Life of Wry

I’m a big fan of our every-two-weeks CSA service (Community Supported Agriculture).  Even though I’m not the one doing the cooking, I’m thrilled to get the box. Cooking is one of those things I’m certain I will get around to in the not too distant future, but for now I’m not doing much, if any, of it.  Still, I love the CSA box.

I’m the one who takes care of the box each time, though. It’s not that small a task. I end up going through the refrigerator and evaluating the current stash of produce, which… between these boxes and the normal accumulation of produce each week, we have a ton of.  I remove all the stuff that’s spoiled (more than I’d like to admit) and I organize all the new stuff, meaning I trim excess growth off certain things, wash & prep others for use, consolidate redundant items, etc. And I generally tidy up the various boxes into which all the new produce goes. In some ways, it’s nice because it’s a way of cleaning out the refrigerator on a very regular basis, and that’s a good thing, right? But it’s also a fair amount of work each time we bring home the box.

And STILL, I love the CSA box.

We’ve been ordering these from Eatwell now for about two years. In that time, we’ve settled into the seasonal rhythms–certain things come in spring, other things in summer, and so on. The variety over the year is nice.

This is the first time we’ve received these, though!

(Nice blurry photo, huh?)

They’re tiny and remind me of some fantastic artichokes we ate when we were in Italy about 7 years ago. I’m not sure they are the same, but I’m very excited to cook them up and see.

We also got some of this, which is new:

No idea yet how we’ll use this, but eager to try it.

We got some interesting mutant strawberries (very mutant), but my attempts tonight with macro were mostly terrible–the above photos being the best of the bunch–so no picture of the quintuple, bulbousy strawberry.

Here’s a list of this week’s haul…  some very good looking stuff in there…

Hung out here today:

With her:

Mostly we talked and walked (and acted like woodchucks in the tall grass… well one of us did).  But we also drove around in this (it’s her shiny, black, convertible Porsche; she’s into cars).

Who’s this she: My cousin Heidi.

Why all the talking: She’s recently back from India where she was visiting her husband, Manoj–who’s living over there on a work assignmen–and was going to tell me all about it.

But: We didn’t even get to the India stories because we talked the whole time about her son Miles’ concussion from a water polo kick to the head a couple months ago and the fact he can’t play water polo right now and had to drop three of his four classes.

Which: Is a fine how-do-you-do if you’re a freshman  in college.

Where: Pepperdine, Malibu.

Is he okay: Conner, his twin, is keeping an eye on him.

What’s with the blog title: They used to call her that.

Who: My aunt Joy and uncle Vic.

Whom: I wrote about here and here

This thrills nobody but me.  It is the result of several days now of hacking, digging, removing, filling, dragging, leveling and compacting. Fortunately, bigs guys a lot stronger and more tenacious than I am are on the job. Little by little, what was once a gnarly, uneven, gravel-strewn, root-bound, weed-infested path is now what you see in this photo.

Next step is to lay out all the large flagstone sheets and cut them to fit (you can see one such sheet in the top right, above. The others are distributed all over the yard at sort-of-intervals, as they will be used for the new path.).

Pictures to follow.  Of course.

If you’re only going to get one day in the snow for the year, this was a good one to get. Himlen är alldeles blå! as they’d say in Sweden.

Decided this morning to explore a little of the Pacific Crest Trail south of Hwy 50 up at Echo Summit, since we’ve only ever gone north from that particular point.

Paid online for a sno-park pass and headed up to the mountains.  These were the conditions on north-facing slopes–lots of snow still and the snow was fairly deep (maybe four feet?); you had to avoid tree wells and rock wells. Not always successful; stepped through many times. Even needed a rescue once. Snow shoes, once in, are hard to pull out.

Warm enough for t-shirts. Jim took it all the way down to the first layer (sparing you this photo series); I was too lazy so hiked in a light thermal on top and left the heavy thermal on below (sweat therapy?).

We followed the PCT for a little ways, then bore off, through a modest sledding resort and up a hill to get this view of Tahoe. Once we left the sledding area, we didn’t see anybody for the rest of the afternoon.

Meandered through a small cluster of closed-for-the-winter cabins and down into a small basin. Came upon this no-name lake (we’re heading up on the other side of this):

Then climbed up a great, sparkly slope (here’s a portion below) for a better view of the canyon through which Hwy 88 runs (though couldn’t see it.. too far below). This was a great hill to climb–good traction because the snow was soft and a great workout.

Found a huge boulder at the top of this ridge–great views–and sat for a while, ate an apple. Glorious up there. Jim added back a layer.

Then after about 30-40 minutes, headed down again into the canyon. Passed this beautiful–dead–Jeffry Pine (or possibly Ponderosa):

Not much more to say. We more or less picked our way through the trees until we found that sledding place again. Some poor guy (an adult) was being carried out on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.. even in a small po-dunk place like that. Then back to the sno-park.

Nice day traipsing around with this guy:

Yadda yadda.. Picnic Day.  Not one of my favorites, but I don’t hate it or anything. Happy to walk around town on such a perfect, sunny, mild day, and especially happy to see a lot of people we know in every corner of town and campus.

(To wit, I ran into Dave Merrill, someone I was very good friends with for a few years when I first moved to Davis. I have not seen him since he left town about 30 years ago, but he and his wife Winky have moved back to California (from Boston) and are now running a vineyard in Healdsburg. They were here for the day and we just happened to run into them at the Farmer’s Market.  (Coincidentally, the Merrill family was one of the founding farm families for the Market way back when..).  It was amazing to see them in person–I’ve been connected to Winky on Facebook so have tracked them a little but have had minimal communication. They had literally just gotten out of their car and walked into the park when we saw them. We were walking out of the park on our way home with arm loads of stuff we’d bought for dinner.. completely unplanned.. perfect timing.  Dave was such a great friend all those years ago.   Still shaking my head over that one.)

Back to the beginning of the day…

I’m not a parade person, but we typically watch the parade first thing for the tradition of it.

Here’s the reasonably entertaining, musically talented, if largely uncoordinated, UCD Band-duh in awkward step.

Glad to see they allowed a protest entry, students against UCD police brutality and the corporatization of the university:

And here’s a shot of Peter Wagner, the guy who builds non-traditional bikes–called whymcycles–definitely an institution in this town:

I’ve actually been in the Picnic Day parade three times.. once when the Davis Community Cable Cooperative was the latest and greatest new thing in town (1984), and we took video cameras and rode on top of a City of Davis fire engine, which was pretty fun. Another year, Peter’s T-ball team and parents got to ride on a UCD elephant bus with the River Cats’ mascot Dinger (and his wife), also fun. And a few years ago, Peter and I (it could have been  just Peter), rode one of the whymcycles.

So much for not being a parade person.

I was also invited to participate in the cow milking contest one year, being a quasi well-known community type, which was actually quite a fascinating experience. All the participants went to the dairy barn for serious training a few days before the event, which I really appreciated. I didn’t do too well on the day of the contest but enjoyed the whole thing.

As for Picnic Day activities…

The animal events, while wonderful, are just too crowded and I can never find a place to stand where I can see, so I’ve given up on those. I’m super tired of the Dachshund Races, I’m not a fan of the Battle of the Bands, and never had the patience to figure out how to get into the chemistry and physics shows. So forget all that.

But, if there’s a track meet–there used to always be one–I like to drop in on that. I ran in it the year I ran track for UCD, so, you know, I need to see some of it, preferably the races I ran in (200, 400, the sprint relays).. but it didn’t happen this year.. not sure why.

For the last 3 or 4 years, Jim and I have gone to the UCD baseball game.  This year they played Long Beach State.

It was an absolutely perfect day to sit for a couple hours and watch baseball. We saw a number of Peter’s teammates there (and after a while noticed Peter was among them). Sat behind some crusty old scouts who were fun to watch.

I wanted to stand up and say, Hey, anyone here wanna know whose grandpa founded LB State? But I didn’t. Long Beach won 2-0. I was not displeased.

BBQ’d dinner here with P&J and that was that. I can still hear students roaming drunkenly down our street, though it’s been relatively sane this year. We’ll see what the red cup count is in the morning.

And by around town, I mean pictures I took when I was on the outskirts of Davis, as in around Davis.

Took a walk with Carrie and Bodie the bear dog this morning out near the university airport.

Walked along this field of alfalfa..

Walked past a university vineyard..

Saw a couple of huge and stately oak trees..

Then, later, went out to Vacaville to the Brickyard to look at and order some flagstone. Coming out of their driveway, saw these guys..

This evening, drove Peter to a friend’s in Dixon (well, he drove, I rode, as we do these days) and caught the tail end of this sunset..

That is just a lot of beauty in one day.

Oh hells bells. I hate getting to the end of the day and realizing I have no pic to post. How is one to provide commentary on no posted picture?

These are the problems to have, I guess. 

I will have blog reader mutiny if I post one more backyard garden project shot (especially as the project continues and there are more photos, no doubt, to come), or another baseball shot (that well will never run dry).  But, have I worn out my welcome on Peter guitar shots? If not, here’s one from a few days ago:

Obviously, I love this picture. He wasn’t even aware I’d taken it. Low light produces terrible iPhone pictures, but the photo is clear enough and speaks for itself: kid on bed (not his), playing guitar. No caption needed. 

Were there a good way to document my day’s highlight through pictures, I may have uploaded one, but no pictures.. the highlight of my day was a meeting.  The meeting was with a guy named Dave who asked me a few months ago to be a reader on the second draft of his third novel.  While the first two have not (yet) been published, he feels his third might be a breakthrough. I have no literary credentials, but I was pretty blown away by this book and agree that it just may get some legs. I was especially flattered to be asked to weigh in. I get so much out of reading others’ writing, it inspires me no end.

Anyway, the highlight of the day was what Dave told me about my review. The short of it, he found it incredibly valuable, insightful, thorough.. and he went on and on about it. I even believed him. I felt like I had done a good job on my comments and it felt great that he appreciated them. 

That’s it. Genuine gratitude for a job well done.    

So, recall, that after the plumbers put back all the dirt they’d dug out of the sewer trench, we were actually short sufficient dirt. You can see the trench running vertically.. about 6-8″ short of the top, over about a 40′ trench:

We got 3 yards of top soil to fill it in, a process made difficult by the rain which turned a lot of heavy dirt into heavier mud. But fill and spread we did:

It sat there like that through a couple more major rain storms, and today, a week and a half later, we were able to press on. First step, re-lay the irrigation:

Then re-planted 50+ grasses (that’d been removed so the plumbers could get access to the sewer line, and gathered into a sad huddle along the north side of the yard for 5+ weeks) and, finally, scattered the mulch.

WE ARE BACK IN BUSINESS!

Back to where we were before sewer line failure.

Derek, Frances and I added up to 21 person hours to do the job.

And BONUS: The 5 yards of mulch not only covered the mound, but nearly every other bed in both the front and back yards.

Next step: the flagstone path.  Grading begins tomorrow… off to order 3 more yards of top soil…Oh, and flagstone.

Big doings on A Street.  This pile of mulch–delivered today for a project tomorrow–signifies progress in the backyard.  That is, if all goes well, Frances, her young/strong/fast-working friend Derek, and I will 1) re-lay a few hundred feet of irrigation (the newly-laid irrigation we had to move so the plumbers could dig a trench down the center of our backyard last month; 2) re-plant 50-75 plants, mostly various varieties of grasses, native and otherwise (which also had to get out of harm’s way during the sewer replacement project); and then 3) scatter the above mulch throughout. 

By the end of the day we should be 1) done, 2) tired.  

Check back in tomorrow for an update.  

I didn’t take any pictures today; it was one of those get a million things done days, and more besides. Love when that happens, especially when unplanned. I am looking at a very clean desk, literally and metaphorically, as they say. I’m going to try and appreciate this feeling. It can’t last.

I can say this about today: it was a two black widow day.  Not a metaphor.

i’d gotten a hankering to deal with a bunch of plastic bins I’d long ago emptied and left to collect dust (and spiders, apparently) on the back porch. I suspected I might find one or two black widows, and I did, in fact, find one. It freaked me out, because I’d been careful to look, and just missed her. I’d been handling the bin a lot, moving it here and there. I’d even power-hosed the bins and felt confident I’d dislodged anything that might be hiding. But, she was cagy, and remained perfectly hidden… unbeknownst to me.. until it was knownst. The only way to eliminate her, I guess, was to stab her with a very large screwdriver. It was brutal. Jim did it. Yay Jim.

A little bit later, I was clearing out a box of ping pong paraphernalia and found another black widow. Jim was unavailable this time, so I disposed of it myself. My chosen weapon was a hammer which I used totally hastily and recklessly, nervous as I was. The hammer head was not much larger than the spider. It was extremely unsettling; I’m not at all cut out for this sort of thing.

I could also talk about how I splashed a large amount of standing-water scum (very smelly) on myself (it was quite the move), but I’d rather talk about this guy:

Love him so, so much.  Every day he warms my heart; he can be incredibly endearing. While I wish things would just s l o w down, I am impressed with the young man he is becoming. He’ll kill me if I say much more than that (no screwdrivers or hammers, however, I’m sure), so I’ll save the details for a less public place.

Thanks to Wes Young for this cute picture. No, I have no idea what he’s doing with his fingers.. but I do love the expression.