Getting Ready for Spring

Yes, it's still cold (relatively) and dark (very) around here, and I know that I often plan ahead far more in advance than is needed, but some of my close neighbors - the feathered ones - have me beat.

Usually by mid-January, the local titmice and wrens are behaving as if it were already spring. They have begun nosing around for someone to court and somewhere private to suffer the consequences of courting. And I want to be welcoming.

So, a long time ago, long enough that I can't remember exactly when, I grew a gourd vine along the front of the house. With the help of my Zucchini Sex Goddess skills, the vine actually produced a dozen or so gourds. Most I gave away, but one got stashed in the attic. Not quite forgotten, but it really had no purpose.

Until now. Perfect for a wren house, right? I'm hoping so. A 1" hole for the entryway also made it easy to dump out the seeds and fibers remaining in the gourd. Two small holes at the top for hanging, and four 1/4" holes at the bottom for drainage completed the job. Except that of course I had to gussy it all up by staining the outside with a wood stain, and rubbing in glitter-gold highlights. Then four coats of polyurethane for sealing.

More complete instructions for making a birdhouse can be found here. You can buy gourds or grow your own gourds in Oakland, but most likely you will have to play Zucchini Sex Goddess or God yourself because of our foggy mornings.

The gourd house is now attached to the trellis along the back fence, a common hang-out spot for the wrens. So far, no birdy action, but it's still early in the season. Guy's gotta getta girl first, you know.

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And for an informative and silly look at gourds and humans, a Tom A. Sterns made this video. Enjoy!

Fields of Gold, or Rather, Saffron

I bought ten saffron crocus bulbs (corms, actually) this fall, pretty sure that it would be a complete waste of five bucks, but I had to do it anyway. Just the idea of growing your own saffron was worth the fiver.

So I'm sure that you know that saffron is considered one of the most expensive foods in the world, and, as I found out this first time, darn easy to grow. It's the harvesting that requires all the work, although for my few blossoms, it was just a quick snip-snip with sharp scissors. My imagination balks at the vision of the fields and fields of tiny purple flowers in Iran and Kashmir, all needing to be harvested and processed within a few days.


I planted the bulbs right away. That was early October. With once a week watering, they were up and blooming by mid-November. Each morning I would go out and check for more blooms, clipping only the edible red stigmas (the girl parts. The world runs on girls.) and laying them out to dry inside.

From those bulbs, I got a dozen or so blooms, meaning a very small amount of fresh saffron threads, just enough for one or two paellas. My friend Gabe estimated that I had a stash worth about ten whole bucks. Making money now...

The bulbs go dormant during the summer, and require little or no summer water (music to my drought sensitive ears). They are supposed to multiply each year, so with luck, they will spring back up in the fall for another round of those lovely little flowers, containing that most treasured spice.

Plant Splurge #2: Deppea splendens

I took a trip back east to visit my family in September, and brought along with me - in a carry-on bag, mind you - this little Deppea splendens plant  from Annie's Annuals.  An extremely rare and sought after specimen, it is now believed to be extinct in the wild. So very sad.

I gave the little guy to my mom, whose thumb is so green she could probably make a broom stick sprout. Even the metal kind. She also needs another plant even less than I do. But she was happy, and certainly was able to make the little plant happy - it's already bloomed in its original 4" pot. Imagine what it will do once it gets repotted into something bigger.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Janet E. Hawkes

When the Chips are Down, Try Carrots

Kale chips, mustard chips, turnip top chips, carrot chips, sweet potato chips - this year, we tried 'em all. And all of them were pretty darn good. But which vegetable stood out from the crowd? According to the song, it's the cheese that stands alone. But in my chip world, it's the carrots.

I grew carrots this year, but they were too puny to easily turn into chips. Tasty, but pretty punk. To do chips properly, it's best to have those thick and stocky ones: the ones that under most circumstance, you avoid.

Recipes abound on the web, but here is pretty close to what I remember actually doing:

Preheat oven to 425°

Ingredients:
o   2-3 large, fat carrots, peeled
o   1-2 tsp. olive oil
o   salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
o   small pinch of cumin (optional)

Shave the carrots lengthwise in strips with vegetable peeler (I use an OXO Swivel Peeler; some recommend a Y-shaped peeler). Press fairly hard so that the strips of carrot are thicker than regular old peelings. It's a little awkward, but this is the hardest part, beyond sharing the chips with others.

Save the down-to-the-nub ends of the carrots for another cooking project.

Place the carrot strips in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper (and cumin). Gently toss with your hands until completely coated.

Put the carrot strips on an oiled baking sheet in a single layer. The strips can be touching, but not overlapping. They will shrink a lot, especially width-wise.

Bake for 12 minutes and then check. The carrots will probably need another 5 minutes in the oven, but you do not want them to get too brown. The edges of the chips should be a golden brown when they are ready to be removed.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Do not try to move the chips from the baking sheet until they are crisp - 5 minutes or so.  Transfer to a tall glass and serve.

This makes enough carrot chips to fill two baking sheets and feed about six polite people or 2 very hungry ones. I suppose you can store them in an airtight container, but I have never seen any left over.

'Bout Time for that Ol' Turtle

Some things simply go more slowly than others. For example, turtles. For example, this concrete turtle that was given to me by my parents a while ago. Just how much is "a while"? Well, my father passed away in 2002, and it was long before that.

During that while, it would cross my mind that I should do something to dress up the little guy. But I never got around to it. So instead of having it hang around and remind me of my failings, I put it in the side yard - officially, my neighbors' side yard (you have to understand that their "side yard" is all of about 3' wide and butts up against our driveway. Our side yard is equally narrow.) and let the weeds hide it. Perhaps the turtle might even wander off?

Eventually, it became obvious that the turtle wasn't going anywhere, and the side yard, our side at least, needed a facelift. A drought-tolerant facelift. So why not include the turtle in the project, too? Give him a make-over for his little home?

A few bits of glass tile, some gem stones, a bowl of leftover grout and now this fellow with the shiny new mosaic shell is the guardian of the door to our house's crawl space. And my neighbors didn't even notice.


Dr. Science says:
Well, turtles are slow because they don’t have to be fast. They’re herbivores, so they don’t have to chase their food. They have nice, thick shells, which means that most predators simply don’t bother with them. So, they don’t have to chase food, and they don’t have to run away from predators, so there isn’t any reason for them to be anything except slow.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme: Parsley

Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar

Parsley. Admit it. A bit over-rated, or maybe just over-used. But also essential. Imagine the Falafel Plate at Bongo Burger without parsley (or without some endless football game, for that matter). Yeah, go with the parsley.

Growing parsley in the garden is pretty easy, if you can first get the seeds to germinate. In the small micro-climate of the three or four houses near mine, there is a parsley variety which we (my neighbor Sari and I) have named "Olivia's parsley".

Yes, quite a number of years ago Olivia Freitas (who is no longer with us) grew parsley, and with time, wind and luck, her parsley spread to many of the nearby yards. Since the plants haven't been cultivated in years, it has had to grow up on its own, oftentimes in deep shade and without much water. So, a drought and shade tolerant parsley? Could be useful, in an over-rated kinda way...

Last year, I saved some seeds from an Olivia parsley but didn't get around to planting them. I'm hoping that next year I will be able to grow them out and re-start the local landrace. Anyone interested?

You betcha. I believe that this particular fan up top is an Anise Swallowtail wannabe. And the ones below are its younger cousins*. I still find all these creepy-crawly things more than a bit yucky, but not everyone can be a cute baby.

*I'm sure you are better informed than I am, but I honestly had no idea that caterpillars, yes, even caterpillars, could change form and/or color so dramatically while still remaining larval. I'm not sure that it makes them less icky, but it does make them more interesting.

Plant Splurge #1: Asclepius physocarpa

There are certain plants that I see here and there, in real life or on the glossy pages of catalogues - and  I want them. Sometimes it works out, sometimes, not.

(Lust. Inexplicable to outsiders, but utterly consuming for the luster. And who knows about the lustee? Or is that even relevant, unless one really goes off the deep end...)

This year I indulged in a milkweed plant, Asclepias physocarpa, aka the "Family Jewels Tree" ("Bishop's Balls" in the U.K.). It's obvious how it got so named: those round, hairy seedpods which even sport that oh-so fashionable color, lime green.

But I am not the only one who is extremely interested in this plant. Members of the milkweed family serve as host plants for the struggling monarch butterflies.

So guess who just became hosts:

Happy Halloween!

As Always, Be Careful What You Ask For...

We knew that we wanted to do some hiking in the mountains. And we knew that we didn't want to go when it was icky-sticky hot and overly-crowded. So we waited until early October, that Indian summer time.

But we sure weren't expecting to be hiking in the snow. Trust me, it's one sure-fire way to learn whether your boots are waterproof (His, yes. Mine, not so much).

But L.A. had gotten rain (L.A.? Rain? They don't "get" rain), which meant snow on the trail to Bishop Pass. And although the hiking was slow, it still was a great time.

So if LA can get rain, don't you think it's time we got some?

Volunteers of Oakland #4

Pretty much these days, littering is uncool. Except for cigarette butts. Relatively neat and tidy people who would never leave trash behind simply do not recognize cigarette butts as trash. So they leave the damn butts all over the sidewalks and streets. And parks. And beaches. And everywhere else, for that matter.

(I remember on a recent visit to Rome, looking down at the gap between the platform and the train and noticing that the entire area was completely packed with cigarette butts, to the depth of, say, two feet. No smoking on the train, but on the platform, one last puff.)

So what, right? They're not that big, and many fewer people now smoke. Sadly though, cigarette butts - an estimated 120 billion of which are discarded in public places in the U.S. alone - contain a toxic stew of chemicals, plastics and carcinogens. In short, "Yuck." Bad for us, but even worse for birds and aquatic animals.

Enter my neighbor Poppy (7 years old) and her friends. It might be called activist art - but she simply said that she liked making them: two for our block, and a few more around the neighborhood.

And, hey, it seems to be working.