the last day of 2017: applesauce, a set table, and a sleeping cat

One of my favorite gifts of the season was bagful of Granny Smith apples from Maddy's tree. Maddy is now 28 and the tree was planted the summer she was born to commemorate her birth. The tree is very happy and productive in it's home on Sherman Street here in Alameda.
We are having a small gathering with one guest but the conversation will be lively and wine will be consumed along with a pork roast and the applesauce.
I like New Years, I'm always ready to sweep the remains of Christmas and get on with it. We spent our Friday field trip day at Point Reyes. Where Mike took photos and I gathered the dried good for the bouquet on the dining table.

Tomorrow it's welcoming 2018 with calendar shopping. Let's hope I can find my 2018 Witches calendar.

winter solstice 2017

I sit to type this at almost the exact moment the solstice is occurring. Perhaps this is one of my favorite days of the year. Those dark bicycle rides home from yoga will be getting lighter.

This photo represents two of my favorite things in this crazy world, where I feel I am fortunate to be so rich:
(1) my dishwasher, who would have thought I'd feel this way
(2) my collection of Fiestaware

We had dinner last night with friends to celebrate the season. We had hoped to salute the Dungeness crab, but alas, market price drove us to embrace Ahi tuna instead. Placed among a bed of greens and other goodies Nicoise were served. There were no complaints.

aesculus californica 2017

I've set them out on the garage roof this year as last year I watched the squirrels carry them away one by one from pots under the back porch. The squirrels had never shown any interest in them before. These were harvested from the mother tree at Devil's Gulch, the main source for most of my buckeyes. Hoping the rain will give them a good start. I used to bury them, but realized they fall to the ground and sprout so perhaps just placing in the pots may be a better method.

the fruit of November

Total crop size for 2017 from the Rettie Fuyu was three. Our beautiful persimmon lives too much in the shade to produce it's full share of harvest. But it makes up for lack of fruit by it's spring green leaf out and fall color. And Dashiell and Aero enjoy climbing in it.

 I have grown quite fond of persimmons. I think they are an acquired taste, like opera and single malt.

dia de los muertos

A small altar this year, but I did pull out some of my collection of skulls. I think this may be my favorite holiday of the year, definitely not Hallmark, no gifts needed, nor big meals.
We are back from a week in the "land of enchantment" and enchanting it was. New Mexico never fails to show it's beauty in the month of October. We visited weavers, rivers, and the Penitentes and learned how to pronounce acequias .

Illahe Lodge, Agness, Oregon

Three days of paradise on the Rogue River, steelhead, osprey, alders, bay, and home cooking.

We awoke to fog on the river, Illahe being 32 miles inland from Gold Beach on the Oregon coast.

A half mile walk down a dirt road leads to a full view of the river where the guests staying at the lodge depart for a day of fishing.

The scent of damp leaves will remove most of the tensions of the outside world. Not to mention no cell service and when the wifi goes down life is even better.

78 year old Ernie Rutledge is 4th generation southwest Oregonian, his grandfather built the lodge. Ernie's daughter, Coleen runs the lodge today.
We made reservations for next year, four days, three was not enough.

yin/yang, the equinox

In Chinese medicine yin is associated with dark and grounding into the earth, while yang is associated with light and the skies. But it is important to balance the two. That is my lesson from today's qigong class, where I was fortunate to have a private session with my instructor due to lack of other participants. Today being the last day of summer for 2017 we can feel the pull towards winter as tomorrow marks the equinox. And while I enjoy the seasonal change, and find it quieting and reflective, I also find it it sad. The garden has lost it's summer brilliance, and yet there needs to be a time for quiet and renewal. Hopefully the fall will bring the rain again and cleanse the leaves that remain evergreen. The shortening days will bring us inside earlier, but living in the California bay area we are spoiled by the lack of extremes in our seasons, something I celebrate rather than long for.
I do look forward to wearing all of the products from my knitting needles, and crab season, more soups and quiches for dinner.

reflections on life

The temperature has finally cooled and I retreated to my special corner for a few minutes this morning. After a period of social insanity and heat, 15 minutes of knitting were comforting. One of the reasons I enjoy knitting is that it gives you time to think as you endlessly circle the stitches of a sweater sleeve. I was thinking of my father who never wanted to go anywhere other than Camp Taylor (Samuel P Taylor State Park). I often think that perhaps he had the right idea, he had found a special place and didn't have the means, time, or desire to seek out other locations. I consider myself lucky, that I have a special place I only need to walk out the back door to enjoy.

the five Mikes

 

Finally I have captured all of the Mikes in one spot. Unfortunately the occasion was a send off paella bbq for the tallest and the shortest (although not for long) also the two youngest of them. Michael (in purple shirt) and Mikey (top right) are moving along with mother/grandmother Denise who has been our neighbor for 22 years. But thanks to Michael T (bottom right) organizing a neighborhood group dinner with my Mike (blue t-shirt) and his Mike (tan shirt) and our neighbors who are not Mikes, Johanna and Cheryl we enjoyed a warm evening along with Denise's sister Mary. It's quite a challenge to ask "Mike will you pass the salad" at a dinner table with five who will answer to that name. A good time was had by all.

eclipses, mercury, and hats

 

I think this hat may be a reaction to sun, moon, and stars. I'm really not a glitzy sort of person but somehow I found myself in the plastic box with my ribbon yarn. Make note of the year on the hat form. Was 1967 really 50 years ago?
I had to add this photo of my collection of the usual wool tams.

summer in the mountains

This lovely brown trout came out of McGee Creek. The proud fisherman called to me just in hopes I would see this fish and I happened to have my camera at the ready.
This is quite a year for the Sierra, the streams at levels that you usually see in June, and the wildflowers in full bloom. We even caught a thunder shower on our walk out of Rock Creek.

Now we are home and you can feel fall creeping in on us.

where did july go?

Somehow the month disappeared and I found myself another year older.  The last four days of the month were spent in a yoga intensive, 20 hours of yoga completed? Survived? Enjoyed? It is hard to explain to others who are not serious yogis why you would choose to do such an intensive. But the body seems to shape it self in ways you would not think possible with that much focus. And the body extends to the mind. The hardest part is having to go back into real life. But I can't complain too much about real life, at least in my own backyard microcosm.

And the wandering Aero, who chose to not come home for two days, reappeared while we were stapling his picture as a missing cat on all the telephone poles in the neighborhood. He seems moderately guilty for causing us grief and is making regular appearances. This will last only until we think perhaps he may stay home and then he will go walkabout again. He is a cat after all, and they have their own ideas.

This odd humid weather today reminds me that we are in the Dog Days of summer. But at least we are living on the coast and not inland.

throw down your crust

The fifth annual pie contest takes place this afternoon and my entry was made listening to this:

Music is an important factor in pie making. Although I have to say the crust on this year's entry was not very cooperative. But as a seasoned pie make I didn't let that slow me down.

I am quite capable of making a big mess whether there is cooperation or not.
And here is the entry:

Wish me luck. Contest is at 2:30.

diving cats, an update

Shortly after posting Aero in the great stretch I was watering the back yard. My sprinkling under the porch startled the sleeping cat who must have kicked his back legs and knocked the NO to the concrete below.
Not a soft landing.

 

All the pieces were found, but alas, my 30 year old Heath tile may be a goner...so we are taking a new approach.

no diving

Even if it is 86 degrees on the backporch.

summer solstice

The solstice occurs at 9:24 pm today, and I am trying to enjoy the longest day of the year. I have setup my new red chair. The chair seems to be enjoying a welcoming by Dashiell.

primilci (the three milkings)

I've been reading my witches calendar again, and Saint Bede's writing tells us about this month when full forage abounds and the cows are milked three times a day. Primilci is all about abundance and the garden certainly seems to be showing full signs of that. Suddenly I have switched from watching and encouraging growth, to having to prune and clear paths and walkways.

The front yard is looking like it has been there for years.

But when the work is done I have created a space to knit and read, just sit back and enjoy.

mercury retrograde and other topics of thought lately

Mercury goes out of retrograde today and not a moment too soon. Computers have been slow, my sewing machine would only sew in reverse for awhile and confusion over days of the week and banking accounts have been rampant. I explain my absence of blogs to not being able to hold my thoughts together long enough to put them on paper, or whatever we call this cloud we all hang our lives on these days.
As retirement ever creeps into my daily life, or admitting retirement, the idea of ageing is something that seems to wander through the mind and body. I had coffee after yoga this morning with my friend Katinka who is 80 and going strong both mentally and physically. And earlier in the week I had discussions with my 75 year old bookkeeping advisor about taking on challenges to keep our brains working. I am a faithful follower of Betty Reid Soskin's Blog and her recent entry talks about how you are dealt with when you are 95 and assumptions that are made. But Betty makes the point of living in the "now", which I find as valuable advice. Yes, I remember when I borrowed $100 from my brother and it kept me going for an entire quarter during college, but that was 1972. Today is not 1972 and I count my blessings for my house and circumstances going into this stage of life. But I find it important to at least attempt to stay in tune with today's technology whether I use it or not. And then I also find it important to appreciate the small things like being able to have a cup of coffee on the back porch in the morning reading the paper, and enjoying the company of the cats.
We do live in a crazy world these days, but the important thing is to live in it, accept the good and put up with the bad. And Mercury is out of retrograde.

the last major project, really

Well we thought the kitchen was the final frontier in house projects, but the Mikes put a flagstone patio in their backyard, and my landscaping friend said she wasn't busy, and before we knew it we had embarked on the front yard project.

before

Now don't be fooled by the green, it is a lovely mix of green weeds and bermuda grass after this season of rain. By summer it would be a dead and dusty mess with a bit of garden in the middle. So with the help of this and a wonderful crew of three, four inches of weeds and dirt were removed.

the trailer

Landscape fabric, baserock, decomposed granite, brick and cobblestone edging, and topsoil was added.

in progress

Plants, pots, and a few rocks were procured and my turn to labor happened.

after

Aero likes the front yard

Once my marigold and sunflower seeds produce plants and I get the irrigation installed the project will be as complete as any garden project ever is. Those of us who think of ourselves as gardeners know a garden is never complete, there will always be change.
Many thanks to my neighbor Mikes, who let me use the bricks from their replaced patio and my wonderful friends TC and Keni .
I'll report updates as things grow.