Off Again

Looks like it might be another good year for apricots.

It's turned into the most satisfying month at the ranch. Oh, sure, there were days when I felt…a bit off, especially when my routine was disturbed with other work, visitors or Big Dog. But with everything looking so wonderful and healthy, I couldn't help but be Very Happy. Plus, there has been a wealth of yummy things to harvest: asparagus, artichokes, cardoons, greens, salad stuff, carrots, wild garlic, lemons, oranges, radishes, leeks… (No mushrooms, however, despite a bit more rain last week.) There's even some tobacco growing out of the ground in our greenhouse!

Big Dog was completely distracted with RV matters, trying to get the vehicle in shape, finally. Turned out it didn't have a spare tire, nor did it have a sewer connection/hose. Some lights were out. Some warning lights were on. We finally flushed out the antifreeze so we could use the water system. And he was obsessed with Where To Go Next.

He wanted to leave at the beginning of April but it's one thing to drive 6000 miles without a spare tire when you don't even know that it's not there and quite a different thing to be foolhardy enough to take off without one. The wheel had to be found online. Then there was the wait as it traveled from Minnesota or Missouri or some other far-away state.

We drove through this...

And this...

And this, all without a spare tire.

It finally arrived yesterday so it looks like we are taking off again. Today, I will go around the property, making sure everyone will be okay during our absence. I'll pick what I can of the fava beans (I'll miss the major harvest but hopefully that will give me plenty of seeds,) make sure everyone will get enough water, say goodbye to my furry friends…

New grass at the ranch!

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.

Persimmon Power

After almost all of the pommes have fallen and long after the stone fruit and berries are gone, one small tree in our orchard brings us a burst of Halloween and Christmas all at once. Giant, brilliant orange globes on a leafless tree, they are what the Greeks call "divine fruit." Diospyros. Kaki. Persimmons.

In Japan, kaki are a common fall fruit and if you visit someone's house during the season, chances are, you will be served fresh persimmons, peeled and quartered on a beautiful small plate with a rustic, rough hewn toothpick.

I hated them.

I don't use that word often with food, but no matter how I tried, I just could not like the taste of persimmons. (And I would keep trying every few years, thinking that perhaps my tastes had changed.)

"I'm so sorry. They are the one of two things I cannot eat," I would apologize. The other thing I cannot eat is offal.

One bite of our persimmon changed that forever.

Ours are an astringent seedless type and when they are fully ripe and ready, oh, boy. The soft jelly-like fruit is not only deliciously sweet, but slightly tropical in flavor, with a lovely floral note. Who knew persimmons could be this tasty!

When we came to the ranch and I saw the persimmon tree, I thought, well, at least the leaves are good for you. In Asia, the persimmon is also a medicinal tree. The calyx of the fruit is used as a hiccup remedy, as well as a cough suppressant. The leaf, with tons of vitamin C, K and B, as well as minerals and flavanoids, is a favorite ingredient in Oriental medicine. Herbalists gather leaves in May and June to make a tea which strengthens the circulatory system and acts as a general tonic. In the old days, they used to wrap food items like sushi in the leaves because of its disinfectant properties.

And now I know the wonderfully tasty fruit is also a miracle food. Along with a boatload of vitamins and minerals, it also contains high amounts of antioxidants and phytonutrients which neutralize free radicals and phytochemicals like catechin (which green tea has a lot of, too) and betulinic acid which is being used in anti-cancer research. That means it's a great preventative for things like aging, cancer, cataracts and macular degeneration.

A quick internet search brought up more benefits:

- Weight loss. The fiber rich fruit also reduces the craving for sugar and processed foods!

- Healthy eyes. Antioxidant vitamins and the phytonutrient zeaxanthin prevent retinal damage.

- Better digestive system. Yup, back to all that fiber.

- Prevention of DNA damage. If you are worried about all that radioactive contamination from Fukushima, eat more persimmons!

- Younger skin. Keep those free radicals at bay to protect yourself from aging.

- Boost immunity. The nutrients will protect you from common winter ailments like colds, flu and infections.

- Cleaner colon. It's a great detoxifier!

In Japan, there are even sayings like "When the persimmons turn red, doctors turn blue."

I don't know if persimmon health benefits had anything to do with it, but my search came up with an interesting bit of trivia, too. During the Civil War, some regiments were nicknamed "Persimmon Regiment" because they would stop to consume persimmons. The 35th Ohio Infantry lost 15 of their soldiers to the Confederate Army when they chose to pick persimmons rather than fight the Rebels. Meanwhile, the 100th Indiana Regiment who were cut off from their food supply had to live on persimmons for a while but still showed such determination on the battlefield that their nickname became a source of pride.

In Italy, during the season, you can get a perfect cachi at restaurants to end your meal. (I've often wondered why more restaurants in California don't offer fresh fruit for dessert -- it's quite common in other countries.) The waiter will remove the calyx and quarter the fruit at your table. All you need to do is scoop out the rich, flavorful fruit.

Here on the Central Coast, if you don't have your own persimmon tree, you can always find great tasting persimmons at the farmer's markets. The non-astringent types (like Fuyu) are wonderful in salads and if you have too many, you can try air-drying them like the Japanese and Chinese do. Peel them when they are still firm, string them up so that air circulates between each fruit.

I like eating ours the Italian way, but I also make a persimmon pudding which I will share with you. It has quite a lot of sugar (especially for me) but the sugar caramelizes (mmm!) during the baking and that seems to cut down the sweetness a bit. Buon appetito!

Bad Dog's Persimmon Pudding

Ingredients

    * 2 cups persimmon pulp

    * 1-2 cups white sugar

    * 2 eggs, beaten

    * 1 teaspoon baking soda

    * 1 cup all-purpose flour

    * 1 pinch salt

    * 1 teaspoon baking powder

    * 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

    * 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

    * 1/4 cup heavy cream

    * 1 tablespoon honey

    * 4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly oil or butter a 9x13 inch baking pan.

Mix the persimmon pulp with the 1 to 2 cups sugar in a large bowl. (The original recipe called for 2 cups but that was way too much for our super sweet persimmons.) 

Whisk together the eggs and baking soda in a separate bowl. Add the egg mixture to the persimmon mixture and beat well.

Whisk together the 1 cup flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir 1/4 of the flour mixture to the persimmon mixture. Add 1/4 of the buttermilk and mix well. Continue alternating flour and buttermilk, adding 1/4 each time, and mixing well after each addition. Stir in cream, honey, and melted butter until well combined. Pour the pudding batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 1 hour. While baking, do not stir; Turn off the oven at the end of the baking time, but do not remove the pudding from the oven. Leave it to cool in the oven for another 20 minutes.

Serve with whipped cream or creme fraiche.

In the original recipe, they had something called "the sauce" which you poured onto the pudding after it had baked for an hour. I feel like the pudding is already so moist, it doesn't need this extra step, but if you'd like to try it, here it is:

Ingredients

    * 1 cup water

    * 1/2 cup white sugar

    * 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

    * 4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Boil the water in a small saucepan. Whisk 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon flour together, and whisk sugar mixture into the boiling water, whisking until smooth. Boil the sauce for 5 minutes and remove from heat. Stir in vanilla.

After turning the oven off, pour the sauce mixture evenly over the pudding, and leave the pudding to cool in the warm oven for 20 more minutes.

A Japanese-y presentation of our Very Californian Persimmons

Looking South

Picking tons of apples and pears…finishing a tv program about nuclear waste…rebuilding some rotting decks, retaining walls and fences...saying goodbye to The Brothers and hello to Mr. Newcomer…a quick morning of stand-up paddling…dealing with the remains of the summer harvest…and getting the ranch set up for our absence… Are we ready to fly south again?

Where are they?

Hmm. Haven't seen a squirrel in days. Where are they? On the other hand, there is suddenly a lot of gopher action. Gophers don't like to coexist with other animals (squirrels, rabbits) so maybe the squirrels are gone?

More worrisome than the gopher activity are the bunny sightings. I don't think they've established residence on our ranch yet but I see them coming over from the nursery next door so it may just be a matter of time. A rabbit infestation doesn't sound very nice though the little cottontails are so cute.

Gangsta Squirrel Ghetto

Munched up leaves

There's an army of worms, millions strong, munching their way through dozens of giant oaks. You can hear them chewing, as well as their poop dropping like light rain on leaves. You can't stand under an oak too long or you'll be covered in worms. We have to take our clothes off before we enter the house.

I wasted a lot of water blasting them off our house before our nursery man next door tells us there's nothing we can do and it doesn't affect the oaks. "All you can do is let them do through their cycle."

Big Dog's been shoving smoke bombs into squirrel holes but they only have a temporary effect. New squirrels quickly find the old holes and move right in. Shiftless squatters!

Maybe our ranch is Gansta Squirrel Ghetto now. They're tough. They don't mind a few decomposing bodies at all.

"What's that nasty stench, man?"

"Oh, that's just Henry, my brother who died in the last bombing."

One of the gangstas diving into his hole.

Stone is Best, Mon (Revisited)

The last time I wrote that title, I was talking about stone crab claws, but if you visit the ranch now, you'll see we are buried in stone fruit.

Last year was a fab year for pommes. We had the best tasting apples ever. 2013, however, is Year of the Stone Fruit at El Rancho.

The Absolutely Best Tasting apricots ever. The sweetest, juiciest yellow peaches. Heavenly nectarines. Plums of all sorts, with amazingly complex flavors. Ahhhh. What could be better? (Well, a ranch without squirrels would be better, but...)

We've been picking and eating, canning and freezing and drying and there is still more to come. I made deliveries to our local Food Bank, I take bags and bags to neighbors and friends. Everyone I meet during this season gets fruit. I am Fruit Pusher Supreme.

"First one's free!"

But so is the second one, and the third, and... for as long as they will take the fruit.

"Yours have a much higher sugar content than the ones I bought at the farmers' market," my neighbor phoned me after I took a sample of our stone fruit to her. "I feel like I wasted my money canning the peaches I bought."

"My husband and I were so impressed. Your plums are so incredibly sweet and tasty," commented my activist friend.

I smile. ("I know," I want to say. "Our carrots are also sweeter than any I have ever tasted." I want to brag.) It makes me so proud and happy when others tell me how good my produce is. And that's when I realize how much of a farmer I've become!

This year, many trees are so overloaded, branches are breaking.

The Alamo

"This is the Alamo and we are the Texans!" Big Dog tells everyone who will listen.

We are overrun by ground squirrels and nothing we do makes a bit of a difference.

We didn't used to have these critters. They only started appearing two years ago and we only really began noticing them last year. But like many things on the ranch, left unchecked, they've also gotten completely out of hand. In fact, they are so out of hand, I don't even think about the gophers any more.

Big Dog, like many Americans of Anglo-European backgrounds, believes he OWNS this land. Things encroaching on his land, his work, his ways, are The Enemy. And right now, the ground squirrels are Enemy Number One.

"So far, they only eat the fruit on the ground," I mention.

"Yeah, but they dig giant holes everywhere."

True. Ground squirrels burrow giant tunnels that are big enough for a small dog to fall into. Our squirrels are well nourished and super sized, meaning their burrows are also gigantic.

"And, if we don't keep their population under control, the place will be amok with squirrels," he adds.

The idea of the entire ranch crawling with monster-sized squirrels gave me the willies. I'd already been through a rodent infestation at the House in the Woods a couple of years ago and did not want any similar experience with squirrels.

At the very beginning, we trapped and released them. However, squirrels are not easily removed from their homes. We read blogs that talked about marking and releasing squirrels 5 miles from their property and trapping THE EXACT SAME SQUIRREL a few days later.

We tried different traps. We bought multi-squirrel traps, giant jaws of death, all different sizes of traps. (And caught everything from our resident cat -- boy, was she embarrassed -- to a beautiful little fox and even a skunk.) Big Dog tried shooting them...and filled his tool shed with holes. A worker at the nursery next door told him about warfarin -- the same blood thinner our parents use -- and we spent a bunch of money building PVC bait stations. He's smoke bombed a few nests.

Over the last 2 years, we've sullied our karma with the souls of dozens of squirrels but that was hardly even winning a battle.

So, I am doing what any good Texan would do, faced with a war you cannot win. I am barricading what I don't want to lose. In my case, it is the produce. I've put bird nets and screens over one part of my veggie garden. (The squirrels love the lettuce and tomatoes as much as I do.) I've put up bird net "walls" around my best peach and nectarine trees. (They climb right over chicken wire and hard plastic mesh but bird nets are apparently too wobbly for the squirrels.)

Someone suggested putting giant speakers near their nests and playing hip hop at distortion levels. Maybe. But I think we have Gangsta Squirrels and I can't help but picture them actually enjoying that kind of music. Yo, yo yo!

June is Hotter than July

Arrived back at the ranch a few weeks ago to find most of my plants all heat stressed. Seedlings were stunted. Residents tell me it was unusually hot so the plants were not getting enough water. Now, it's even hotter. What is with this heatwave? Even the squirrels are hiding.

Spring Fever

I am a plotting, digging, planting fool this April Fool's Day.

We got back to the ranch while the daffodils and peach/nectarine blossoms were in full bloom and I have been a busy beaver, getting my summer garden set up.

I am trying to do it right this year. With Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living and John Jeavons' How to Grow More Vegetables as my guides, I started with soil prep. Seeds have been planted in flats. I am trying to be better at labeling.

And while we wait, there are always sprouts to be had...

There are always obstacles. The gophers are still here, along with an ever increasing population of ground squirrels. Big guys, too, fattened up over a winter of acorns. (No, I have not started eating them. At least not yet.) And now with the chickens gone, there is an explosion of lizards who keep munching down my seedlings. All my radishes have been munched down to their tiny stalks. I am going to have to cover things if I want them to survive.

Now that we have horses on the ranch again, we also have lots of horse poop. K, bless her, has shoveled it all into a nice tidy pile in one corner of the pasture so all I have to do is scoop and haul. Meanwhile, Big Dog is dragging me into another Sisyphean kick (he gets these every season!) -- raking up the oak leaves and taking them into the pasture. There are hundreds of oaks and the leaves are as thick as Minnesota snow. He claims that the oak seedlings hidden underneath will turn into Big Adult Oaks. I say, let 'em, but once Big Dog gets something in his head, he can be a Rottweiler, so there's no talking him out of this endless ordeal.

But as back-breaking as all of this work is, this is still the fun part. I am dreaming of my lush summer garden and all the tasty produce I'll be getting. The air is fresh and springtime sweet. Life could not be better.

You Can't Hurry Love

So sang The Supremes, but you can say the same thing about Nature.

I bought a sad looking tuberose bulb back in 2010, potted it and babied it. Absolutely nothing happened for the longest time. No leaves, no nothing.

"That's what I get for being so cheap," I thought. I had miserable results with seedlings I had bought at Home Depot that year. Sure, they were cheap, but when they all die out in a few weeks, it becomes Quite Expensive. I was reminded of Red Adair's famous statement "If you think a pro is expensive, wait til you hire an amateur" and henceforth decided that sometimes it is worth it to pay a little more.

Then, lo and behold! The tuberose grew leaves and finally bloomed last summer, more than 2 years after I had planted that bulb. But, ahh, that heady perfume! It was Battle of the Fragrances inside our greenhouse between the tuberose and the plumeria. I was happy I hadn't given up on my baby, even when it looked Very Dead.

And now I am singing the Motown classic again because...

My first asparagus spear has made its debut!

I planted the first asparagus seeds in early 2011, so I guess they are right on schedule. Wonder how many spears I will ultimately see this year? Guess I will "just have to wait." Love (and asparagus) don't come easy...it's a game of give and take...you can't hurry love...no, you just have to wait...trust, give it time, no matter how long it takes....

Martin Luther King Day with Guns

Isn't it fabulous having a holiday like today? Where else in the world do they have a national holiday --  government offices closed and all -- for a Civil Rights Hero? (This is not a rhetorical question. Is there another country?) That this country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. with this very special holiday makes me feel so good to be living here. If I were a US citizen, I would be so proud.

I was thinking about it as I spent my second day de-thatching my side garden. There used to be a line of feathery grasses on the edge but over the years, it's taken over the whole area, covering up the irises, preventing the wildflowers from coming up. Grasses from years past were thatched up in a horrid mat and so I was yanking away the dead stuff and giving everyone a crew cut.

The unusually warm weather was making the birds unusually active and I was enjoying the accents of birdsong in the peace and quiet until...

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The boys were at it again. Skeet shooting off the ridge.

When we gained our new tenants last summer, not only did we gain in testosterone, but arms. As in guns. Lots of them.

JD who's been living here for years was always a gun guy. In fact, my first Gun Experience was when we visited him in Colorado. (GUNnison, not Columbine.) We had been shooting a video there and he threw a little wrap party for us. There were hot dogs and beers and lots and lots of guns.

"Was this supposed to be BYOG?" I joked. It seemed to me that everyone brought his or her favorite firearm. We were shooting from the big wraparound deck at everything JD could pull out of his garage: a broken coffee maker, cans, boxes... The rubber doll was in terrible taste and I was very nervous with the booze-weapons combo but I had to laugh when someone brought out the Tannerite, a stable explosive in a tube.

"You can bash it, mash it, even mail it. But if you hit it with a bullet from a high-powered rifle... Kaboom!" JD gleefully gestured a giant explosion.

JD's kept a lower profile here at our ranch, but now we have the Taliban Brothers, as he's started to call the H Brothers in the back. (I don't know why he calls them that. They did look kind of Taliban-ish when they grew beards. Or maybe it's the fact that they are hetero guys who prefer the company of men.) And they have their own small arsenal of rifles, handguns and assault weapons.

It does not make me feel safer. In fact, I feel at risk every time I go into the woods. But since Big Dog is okay with it, I am tolerating the recreational shooting. At least while they are just shooting at clay, metal or plastic targets. ("And P got some biodegradable clay pigeons," BD tries to reassure me.) Of course, I'd feel a whole lot better without the semi-automatics on the ranch.

Today, it was one of the Talibans, P from the front, and Big Dog. JD was in bed, nursing his injuries after getting thrown from a horse.

It felt bizarre. Hearing all those gunshots on this day celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. who was taken from us too soon by a bullet.

But it also felt like a quintessentially American moment -- challenging me to be as tolerant as we all need to be in order to realize the American Dream. Because for me, the American Dream is not about economics. The American Dream is about being able to believe what you need to believe, value what you need to value but also accept those who are diametrically opposed.

Later, when Big Dog and I were on our way to check out some new plantings, JD showed off his new rifle -- something that looks like it belongs in North Kivu, DRC -- and commented on how he had bought it in Colorado for $1500 "the day after the election" and then several weeks later, gotten an offer of $4000 for it from a gun shop owner in California.

"A customer who was there said, 'I'll pay double that!'" he cackled.

Though JD's new toy made me cringe inside, I did not show it. I just quietly prayed for some sense in the majority and, maybe one day, a little bit of gun control.

Up and Down

Fall comes to our valley.

The weather is stunning right now on the Central California Coast -- beautiful warm days (and a few days of real heat each week!) -- and lots and lots to harvest. In addition to the normal yumminess from our garden, we have the most divine apples this year. Wow. What a year for pommes!

Aside from the earliest apples, the Gravensteins, I have no idea what kind we are growing -- they were all here when we came to the ranch -- so I have given them nicknames: Two Tone, Big Red, Goldilocks, Emerald Eye (which I suspect might be Granny Smiths), Freckles, Last One and Latecomer. They are all spectacularly, outrageously tasty this year, but we love, love, love Goldilocks. She's crisp and thin-skinned, with a fresh honeyed sweetness. Last One, which is not really the last apple tree to ripen -- that would be Latecomer -- used to give us a whole mess of tiny, baby-sized fruit but this year, her babies are super-sized. And to see little Jackson, the terrier, running around with a grapefruit-sized apple in his mouth is just too comical.

Even the crabapples are huge.

Naturally, I am eating too many apples. At least I think I am when I notice that my pee is smelling like apple juice these days.

But when the ranch makes me this happy, it also makes me terribly sad.

I get angry at mankind's stupidity. Thinking about nukes and fracking and people who don't give a hoot makes my stomach hurt. Now, many locals are vocally protesting PG&E's proposed seismic tests because they will irrevocably disrupt marine life. My heart is with them, but a nuclear accident will wipe us all out, so let's direct our attention to the Real Problem.

The Election Circus is tiring and irritating to someone who has no suffrage in this country.

Even cooking is not the same.

"Why is it taking me so long to make dinner these days?" I'd bitch at myself, knowing full well that it's because I am making nearly everything from scratch. I just don't trust food manufacturers anymore. Eat out? Are you kidding?!

I've fallen back in love with our ranch, our land, and it's tearing me apart to think we will soon leave for our fall-winter stay in Mexico.

It all feels worse than bi-polar disorder. Better eat another apple!

Love Triangle

Just when I thought things were really peaceful on the ranch again...

Everyone and everything seemed to be settling in nicely after the big ranch resident turnover this summer. K and P were in their groove, K's furry pal Jackson was transitioning smoothly from a sweet little terrier into a coyote-chasing, burr-covered, rough and tumble beast and even P's adoptee Enzo seemed to be getting over his trouble-making puppy days. This black lab was known as Devil Dog for a while, crashing wedding parties held at the event space at a neighboring ranch, eating the lunches of all the nursery workers next door. (They had to start hanging them on trees and even then, the first time, they didn't hang them high enough. "I'm surprised they didn't hang Enzo!" I thought.) Finally, P decided Enzo couldn't be left alone unsupervised and closed off the orchard next to their house.

The H Brothers at the back of the ranch were having fun shooting guns (oh, no!), building tree platforms, kennels... And their Maddie, , a gentle blue-nosed pitbull, was often left in the front orchard with Enzo. It made me smile to see the two of them lying side by side on Enzo's bed.

Kody and Bingo, K's two horses, were keeping the pastures nice and tidy, too!

The average age of the ranch residents had been lowered drastically, bringing with it a youthful energy. All was good.

Then, a week or so ago, Maggie shows up.

"Kody and Maggie were together all the time at Kody's last boarding place," explained K.

"Yeah, they're real attached to each other," added her friend M, Maggie's "person."

"I'm afraid that if I put Bingo in the same pasture, Kody will try to kill him!"

Kody and Maggie (right) together again.

Maggie and Kody went up to the front pasture, while Bingo was left in the back. He was NOT a happy camper. Why do horses get such separation anxiety? And why are they so vocal about it?

Bingo places himself at the far end of the pasture to be closer to the others.

Last week, some tree trimmers were here, cutting limbs near power lines and they needed to get into the front pasture so Maggie and Kody moved to the back with Bingo for a while. And what do you know, before long, Bingo has taken Kody's place right next to Maggie.

Maggie nuzzling up to Bingo.

That's Kody, by himself on the right.

"You're a wuss, Kody," I whispered to him.

Bingo, on the other hand, is now determined to keep Maggie for himself.

After the tree trimmers were done, Kody and Maggie moved back to the front. Things seemed to be back to normal and Kody had Maggie all to himself again. But it was not to be that way for long.

"Hey, what's Bingo doing up here?"

Coming back from town yesterday, we see Bingo up near the front of the property. He's outside the horse fence, just munching some grass growing along the sides of the dirt road.

"Maybe K's out here, doing something and we just don't see her," suggested Big Dog.

When we see Enzo outside the orchard, we decide that that is what's happening.

Later, I'm watering our newly transplanted irises and looking out...oh, no! Now Bingo's all the way up to the public road! What if he gets spooked and runs off? Or worse, hit by a vehicle? I rush out there, pockets bulging with apples.

Trying to lure Bingo down to the gate didn't work at all.

"Nope. I ain't moving away from the girl!"

I work on Maggie and she eventually follows me down to the gate, with both Kody (on the inside of the fence) and Bingo (on the outside) close behind her. Bingo does not hesitate when I open the gate, but Kody is less than thrilled and makes it vocally and physically clear. Oh well. At least they are all safe in the pasture. I hope.

When I return to the back, I see that Bingo has just busted through the electric fence. What's a little shock when there's love in the air?

The H Brothers have been wanting a second dog for a while and I just gave H the Younger the green light. But now I am having second thoughts. Enzo and Maddie were getting along so well. Do we really need ANOTHER love triangle?

All Quiet on the Western Front

I shouldn't have worried about our gluten-intolerant guests. After all, they are from Humboldt.

Hutch, his lovely lady Jane and their tweenage son Ry turned out to be ideal guests: they knew what they wanted to do while in our area and were out and about most of the day, looked after themselves and when we did socialize, were fun, intelligent and inquisitive. Which is saying a LOT for an 8th grade boy!

Plus, the food challenge became not very challenging. Jane even brought their own bowls for fruit salad in the morning! (Which was probably a good thing since I don't have bowls that size.)

But now they are back up north and it is quiet again at the ranch. I say "quiet" but I really mean "unpeopled" because it is a madhouse of activity. Big Dog suddenly got the interior decorator bug up his behind and has been pulling out artwork, curios, etc. from boxes that have not been opened since we packed them up for shipping across the Pacific. One corner of the office is my one-woman sweatshop with pieces of fabric piled up around the ancient sewing machine. (Finally resurrected the machine I discovered in a barn at the ranch when we first got here. Best $75 I've ever spent!) The other corner is the framing workshop where I cut matte and make little museum signs for Big Dog.

I really don't have time for any of this. It's harvest season and I am busy picking, drying, canning, fermenting and otherwise dealing with the produce. If I look at the list of what I need to do before the end of the season, I'll go crazy, so it is hidden away under the ever increasing mountain of paperwork, books, manuals, notes, wish lists. I also need to start thinking about next season and what seeds to order.

My "To Do" list grows faster than I can tick things off, but producing film and video has taught me how to stay focused on the project at hand and not feel too overwhelmed. Besides, even if I don't get around to drying all my herbs, or framing all of Big Dog's photos, or dyeing my organic cotton fabric red (beets! Hopi Red Dye amaranth!) and green (artichokes!) and brown (leaves!) there will be no angry client at the other end.

The sky is a deeper shade of blue, the sun a more golden yellow. Life is sweet.

Food Challenges

"Can you find out if Chieko has any food preferences?"
Back in early July, that was a common email question coming into my inbox. Anti-nuke groups in California were getting ready for Fukushima survivor and anti-nuke activist Chieko Shiina's California Tour. A typical grassroots event, it seemed to have materialized with no budget. Volunteers were asked for air miles, accommodations, rides, etc. but that's the cool thing about grassroots: everyone is so generous with everything they have.

I had language and as one of the hosts along the way, other hosts directed this Very Important Question to me.

Things got a bit chaotic when the main organizer suddenly had visa problems and we never did get an answer to the food preference question, but they needn't have worried. Most Japanese are game for all kinds of foods and I rarely meet people with food-related issues. It's such that although so much of Japanese food is vegetarian and vegan, if you go into a restaurant, no one will be able to tell you if something has a meat products, wheat, eggs, whatever. Maybe things have changed in the decade I've lived outside of Japan now, but back then, at least, if you had food restrictions, better be able to look after yourself.

Imagine Chieko's surprise when our local translator (Japanese) ordered a special (vegan) meal at our Dinner Event. (I must say, though, I was very happy that Chieko was not shy about stating her breakfast preference to me when I asked later that night and we were able to share a lovely Japanese-Italian brunch with all the yumminess of our early summer garden. I was sorry I didn't have any natto for her, though, and have since learned to make my own!)

Americans are not at all shy about stating food preferences to their hosts. I learned this early on when I asked the DogFather why he had so many kinds of carbonated beverages in his closet even though he only drank the occasional Diet Coke.

"Oh, D only drinks Diet Pepsi, and H only drinks regular Coke, and......" He was stocked with a dozen different brands to suit all his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"Wow. In Japan, people just eat and drink whatever's offered. And gratefully," I said.

And every time I cooked for Big Dog's niece, I learned of new things she did not eat!

Being away from the ranch for a good part of the summer, we are just starting into our Season of Visitors and our next one has presented me with a small Food Challenge: Gluten Intolerance. It still surprises me when guests are able to so casually mention something like this. Maybe it's because so many Americans are used to dealing with convenience in cuisine and don't understand that I make everything from scratch.

I've seen a lot of packaged foods that claim to be gluten-free and I know there are many baking items that are such, but why should I start buying factory-made food now?

In preparation for 4 days of gluten-free cooking, I have been trying to find information ("Okay, wheat is out. But rice is alright? Hmm. But rice is glutinous. Does that matter?") and ideas ("Desserts are going to be tricky but I can do stuff like chocolate mousse...") I still have too many questions. "What do they eat for breakfast?" "Will they be able to do a Real Japanese Breakfast?" ("Are you kidding me?" says Big Dog.) "Can they eat oat?" "Can I make a pizza dough with only rice flour?" I guess I will find out more after they arrive.

Fat Farm

It sounded like water spewing out of a leak in a pipe. All too familiar. But there isn't any water coming to the garden house. Or is there?

Back on the ranch and going through a bit of a heatwave, I've been busy fixing and adjusting our irrigation systems. On one trip to the garden house to pick up more drippers, I noticed the distinct hiss of water spewing out. I didn't know of any buried pipes there, but you have to investigate these things, so I pulled away the board covering up the gap between the ground and the raised garden house and that's when I see it.

The torso of the biggest wound up snake I had ever seen on the ranch.

It was giant. Like a boa constrictor. The size of a baby's head.

I inadvertently let out a small squeal and excitedly run off to tell Big Dog who said, "That's a rattler."
"It's no rattlesnake! It's too big. And it wasn't rattling, it was hissing at me."
Of course, I wanted him to see it too so I dragged him out to the shed.
"Where? I can't see anything."
"Look, there. See the giant torso?"
This time, I could see more than just the torso, though. This time, there was the raised head, alert and focused on us. And the head was...yes, a rattlesnake head!
"Oh, god, you're right! It is a rattlesnake!"
And it was pissed off.

We scrammed and by the time I had to go back to the garden house, Snake had split, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Do rattlesnakes get that big? How many rodents did it have to eat to get so super-sized? I know our squirrels are giant, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise to see obese snakes. Or had it just eaten one and was I just seeing the belly bulge?

(Land)Lord's Prayer

Our Father who art in Heaven, He who decides which tenants we get, let our new ones be clean and helpful, resourceful too. Let them be respectful of our property and treat it not as their own but as a treasured loan, as we treat this beautiful planet you have loaned us. Let them not be into parties and drugs and other shenanigans, but into quiet, healthy living. And may they always pay their rent on time. Amen.

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!

Turning Into Carl Spackler

Carl Who? Yeah, I had to look it up in the Internet Movie Database. The name of Bill Murray's character in Caddyshack.

There is one tenacious gopher in my yard.

At least, I think it's just one.

It refuses to eat any of the poisoned bait (yes, I have resorted to that) nor get trapped. Instead, it taunts me with new gopher mounds every day.

Big Dog's friend who does landscaping for wealthy clients visited us last week. When I told him of my plight, he suggested luring it/them with sliced apple.

"They can't resist it," he said. "After you get them used to eating the apple, then put the apple in the trap."

Fortunately, there was still one apple tree filled with apples. Unfortunately, my gophers are a lot smarter than his (or his rich clients.) They recognize bait for what it is.

They are driving me crazy. The whole ordeal is turning me into Carl Spackler. I am ready to blow up the entire yard.