackers in the open dirt field across our north fence, over towards the theater. Ten minutes later, the dog started howling out on the deck, as siren after siren went by on the highway two blocks below. My first thought, especially this time of year, was a wildfire someplace. But a quick scan around the horizon showed no sign of smoke. With the sirens still coming up from the south, I looked and realized all of them were fire station paramedic vehicles - lots of them.

So many emergency medical care vehicles. "Do you think there was a school bus accident?" I asked Aries, as we stood out on our deck, looking down towards the highway. The first CareFlight helicopter showed up overhead, then swung around to set down just beyond the Marriott below us, in the parking area across the highway. That's when I went inside to check the news on the internet.

Multiple people shot at the International House of Pancakes. That wasn't firecrackers I heard - that was automatic weapon fire. This is the kind of thing I thought you only read about, someplace else. Is it really happening right down the street?

Sadly enough, it was. Four people dead, seven more injured, plus the shooter a suicide out in the parking lot. Many of the dead and injured, inside the IHOP, were uniformed Nevada National Guard personnel.

The upcoming tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorism had many questioning if the military were the target, if this was a terrorist act . Federal, state, and local governments, as well as our local National Guard facility have heightened already increased security. Although the investigation is on-going, it appears to have been the work of just a solitary mentally ill person. No one can say why he did it. Our community is grieving, and in shock.

Like a genteel dinner guest of old, I don't discuss politics or religion on this blog. I respect the rights of others to hold opinions different from my own, and realize that anything I say here isn't likely to change anyone's ideas. And I respect the rights of gun owners. I come from a family of hunters. I've been through the Hunter's Safety class. We own rifles, shotguns, and a handgun, and I know how to use them. But I really don't understand why we as a nation still think it's ok for a mentally ill person (or anyone, really) to have multiple automatic weapons in his possession; the ability to empty a 30-round clip in a 360º sweep of a parking lot, pause to reload, and then walk into a crowded restaurant. Our community is grieving, and in shock. And the tragedy is in our nation.

An Email to Mom

It seems like the only time I've sat down to write about what I've been doing is when I send a newsy email to my Mom. Here's what I said today:

My schedule has been crazy-busy since last week. I started working Tuesdays and Thursdays for a CPA in Minden; went to Christmas luncheons Wednesday and Saturday; a Board meeting Monday; volunteered for 4 hours at the Food Drive (mostly playing traffic director) Friday; and my birthday was in there too. Aries took me out to dinner Sunday to an Italian restaurant in the Fandango casino (ran my $10 up to $20 afterwards, playing quarter video poker), and then we walked around the Methodist church's living Nativity display (took up a whole block, vignettes from Herod's decree to the baby in the manger; admission was a can of food). Monday, we hiked up Prison Hill, to the north end, with the dog. Last night, we went out with friends to Chili's - their thank you for watching their house while they were gone.

I'm a Christmas angel to a couple of boys in foster care; one eight, the other 10. Each gets a bag with blue jeans, socks, and underwear, and then we can spend up to $25 more. So today, I went shopping. I got each a long-sleeved shirt, a Goosebumps book, art supplies and a pad of paper, and a hand-held electronic toy they'd each asked for. Friday I take the stuff over to the DCFS (Nevada Department of Child and Family Services) offices, and they'll do the wrapping and delivery.

I haven't gotten Aries anything yet. He put a cutout picture of a socket set on the refrigerator. Guess I'll have to go see if I can find one :-) And maybe make some goodies - cookies and fudge - to trade off with some of the neighbors and both of us to take to work. I decided not to bother setting up my tree this year, but have Christmas decorations and linens in the kitchen and living room, and a poinsettia on my dining room table. It looks nicely festive. Wal-Mart had some little paperwhite bulb-forcing kits, so I started a couple of those - one pot's just starting to bud, and the other one just now starting to poke above the dirt.

A Sociable Weekend, Out and About

The weather was absolutely gorgeous this past weekend, and both of us got the chance to be out enjoying it. After Labor Day, when the kids head back to school, the number of tourists visiting Lake Tahoe naturally drops - at least until snow brings the skiers. However, right now really is the best time of year to be out and about - the heat of summer gives way to pleasantly warm days, while the nights have yet to get down below freezing. The area capitalizes on this by scheduling a plethora of outside events every weekend in September and into October - luring the tourists (and their money) back.

Earlier this month were the Reno Balloon Races, the Camel Races in Virginia City, the the Reno Air Races , and closer to home, our local Basque Festival.

Aries took a week's vacation this past week, just so he could finally check out this weekend's big event: Street Vibrations - "a celebration of music, metal and motorcycles." The highway is only two blocks from our house, and from Thursday afternoon through Sunday, the rumble of motorcycles was almost non-stop. For three days, Aries was out with his buddies - riding up to Virginia City, and then checking out the bikes, vendors, and shows in Reno and Sparks. I have a bike - an 800 cc 1989 Honda Pacific Coast, but haven't ridden it much lately. I let the boys have their fun without me.

But, not to worry, I was out and about having fun with the girls. My Soroptimist Club held our biggest annual fundraiser Saturday - the Stroke to Help (fight breast cancer) Golf Tournament. The money we raise pays for mammograms and biopsies for uninsured local women. On the day of the tournament, I volunteered to be an official observer on a par-3 hole where a hole-in-one would win a $10,000 prize.

I used to work at Eagle Valley Golf, where we hold the tournament. I know the hole-in-one hole I'd be working - it's one of the prettiest places on the West Course. I packed a thermos of coffee, a magazine, and my Ipod: prepared to spend the morning kicked-back in a golf cart, looking out across just about all of Carson City. I stitched together two photos (above, click on photo for a closer look) and still only show a partial slice of the view. No hole-in-one (it's a pretty tough hole - short distance, but there's a ravine between the tee and the green that shakes a lot of golfers' confidence).

Sunday, Aries and I were out and about together. He joined me to check out the Candy Dance Faire in Genoa. Originally called Mormon Station, a trading outpost built during the California Gold Rush days, Genoa is the oldest permanent settlement in Nevada (photo above is statue of Snowshoe Thompson, legendary skiing frontier mail carrier, outside the Mormon Station State Park in Genoa). In 1919, the town needed money to buy street lights, so they held a fund-raising dance with home-made candy for refreshments. Of course, once the street lights were bought and installed, they then had an electric bill that had to be paid each year. So the Candy Dance became an annual tradition.

Ninety years later, they still hold a dance on Saturday night, and they still make candy (hundreds of hours by devoted volunteers - making, packing, and selling over 4000 pounds of candy). But the biggest draw now is the Arts & Crafts Faire. They close off the streets in this tiny town of only a couple hundred people, and for two days hundreds of vendors attract thousands of people. We didn't buy anything, other than our lunch, but I love wandering about, people-watching and to see what other people have made - it's a great idea-starter for my own projects.

Building a Hobart-Marlette Link Trail

I love being in the outdoors, and camping (speaking of camping, for my most recent turn to post on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op, I wrote about using a dutch oven to bake fresh, hot campsite treats). Luckily, living here in Carson City, there's beautiful camping country practically right out my back door. Much of the land around the Lake Tahoe shoreline, especially the western, California side and the casino areas just across the Nevada state line north and south, is densely populated, developed property. But thanks to the eccentricities of a few reclusive, rich owners over the years, the land on the east side has remained pretty much undeveloped, and is now in the public domain as the Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park. The interior of the park is closed to motorized traffic, but there are numerous trails for hiking, mountain biking, equestrians, and cross-country skiing, and a few backcountry campgrounds.

When I was younger, I used to do some backpacking. It was hard work then, carrying everything. I know I'm not in good-enough shape to get much into the backcountry now (but I'm trying to get back in better condition, and with new advances in gear weight and technology, maybe someday . . . ). So when, as a member of Muscle Powered, I heard the park ranger was allowing 4WD vehicles to drive the 6-8 miles into Marlette Peak campground for a weekend of volunteer trail building, I jumped at the chance to go. I dug out my old pup tent and backpacking stove, threw my gear in a duffel bag, and met up with the others to carpool in early Saturday morning.

The campground is quite nice, especially for a backcountry site. There's a pit toilet, bear boxes, tables, fire rings, and water available (no trash pickup - pack everything out), and it's right on the Tahoe Rim Trail. We saw quite a few mountain bikers, a few day hikers, and a couple of overnight campers the two days we were there. By Saturday evening, the weather had turned cold and windy, but if it had been warmer I would have walked the mile and a half down to Marlette Lake after a dusty day's work, and jumped in for a swim.

We were working on a section not far below the campground. When finished, the trail will run from the Tahoe Rim Trail to Hobart Reservoir (where there's another campground). It's a reasonably gentle grade - hillside traverses interspersed with swooping turns in the shade of the pines. When finished, the trail will provide a much nicer alternative to the hot, steep climb on the road up Sunflower Hill (the photo at the top of this post is a view across a trailside meadow, with Reno in the distance). It will probably take three years to hand-build the planned five miles of trail. One more work weekend this season (volunteer for just a day, or camp overnight) is planned for September 18-19, weather-permitting. See Muscle Powered for more information.

Just a Little Bit Crazy

Sometimes, doing crazy things makes me feel most alive. I went to two outdoor parties this weekend, and snowflakes were swirling on both. Now, it's supposed to be somewhat nice around here by the end of May, so the people that scheduled these parties weren't the crazy ones. It's all of us that showed up anyway :-)

Friday was the end of our local Bike to Work Week, with a big after-work party planned out on the open patio of a local establishment. I didn't ride my bicycle (my involvement with Muscle Powered leans more towards walking/hiking and advocacy), but I did bundle up to be there, and ended up manning the keg. The live entertainer played his instrument wearing fingerless biking gloves, and the attendees took turns around the outdoor firepit. We all laughed when Christy, wearing socks plus wool tights under her blue jeans, took off the socks to offer them to Terri, silly girl, who'd come from work wearing flip-flops. Terri immediately took her up on the offer, and donned said socks. Sometimes, a touch of insanity can really make the party. A good time was had by all.

And then, another party Saturday evening, also outdoors, also cold, windy, and snowing. This one was a neighborhood party, held at a sculpture shop down the street. The owner, and most of the guests, were Burning Man regulars, so I knew ahead of time that this party wouldn't be quite the usual fare. I've never been to Burning Man - my sister and I always plan our annual get-together at a Lake Tahoe beachfront campsite that week. Camping in a sandstorm in the desert with thousands, versus camping in the pines with family? No contest - I'll take the Lake. But the Burners are special and fun people, and so once again I bundled up and off we went. And again, another good time was had by all.

Casting Call

I love hearing from my readers - both in the comments and via emails sent to my address in the sidebar. Most are questions about things I've written about - those I try to help, or tell them where they might find the information they seek. Others are requests for links or free advertising. Those, I'll consider regarding the applicability to the things I write about and the tenor of this blog. And every once in a while, I'll get something really different.

Survivor is the only reality-type television show I watch regularly. But I know those types of shows are very popular with the general public right now. For me, I don't like seeing myself in videos, or hearing recordings of me speaking. Reality just doesn't jibe with my own self-image, and I prefer to maintain my self-delusions. Plus, I tailor and re-fashion my own clothes, to fit my own ideas about style. But for those that don't suffer from those restrictions, I'll relay the contents of an email I recently received.

The people that produce Project Runway are putting together a new show, featuring a couple of top designers, and are looking for everyday people with a special event coming up. Here's what they sent me, should you wish to "audition"

"Do you have an event that justifies a new designer outfit, but have nothing to wear?! (Wedding/Birthday/Reunion/Shower/etc) We are currently casting for a new cable network television program featuring two top designers. They will be traveling the country, designing one-of-a-kind outfits for women who need something extraordinary to wear to an important event in their lives.

"If you live in a SMALL TOWN in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, California or Nevada and you're interested in this once-in-a-lifetime experience, more information here.
(The Event in California or Nevada must take place in July or August of 2010 - and fall on a SATURDAY. We will be meeting ladies in the next 3 weeks to put them on tape.)"

There you have it. Anyone that dreams of being on television, wearing a custom-made designer creation to an upcoming special event, can take it from here (no fooling).

Litterbugs!

Pardon me while I rant for a moment: Generally, I really like people - I like working as a waitress, a bartender, a tour guide, because of the personal contact. I like talking to, observing, interacting with, and serving people. But, after spending a couple of hours this morning, doing our quarterly Adopt-A-Mile clean-up on the southern gateway to our city, I'm really upset with some people.

I was raised by an eco-conscious mom, back before the green, take-care-of-our-earth movement became fashionable. Anyone seen the television series Mad Men, set in the early 1960's? I know there's been some talk about how astonished folks have been when the pregnant Betty Draper sat down with a drink, cigarette in hand. You just don't see that these days - we know better. My astonishment moment though, was when the Drapers went out for a roadside picnic, and when it came time to leave just shook out their blanket, left the trash lying there, and got back in the car.

That never happened in my family. Mom says she knows none of her children are litterbugs. When she rides in any one of our cars, every one of us has a bag, box, or just the area behind the driver's seat where the debris of everyday living ends up. It's not on the roadside, that's for sure!

This logo is a free download available here.

Nowadays, we know better. So, why is it, every three months, when I'm out there on that same stretch of highway, I'm still picking up bottles and fast food bags and candy wrappers? And cigarette butts - we can't even get all the cigarette butts that are out there - we'd be out there for days (and this in an area prone to droughts and wildfires)! Please, people, don't we know better? What would your mother say?

Holiday Drive-By Food Drive

I had to get up really early and drive up to Lake Tahoe to work the hotel departures for the group that came in on Monday. One of our stranger weather phenomena is that despite it being another couple thousand feet higher in altitude, it's warmer up there than it is here in Carson City. The lake is so deep it never freezes, and so helps moderate temperatures somewhat. And then, it's been quite still so we get a temperature inversion thing going on where the coldest air sinks down into the valleys.

When I got home, I bundled up in about four layers of clothing and my Santa hat, and spent the afternoon outside the Governors Mansion, volunteering for the Share Your Christmas Drive-By Food Drive. It ran from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. and there are always lots of volunteers and simply tons of food donated.

The Mansion has a circular drive in front, so cars pull in, volunteers take the offered bags of food, and the car drives out. Off to the side, others are sorting the donations and loading trucks. Our town's collection goes to the local domestic violence shelter, so there's another crew at work there, unloading the trucks and filling the storage shelves. There are also drop-off spots in Reno and farther south in the Carson Valley that go to other area food banks. One of the local TV stations does news reports throughout the day; the schools send their choirs to sing (elementary students are so cute; the high school singers are simply amazing). Temperatures never did get above freezing, and it snowed lightly off and on all day, but there was an almost steady stream of cars coming through the entire time I was there.

And tonight, the bathtub drain thawed out so we could take showers again. Hooray!

Another Big Weekend in N Nevada

After the Labor Day weekend, lots of our summer tourists head back home to get the kids back in school, not to be seen again until Christmas break skiing. This area really tries to lure them back in the meantime, with lots of big September events. It makes sense, really, September is usually a beautiful time of year around here, and this is an area that runs on tourist money.

The Fallon Air Show was back this year, at the Fallon Naval Air Station (ever see the movie Top Gun? that's what they do there. It's a real ear buster window rattler WTF was that thrill driving out on Hwy 50 East across a deserted valley, and being buzzed by a trio of fighter jets). Then, there were the Reno Air Races, and the following weekend the Balloon Races in Reno and the Camel Races in Virginia City.

This weekend, I'm living with the almost constant roar of motorcycles on the highway two blocks below us, all day long and way into the night. It's Street Vibrations time in Reno - "a celebration of motorcycles, metal, and music." Of course, a celebration of motorcycles means they're on the move, up to Virginia City, around the lake, with events spilling over to every bike shop and dealership in the area. Our roads are clogged with long dual strings of motorcycles.

While the men are out on the roads, the women are heading to Genoa. The Candy Dance Arts & Crafts Faire this weekend draws thousands to check out the hundreds of craft booths. Normally, that's where I'd have spent my Saturday. It's been an annual tradition for some of my Lake Tahoe girlfriends to meet up there for lunch and browsing.

But noooo, not this year for me. My Soroptimist Club puts together a big fundraising golf tournament each year. Since most of the funds raised go to pay for mammograms (over $17,000 last year), we schedule the tournament for early October, Breast Cancer Awareness month. But by October, our weather can be iffy - very nice Indian Summer sometimes, or like last year, 40 mph winds blowing snow. So this year, we changed it to late September.

I took this photo the first year we held the tournament, nine years ago. And while it makes a very eye-catching photo, I was lobbying against the balloon release right from the start. Pretty flying balloons eventually pop, and become non-degradable, wildlife-threatening litter. I'm happy to say that, finally, this year there was no balloon release. We had the balloons tied to the carts and they stayed there while the golfers played, then were properly disposed of by the cart crew when the tournament was over.

I like being outside, so I usually volunteer to be a witness on one of the special par-3 holes where we have a prize (a car, a vacation cruise) for a hole-in-one. So this Saturday, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m, I was sitting in a golf cart on Eagle Valley Golf's East Course hole #8. No hole-in-ones, although one group had a very nicely-played birdie. And instead of sitting wrapped up in a sleeping bag, I was glad I'd brought a blanket and clothespins to turn my cart into a little shade tent. It was downright HOT!! with temperatures in the upper-80's by the time I got to come in. And now, that's one more thing I get to cross off my crowded September list of things to do.

The Washoe Zephyr

Temperatures are back into our normal summertime range once more - days around 90F, nights around 50F. And our Washoe Zephyr is back again too. As Mark Twain put it, in Roughing It:

The "Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe is a pet nickname for Nevada) is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth "whence it cometh." That is to say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountaintop for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular wind, in the summer-time. Its office-hours are from two in the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody venturing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point he is aiming at. (more of the quote here; BTW the Washoe (WA-show) are the local Native American tribe)

So that means if I'm hanging laundry out, that I have it back in by early afternoon (not a problem - it's dry within an hour), or risk having to go fetch it from the far corner of the lot. The umbrella on the deck makes a nice shady place for lunch, but must be down shortly afterwards or it will end up in the next county. Since I wear contact lenses, I always make sure I've got a pair of wrap-around sunglasses handy whenever I'm outside. At least, I know if I want to get away from the wind, all I have to do is get up into the pine trees just a few miles to the west.

Our Little 1972 Honda 600

We have a busy calendar - lots of things to do as our summer continues. Some of it revolves around a little toy in our garage - a 1972 Honda 600 2-door sedan. It's been in the family for years - originally a niece's high school car. After she blew up the engine, she dumped it at her grandfather's house. Aries' dad started fooling around with it - finding another engine to at least get it running again. He gave the car to Aries, and over time he's cleaned and fixed it up a bit more.

A few times a summer, a local car group puts together a Run-what-ya-brung Show-n-Shine and Street Dance in a local casino's downtown parking lot. Since Aries works on Saturday, he's never around for any weekend daytime car show events, but we do like to take the car downtown for the occasional Saturday evening dances.

The car is no showpiece, but since it's still running and pretty much still all original is it a bit of a curiosity. I don't remember them at all. I grew up in Colorado - maybe none of them could make it over the Rocky Mountains. But I guess they were really quite common back in their day on the West Coast.

We set out our lawn chairs, pop the hood and the trunk, sit back to people-watch, and visit with all and sundry. Lots of people stop to tell us stories from their high school days and "a car just like that." Kids just love it - a real car just their size. If there were a prize for "cutest car" we'd win it - that's what women say when they see it. I love seeing the smiles on faces when they see us driving it, out and about for in-town errands. It's a great little "town car." The trunk will hold five bags of groceries; it gets maybe 35 mpg (it is just a 600 cc motorcycle engine after all - you do have to rev it up quite a bit). And it's a great excuse for a little community social time.

The Bicycle Valet

Muscle Powered, a local pedestrian and bicycle advocacy group I'm active in, is staffing a bicycle valet at our downtown Farmers Market every Saturday through mid-October. Last weekend was one of my days to work it.

That means getting there early, getting the sunshade, table, handouts, and chairs set up, and then just hanging out and keeping an eye on the bicycles (a few baby strollers too) for people while they shop.

We've encouraged other non-profit groups in the area to sign up to "help" staff our valet booth and information display (when telling another group I'm active in about helping, one elderly lady thought I said bicycle ballet - which made for a rather confusing discussion until we sorted that out). Last weekend, a friend active in Parks for Paws, a group advocating for establishing a permanent dog park in town, joined me. We enjoyed visiting with each other, and friends and neighbors there to shop, listening to the live music, and telling shoppers about our respective projects.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An Earth Extravaganza

The Seniors in our local High School have to do a Senior Project. This involves choosing something that interests them, putting their "project", whatever it is, together, submitting a written report, and also doing an oral presentation to a panel of local citizens and teachers.

While Reno puts together a big Earth Day event in April, Carson City doesn't really do much of anything. This year a High School Senior, who intends to study Environmental Sciences after she graduates, chose to put on an Earth Day-type event. Since the various parts of the Senior projects have to be completed before graduation, she couldn't wait until the end of April so scheduled her event for today.

She did a great job putting it together. The event was in the High School gym, and well attended by both the public and by local groups providing the informational tables and displays. I'm active in Muscle Powered, a local non-profit advocating for more pedestrian and bicycle use, and so helped at our display table. Despite being the capital of Nevada, this really is quite a small town. It was fun to both talk to people about what we do, and also to check out the other displays and visit with people I knew. There's more about Muscle Powered here and here, more about the Carson High School Senior Project here.