Sow There!

It’s really sad that Leap Day came and went without any fanfare.
The good news is we have from now until 2012 to get organized.
It is my firm belief that Feb. 29 should be a special day.

Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised that Hallmark hasn’t already glommed onto this idea and made this once-every-four-year event some giant guilt trip that can only be alleviated by requiring everyone to spend $4 on a card for their loved ones.
However, I still think we should plan for 2012 and make Leap Day something we can all enjoy — for free.

Every holiday needs some symbol, and of course frogs would fit the Leap Day theme.
People can have costume parties where guests dress as their favorite leaping lizards or lords.

When I passed these ideas by Dad, he waxed into his Zen/philosophical mode and said he firmly believes Leap Day should be a day of rest and realignment for the entire planet.
All commerce should be shut down for a mass mental health day, Dad advised.
I like this idea, however impractical it may seem right now.

In absence of organization for something more monumental, I suggest each of us use Leap Day for personal contemplation. Call it “looking for you leap.”

If nothing else, a few of us can take a leap of faith.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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So far, so good.
Five "bloody butcher" tomato seedlings have decided to grow in my windowsill.
I say "decide" because some seeds decided not to grow and I have decided not to hold a grudge.
With seeds, I consider it a gift when they decide to cooperate.
I’m not some sort of purist who thinks everybody should plant from seed. I just personally like the excitement of looking every morning to see if anything has popped up above the surface of the soil.
Seeds take patience, but I like the ritual of planting them as if in some small way I’ll get to take credit if they do well.
I also do not blame myself when the life of my future tomato crop experiences bumps along the way — such as accidentally being knocked off the top of the refrigerator, forgotten during a three-day weekend or drowned by over-care.
I personally like peat pellets, because they’re small and I can fit about eight of them easily in a pie tin. These are quarter-inch circles that expand when you add water.
A lot of people also like peat pots, which are biodegradeable containers where you add your own soil.
Both peat pellets and pots have the advantage that you do not need to go through the ordeal of extracting the young seedling from the container in order to put it in the ground — a process that seems to be inevitably painful to the plant.
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Bottled-up idea
My friend Sally at work shared a great idea for planting seeds in old half-gallon milk containers.
Cut the container in about half, leaving the lid affixed by just a small piece of plastic on the back.
Fill the container with soil and poke holes in the bottom.
After the seedlings sprout, the container can be placed out in the yard. When it’s sunny, the lid can be flipped open. In rain, cold or wind, the top can be flipped back over to protect plants until they are ready for transplanting.
Of course, make sure to remove all the gunky milk residue before you embark on this adventure.
A Google search of the words “soda bottle greenhouse” also turned up several how-to tips about how to use two-liter soda bottles to do basically the same thing.
There’s a fairly detailed Q&A on tomato seedlings at: http://www.selectedplants.com/seedlings.htm.

Beautiful bermuda grass
An introspective reader named Allison sent a note about last week’s column on the pernicious nature of Bermuda grass.
She had pretty much given up the battle against the invader. Then a relative came over and saw her Bermuda grass doing just dandy and commented about how pretty it was.
Allison said this made her laugh because she had spent so much time hating it, and here came her relative to admire it.
She said she’s giving Bermuda grass a second look, and trying not to let the fact that it is nearly indestructible ruin the fun she has gardening.
As Allison noted, there are many ways this same concept can be applied to other parts of our lives.
A weed, after all, is just a plant that is growing in the wrong place.
In a few weeks when the wildflowers are in full bloom in Upper Park, the gentle dabs of color on the horizon are an inspiration. But frankly, if half those plants were growing in my yard I would yank them out.
For example, many of us have wild viola in our yards. Before I had much going on in the yard (when it was basically a mud puddle with some perennials around the edges) I nurtured these garden-crashers.
Right now these wild violas are blooming outrageously, with their dime-sized flowers of purple and white. They also set seed outrageously, starting a whole new generation before I have a chance to get out there and plant something more flamboyant.
But it’s not the wild viola’s fault that it just happens to be adapted well enough to get a jump start on the other prissy plants we buy at the nursery.
Alas, these plants are weeds because they don’t respect a gardener’s boundaries.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think I might stop calling my mom for cooking tips.
I have this really awesome cookie recipe. It's a little
different than normal chocolate chip cookies because the dough cooks down
and makes a crispy cookie.

I had some around the house and Mom liked them, and asked me for the recipe.
Mom called and said she had used the cookie recipe, however it didn't turn
out too well.

When she looked a the recipe she saw that it called for two sticks of butter.
When she thought about actually eating two sticks of butter she got grossed out.

So she decided to use "I Can't Believe it's Not Butter," the kind that comes in the tub,
not the yellow spray stuff we use for popcorn.

"They turned out gross," Mom said.
"Well, of course they did," I said.
"Well, I thought it would be different, but I didn't realize it would be that
different," Mom said.

"Mom," I said in a condescending tone people should not use with their
mother, "if you could cook with that stuff you would probably have heard about it.
There would be recipes in magazines for cooking with "I Can't Believe it's Not
Butter."

Mom agreed.

But why she didn't just stop with that one mistake, I don't know.
She said the first batch was all runny and got all crispy when she cooked it.
She didn't want to waste the rest of the dough, so she tried to salvage it by
adding more oats to the mix and baking the entire goo in a Corningware dish.

It never did cook up right, and really didn't taste like cookies,
but she was taking a nibble here and a nibble there.

I suspect that mess likely just made it into the garbage. Or, if she was a
little bit evil maybe she threw it over her back fence for the neighbor's dogs
to munch on.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sometimes weather can be such a tease.
Last week we had some glorious days. I’ve been through this before so I resisted the urge to go crazy and buy a bunch of plants that would inevitably get rained on and munched by slugs in the upcoming wet weeks.
But it did not stop me from making mental notes of some needed projects.
The main problem is that the lawn has problems.

Tommy had fun the other day walking around with a sharp stick and shoving it into the lawn. We had a gopher/mole combo last year, which almost had me in tears.
He found multiple places where he could easily sink the spear into the lawn several feet. There’s no doubt that there are some serious underground labyrinths going on. Question is, are they occupied?
And if they’re not, will other critters just move into the vacant “apartments” under our lawn if we don’t do anything?

Our patch of turf is so small you wouldn’t really think it would be a pain. Tommy likes firing up the mower. I think it’s a testosterone thing. But in reality the entire lawn takes about 2.25 minutes to trim.
Alas, the lawn also suffers from Bermuda grass invasion. I’ve battled this war before.
For a patch of lawn that at the maximum could be 12’x14’, one would think it would not be that much of a hassle.
I’ve spent hours out in light rain using a spade to dig up the tenacious roots. But through my reading, I’ve learned this can be a long-term battle; You need to dig up all of the itty-bitty pieces of the Bermuda grass or else it will grow back.

Bermuda grass is planted as turf in many dry areas, such as the South, because it is hardy. These same strengths also make it a bummer to battle.

And you thought neighbor nuisances stopped at noisy dogs and loud, late-night parties. Nope.
Sunset’s “Western Garden Problem Solver” states that using selective herbicides with fluazifop or sethoxydim can help. Or glysopate (Roundup) can be used to selectively kill the plant.
But even these methods don’t give instant gratification because several treatment would be needed.
Another account on Bermuda grass calls for solarization. This involves covering the grass (weeds) in plastic for up to six weeks during the hottest time of year.
This too does not sound aesthetically pleasing and frankly I’m just not willing to go to all that hassle.
We’ll probably try to dig it out again this year and plant less-dominating grass seed. However, I suspect a long battle is ahead.
I’d be really happy to hear any suggestions on this most pressing of matters.
According to my research, March is a good time to fertilize lawns in the Central Valley. But many lawn diseases can be linked to over-fertilizing.
UC Davis has some useful information online: http://ucanr.org, then use the search to find “lawn care,” including information for how to tabulate how much fertilizer to use for certain types of grass.

Post-Valentine’s Day
We decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day Feb. 15 in hopes of missing most of the V-day crowd.
We had reservations at a nice downtown restaurant.
But when that night finally rolled around, I wasn’t in the mood for going out.
I tried to weasel out of it and instead have a quiet night at home.
But Tommy was acting really weird.
He kept insisting that we had a reservation and that it was too late to cancel it.
It’s sad to say that this almost ended up in a fight because I became increasingly stubborn and didn’t understand why he couldn’t just drop the idea of spending a bunch of money out on the town.
Before things escalated too much, he blurted out his surprise.
Earlier in the day he had gone to the restaurant and brought a couple of flowering plants and arranged to have them delivered to the table. He made sure that they were live plants and not cut flowers because he knew my preference is for something that has a chance to grow.
He even arranged to have some seed packets delivered on a salad plate.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thanks to readers with good instincts. Loyal reader Kristina knew to forward me a link to a Web site at: http://www.stuffonmymutt.com.

Some may think my fascination with all things rubber chicken is weird, but at least I know I'm not alone

From what I can decipher from a brief peruse, "stuffonmymutt" is a Web site by a guy named Mario who thinks its hilarious to dress up pets and take photos of them.

He has a following and other dog owners are encouraged to send in their photos as well.

My bet is that the dogs and cats featured even have fun playing dress-up.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The chicken had more fun than most dancing at a local casino.
I didn't particularly appreciate all the attention Tommy got from the single women who wanted to get close to the chicken.

Note the roadies in the background breaking down the band equipment. They did not particularly appreciate our request to pose with the rubber chicken.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As all of you know, last week was “take-your-rubber-chicken-to-work week.”
A winery with a sense of humor in Calaveras County held a contest. (See Web site at www.elbloggotorcido.com).
I did take the rubber chicken to work.
I took it to a staff meeting, trying to rally some fun in the newsroom. However, the rubber wonder wasn’t exactly a hit.
I was feeling a bit down in the dumps about my lack of creativity and my inability to get my co-workers to play along.
The week was indeed hectic.
Friday night, Tommy and I took the rubber chicken with us to the casino when we went to see the free ’80s band.
Tommy was holding my purse near the entrance of the women’s bathroom when I stepped in to powder my nose.
While Tommy was standing with the rubber chicken peeking out of my purse, a guy approached him and said, “Hey, are you Heather Hacking?”
“No, but I’m with Heather Hacking,” Tommy said, amused.
Apparently, the guy had recognized the rubber chicken.
It just so happens that the guy had been trying to reach me that day at work to do a story.
Bingo.
The trip to the casino with the chicken had turned work-related.
We snapped a “take-your-rubber-chicken-to-work” photo near the entrance to the bathroom at the casino.

If I had really been savvy, I would have charged the newspaper for the mileage to get to the casino. However, I didn’t think Bossman would see that as a justifiable work expense.

Lady in red
Valentine’s Day has come and gone. I’m not as bah-humbug about this Hallmark holiday as I was in my single days. However, I do think the romance factor dwindles when couples are expected to drum up a bunch of excitement, spend money they should use to pay off Christmas debt and buy flowers that only bloom because they are raised in greenhouses.
We made reservations at a nice restaurant for the day after Valentine’s Day (tonight). We reasoned the wait staff would be more attentive, we would not feel guilty if we lingered at the restaurant and parking would be ample.
However, there is something to be said about going out on Valentine’s Day.
I really like eavesdropping on people who are on dates.
It’s fun to listen to them laugh at each others’ dumb jokes and use awkward conversation starters.
Then there are the shoes the young women wear.
I know that fashion is a big dictator, but I really don’t understand how some of these women are not in neck braces after a night out in those shoes.
Extending your legs by three or four inches indeed has a slimming effect. But that effect is far more suited to stationary activities such as pointing to prizes on “The Price is Right” or wearing a bikini while draped over a hot-rod car.
A woman all gussied up wants to look slim and graceful. But those shoes make young women walk like a newborn giraffe.
I’m sure when they are putting on their make-up and primping their hair they do not think “I’m going to put on these enormously tall shoes so I can walk like a newborn giraffe.”
I have a best friend who is 5’10”. She started dating a guy who had a big thing for women in high heels. As women, we’re often willing to put up with a little silliness to make our sweetie happy.
I remember when my best friend bought that first pair of super-sexy shoes. She wisely knew she would need to practice walking or else risk harming herself or someone else.
As any good friend would do, I went over to her house to critique her.
“How do I look?” she asked as she trotted back and forth across her living room, wearing sweats and her precarious shoes.
“Ridiculous,” I said.
“Yeah, but won’t it look better when I put on that super-short skirt?”
“Indeed.”

Posted by Heather Hacking at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On dull, gray mornings, I sometimes need a little pick-me-up to set the day in the right direction.
Luckily, that inspiration is just a few steps away from my front door.
The bulbs we planted last fall are making their heroic ascent.
When you think of a bulb as a single flower, their cost-efficiency might not seem apparent.
However, like many things — the slow climb to the top of a roller coaster, the build-up of a climactic ending, or that quiet time before the sun’s rise — it’s within the waiting that the real excitement exists.
Right now the slow show is the flowering quince, which is always the first to bloom in my yard. It provides delicate pink flowers on a stark twig, reminding me of Chinese art.
A couple of daffodils are “pregnant” and just about to pop.

Others, like the tulips, provide a fun game of hide-and-seek.
We also scored last summer at a garage sale when a woman had a bunch of “naked ladies” in an old bucket. When I asked the price, she said the bucket was $1, but the bulbs were free for the taking.
This was a big bonus because I had already planned how I was going to steal some naked lady bulbs from my neighbor Judy’s yard.
The fun about bulbs is that I usually forget where I planted them. The squirrels will steal a few so there’s no use in using sticks to mark them all.
Tommy and I circle around the yard several times each morning, looking at the bulbs we saw yesterday, every once in a while spotting a bulb one of us had missed the day before.
At 50 cents to $1 a pop, they aren’t cheap. However, they begin to appear exactly when I need it, when I’m just as eager as they are to soak up each intermittent moment of sunshine.
We’re also enjoying our “mystery bulbs.”
My best friend Bonnie went to our hometown of Benicia about two years ago. There was a woman at the Yacht Club who had a pile of bulbs she gave away in plastic bags.
Bonnie thought they were calla lilies, but she wasn’t sure.
They sat in my “in-box” on the kitchen table for more than a year. One day my mom was visiting and I had some incentive to clean off the kitchen table. It was there that I rediscovered the mystery bulbs and hastily put them in the ground.
Even better than not remembering where you planted the bulbs is not caring where you planted the bulbs. Then their arrival is even more of an unexpected joy.
We did, however, have to move a few potted foxglove plants that we had accidentally placed on top of the emerging mystery bulbs.

Check in your chicken
It’s not too late to get your entry in for the Take Your Rubber Chicken to Work Week contest, sponsored by the Twisted Oak Winery in Calaveras County.
If you’re not employed, you can just take it with you to someone else’s work.
The contest runs through Sunday, and you can check out the rules at: www.elbloggotorcido.com.
Jeff Stai, the winery’s big-wig, has even posted a full-resolution photo of a chicken for those who did not have time to go out and buy a rubber wonder. Just print it out and impress your friends.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’m pretty much the queen of a cheap date.
One of our more recent past-times has been to catch one of the free shows at a local casino. Except for the price of gas, it’s a fun night for only a few bucks.

What’s not to love?

There’s a free show. We like to make up stories about the people we see. We bring the rubber chicken and you can drink all the free soda you can manage.
Bonus if someone in our group accidentally wins some money.
We’ve gone to about four free shows in the last year.
I like the penny slots. We like to make lots of noise and act like we’ve just won the California Lottery when we’ve made a “jackpot” of 35 cents.
I finally found my comfortable spot in the maze of flashing lights, tipsy-couples and free-flowing soda dispensers.
I found a nickel roulette machine.
The thing about this machine is that literally I could play for hours. Each time one of my friends circled back around and found me at that familiar perch, I would invariably be 50 cents up or 50 cents down.
I hogged that machines for hours as my friends circled around, coming to report if they had won $15 dollars or lost $5.
They would laugh that I was still faithfully seated, playing again and again, never winning, but never losing.
Last time we went to that particular casino, I was shocked that the machine was gone.
I made Tommy scour the casino floor on a search for the machine, even asking employees who claimed to not know what I was talking about.
Then it dawned on me — they took out the machine because it wasn’t making enough money.
How dare they, I thought with indignation. How dare they not want me to sit there for hours neither losing nor winning? Don’t they want me to come see their free show, walk around with my rubber chicken, watch the delightful house band (for free) and suck down so much diet soda I felt like my veins were going to burst?

Those ingrates.

BONUS INSIDE SCOOP: Feather Falls Casino is hosting “Tainted Love” Feb. 8. We’ve been to see this band before and they’re goofy, but a lot of good, free fun. They play ’80s tunes.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes it's best to keep your thoughts to yourself.

My friend Shelley shared a funny story with me recently and agreed to send in a narrative
about her near-miss with public disclosure:

shelleyk

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official.

This week is Take Your Rubber Chicken to Work Week, as established by Twisted Oak Winery in Calaveras County.

http://www.elbloggotorcido.com/

For official rules etc.: http://www.elbloggotorcido.com/2008/01/announcing-take.html

A contest is underway to send in your most clever photos and video of the rubber chicken "at work."

I brought my chicken to work, but haven't had time to be as clever as the folks at Twisted Oak. My boss has failed to provide me with dedicated work time to work on this vital effort. Go figure.

Here's my rubber chicken at home:

And Dad's rubber chicken, apparently disappointed there were not more "chicks" at a beach in Hawaii:

The inspiration for learning about the TYRCTW Week was friend Sunset, who was nice enough to share this photo of her "Henrietta" peeking out of the back of her Harley Davidson (see photo at top of page).

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am increasingly convinced that Rubber chickens are the universal symbol of good fun.
Whether you’re in downtown Chico, in an airplane, deep sea fishing or exploring hidden caves, a rubber chicken is a welcome addition to any outing.
I met a woman named Sunset recently at a New Year’s party hosted by my friend Shelley.
Sunset rides a Harley Davidson and has a rubber chicken named Henrietta. Sunset often tucked Henrietta within the safety of the storage compartment on her bike.
Sunset got inspiration for the bird companion from her buddies at Jill’s Elegant Dog Boutique on Mangrove (in the shopping complex near Kinko’s). I haven’t checked out the shop yet, but am told they carry a wide selection of “Henriettas.”

The point of this is that once you meet one person who enjoys rubber chickens, it leads to another person, and then another person ... Soon you do not feel so alone in this world.
There is a kinship in rubber chickens — something that cannot be aptly expressed in words.
Sunset sent me a timely Internet link to the Twisted Oak Winery near Angel’s Camp where the staff have been long-time fans of the rubber chicken.
As luck would have it, the winery is holding a contest Feb. 4-10 called “Take Your Rubber Chicken to Work Week.”
http://www.elbloggotorcido.com
Who knew?
People are encouraged to submit photos and video of their rubber work mates, and prizes will be awarded for the best entries.
The only thing that bothers me about this impending contest is that I did not think of the idea first.
For details, I phoned up Jeff Stai, Twisted Oak Winery big-wig, who said the rubber chicken has been a staple in his business operation since 2002.
One day Jeff and his buddies were brainstorming to choose an idea for the back label on the bottles of their first wine release.
Various ideas were bandied about and they decided on the slogan “Enjoy this bottle of wine with a group of friends and rubber chicken.”
Since then, the rubber chicken has been an integral part of the company’s appeal.
“Rubber chickens are serious business to us,” Jeff said.
Official rules to the contest can be found at: www.twistedoak.com, including some inspirational photos of the chicken at work in the winery.
Stai agreed the rubber chicken is an international ambassador of good, clean fun.
However, I suppose discretion must be exercised by some.
There is likely little room for a rubber chicken at a job as a Secret Service bodyguard. Likewise, the chicken might get in the way at certain jobs where accessories could interfere with job performance, such as professional mud wrestler.
The chicken might also not be appropriate for jobs that require extreme sensitivity, such as international diplomacy or hostage negotiator.

For Christmas we gave a rubber chicken to my dad who took the gift with him on his vacation to Hawaii. (See photos online at www.norcalblogs.com/sowthere).
Dad took photos of the chicken snorkeling on the beaches in Hawaii, swimming in a yacht-filled harbor and drinking umbrella drinks at sunset.
Jeff said there are not immediate plans to host a “Take Your Rubber Chicken on Vacation” photo and video contest. However, he said he would be happy to collaborate with Sow There! fans on the idea in the future.

http://twistedoak.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/28/three_chickens275.jpg

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)