Sleuthing

I was in the lath house last week looking for work indoors since it was so hot outside, and Don, the head of the nursery, showed me a plant near the entrance. He brushed off the black droppings and showed me where the caterpillars were eating the lower leaves. Then we saw a fluffy white spider pouch wrapped up in another leaf. The spider must have eaten the caterpillar, he said, because the new leaves hadn't been touched at all. He's always good about pointing these things out.

Rest in peace Michael Jackson

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Brimming

John is coming to visit me in my very own house!
Just the week after next, it will be as if all the impossible magic is really true and really part of my real life and doesn't only exist in San Diego.
It will be like pinching me.
It will be like waking up only I wasn't dreaming.
It will be so fantastic I can't even tell you.
Even if I only get to keep him for a short while, it will be the best short while.

Móðir jörð

I am officially farming! For real! Eymundur Magnusson says T-dizzle and I can work on his farm in August! We shall be harvesting potatoes and vegetables! We shall be packing and preparing things for the supermarket!

Sidekick!

Tatiana is coming to Iceland with me! We are going farming and adventuring and Blue Lagoon soaking and possibly volcano and glacier and geyser exploring. I am going to Iceland! And T-Dizzle is coming with me!
!!!!

The fruits of my labour

Peach-apricot and rhubarb-ginger jams.

Just because

In the dirt

At least three folks this morning exclaimed that the farming we were doing - planting basil in raised beds, cutting back artichokes, harvesting green onions - was better than their real jobs. We all loved it, getting dirty. Even with Sunday's sunburn, I wore shorts to feel the dirt better, though I did bring my gardening gloves and bandaids to protect what appear to be second degree chemical burns on my right hand. Sitting there between the rows of zucchini blossoms and basil grown from seed just felt so right.

Other people wondered wistfully what it might be like to do this full time, sighing about the mountains of debt anchoring them to indoor pursuits. Wouldn't it get old after a while, they offered, consoling themselves. But I'm in love. I loved holding the dirty onions to my chest. Or squatting with a hand saw under the artichoke plants. Or pressing baby basil plants into the earth.

And to think this farm (part of the Alameda Point Collaborative) is just a five mile bike ride from my apartment. I'm tempted to try to squeeze another volunteer stint into my classless Wednesdays.

I still wonder sometimes if going back to school is the right thing, if this is the right time to do it, but work feels more and more distant to me, as if my coworkers are on a beach getting farther away, faded to a pale pastel in the sea spray and sun. I'll be off soon enough, and I'm pretty confident I will feel nothing but good about it, tired and busy as I'll be.

At the moment, I'm half signed up to WWOOF in Iceland, listening to Five Farms on NPR, convinced there is something in the stars.

Right brain v. left brain

I've been having trouble for the past two months or so hearing the music of my banjo songs. When I would practice or go to my lessons or just listen to songs, all I could hear were the notes and none of the music, which makes it really hard to remember and even harder to play properly because it doesn't sound like music. It sounds like scattered dots instead of lines or waves. It sounds like still frames instead of fluid movement.

I reminded myself of the main character in one of Carson McCullers' short stories about this child prodigy who all of a sudden can't play anymore.

But slowly in the past week, my right brain has started to perk up and the music is starting to come back. I'm starting to hear songs. I can hear the first hint of which notes to emphasize and which ones to let go. Just now I was playing a little version of Down the Road, probably one of the simplest songs I know, and stretching some of the slides way out and squeezing some of the other picking down. And I played it in a way I'd never heard it before. I wouldn't say it sounded good in a way that I'd prefer to the original bluegrass style, but it sounded coherent. It had character. It had its own character that I gave it. And I got that fleeting musician high.

It feels good; I am pleased. With any luck, I'll remember how to find my way back here.

Domestic goddess

Peach-apricot jam making Saturday night was a success. Or, at least the wok full of sweet fruit stew I tasted before canning was positively first rate, if I may say so myself. It looks like my jam may not have fully set, but I kind of like it when it's a little softer and easier to spread. I'm also set to brew up another batch of rhubarb-ginger jam on Wednesday night, and that stuff is just incredible.

I highly recommend inviting yourself over for toast with a loaf of Vital Vittles Flax Seed Oat bread.

I still need to puzzle out a good whole wheat toast-bread recipe so I can make my own of that too.

Yay for homemade stuff!

Not to be an Apple dork

But I have to admit, I'm pretty jazzed about the new set of MacBook Pro's that came out today. The 7 hour battery life goes beyond my wildest dreams, even if I need to dim my screen to 50% brightness and do little more than light web browsing. Not only that, but the new computers now come with a firewire port, which is something I was def bummed that the last ones didn't have. And of course the prices have come down, which is always a welcome development.

That seven hour battery, is definitely a trump card, though. You can even upgrade your 250GB hard drive to 320GB for just $50 ($45 with the education discount). It is a sign that I do in fact need a new personal computer. I need to order it fast while I still have the hookups for that friends and family discount and can get this beast of a machine delivered to work where there'll be someone to sign for it.

Other computer buying tips: It looks like you can get Microsoft Office for Mac (Home and Student edition) cheaper at J&R than you can through Apple (even with a student discount). And if you pay with Google Checkout before Father's Day (6/21), you can get an extra $5 off. Doesn't come pre-installed though. Also, if you want Apple Care, you can wait up to a year to buy it, and there's a decent discount for students, so if you think you might somehow qualify within the next year, it's probably worth the wait.

Ps. Thanks to the little birdie that gave me the tip not to upgrade my home computer last week.

The state of the state

First it was the SF Botanical Garden, and now we hear that Schwarzi wants to shut down 85% of all California State Parks to pinch pennies because of the budget shortfall. I know we voted down all the ballot measures that would have helped make ends meet, but closing state parks?? Is that really what we've come to?

On the one hand, I don't want to be one of those impossible naysayers of the sort that peopled the public hearing on the Botanical Garden two weeks ago, gleefully booing and shouting no or holding up provocative signs during the meeting. I don't honestly believe that our predicament is such that shaving the top off of our legislators salaries would solve the mess we've gotten into. I don't think cutting a few jobs from Mayor Newsom's PR staff would magically create enough money to support Parks and Recreation and make up for the 500 (was it?) jobs cut from SF General Hospital. Though, if that were true, I wouldn't be opposed to pursuing it as an option.

It's true like they say that this is part of a bigger problem. It's not just about charging $5 for the Botanical Garden or giving the state parks a rest for a year or two. It's about more than the hit to stock market over the past 12 months. We haven't been spending money responsibly. I don't at all disagree with that, but it frustrates me when people aren't willing to be constructive. Saying we shouldn't have gotten into this mess doesn't help us get out of it.

I agree that it's fair for people to be upset when the services they want their taxes to support get cut. Maybe the Botanical Garden was the one thing you loved. Maybe hiking Mount Tamalpais means the world to you. Maybe you can't afford any other kind of vacation right now. For my own part, I think people have too little connection to nature and what I consider to be the real world as it is. Closing state parks sounds just meanspirited. After we lay off teachers and hospital workers, and close down parks, what is there left to save? Police, Fire, maybe transportation... I find that depressing.

Maybe I take responsibility to a fault, but I'm willing to do my part to make things better, whatever that may be. I'll pay $5 or $7 or even $50 to become a member of the Botanical Garden. I will scrape it together if that's what needs to be done. I signed the petition, but if I have to make reservations early to camp and hike at a National Park for the next three years while nature has its way with State Parks, I will do it. (I heard, by the way, that a lot of our State Parks have 25% of the predator population they should, and that a few years break might help them recover - not that everyone would think more mountain lions on Mt. Tam is a good thing). I know I might be better off than some people, but it doesn't have to cost money to help. I don't argue that we shouldn't let lawmakers know what our values are. Keep voting for education, keep signing petitions for parks, go to the public meetings, but don't just stand around and complain. Be part of the solution. If we all gave as much as we can, I think we'd make a lot more progress.

One giant leap

If I have not yet made you aware of it, I am now enrolled in not four, but six plant/agriculture/ecology-related classes for this fall:

Arboriculture
Plant Disease
Soil Management
Permaculture
Intro to Creek/Watershed Restoration
Wildlife and Watershed Restoration Gardening

And I feel nothing but good about it. I have been reading my John McPhee. And The Lorax. And I picked up a bit of John Muir at the book store with my dad last week. Light stuff, all in all, even the Cadillac Desert still floating about in my mind, but I am loving it. I want more and more. I am hungry.

Now when I see girls in fancy jeans at work, it occurs to me that I am giving that up - that lifestyle. The fancy jeans and new looking sweaters. The owning of a Prius. The financial whimsy. But then I saw a reflection of myself in the window as I waited to fill my waterbottle in my old Levis, a teeshirt my parents got when the Olympics came to Los Angeles in 1984, and a stained sweater I must have bought in high school, and I realized I was never living that dream anyway. I do have my cowboy boots, but I was never going to own designer jeans.

I'd rather grow my own. I love the idea of taking classes that will get me dirty. I like volunteering my Saturday mornings to shovel wood chips and repot shrubs. It's hard work, but it's real work. I can see it and feel proud of it. I can feel good about dirtying my hands with honest, organic soil instead of taking a paycheck to sit in my chair and scrape a little off the top of a lot of small guys. I just don't have the constitution for business and profit. I never have.

So, here's to change.

General principles for making granola

Firstly, I will suggest investing in an oven timer. The one email you will want to write while baking your granola will invariably take longer than you initially imagine. Perhaps your oven has a timer built in. Good.

Also, you will generally be making granola in the morning because the morning is when you will be hungry for breakfast, and it is at this sort of time that making granola will be appealing to you. This same morning time, you will most likely also want to take a shower. The short baking time for granola will seem like an attractive time to do so. Resist this temptation! It will almost always result in granola closer to burnt that you would like. Oven timer not withstanding.

Prior to making granola, you will want to have skimmed all of the principles of making granola. You will also want to have intimate familiarity with the location of even the most obscure ingredients in your kitchen. Otherwise, the time you spend searching your cabinets for the various and sundry will cause the sugars in your pot to crystallize, and you will have made brittle instead of granola.

On to making granola.

Preparation. You will take out a pot, a nice heavy sort of pot that holds slightly more than the volume of granola you intend to make. A two litre pot works nicely, and you will set this pot on the stove.

You will also heat the oven to 350º F.

Fat. You will assess the availability of various fats in your kitchen. Butter and canola oil work well. I use a combination of the two. You may also be interested in such luxury oils as walnut oil. Or almond oil. Or pumpkin seed oil. Or coconut oil. All good ideas. Put some fat in your pot. To start, I suggest about half a stick of butter and a few tablespoons of oil. Turn the heat on low to melt your fats.

Sugar. You will assess the availability of various sweet substances in your kitchen. Take them all out from the cabinet and line them up on your counter. You will use them all: brown sugar, white sugar, honey. Under no circumstances will you use high fructose corn syrup, unless those circumstances are very desperate indeed. Maple syrup works well in granola, if the flavour suits your aesthetic. You may experiment with molasses, if you wish, though I have not done so myself and cannot take responsibility for its effect on flavor, whether desirable or no. The sugar will hold your granola together, making the sort of clumps you enjoy. Put a healthy amount of sugar in your pot. If you dislike overly sweet cereals as I do, a healthy amount of sweetness will be a nice pour of honey, a few handfuls of brown sugar and a pour of white sugar roughly equivalent to a quarter cup. Allow this to dissolve in your heated fats. You will likely want to stir it. I recommend using a wooden spoon.

Oats, grains and seeds. You will assess the availability of various oats, grains and seeds in your kitchen. Take them all out from the cabinet and refrigerator and line them up on your counter. You will use them all: rolled oats, wheat germ, flax seeds, wheat bran, &c. Having decided to become the sort of person who makes his or her own granola, you will have taken care always to have a large quantity of rolled oats on hand. These will be essential now. But first, pour your grains and seeds into the pot of sweetened melted fats. You may wish to use anywhere from a sprinkle to a few tablespoons of each. Pour a generous amount of rolled oats into your pot, filling your pot almost up. A generous amount is roughly equivalent to three cups. Use your discretion. Stir the granola, making sure that your oats are coated in sugar and fat.

Flavourings. Take a moment to give some thought to your intended theme for this morning's granola. This will inform the sorts of flavourings you add. You will also want to consider the availability of the nuts and dried fruits you will be adding later. Exciting things I have added at this step include: sea salt, vanilla extract, almond extract, rose water, orange blossom water, cinnamon, cardomom, &c. Imagine the flavor of the spices and essence you intend to add. If the combination tastes good in your mind, add them to the pot. I use a few generous shakes of spices and a good pour or so of essences, such that I can smell them. Salt is almost always a good idea. Stir.

Nuts. It will take more time than you anticipate to chop the nuts; now is a good time to turn off the heat on the stove. If the meditation in the previous step took you more than a moment or two, you should have turned off the heat on the stove then. By now, you will have decided which nuts you intend to use. Chop them into the size that looks most edible to you. Nuts I have used with great success include: pistachios, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, macadamia nuts. Don't be shy to use more than one type of nut. I use about a cup of nuts. Add the nuts to your pot. Stir.

Baking. You will take out a large baking sheet. I don't recall any need to butter it. You will spread evenly the contents of your pot on this sheet. If you are discerning, you may wish to scoot your granola away from the edges of the pan, as these will cook more quickly than the rest of your cereal. Gently set your sheet of granola on the top rack in your oven and set your oven timer for twenty minutes.

Look for something to do in the kitchen. This would be an excellent opportunity to wash everything you've just dirtied on the stove. This will take less than twenty minutes. If you must leave the kitchen at this time in search of other pursuits, check on your granola first. You may wish to stir it about.

When your timer goes off, you will remove the tray of granola from the oven. You will set it on the top of the stove or on the counter to cool. You will resist the temptation to put it in a big jar while it is still warm.

Fruits. Once your granola is perfectly cool, as if it had never been in the oven, you may begin to think about dried fruit. You will have decided at this point which dried fruits you intend to add to your granola. I tend to prefer cranberries, cherries and apricots or nectarines. Other highly acceptable fruits include blueberries, raisins, currants, and even banana chips. Be forewarned that banana chips do not have the same shelf life as your other dried fruits. However, if they are edible when your granola is made, there is a high likelihood that your granola will be consumed prior to their going bad. If you are using such large fruits as apricots, nectarines or bananas, you will have chopped them while your granola was in the oven. You will add your dried fruits now. You will put a handful of your cool granola into its large jar and sprinkle your dried fruits and repeat, adding handfuls (or spoonfuls) of granola and sprinkling in fruits and rolling your jar about to mix in your fruits until such time as you have added all of your granola to the jar and it contains a pleasing amount of fruit. If you have been impatient and begun adding your fruits while your granola was still warm, you will discover that your fruits have become dry and hard not unlike small pebbles. If such is your predicament, at the very least you will not screw on the top of your jar of granola until such a time as it has completely cooled. Otherwise, pebble fruits will not be the least of your troubles.

Enjoyment. You are now hungry. Now is the time to enjoy your first bowl of granola. You might consider serving it on top of chopped fresh fruits, such as apples, strawberries, peaches, &c. You might find you like to eat it with milk or soy (or rice or almond) milk or with yogurt. You may wish to sprinkle some on top of your oatmeal, when you eat hot oatmeal. You might consider consuming it in equal portions with muesli to lighten it up.

Appendix: Favourable combinations of spices, extracts, nuts and fruits. Included here are a number of tasty combinations for inspiration:
Apricots, almonds, vanilla, sea salt
Tart cherries, pistachios, sea salt
Cranberries, pecans, rose water, cardomom, sea salt
Maple syrup, walnuts, cinnamon, blueberries or raisins