WARNING: Reading This Post May Damage My Reputation... Read On

March 9, 2012

Oh man, has it been a long time since we’ve talked!???  You look great, no really!  It is summertime warm tonight so I can write in the garage on the now-ancient PC – a Dell no less? Remember when Dell was theee site to buy your DESKTOP PC – all made-in-America stuff, touchy feely technology. Wow, things have changed.  Made in China now. I think that is where the cold comes from in winter.

We are now “Post PC” according to Apple and I agree except that Allison’s IPad doesn’t have a USB port for my thumb drive and doesn’t have compatible Word software so I can’t use the damn thing for blogging so instead I have to go out to the garage to the Dino Dell PC. The garage is cold imported from China and Apple is hot like a cheap piece of imported Chinese metal. I love their products but is it too much to ask for a USPS port so I can wirelessly email my data to your porthole from my warm couch next to the organic wood burning fireplace with real-time heat control for maximum efficiency? This farming thing is getting harder and harder.

Allison bought me a plastic owl for Valentines Day. Thank you Al! I have become tired of sleeping with it so I decided to put it in the garden. Hot Damn! It scares away birds and critters. Must be because it is so shiny after me sleeping with it for three weeks. This owl fake could be a brilliant device to keep away birds and vermin.

She also got me a handful of rubber snakes from Walmart.  I like the snakes in the garden. It is freaking scary! You come around the corner of the cauliflower bush and BAM!!!! There is a flipping plastic snake you bought to scare away the other critters that the buffed owl didn’t get. I could swear I feel it bite me every time. Worst and best three bucks we ever spent on plastic snakes.  Reminds of the first time I cut off a head….

The hose attachment has a leak right where you hold it and the water is f……g frigid. Burrrrrrrr!!

Okay, I am talking kinda crazy tonight but I need to blow off some steam. That would be a bad place to write seamen instead of steam. The funny thing is that I seewomen. Why doesn’t word software autocorrect like my IPhone so that I can blame my awful writing on the machine?

Anyway, I hope I can make people laugh with what I write.

Now on to the garden…..  frustrating right now. Last week we had a fairly deep freeze that is totally showing up with burnt lettuce, pickled potatoes, and deviled eggs. The winter garden is not very happening so here's a picture of our peahen Lucy. She thinks she's a chicken except when she sees them taking their dirt baths and thinks, uh no.



Herbs a growin



This winter has enjoyed alternating weeks of deep frost and summer respite. The herbs don’t seem to mind but the veggies are slow at best. I guess we really do have seasons here at 2500 foot elevation in the coastal zone 23. I personally think everything is just confused. Your mate may turn to vegetables for comfort. Our stream hasn’t really run all winter. I haven’t hooked up the water storage just because there has been no reason to do so. The funny thing about weather is that it changes all the time…

March 13, 2012



Bodacious broccoli



The time changed! It is now four days later than my previous entry. And it stayed light until 7:15 tonight. So cool. And the garden has changed from the previous writing. The garden was so bursting tonight! Let me think – going around the garden there are major beets, broccoli, kale, potatoes – the freakin potatoes are finally emerging – I thought I was a total failure because I couldn’t grow potatoes but there is hope yet. Check out our bodacious broccoli buds -

The onions from seed are starting to happen but they are taking forever to get going – some seeds just don’t know how to get a good start. The lettuces are doing well but not the iceberg which did not live up to its name as the freeze wiped out their plump heads which looked fine the day after the freeze bit then soon looked like an old Russian gypsy with bad skin and warts. Sounds rummy.



We grew celery!!!



The new carrot patch is bitchen’. I thinned out a ton of the coolest little fingerling carrots that we ate after a 20 second sauté in olive oil and celery salt.  Picked gorgeous green onions that were starting to bud, grilled them with ribs Al made with her killer vinegar treatment, great ribs hunnie. The onions were sweet and succulent like jumbo asparagus which we should have this year as my asp patch has taken root. (Someday we’ll grill our own baby backs grown on the back of our soil if I can convince the girls.) Celery is freaking beautiful and healthy, but slow growing. Then the herb patch is doing great – I named the patch after Herb Albert. Sing to me you little vegetables!





Cados



Isabel (10 yrs) took this photo - nice!

Our trees are happy trees.  The avocados are bursting and make the best guacamole!  Only bummer is they take almost 2 weeks to ripen - it's sooo hard to wait!!!  And the peach tree blossoms are quite purty.  Hoping to see some action late spring.

 Oh what to plant for summer and when?  Dreaming of tomatoes hugely. We will have tomato everything on the menu this summer. What her melons? Yes, watermelons too. Thinking huge corn patches. Gadzooks and squash! Heirloom everything! Basically everything pestoically presented on pasta primavera. Okay my food puns are stretched line a Kentucky Pole Bean on a high pressure Santa Ana day. I’m not funny but I’m having fun  - so is Saffron taking her dirt bath.