Springtime at the Ranch

We're back. Still alive and with weeks of all sorts of adventures under our belts.

Freezing in Chicago!

I'm trying to set up a blog site for our RV adventure but you can read about what I did right after the RV trip, here. 

Spring is here!

Great year for roses.

Now, it is back to Ranch Life. And thanks to recent rains, the hills are green again! Our creek is still dry on one side, but the trees seem to be doing alright, with peach, nectarine, plum and apple blossoms in varying degrees of bloom. No mushrooms, however, and I am suspecting we may not see any this season.

Tomato seeds I planted before we left on the Crazy Adventure have sprouted and I am getting ready to set up my summer garden while Big Dog counts the days until he can do the Big Burn of last year's clippings.

Micro-farming

In between my tirades on the state of the world, I managed to write another article on another inspiring local farm  for the Central Coast Grown website.  (Find the article here.)

Staci, the owner, grower and herbalist for Elfin Herb had warned me that her growing operation was small, but I wasn't prepared to find her farming everything (almost) in her home garden. And not a GIANT garden, either. In fact, I think most Californians probably have slightly larger yards.

"It's not size that counts, but how you use it." I've heard that said a lot about…well, other things, but Staci was proof that, even in farming, size does not limit what you can do as long as you do it right, are determined and have persistence and patience.

Here's Staci, showing me her pantry of dried plants. I can't get over the fact that the colors are so pretty!

Everything is handcrafted in small batches in her workshop at the back of her yard. She'll distill essential oils in copper stills that are not only perfect for small batch crafting, but so attractive.

I am always so easily inspired and influenced! After visiting Staci, of course, I had to start picking and drying my own flowers and herbs. And looking up different recipes online. If I am successful, friends and family who must be so tired of my fruit products will be getting a batch of homemade body care products this Christmas. 

A Taste of Tradition

The second farm/ranch I visited for the Central Coast Grown website was Nick Ranch, a multi-generational cattle ranch. They do everything organically. From start to finish. And that means not just being good caretakers for their cattle, but for their land and all the wildlife on it.

They are all about coexistence. And if you were worried about the karmic effects of eating meat, this is about as good as it gets.

At $30/lb, their beef seemed expensive to me...until I thought about what beef costs in Japan. It costs this much to raise cattle the proper way, but it doesn't have to. Right now, the corporate farms and ranches get all the subsidies. To do things right shouldn't cost this much more than doing it wrong, but today, that's the way it is. Organic farmers and ranchers have to go through extra steps, not just in their operation but paperwork. Meanwhile, those who raise cows in massive feedlots, feeding them GMO corn and shooting them with growth hormones get to flood the market with cheaper meat and still get rich.

But we get what we deserve. We have what we value. If we value good honest food over CHEAP, we will be able to keep these businesses alive and thriving. And preserve a piece of tradition.

All wildlife welcome!

Central Coast Grown

As if I didn't have enough to do -- and you can tell by how bad I've been at updating this blog! -- I have started volunteering for the Central Coast Ag Network's renewed website with photos and articles.

Here's the first one about Windrose Farm, a beautiful farm in Creston run by Barbara and Bill, a former studio musician and her husband. 

When I arrived to see their operation and interview them, Bill was making bread while a tiny baby lamb wobbled around the kitchen. What a precious moment! (On a bit of a tangent: why are baby animals so much cuter than baby humans? Or is that just me?)

For the last several decades, almost all of my professional writing has been for the Japanese press. It's great to be able to do this in English, again. And unlike this blog, because there is a specific length to these articles, I must be a better editor, too. Which is difficult because there was so much more I wanted to include in the article! Like, how in order to supply restaurants, they need to make sure the veggies are super clean. Or the somewhat discouraging politics and hierarchy of farmers' markets.  How real farmers are not just people who grow food but are healers, providing us with "medicine" for the body and soul. How they are also activists fighting under the banner of food sufficiency and independence. As well as philanthropists because you have to have love -- for the community and humankind -- to be doing this to begin with. How Bill is also a philosopher and Barbara is an artist -- you can tell by the artistic way she plants things!

Tomorrow, I go out to Pozo to see Juanell of Nick Ranch, a multi-generational cattle ranch. It should be another highly educational visit.

The New Gophers

...are the squirrels.

Back at The Ranch, yes, the gophers are still there, but their territory is being invaded by bigger, badder, more fearless squirrels.

These are not the cute guys scurrying up a tree. These are ground squirrels that dig giant tunnels, eat up your veggies, and probably scare away the gophers. They've always been a problem for "the other valley" and if you've been to Morro Rock, you might have seen them begging tourists for junk food. Living on a diet of chips, fries and other junk, they are super-sized guys with big, pear-shaped asses.

Ours are healthier. In fact, the one that lives closest to the house loves to do calisthenics.

"Look!" I point to the deer fence. A squirrel is hanging on the wire, like it's doing chin-ups or something.

"Get me the gun!" Big Dog whispers, frozen by the back door.

"Shit." When I return with his .22, the squirrel has jumped off. But as if to taunt Big Dog, a moment later, he is back, hanging on the fence again. Big Dog raises his gun again. Critter jumps away. Nyah nyah nyah.

We're going to get live animals traps. Lots and lots of them. And then I'm going to skin them for hats, and dress them for jerky. Everyone will get some "squirky" for Christmas this year. And maybe some squirrel skin caps. At least I can dream, can't I? Happy Earth Day!

Apres le deluge...

When the rains stop, we are blinded.

I had never thought of green as a "blinding" or "firey" color until I came to the Central Coast. The winter green of this area is a hot, neon green. After an afternoon of working outside, your eyes hurt and you beat yourself up for not having worn shades. You close your eyes and everything is red and still hurts. Seeing green, seeing red. Only there is no envy or anger. Only the flashy diva dance of nature.

The hills are ablaze in this blinding green light and raindrops glitter, jewels on the wire mesh of fences, dried grasses, leaves, last season's wild fennel. Into this fairy feast, a new bobcat appears, rambling up the hill to our house, and sniffs around. At first, you think it's Ellie, our resident huntress, until you see its flared cheek fur, a bit of Bozo facial hair.

Today, you miss Mick (as you have started calling the newcomer) and Toni and all the others terribly. You miss walking outside with your morning coffee and chuckling at yet another new mound of bobcat poo on your makeshift weedblock. You miss the blinding green and sparkle of the ranch, here in grey, wet West Los Angeles.

Season Premier

Nature's drama was never as interesting in the cities. Rain meant umbrellas, wet pants, sloshy streets and having to use something other than my bike to get around. Typhoons meant delayed trains and subways, traffic jams, billboards falling on unwary pedestrians.

Out in the countryside, weather is an event rivaling even the County Fair and for the last couple of weeks, there's been talk of nothing but.
"There's going to be several storms, one after the other..."
"It gets worse on Thursday..."
"They say there'll be maybe 12 inches of rain..."

All last week, while Big Dog and I were pruning, I could hear chainsaws around the valley as ranchers cut away dead limbs and other potential hazards. Our neighbors were at our common creek with a backhoe, lifting out fallen tree stumps and other debris from the October Storm. (City people never name their weather events. I can only remember one summer drought in Japan that got a nickname. It was bad enough to cause a major rice shortage and the government had to allow rice imports for the first time. That became known as The Summer of Imported Rice.)

By the end of the week, we were also infected with Storm Watch Fever. Big Dog was forever dashing to the fire station to get more sandbags (and why it had to be 10 or 20 bags at a time, instead of, say, 50 all at once, I'll never know) and lugging them around the ranch to place in strategic and sometime mysterious locations. I wasn't much help, I'm afraid. After stocking up our food supply, in case we got trapped on the ranch, and bringing in the seedlings, I was merely one of those who excitedly waited for the rain.

We're five days into it, now, and I'm still strolling around the place during lulls to check out how swollen the river is, where pastures have turned into lakes, if our neighbors were able to clear the culvert enough to keep the easement road from becoming another creek. It's a watery world out there and everything smells clean, clean, clean.

I am sure the Season Premier of the Storm Series gets a less than open-armed welcome further south. As much as they need the rain, the summer's rash of wildfires means danger of major landslides.

Is there more rain coming? Will the pasture flood completely? Can we keep the road from being washed away? Will the price of chanterelle mushrooms plummet like it's rumored? Don't touch that dial.

Slice of Heaven

Loved the town, loved the landscape, loved the people...but, man, the weather!

Big Dog and I finally left Arcata on Thursday after boring each other with constant reminders that this was July, despite the freaking cold.

"It's the coldest summer on record!" locals told us, but locals are used to the cold and wet. By the time we drove out of there, we were ready for some warm, dry summer weather. (San Francisco, which is always my favorite place to spend the night, was also too cold and wet to fully enjoy.)

Back in Central California, I am blissing out on the stunning weather, the apricots that are still happening, the peaches, plums and nectarines that are coming into season... Enjoying a slice of heaven before Hell Week begins.

Plotting and Planting

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they garden.

J&R (that's "Glass Guy and his Girlfriend") have expanded their vegetable garden by almost 100% this year and it is giant. They labored for days in the planning and preparation -- digging, raising, installing gopher barriers (and more traps), planting and mulching with hay. Everything is labeled and looks very pretty. This year, they also have their extensive irrigation on timers.

They're quite academic about it all and seem to have done a lot of reading on "How to Grow Big and Tasty Vegetables."

The McC's, on the other hand, have little plots scattered throughout different parts of their zone. A bed of strawberries here, a forest of artichokes there, an L of berries, a plot of tomatoes and squash. Different stuff growing in different spots. Daddy McC fenced off this formerly untamed field for their garden and built a cute wooden gate with cut-out hearts. (At first, it even had a lovely stained glass circle in the middle but it kept falling out and breaking.)

Mine is even more scattered. It's looks like I have no idea what I'm doing. There are tomatoes, squash, peppers, peas and an assortment of greens in the regular vegetable plot but there are also more of them in the fringes of my strawberry bed. And this year, there are several containers growing vegetables around the house. It's a Hedge Fund of sorts.

"It's an experiment to see where the veggies grow best," I tell the curious.

The chickens are quite a nuisance. The Original Three weren't interested in pecking at the vegetables, but the Voracious Seven who are here now are tearing the place apart! They've made a total mess of the compost pile, pecked all of Mommy McC's spinach, lettuce and my chard. J&R already have their garden fenced. I haven't gotten around to fencing mine yet and have upside down gopher cages protecting my babies from the Terrible Peckers but wonder how long it will take before they figure out a way to lift those cages off...

Eyeful of Iris

Irises are a-bloomin' all over the ranch, in every size and color.

Flowers are so erotic. And why shouldn't they be? They're the sex organs of a plant, after all.







I laugh at Big Dog (and my nephew, the Pupster, and our old friend RB, and....half a dozen other guys...) and their love of trains. "It's so Freudian! Guys are attracted to phallic shapes! And don't you just love to watch those trains go through tunnels? Ha ha ha!" But women are drawn to the vulval, like these gorgeous flowers. Whether you realize it or not, we're all gay.

News from the Front

I may not be winning the Gopher War, but I think I am making headway in holding my own. The Solar Powered Gopher Repeller, a plastic stake about a foot long that makes this strange high-pitched giggling sound (like those laughing gophers in Caddyshack) seems to be working!

We put it in just before leaving the ranch for several weeks and when we came back, all the new gopher holes were on the perimeter. You could almost see the active area for this Repeller! For a while, though, I think the Mama Gophers were actually drawn to the noise and I was able to trap a couple more right by the device. Now, I have a new type of Solar Powered Repeller (different sound -- more like an electronic beep) in my rose bed which was just out of range of the other.

Which is all great news because Big Dog managed to pick up a shotgun from his dad's house and I really didn't want him using it. The rifle was bad enough.

"We have gophers in our yard, too! For the first time!" exclaimed T, wife of Big Dog's high school buddy, B, who made a surprise visit last weekend. She winced when we talked of trapping and shooting and I knew she was in her First Year of Gophers.

"Wait til the third year or so. You'll be shooting them, too!" we laughed.

T&B live in a nice residential neighborhood in San Diego and they never had gophers before.
"Now everyone's got them!"
"Was there a new development outside of town that destroyed their natural habitat?"
"I don't think so. We think maybe it's the water shortage."

All over Southern California, there is major water rationing. A bit late, we'd add. All the new residents, with all their water needs, plus the traditional lawn yard has sucked up all the ground water and then some. Limiting watering to the evenings isn't going to solve the problem. And now, it seems, it's driving the gophers to where there IS water. Where there's water, there's yummy green food.

"I heard that you can kill them with saltine crackers," T shared. "They can't drink water so that extra salt dehydrates them."
Sounds cruel...but effective?

But the best Gopher Extermination Plan was the one my friend told me about:
"I saw a clip about a year ago where some guys were getting rid of gophers using a high powered vacuum thing. They stick the hose in the hole and vacuum the bastards. The clip showed an amazing amount of them being whacked into the gadget," she e-mailed.

Now, where do you find this Gopher Vacuum? And once the vacuum is full, then what?

Dispatches from the 20th Century

Life on The Ranch is often an 18th century experience, but regarding communication and information, we are definitely 20th century. We get radio, some cell phone connectivity and dial-up internet -- at the amazing speed of 28800 baud! Kids today probably don't know what a baud is. Or maybe even dial-up. We have 2 barely watchable terrestrial tv channels, but they'll soon disappear, too.

It's too easy to make my lack of a real internet environment an excuse for not blogging, but in reality, I just didn't feel like writing much the last month. After a couple of sleepless nights, though, I am feeling like updating this thing. Finally.

Gopher Wars

They have begun.

The gopher problem is nothing new. When we first got to The Ranch 3 years ago, I saw little earth mounds here and there and wondered what that was all about. City girls don't know much about anything!

And in my blissful ignorance, even after I found out what those mounds were, I didn't worry much about gophers.
Not when crops began disappearing from the veggie garden.
Not when some beautiful plants disappeared from our garden.
Not even when we discovered that the smallest cherry tree in our orchard was not sickly or dehydrated but a victim of the gophers.

"It's like Elmer Fudd!" Big Dog would tell his friends in amazement. "You'd be sitting out there, enjoying the view, when you'd see a plant move. As you look closer, you see the plant disappear into the ground, inches at a time and go, 'What the...'"

It was still sort of amusing.

Glass Guy and his girlfriend put in a giant vegetable garden last year and that's when the Gopher Wars started simmering. First he tried Macabee Traps. They work but are a gruesome thing to deal with when they do. Then, he tried flooding them out of the tunnels but the gophers were faster. Next, he tried pumping butane into the ground and igniting it. We got some singed fur smells and a call from a neighbor who was freaked out about our possibly doing fireworks during a bone-dry summer. ("The ground lifted up in a wave!" Big Dog said excitedly -- I was not there for the WMD show -- as he sang John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom Boom" to himself.) The gophers just dug new tunnels, so he got one of those black box traps and caught a few. I have no idea how many gophers live here, but I am sure our efforts amounted to less than a drop in the bucket.

This year, I have enlisted in the Anti-Gopher Campaign. I still believe they have as much right to be here as we do, if not more, and if there were a way to just send them packing, I would do it. I am tired, though, of plants being destroyed randomly and I am sick of our 30-hole rough course that was once a lawn. (I am going to turn the former lawn into a nice landscaped garden with everything gophers hate to eat!) And I am concerned that they are burrowing from the yard to the ground under the house and will soon make the whole house list.

In addition to the Glass Guy's failed methods, I can tell you what else doesn't work:
1) Those gopher repellent pegs sold in garden supply catalogs. A friend who visited last summer took pity on us and bought me a pack. Since it was close to the end of the season, I didn't try them out until this spring. They are smelly pegs filled with castor oil or something, but it's not Gopher Kryptonite! They'll just dig them out of their tunnels like we get rid of the trash. I am thinking of sending this photo to the manufacturers.(the peg is that thing in the lower left corner)

2) Garlic. I had read that garlic also works as a repellent so I bought a huge bag at Costco and began dropping them into the gopher tunnels, making sure to mash them a bit for extra odor. I think it was only a nuisance for the gophers, but it's become an afternoon ritual for me to go around poking garlic in the many gopher holes around our house.

I am on Item Number Three at the moment: a solar-powered Chattering Stake driven into the ground. The noise is supposed to mimic their "danger" signal. We'll see if it works, but I have my doubts.

Poisons are out for us. We don't want anything polluting our water source. Traps do work, but it was horrible when I actually caught one by its leg in a Macabee trap and had to ask Big Dog to deal to it. All choices, including letting it go, were terrible.

Big Dog who "battles" nature in the European tradition has taken to shooting them with his rifle, but they are quick and fearless.

"I was so close! Mere inches away..." he mutters. "My god, he's coming back out again!"
BD aims and shoots. He misses, again, but the flying bullet doesn't seem to scare the gopher one bit. It keeps on shoveling dirt out of its hole.
"Wait til I get my hands on Dad's shotgun!"

The gophers have turned us into that Bill Murray character in Caddyshack!

I don't want a gopher massacre nor do I want lead all around our house, so I am secretly hoping that his dad's shotgun is long gone. More openly, I am hoping that the Chattering Stake actually works!

Spring in Eden

We arrived at the Ranch on Sunday, via the Antelope Valley. There was some strange weather going on -- a storm front moving southeast -- with dark clouds shifting the light over the high desert and even snow or hail up through the Tejon Pass. But it's spring and even the desert was abloom with wildflowers.

At the ranch, it's just outrageous. Everything is growing in a mad rush, as if the plants are afraid they'll be left behind. The famous poppies of the Antelope Valley are dainty orange truffles but here on the Central Coast, they are the super-sized globes. It's the earliest we've been here and I'm enjoying flowers I'm seeing here for the first time. Crocuses and daffodils, peach and nectarine blossoms which are a gorgeous deep pink. Usually, by the time we get here, the only blossoming fruit trees are the apples. Right now, they are bare.

It is good to be here. Nature is a healing mother and with all the emotional upheaval of the past few weeks, I need Mommy! Although I am stiff and sore, bruised and blistered from a full day of weeding and gardening (and slipping and hitting my tailbone) my soul feels like it's in intensive care.

Happy!!! New Year

Just spent a week of tree pruning at The Ranch.

"You know, it's a strange thing about this place," I commented to Big Dog. "When I'm here, I am totally in its grip. There's some strange seductive power here -- like a siren song you can't resist."
"I know what you mean!" he agreed.

The weather was warm, clear and fabulous and I got to climb a lot of trees. (Plus JD, our friend who lives on the property was there to teach me some knife-throwing basics!) Some trees are more fun to climb than others, but I don't think there is any tree that's NOT fun to climb, so the little bits of leaf and Spanish moss and maybe a bug or two in my hair is all worth it.

"Why do people stop doing what they enjoyed as children?" I emailed friends. "Jumping on trampolines, making sand castles, climbing trees... I'm so happy to be doing all of these things again."

Well, today, I know why people stop doing what they did as kids.
My upper body is completely sore.

But here's what I think: I'm just not doing it enough!

Waaaaay (South)East of Eden

In fact, going from The Ranch to anywhere inland in California right now is like going from Paradise to Hell. And you don't have to go very far inland to start hitting Purgatory.

The drive down from LO (Los Osos) to SLO (San Luis Obispo) is a lovely one, past fields of red and green lettuce, artichoke fields forever (and I always have to sing it to the tune of Strawberry Fields Forever,) soft, curvaceous rolls of hills, black and brown cows and hard bodied cyclists. 101 is not too bad, either, taking you through picture-book farmland, acres and acres of vineyards and strawberry fields that scent the air delicious.

We left the ranch this morning (LO to SLO!), then turned off of 101 and onto 166, just north of Santa Maria ("The Murder Capital of the Central Coast!" I announced as we approached. Big Dog rolled his eyes at me. "Well, it's true, isn't it? I think it has the highest murder rate in the Central Coast..." my eyes stabbed his rollers.) This is the road that leads you East of Eden. At first, it's still gentle hills, grazing land for the happiest cows on earth (I know PETA wants to refute that, but I just KNOW it's a whole lot better than being penned up in some factory farm...and although Indian cows are revered, I can't imagine that life in India is much better for cows even if they don't end up on your dinner table...all life must end sometime, anyway...) but as you keep going east, the land -- and air -- turn hotter and meaner. You can feel a definite change at the turn off to Tepusquet Canyon. Further east, there is no more marine influence and the scorching inland climate takes over.

"Are we stopping at Jolly Kone for a burger?" I asked Big Dog.
"Oh, so now you're a fan, too?"
"Not really, but I know how you enjoy their burgers and I'm getting hungry."

We take 166 when we go from The Ranch to the DogFather's and have taken to stopping at Jolly Kone in Maricopa, a dusty little town the kind you see in every cool road movie. In fact, just stopping in this town is like being in the middle of a cool, off-beat road movie. And when there's a Korean-run burger stand, well, it become some kind of surreal scene in this movie.

Last summer, when we stopped there, Big Dog wanted to use the bathroom that was at the back of the shop. Locked, of course. So he asked the cute lady at the window, "Toilet?"
"....."
"El baño?" When you ask in English and they don't answer, try Spanish, right? This IS California, after all.
"I'm Korean," announced the woman.
"Kamsahamnida," Big Dog said in reply. You could hear someone in the darkness of the shop yelling, "Chee-bagga! Chee-bagga! Ya! Wee fies..."

I had to shake my head in disbelief at this surreal conversation.

But isn't it totally apropos for a trip from Paradise to Hell? And Hell is FUN! Extreme weather is extremely entertaining. Even when I am miserable, I am having fun. Because I can tell you how my eyeballs dried up and were ready to crumble, the moisture from all the mucus membranes in my body got sucked out. I was fried, dried and crispy! Like something you can find in a really authentic Chinese restaurant! I couldn't believe everything in sight wasn't spontaneously combusting.

Real Hell, however, exists further east and further south. Real Hell is on the edge of LA County. Real Hell is always made by Man.

Updates

You may be wondering why I don't update my blog as much when I am at The Ranch. One reason is that I don't have a decent enough internet connection here in the house (I can piggyback on Glass Guy's connection -- he has a security webcam in his shop and he can "spy" on intruders from his home -- but a big oak-covered rock we call Treasure Island blocks the connection when I am inside the house.) The other reason is that there is just too much keeping me away from my laptop.

Last week was Bat Fighting Week, for example. Since we returned to find the bats living in our house again, we've been on a humane (at least I think so...) eviction campaign. We've been trying to make them leave at night to go feeding and then after we think they're gone, we block the entrance again.

"Heeeeey, there's a whole lot of yummy stuff out here.....don't you want to taste any of these juicy bugs?"

It's kind of like enticing unwanted guests out and then locking your door.

Now we've sealed most of the spaces with insulating foam, leaving just a small exit. Seemed easier than P's suggestion of catching a snake and getting it up there. I don't hear the bats anymore, so I think they're all gone.

This week is Getting Oak House Ready for the McC's week. Lots of cleaning, fixing screens, spackling, caulking (yeah!) and painting. And buying some household appliances -- something I loath doing. But it keeps us indoors more and that's a good thing because although the days are gorgeous, the winds have been blowing smoke from the Monterey County fires our direction and it smelled like a campfire all over the ranch yesterday morning.

Behind The Wheel...

Winds are blowing now from the northwest, bringing all the smoke down from the Monterey County wildfires. The landscape of rolling hills and farmlands is taking on a lovely soft focus -- Central Californian countryside through a Pro Mist filter! But the big news of the day is.......




I GOT MY DRIVER'S LICENSE!

And why shouldn't I? I picked the most auspicious day in the Japanese almanac (though I wondered if I wasn't screwing it up by ignoring time zones,) I washed the truck, cleaned up the inside, sweet-talked to it ("Be nice to me tomorrow, okay?") found a (lucky?) penny in the truck bed, made sure I had my little temple talisman in my purse... I did all the (probably) useless and (definitely) superstitious things my Edokko grandmother would have done. Aside from washing the truck, I did all of this secretly. Big Dog and his Western logic would have told me I should just practice more. But rituals are important. It was my way of preparing myself mentally. And to stack the odds against, say, a child running out of the bushes into the street and smack into the truck. Or having the brakes lock up. Or the steering wheel come off in my hand like some cartoon moment.

Yes, it also helped that a wonderfully sweet lady was waiting for me at Window 11, and another friendly and down-to-earth local woman tested me. It would have been a different scene in LA, I am sure.

My tester, "Kathy," was curious, though.

"What did you do to have to take a driving test again?"
"I'm from Japan."
"Oh, and you didn't get an international license?"
"No. I never had a license! I never drove a car! We have a giant, efficient network of trains and buses and subways..."
"It must be nice having such an advanced public transportation system with these gas prices!"
Yeah, it would be if the fares weren't so expensive.

We cruised around a bit in traffic-heavy San Luis Obispo and, just like that, I became a legal, registered, licensed California Driver. Heaven help us all.

Relief at Last

Hurray! We're on the other side of the freak heat wave!
Coastal California is normally blessed with a temperate climate year-round, but last week was a record breaking anomaly here on the Central Coast. It must have been terribly exciting for the meteorologists.

"Another record for Santa Maria!"
"All-time high in San Luis Obispo!!"
"116 in Shell Beach!!!"

"This is what it must be like to be in Paso Robles in the summer," Big Dog and I moaned on Friday when our thermometer was hitting 105 in the AM. (In fact, during the heat wave, Paso Robles was COOLER.) You didn't want to open windows -- there was a hellishly hot wind blowing from the east.

Maybe our grapes were happy.
"Oh, yeah! Vineyard temps at last! Get it while you can!"

It was hard to believe that the bats weren't dying up there in the heat. And why didn't the horses stay under the shade all day? Even Big Dog got heat exhaustion and had to stay in for most of the day on Friday and Saturday.

But just like the meteorologists promised, it started to cool down yesterday and this morning, we are back to our normal mild temps. Ahhhhhh. Relief at last.

The Season of Love...again

A beautiful, metallic blue lizard chases Plain Jane around. Nose to tail, they chase each other in circles for a while, every so often leaping into the air like graceful acrobats. It's then that I notice the lovely blue of their bellies.

Super Red is the alpha male turkey tom. His neck is redder than the others and he loves to strut around, all puffed up. For some reason, he always has a second in tow. Maybe this is Beta Male. Beta Male does not dare to puff up in front of Super Red. He's probably happy just to get leftovers.

("Sloppy Seconds," says Big Dog.
"Eeeeew," I grimace.)

Super Red makes a strange hollow tapping noise when he puffs up. It makes me think of the tsuzumi drummers of Kabuki, especially since Super Red is a bit of a kabuki actor himself. He holds his wings down, trailing them on the ground as he shuffles forward -- just like the hero of a kabuki play.

My body is a wreck from weeding, hoeing, raking and dumping the mountains of weeds, but it's the Season of Love at the ranch so while I walk slowly, my heart can't help but do a crazy jitterbug.