Blueberries, Garden

Maybe you heard about our little trip out into the country to pick berries. Maybe you even tasted the cherry pie I made afterwards. (My new favorite pie!) We also picked some of the best blueberries I've ever tasted. I wish I had picked enough of those to make a pie. Next year!

Josh picking under the nets

Very pretty berries

In other news, I remembered to take a garden photo today. I was being chased by the giant scarab beatles so I only took this one before running out of there. The peas are finished and have been pulled out of the ground to make way for something new. Moving clockwise from the far left you can see big sunflowers growing, carrots, kale, green chard, tomato plants, purple bean bushes, rainbow chard, and beets. There are a few stray marigolds on the far right that grew from last year. We also have a lone snapdragon that popped up behind the bean bushes.

Goats and Garden Bounty

Goat transportation in California

A closer look

Cha Cha is checking out the latest garden harvest. Clockwise from the top they are baby carrots that I thinned, purple string beans, and English peas. We enjoyed the carrots and beans on a salad and I sauted the peas in butter and served them on a little pile of sauted chard. The beans turn green when cooked so I'm just not cooking them.

Califlora

The Getty had amazing gardens, including these fine succulent specimens.

These ferns grew under the redwoods.

The view from the backseat driving towards the Central Coast wine region was unfamiliar but beautiful.


There were several terraced gardens at The Getty museum.

I spotted this very unusual tree in Beverly Hills.

Redwoods in Muir Woods

Kind of hard to tell the scale of them but most of the trees in the grove were of the 270' variety. This was one of the many highlights of my trip to the west coast. I've wanted to see the giant trees since reading "Travels with Charley" which I revisited shortly before my travels with Josh, Ko, and sometimes Behn.

Cha Cha Bathing

Cha Cha took a bath in Josh's arms the other day. Look at those pink toe pads!

Soil and Beer

My soil test came back and I can finally enjoy my lettuce without wondering if it'll give me dementia. I'd throw the latest garden photos up but I'm at work, my camera's at home, and our computer may be broken. There could be a Mac in our future if things don't resolve themselves this week.

Our beer is like the homebrew equivalent of a nice Belgian. A little strong, pretty malty, and a medium dark color. I don't know if that describes it but it's the best I can do.

We're hoping to make a light ale in the next few weeks for summer drinking.

The garden is making more lettuce and kale and chard than we may be able to handle.

Yin and Yang

The lovely ladies stretching out. Mao Mao is mugging for the camera.

Brunswick Community Garden pics

Snapshots of what's growing.

They are:

Carrot

Beet

Kale

Lettuce

Full Plot View

I have since cleaned it up a bit and taken out the arugula. The carrots and beets have been thinned and the radishes mostly harvested or composted. The lettuce has been thinned out too. The photos below were taken before any of that happened but you can see the arugula is gone.

We're still waiting on that soil test so we've just been livin' dangerously.

Guess we need to buy some new cat toys.

Cha Cha has taken to dunking her toys in the water bowl. It started with little pink mice and tinfoil balls and progressed to the small plush Maurice Sendak Wild Things we spoil her with. Then it was the tiger Beanie Baby and finally we came home late one night and found these casualties. They had been spread out on the bed to dry, fresh from the laundry.

Snowball, Mao Mao Brau

Sharon was kind enough to send me the links to Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo. The dancing videos are great and I was laughing hard enough to concern Cha Cha but I really appreciated the Times interview with Irena.

The most watched video is Snowball dancing to his favorite song.

The other video I recommend shows his range.

I hope the publicity helps Irena better support her Bird Lovers Only shelter in Indiana. I noticed youtube has a donation button.


In other news, we bottled the Dunkelweiss Beer last weekend. Everything seemed normal so we should be drinking it by the 16th of May when it gains a little carbonation. You can see the beginning of the bottling operation below and the beer in the bucket before it was siphoned.