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.

Peach Salsa

I had a day to myself with no outside commitments today. A couple of weeks ago, I'd changed my decor over to fall colors (my favorites), and have been slowly getting the summer stuff cleaned and stored away. The table linens and kitchen items I can wash at home, but the summer bed quilts are too big for my washing machine. It was going to be a beautiful warm day with little wind, so the first thing I did was gather up the quilts and blankets (and our sleeping bags too - after camping for a week at Tahoe I might as well) and headed to the other end of town to a laundromat that has big 50-pound front-loading washers.

The sleeping bags I dried there for a while - they fluff up better when tumble-dried. The attendant even offered me six tennis balls to put in with them - soaking up a bit more moisture, and pummeling the bag fillings to fluff them up even more. The blankets and quilts are all cotton, so I brought them home damp to dry out on the clothesline. I love the smell of sun-dried cotton bedding, and I'd rather not beat up my quilts any more than necessary.

So, once home and with everything hung outside to dry, it was time to finish up processing peaches and chiles. A few days ago, I'd had time to peel and chop the peaches. I've measured 2-pint increments in my enameled pot, and notched an old wooden spoon handle - fifteen pounds of peaches ended up being a little over 11 pints. I'd sprinkled the top layer with lime juice and put the whole thing into the refrigerator until I had time to make a batch of salsa. I'm probably not going to have enough tomatoes to make a tomato salsa this year - all I have will be canned as whole tomatoes and tomato sauce. So this peach salsa will be my only salsa.

I put the peaches on to start cooking them down a bit (using a flame-tamer over my gas burner), and 9 pint jars into a canner-ful of water to start heating up to sterilize. I checked the freezer - might as well clean out all peppers left from last year. I had a few chiles left, plus a couple of roasted and peeled bell peppers and some sliced jalapenos. Thawed and minced up, they made up almost a cup, so I'd only need another cup for the salsa. The rest of the chiles from this year's harvest could go into the freezer.

The chiles I'd roasted a couple of days ago had been stored in the bag in the refrigerator, so I put on some (latex surgical) gloves and started on them. The big straight chiles are easiest to clean. Each one I folded into a little "packet" and put on a cookie sheet to freeze. Afterwards, dumped into a freezer bag, it's easy to grab however much I want at a time. The littler chiles, and the curved ones that got mashed and broken while roasting, I added to the measuring cup to use right away.

Peach (or Nectarine) Salsa (makes 8-9 pints)
12 - 15 pounds peaches (or nectarines), peeled and chopped
2 cups onions, finely diced (I used red onions, for the color)
2 cups chiles or peppers, roasted, peeled and chopped, or seeded and minced if fresh
2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
2 bunches cilantro, minced (makes about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons non-iodized salt
2 tablespoons sugar (optional, to taste)
up to 1 tablespoon hot pepper powder (optional, to taste)

lime juice

Simmer peaches, cooking down to about 9 pints. Add rest of ingredients, except for lime juice. Cook down to about 9 pints.

Put 1 tablespoon lime juice in each sterilized pint jar. Fill jars, to 1/4" headspace, seal. Process in boiling water bath 30 minutes (that's for my Carson City altitude, at 5,000 feet; process for 20 minutes if you're below 3,000, or add 5 more minutes for each 2,000 feet above 6,000).

A few additional notes: To make a milder or hotter salsa, do not change the amount of chile peppers, change the type. You can use all roasted and peeled bell peppers for a really mild salsa, or add some minced habaneros if you really want to to get crazy. I added a tablespoon of chipotle powder to this batch - it added a nice smoky complexity to the sweet and hot, but also darkened the color quite a bit. I also seeded and minced up some fresh jalapenos I'd just picked - just to add a bit more texture and color - enough to bring the amount up to two cups. One of these years, I'm thinking I'll just grind up the peaches without peeling them - might make it even more colorful.

Roasting Chiles

I got a good peach crop this year, and set aside 15 pounds to make a batch of salsa. I'm just about out of roasted and peeled chiles from last year, so before I can make salsa I needed more chiles.

So I headed out to the garden with a basket and clippers, and found plenty of green California chiles on my six plants. Next comes one of my favorite fall food prep activities - roasting the chiles (I've written a how-to for the whole process: roasting to char the skins, leaving the chiles to sweat in a bag, removing the skins and seeds (gloves on!), and then freezing or canning them for use throughout the year here).

Roasting chiles just says fall to me. I guess because I always pick a nice September evening to spend out on the deck. Even though the nights have started getting cooler, the days are still warm, and the shadow of the house on our east-facing deck feels good. The chickens scratch in the yard below; the sun still shines on part of the valley floor and Prison Hill to the east. I lift a chilled glass of a crisp Sauvignon Blanc in my annual silent toast/prayer of thanks for another harvest, and fire up the propane grill. The wonderful smell of roasting chiles soon fills the air, as I use my tongs to flip and turn the chiles.

This year, my sweet husband fetched home a Take-n-Bake pizza from the little shop down the street. He dressed it up with more veggies, fresh from the garden, before putting in the oven, and soon brings a plate out to me. Wine and pizza and a peaceful evening out on the deck - this truly is one of my favorite fall rituals.

By the time I've gone through all the chiles in the basket, the shadows have fallen across the valley floor. The last light of the setting sun makes a pinkish glow on the Pine Nut mountains. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Junior Chicken

Two weeks ago, while shutting the poultry in for the night, I realized two hens were missing. Neither Penny Redstar nor Junior were in the coop. Two nights later, I finally found where Penny was roosting, up on top of a storage rack in the tool shed. After two nights of moving her back into the coop after dark, she's now been back inside every night.

But I couldn't find Junior. I didn't see her out and about during the day either, now that I was looking for her. I was hoping that coyotes hadn't gotten her (always a possibility when a chicken, or cat, won't stay inside the fences), and that she'd just hidden a nest somewhere.

Junior is so named because, of all Missy's babies, she's the one that ended up looking just like Missy (read more about our adventures with Missy here). Even though Junior looks just like a little Brown Leghorn, she's also part Amerucana and lays nice big green eggs (one sister, Baldy, also looks like Missy but with no feathers or comb atop her head - due to an unfortunate mishap when she was just a pullet. She almost died, but with some liquid spray bandage and a couple days in a box in the house, she pulled through. Baldy, however, lays little white eggs).

Anyway, thinking Junior was quite a bit like Missy, I figured I'd give her until early October before thinking we'd lost her. This morning, while working out in the yard I heard a chicken murmuring over by the lilacs, looking for a bite to eat. It was Junior! I gave her some feed, and then sat back to watch for a bit. She was hungry and thirsty - gobbling down the food, getting some water, back to the food, back to the water.

Finally sated, she did a bit of preening and feather-ruffling, occasionally turning a beady little chicken eye in my direction. But after dealing with Missy and the guineas, I'm an experienced poultry stalker. I pretended to be very interested in something off to my right, meanwhile keeping an eye on her in my peripheral vision. She eventually headed around the corner of the house to my left, and I followed. She stopped, so I kept walking towards the garage. I snuck back in time to catch her going through the cat's hole under the fence, but once through it she was nowhere in sight.

That meant she had to be close, so I started checking under the Oregon Grape, right outside the gate, in front of the little shed. There she was, and she let me know she wasn't very happy at being found.

And just like her mother, here's why. I don't know if Coach, our bantam rooster, ever managed to catch Junior, but if he did and she's anything like Missy she'll be a really good mother. So, for now, I'll let her stay out there until the first of October (or the weather turns really nasty), and get the brood pen ready, just in case.

Peachy-keen, Jellybean

I love tree-ripened peaches. My dad planted a couple of peach trees when I was a kid, and I was thereafter spoiled for supermarket peaches. I'll see them in the store and they look pretty, but there's no aroma. You can take them home and they'll soften, but they never will taste like peaches. I want my peaches still warm from the sun, eaten right there next to the tree, bending over to keep the juice from dripping down my shirt.

I have a couple of peach trees, but because of our typical tricky Spring weather, here they're an every-third or -fourth year type of crop. My mature nectarine tree set a crop this year, but then succumbed to borers (I'm just heartsick - they're in my pie cherry tree too). Aries cut it down today, but left a sprout that came up from the roots so I'll have to see what comes from that before digging it out completely. I have a pitiful twisted little July Elberta peach tree trying to hang in there. I got about 1/2 bushel of peaches from it three weeks ago. I managed to get a few trays of slices into the dehydrator, and have been stuffing myself on fresh peaches daily since then.

And then, there's what I call the Seedling peach tree. I don't know what kind it is. It just sprouted one summer under the edge of our woodpile. I figure a squirrel buried a seed it stole from somewhere - I don't think it's an Elberta, because its fruit ripens almost a month later. I transplanted the little seedling to the edge of the garden, and then out in the orchard. It's since grown into a nice tree. It lost a couple of branches to borers this year, but is still doing pretty good. I've been testing and tasting, patiently waiting for those peaches to get ripe and hoping the birds will leave me some (I hung a bunch of junk CD's in the branches - hoping the sun glinting as they turn in the wind will frighten them off).

Finally, it was peach-picking day today. The bird-pecked ones I cut into chunks and put into the dehydrator (no room in my freezer). I gave my neighbor a bagful, and made a batch of jam this afternoon. I've set aside 15 pounds for a batch of salsa, and have enough to gorge myself on for a couple more weeks. Eating seasonally from my own labors means I've got to get my fresh peach fix when I can. Oh, but they're soooooo good while they last!

Soroptimist Fundraising

I've been soooo busy. With the days getting shorter and the nights chillier, the garden and orchard are crying out for attention. Even though I didn't get to harvest some things I usually do, I am getting plenty of others (isn't that the way it always is?). At least we've been lucky to have some nice mellow weather, so I'm not to the panic stage of harvesting yet.

But my Soroptimist Club has been keeping me hopping. Money in this economy is getting tighter and tighter, and the need keeps growing, so service organizations like mine have to work even harder to raise funds. We're lucky to have a couple of endowments we've invested, but with interest rates so low we're now starting to use up the principle. We've got our big golf tournament to raise funds for mammograms next weekend, but sign-up numbers are down from what they've been in the past so we're trying to keep coming up with new ideas (and of course, every other non-profit and service organization in the area is in the same straits).

So we threw together another rummage sale, held today. There are lots of businesses going under right now, and lots of empty storefronts in town. We managed to get the use of an empty store donated to us for the past month. We're a tax-exempt organization so the owners get a tax write-off by letting us use what would have been empty anyway, and we had a nice place to gather, organize, price items, and hold our sale. I have a steady hand with a paintbrush and good spatial awareness, so I dug out my old tempera paints and a little ladder, and spent an afternoon painting a window sign (and got quite a step-workout in the process). With the advent of computer graphics, no one does painting by hand any more, so someone hand-lettering is always a good attention-getter. One of the guys from the sign shop next shop down even volunteered to wash the window for me afterwards. We made some money, and will be donating items that didn't sell to other charities. I'm just so glad it's over.

Labor Day Holiday

After camping last week, it's nice spending a quiet holiday weekend close to home. I put my Nevada and American flags out on the deck railing this morning. I like flying our flags on the holidays. I've been catching up on the laundry - only one wash load per day to lessen the impact on the septic system, putting up food for the winter (blanched and froze cauliflower and some corn today), and starting on my fall cleaning. Aries has been on vacation for the past two weeks, so he's been getting a lot of fall chores done around the house too.

While out and about around town today, we saw quite a few "Burner" cars passing through on their way back home to California - instantly recognizable by the thick white coating of playa dust (PLY-ya: Spanish for beach or shore, here it refers to our alkaline dry lake beds out in the desert). Burners, around here this time of year, means people that have been spending their holiday weekend at Black Rock City, temporary encampment for the week to the 50,000 people that gather each year in the Black Rock Desert east of here for the Burning Man, "art community event". I hear it's quite the experience, but I've never really seen the appeal in paying more than $350 to hang out in the heat and blowing dust. I much prefer my camping time be spent up at Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, or in the Redwoods.

Unplugged

Miss me? I've been camping - no electricity, no computer, no television. We spent the past week on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, only 40 miles drive from the house. It was such a wonderful respite from everything.

So now I've come home to a garden and orchard begging to be harvested and processed, a cellar that needs to be scrubbed down and readied to start filling, and my turn to post on the SGF Co-op blog (I wrote about cold soup, with my favorite recipes for gazpacho and borscht). I'll be back to posting again here shortly.

Decor to Dye For

I don't like bathroom rugs with the rubberized non-slip stuff on the bottom. My bathroom isn't big enough to get up to slipping speed, and our heavy tile floor is uneven enough to provide a non-slip surface as it is. I like heavy reversible cotton rugs, easy to shake out and easy to wash.

But for some reason, those are hard to find, even more difficult because I'm looking for matching rugs in three different sizes. I like a big one in front of the sink cabinet, only have room for a smaller one to step out of the bathtub/shower onto, and then also like a U-shaped one in front of the toilet (tile on a cement-slab with only a woodstove for heat = very cold floors). I found what I was looking for in white, but didn't like how stark they looked. A bottle of dye and a go-round in the washing machine took care of that!

I love the way the rugs look now! The tan color just seems more serene. Since I'm posting a photo of my bathtub, I might as well point out another part of my decor I really like. We live in a small house, with only one bathroom (that also doubles as the laundry room). The bathtub is also a shower, and that's how we usually use it. So to have all the bathing-type accessories easily accessible to a standing user, it makes sense to hang them up. But the plastic shower caddies that hang over the shower head really wouldn't fit my decor, and besides, then you've got water running over your soap. Instead, I have a copper 3-tiered basket hanging from a chain on a ceiling hook above the other end of the tub. An old luffa, cut to fit, lines the top basket, with just enough room for a couple of tilted soap racks, the middle basket holds razors and brushes, the bottom one for bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Clothespins on the top edge hold luffas, a pouf, and shower cap where they can dry. Everything just drips back into the bottom of the tub. And everything is also up out of the way when using the bathtub for baths (or washing the dog, or cleaning blinds or the dehydrator racks). Best of all, it looks uncluttered and there's nothing around the edge of the tub to move when scrubbing the tub either.

Root-Pruning Cabbage

Dang! Usually I don't have to worry about my cabbages splitting until mid-September. They do just fine on their every-third-day soaker hose watering. But we had a very-rare-in-August rainy morning yesterday, and today this is what I found.

Split cabbages will continue growing, but the leaf-edges die where the split is, and any layers down inside that are cut off from the stem also die. So using a split cabbage gets more difficult the longer you leave it. I'd just cut a fresh head a couple of days ago, but this one will now be used first.

I have another one just starting to split, and three more heads still intact. I don't have much room in my refrigerator. It's too early to be making sauerkraut - I haven't ever started the cellar to cooling down. The warmer the temperature, the faster kraut ferments. I prefer letting my kraut ferment slowly, over eight to twelve weeks, in Fall's cooler cellar temperatures (I don't can my sauerkraut either - I just store it in the crock over the Winter in the cellar, and move what's left into the refrigerator in the Spring). So I want to keep my cabbages "on the hoof" out there in the garden as long as possible.

Splitting happens when cabbages take up too much water too quickly. Yesterday's rain was enough to cause it here. They're also prone to splitting as they get closer to harvest size. In our short season, early cabbages usually grow just fine until early fall, and then root-pruning will hold them until harvest time, just before the nights drop below freezing.

Today, I cut the top right split cabbage, and root-pruned the rest. I just sunk the shovel blade all the way in between each cabbage stem and the soaker hose. This cuts a good portion of the roots and slows the growth. Old-timers say to give a good quarter-twist to each plant to break off some of the roots, but I'm afraid of breaking the stem and/or not breaking enough of the roots so will just stick with my shovel method. I'll keep an eye on the top left one. If that split starts to go deeper, I'll have to get it into the refrigerator too. This year, I'm also growing some late cabbage for the first time, just to see how it does. It hasn't even started to head yet, so I'm hoping for a long, mellow Fall - cabbage to store, and a slowly-fermenting crock-o-kraut in the cellar.

Do You Suffer From OCD?

Do you find yourself stalking every laden fruit tree in your entire neighborhood? Do you need a flatbed truck to get your Farmers Market purchases home? Is everyone on your gift list (and even those that don't know they're on your list) getting a jar of jelly this year? You might be suffering from OCD (Obsessive Canning Disorder - I totally stole that from Throwback at Trapper Creek). If so, you might benefit from reading my most recent post over at the SGF Co-op blog. Check it out!

Start the Water Boiling - It's Applesauce Time

So, my canning season has started. I don't get fruit crops every year, depending on how our late Spring frosts hit, but this year have various apples, pears, Asian pears, plums, peaches, and red grapes. I dry a lot of my fruits, make bumper crops into hard cider, freeze some things, and can a bit. Canning a batch or two of applesauce is on my must-do list every year.

The birds and ground squirrels got all my Gravenstein apples (and most of the Italian prune plums). But the Freedom apples weren't far behind in the ripening schedule and for some reason haven't been as badly attacked (yet). I've hung junk CD's in the branches of most of my fruit trees, hoping the sunlight flashing off the shiny sides twisting in the breeze will startle the birds away, and Aries put up a pole for a whirly-gig too.

I pruned the tree quite a bit earlier this year to open up its shape, and thinned the fruit set while I was at it. So I have some nicely-sized fruit, easy to reach, and very little insect damage. The apples have a nice flavor and crunch for just eating out of hand, but are also supposed to be good for juice and sauce.

I had two half-pints of applesauce left in my pantry. Two days ago, I picked a couple big bowlfuls of the Freedom apples, and sat down in front of a movie on TV to quarter, core, and peel them all. I got them all prepped, soaking in a lemon juice solution, and then had to get ready to go work a tourist outing up at Lake Tahoe. So I put the whole pot into the refrigerator for the night. Yesterday, I drained the apples, put an inch or so of apple juice into the pan, covered it, and started them simmer/steaming. I'd already checked - I had plenty of lids on hand, so I got out a bunch of empty half-pints (the best applesauce size for the two of us), and got lots of jars and rings into my big canner full of water, and started that to heating.

When the apples were soft, I mashed them with a potato masher right in the pot (no sugar, no spices, just apples cooked in a bit of juice - I can always dress it up when I open up individual jars). I've cut notches in 2-pint increments into the handle of a wooden spoon. By standing that up in a pot of sauce I know how many jars it will fill. Even so, I don't put the lids into the hot water until after I have all my jars filled - no use prepping ones I won't need. I had enough for 16 half-pints. Hot jars are filled with hot applesauce to 1/4" headspace, rims wiped clean, hot lids and rings applied.

Our well water is a bit hard, so I always put a splash of vinegar in the water bath water. I process the jars, in the covered canner with water an inch over the top of the top layer of jars, for 10 minutes after the water comes back to a simmer. Set out on my cutting board, I leave them overnight to cool, listening for the lovely "plunk" (they used to "ping" - I think they've changed the thickness or center-shape of the lids in the past few years) as each jar seals.

This morning, all had sealed (yay!). The rings aren't necessary for storing sealed jars - I remove them and, once washed, keep them in a box under the counter. When I empty and then clean a jar, I put an old lid upside-down (to keep the old sealing compound from sticking to the rim) topped with a ring for storage - protecting the rim and keeping the empty jar clean (just hate dealing with boxes of dusty jars, with dead spiders in them). I give the sealed jars a quick rinse under cool running water, dry them off, and stick a little label with item and date on the lid (Mom just writes the date on the lid with a grease pencil). I don't have a big central canned goods storage area - each item has its own particular place. Nineteen jars of applesauce fit into the bottom of an old bread box in my little pantry - just about what the two of us will use in a year.

Ahhh - Peace and Quiet

Oh, how wonderful! A peaceful, quiet start to the day once again. In addition to our chickens, we also have three guinea fowl: Grey, a feral male that just moved in and made himself at home; Missus, a hen needing a home when her owners moved; and Tweedit, their first offspring, hatched in October five years ago then hand-raised inside the house that first winter. The Bachelor, Missus' brother and Tweedit's mate, went missing a couple of years ago - probably fell victim to coyotes while ranging outside the fence.

Tweedit and Missus both hide nests in the summertime, but we don't really want more guineas so we try to find and clean them out before the girls start setting. Tweedit did set a nest earlier this year, but none of her eggs were fertile. After losing her first nest when our neighbor found it in his shed, Missus hid another one deep inside a prickly desert peach thicket where we couldn't reach it. She brought three babies back home a couple of weeks ago (one died a couple of days later).

The dogrun up close to the house is set up as a poultry brood pen, with 1" chicken wire lining the bottom of the chain link fencing and a ground-level lean-to next to the dog house. With the enticement of a bit of birdseed, Missus walked her brood right in. Male guineas are usually pretty good fathers - staying near their mate while she's on the nest (although leaving each night to go back to their roost to sleep), and staying with the family, daytimes, after they've hatched.

In years past, the female in the brood pen will start calling to her mate, sleeping in the chicken coop overnight, at daybreak. Guineas are LOUD!! Both genders will make a one-note AWK! AWK! AWK! alarm call (they make excellent watchdogs). Plus, only the females also make a two-note call: BUCKWHEAT! BUCKWHEAT! (we don't sex the babies - waiting until they start calling is the only way we can tell gender). Either way, a guinea's call sounds like a very loud rusty pump handle screeching - not really the thing you want up near your bedroom as a general rule.

So that means when we have baby guineas (called keets) in the brood pen, we get woke up at the crack of dawn (maybe what she's really saying is "COME HELP! COME HELP!"). So I'll stumble out, trying to not open my eyes too much so I can go back to sleep, and open the chicken coop. In the past, Grey's been a really good mate - as soon as I'd open the coop he'd be first out, fly up onto the gate, jump down, run up to the brood pen, and go right inside to spend the day with Missus. Peace and quiet, and I can go back to bed.

But this year, Tweedit didn't have any babies to tend, so she's been out and fancy-free all summer. She and Grey foraged together whilst Missus sat her nest. And once Missus was up in the brood pen, Grey decided he'd rather hang with Tweedit. That meant, for the past two weeks, Missus starts calling at first light, AND DOESN'T SHUT UP!

I can get cranky if I don't get enough sleep. It was time for the babies to go! So, yesterday, we put a listing for free guinea chicks on Craigslist and gave them away within hours. Once the babies were gone, Missus rejoined Tweedit and Grey, and all were back in the coop last night. And I got to sleep in this morning.

Our Bike Valet Rack

I spent quite a bit of time this weekend sitting on various folding chairs outside. Luckily, it was a beautiful weekend to be doing just that.

Saturday morning, it was my turn again to staff our bicycle valet booth at the downtown Farmers Market. Saturday evening, Aries wanted to take our little Honda to the last Run-What-Ya-Brung Show-n-Shine downtown, so we spent a few hours there, visiting with all and sundry. Then, Sunday evening we volunteered at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival at Sand Harbor - getting there early to help people get settled in their seats, getting our dinner just before the show started, and then sitting back to enjoy "Much Ado About Nothing" under the stars.

We had a new piece of equipment for our bicycle valet - a bike-hanging bar. Just when I finished putting it put together, someone walking by asked if it was a hitching post for horses (it could happen - this is still a bit of an old-West type of town). I explained it was for a modern type of steed. One of our Muscle Powered members made the rack so we could easily fit more bicycles into a small space.

It's built a bit like a pipe saw horse. Jeff took a long piece of 2.5" pipe and cut criss-crossing holes for 1" pipe legs on each end. For storage or transport, the leg pipes can slide inside the big pipe. A bolted-on wrap-around bracket (I'm not technical, so not sure of the real name for it - just look at the picture) near the top of each leg stops the big pipe from sliding down further, making a stable standing rack.

When assembled, the big pipe stands about 4' high. Wrapping the crossbar pipe with old bicycle innertubes gives it a padded, non-slip surface. People just wheel their bike underneath and then lift and hook the front part of the seat over the bar. The front wheels of the bigger adult bikes rest on the ground, smaller ones and the children's bikes hang completely from the bar.

I brought a thermos of cafe au lait, some cotton yarn and a crochet hook. I had a nice place to sit, under the sunshade, with lots of folks stopping by to visit. There was a great duo providing live music. I spent a very contented morning, out in the fresh air, feeling so much a part of this wonderful community.

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.

Oh, Brrrrr!

I know, not the normal thing you say in August, is it? But we've got a cold front moving through today and into the evening. Attention weekend campers: they're even forecasting SNOW above 8,000 feet tonight. We live right about 5,000, so no snow here (I hope). But we have had bits of rain off and on this afternoon and our temps here are expected to be in the low 40's by sunrise tomorrow.

Saturday, August 8th, is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbors' Porch Day, so that's what I wrote about for my turn on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op Blog, including a couple of my favorite zucchini recipes. I just picked my first zucchini last week, but might have enough by Saturday to hang a bag on a couple of doorknobs nearby.

No tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, corn or beans yet. I pulled the shallots a couple of days ago, and set them out to cure. I had to scurry out quick to get them out of the rain and into the shed earlier. We're feasting on the early cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli here lately.

And one more little item - new mouths to feed: When I went out, dodging raindrops, to collect eggs this afternoon (an even dozen!), I noticed all three guineas were over under the fruit trees. Since Missus has been missing-in-action for a few weeks (figured she had a nest hidden somewhere), it was nice to see she's still around. And then, when they all came over to beg for birdseed, I saw she had three little day-old keets (one grey and two black) toddling behind. We use the dog run as a brood pen, so I quickly set up a little waterer and some chick starter in a low pan inside. Shaking the birdseed scoop, I enticed all three adults into the pen, babies following along. At dusk, Missus had settled down inside the doghouse lean-to. I opened the gate to let Tweedit and Grey out, and they headed down to the chicken coop for the night. It's nice to see that Missus knows enough to get those babies out of the wind and rain.

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.

Chinese Pea Pods and Carrots

Friday evening, 6 p.m. We're both tired, and we're hungry. Aries brought home some fish fillets, so I put them over a bed of chopped shallots and mushroom stems, splash on a bit of dry sherry, salt & pepper, and get them into a 350º oven to bake for 15 minutes. Toss the mushroom caps, with a bit of butter, into the skillet for a sauce for the fish. Now for a quick veg side dish.

Shading the pea roots with lettuce plants alongside (and the netting over the entire bed) has worked very well. My pea plants are still going strong into the middle of July. Peas and carrots sounds good. But this ain't yo' mama's little cubes of boiled-to-death veggies. Adapted for the microwave, this is a fast, healthy version of that old staple side dish (and makes for a great lunch, all by itself).

So I stir up the soy sauce glaze, and sprinkle some flour over the mushrooms in the skillet. The carrot slices cooking, I string the pea pods (picked this morning). Add some milk, salt & pepper, and a dash of paprika powder to the mushroom skillet; add peas to the carrots. The fish cooked, I dump the base of chopped shallots and 'shrooms and fish juices into the simmering skillet and give it a few more stirs. Toss the veggies with the glaze, and dish up the plates. A loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine (from Murphys California, just the other side of scenic Ebbetts Pass to the south) - gourmet dinner, on the table, in less than half an hour!


Chinese Pea Pods and Carrots (serves two)
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 carrot, thinly sliced on the bias
1 cup of flat Chinese pea pods (fresh or frozen)
2 tablespoons walnut pieces
1 teaspoon butter or margarine

Stir together water, soy sauce and cornstarch in a small microwave-safe bowl. Micro-cook in 3 30-second increments, stirring after each time. It should be thickened, clear, and bubbly. Set aside.

Place carrots with a splash of water in covered casserole dish and micro-cook 2 minutes. Drain. Add pea pods, walnuts, and butter or margarine, cover and micro-cook another minute or two, until veggies are crisp-tender. Toss with the soy sauce mixture.

Braided, Tied, and Hung to Dry

After a couple of days outside in the shade, it was time to get my garlic harvest into shape to store. Usually, when garlic is almost ready to harvest, the leaf tips turn tan and the green tops flop over, right at the soil line. When that happens on a few of the plants, I'll bend the rest of the crop down too and pull the soaker hose away to let the soil dry out for a few days before digging up the bulbs.

This year, my garlic didn't do that. The tops just dried out and all turned tan at once, still standing upright, and earlier than usual. They're really nice-sized bulbs - I got five pounds of garlic from a 2' x 4' patch. But having to pull dry plants out of still-damp soil means I don't know how well they'll store this winter. When garlic is harvested with the tops still somewhat green out of dry dirt, as it cures the wrapping layers stay intact, protecting the cloves inside all winter and into the spring. But the outer layers were already so dry that they flaked away as the dirt dried, leaving less wrapping around the bulbs. I'll have to keep an eye on the bulbs later this season, and if they start feeling shrunken inside the wrapping I'll have to do something - probably make garlic powder by peeling and dehydrating what's left.

But I prefer fresh garlic, and Mother Nature meant for it to last through the winter to grow anew in early Spring. So I'll try curing and storing it as usual for now. I didn't want to chance rubbing away any more layers, so my garlic braid isn't quite as pretty and shiny-white as usual. I just cleaned off the dirt a bit and trimmed the roots with shears. The bulbs too dry to braid are in a basket on the counter to be used first. I use braided garlic from the bottom up in order to keep the decorative aspect nice as long as possible, so I started braiding with smaller bulbs, those with cloves starting to separate, and those with the least wrapping layers. I add in bulbs to the right, left, and center as room is available, keep braiding a bit more at the top, and then bend the braid to the back. Then, using a short length of string, I tie tightly close to the top bulbs (the stems will shrink as they dry), criss-cross wrap a few times and tie again higher up, and then knot a hanging loop. I'll leave the braid out in the open kitchen to cure for a couple of weeks, then move it into the cooler, darker pantry to store. Then, I'll just have to keep an eye on it, watching for withering. The two biggest, nicest bulbs, those with the long stems not part of the braid, I'm saving to break apart to plant come October.