Lily Lust

The lilies were absolutely spectacular this summer.  

For a glorious show next summer, plant your bulbs now.

Free(!) Rain Barrels in Oakland

Yup.  No cost.  Except somehow there's sales tax... ask Governor Jerry.  I'm sure he'll give you an explanation.

In the meanwhile, and just in time for the rainy season (keep your fingers crossed), the Oakland Dept. of Public Works has free rain barrels for your home. The program lasts through December, 2012.

A while ago, they were "low-cost", but not low enough to grab my attention. Now, we have one here (the top one) and our neighbor has one too (the bottom one). Ours, at 60 gallons, is one of the smaller ones. It cost around $6.

Tricks to the program? Well obviously, you have to pay the tax and be an Oakland resident.  Then you either have to pay for delivery or go pick up the barrel(s) at the The Urban Farm Store in Richmond. You also are responsible for the installation.  Not hard - a few tools and bits of hardware - and instructions are included. Just remember to strap that puppy in - water is heavy and big earthquakes make big messes.

Don't live in Oakland? Silly you. But all is not lost. Now many municipalities throughout the country have low-cost rain barrel programs, so check locally and see what is available in your area. You also may want to start practicing those rain dance moves. 

Shameless Plug #4: Michael Reardon

Sonoma Fountain by Michael Reardon

He's off again, leaving Princess and me to take out the garbage and do lovey-dovey on the sofa all by our little furry selves.

Uh huh, Sonoma Plein Air, the week-long festival of plein air painting designed to raise funds for art education in the Sonoma public schools starts tomorrow. And, for the first time in years, there is no rain in the forecast!

The artists (all 40 or so of them) spend the entire week painting outdoors in Sonoma County and then showcase their work at two big public events: a gala dinner and art auction on Friday evening (it's already sold out, so wish them well) and an art show and sale on the Sonoma Plaza on Saturday from 10 - 4pm.

Sounds like fun, huh?

Your Civic Duties

Yeah, yeah, they say it's your civic duty to vote, and they're right.  Donating blood (and I don't mean playing rugby) is also your civic duty, but lots of people don't do that either.

Personally, I think that donating blood is more fun than voting, even with that big ol' needle:  first, all you have to do is show up and they are soooo very grateful (kinda like your parents at dinnertime.  Although it's always good to wash your hands);  second, they serve cookies and juice;  third, you really feel that you are truly helping out.

But you still gotta vote. Even without the cookies and juice.  And this year, in case you weren't paying attention, you have one big-ass election to work with. On November 6th, to be precise.  So if you're not registered to vote (or can't remember, or just moved, or whatever), start here.

Even if you will be away from home in November, you may still vote, only you have to do it by mail (yup, you'll also need one of those things called "stamps"). But first you have to be registered.

Then you can request an absentee ballot. For an absentee ballot, click here and let them lead you through the process. It's really easy, but do it soon. Because in many states, even by early October, it may just be too late.

As for donating blood?  Keep in mind that you can do that pretty much any time of the year. And rugby - who knows exactly when that season is?

Mom's Out of Town...

Amaryllis Summer and Winter

Winter Amaryllis

We all know and love those happy holiday blooms of the amaryllis (hippeastrum cultivars) which brighten up winter's short, dark dampyness. Often they even come packaged with their own pot of dirt. They grow, they bloom, look lovely, fade, and then get thrown away. And the following year you buy new ones to shine during those dark days.

That's cool. But what do you get if you keep them throughout the year and allow them to re-bloom?

Summer Amaryllis

Well, what you get is is a monster-blooming, hunk'o flowering thing that won't let up.  Last winter, (after five or so years here), my amaryllis had four stalks of flowers in January. And then in March, it popped out another two stalks ready to bloom. Pretty nice.

After its winter blooming cycle, amaryllis need to go outside for a summer holiday.  And what happens then?  You get another one or two blooming stalks appearing in August. Bad timing, because that is pretty much when they should be stashed in the garage for a long, quiet nap.  Nonetheless, sure lovely to see in the summer.

I would like to say that this show-off performance is utterly miraculous, except that I have two plants that act in this same silly way. And I would love to take credit, but really, it's all their own personal glory.

For (very) complete details on keeping amaryllis bulbs going for years and years, click here.

Well, That Was Fun...

and delicious! Last Saturday, my friend Liz and I went out to Annie's Annuals & Perennials to taste tomatoes from Brad Gate's Wild Boar Farms.

The weather was windy, cold and nasty (welcome to August), but the tomatoes sparkled. We tasted a wide range of tomato varieties, all of which were discovered and bred right on the farm. And we all had opinions.

For Liz and me, the yellow "Porkchop" tomato was the hands-up scarfing-down most favorite. We also really liked the "Green Zebra Cherry". (I bought some of those and fed them to my husband that night. He approved.) And "Evan's Purple Pear" tomato was soooo sweet (Evan was at the tasting, too) that it almost didn't seem like a real tomato.

Wild Boar Farm sells tomato plants and seeds, so I'm ready to buy some Green Zebra seeds for next year. I would love to pretend that I can grow
the large, heat-seeking Porkchop tomato but I take my disappointments too seriously. And in fact, for cherry tomatoes, the Green Zebras are really big...

If you are not into tomatoes, you still get to wander through the most amazing array of flowering plants anywhere. With lust in your heart. And wish that you had an estate. With staff, of course.

I bought only one plant. Liz gathered up four. Or was it five? In all fairness though, that lupine was irresistible.

The Sounds of Summer

Young Katydid on Xhosa's Dream Herb blossom

When most people conjure up the sounds of a late summer's evening, they think of the endless repetition of field crickets scratching away, and remember that time when...

Sadly, I don't have crickets in my yard. Instead, I have katydids.  Closely related to grasshoppers and crickets (all three groups are considered part of "the night singing insects." Almost sounds like the name of a folk-rock band...), katydids look like whacked-out grasshoppers, only smaller and sweeter.

The most common katydid here is the Greater Angle-winged Katydid (microcentrum rhombifolium - could be the name for a new vitamin for dieters) and its call sounds nothing at all like "katy did".

If I'm lucky, I begin to see baby katydids in early spring, in shades of soft browns and greens.  Then they are veewy, veewy quiet.  But by full-on summertime - one very wet year, it took until early October - they begin to make noise.  Not loud the way crickets are, but kinda like a metallic clicking sound. Until you know what you are listening for, their call is somewhat hard to hear. But once you recognize the sound, you will hear it throughout the day and night, usually well into December.  And then you will think back to that time when...

Adult Katydid

Volunteers of Oakland #1

I'm losing my most friendly and loyal and helpful garden volunteer. It's so sad for all of us here! Ben (right) and his family are moving away this week.

Most of the time Ben is out and about playing with the other kids on the block. (Yes, the helmet is absolutely critical because of the outrageous vehicular - trikes and scooters - traffic on the street.  Or rather, on the sidewalk.  For these drivers, "sharing the road" is still a very airy concept.  Heaven help us when they graduate to machines that only start with keys.)

But when Ben has had enough of riding, or the older kids are across the street (he's not allowed to cross the street without an adult, and he deeply respects that rule.  As a kid, I don't know that I would have been able to stay behind...), then, well, then I have a helper.

We knuckle down and get straight to work. Watering. The onions, the sunflower (yes, singular, and not even blooming yet - completely piss-poor germination this year), the basil, the rosemary, my pants, his shoes and anything else within range. Occasionally Ben's younger brother Leo gets involved too, and then we all practice that vital life skill: taking turns.

Once they're gone though, who's going to help me with all my yard work?

Brag, Brag, Brag #3: Kathleen Hawkes

Kathleen Hawkes, our niece who has just signed up to be a professor of photography at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, has been living in Fiji for the past five-plus months, compliments of the Fulbright Program.

While there, Kate's been working on a photography project looking at contemporary life and domestic space in the South Pacific.  (As a punk kid, Kate and her family lived in Western Samoa for a year.  For her, the big disappointment of that trip was that they weren't able to live in a grass hut.) 

We tend to think of Fiji as a place for a romantic get-away, which I'm sure it is. Gorgeous landscape there. There being an archipelago of over 330 islands, not near anybody else except for a bunch of other islands - not only is Fiji "down under" but "sorta off to the right somewhere" as well.

Approximately 850,000 Fijians live and work on the islands. And they have normal everyday problems just like everyone else - fishing to do, families to raise and homes to rebuild on stilts now because of flooding.  Hmm...

Kate's camera has documented all of these activities.  Her blog Pacific Island Nation features some of what she has been working on while in Fiji.  And her professional  website shows even more goodies.

So, if you're thinking of visiting Fiji any time soon, let me know.  I think I have someone who can show you around....

Photos courtesy of Kathleen Hawkes