It’s funny about expectations. I had expected the Horseshoe Lake trip to be romantic with just me and my boyfriend.
But Leif did need to get out of the house, and no doubt his mom deserved some time to herself.
Before we could get more than half a mile from the house, the car lurched to a halt when Tommy stopped at a “free sign” at a big pile of stuff left over from a garage sale.
I didn’t want to stop, but he was driving and did not listen to me.
I sat in the car seething as he picked through boxes filled with stuff that would sit in the corner of my living room for a month, inevitably ending up in our own pile of junk headed for a charity.
I sat in the car for 14 minutes while the boys grinned widely as they rummaged.

I know the exact amount of time because I watched the minutes tick by slowly on the digital clock on the dashboard. It was nearing dark and I had wanted to make sure I saw the sunset.
We finally arrived at Horseshoe Lake, and the boys were happy with their new free treasures, but my mood had turned sour.
The water was very low at the lake, as would be expected with the drought.

We walked out to the little metal dock and a couple pulled into the parking lot and unleashed a trio of yappy dogs.
I was doing a great job of communicating with nature, doing my impersonation of a duck and even had one of the ducks quacking back at me.
But the ducks didn’t want to swim across the water.
We walked all the way around “Horseshoe puddle” by the cattails, dodging doggie love offerings as we trekked.

Leif and Tommy were wowed by the flurry of small black birds that were flying through the air like trick airplane pilots.
As the “boys” were throwing bread at the ducks, I got miffed because they started to wad up their pieces of white bread and skip the dough balls across the water.
This scared the ducks, which swam off and wanted nothing more to do with us.
Then, Leif wanted to climb monkey face.
I told him no. He asked again and again and again.

(Monkey Face in Bidwell Park)

The sun was dipping in the sky, the mosquitoes were coming out, they had already ruined my duck feeding experience and I was tired.
Finally, I gave in realizing I was being a stick in the mud.
We stood and watched the kid run up the hill like he was running a 100-yard sprint. Soon he was exhausted and stopped about one-quarter of the way up the trail, just where it starts to get really steep.
Leif stood there for a while, waving, (and probably panting). He had to get on his bottom to slowly work his way back down the hill.

Tommy put his arms around me and told me I should check out the sunset.
We had the moment I had been hoping for. The city seemed very far away as we watched the pinks and light orange of the afternoon sky. The sound of yappy dogs was only a murmur in the distance. The ducks had probably long forgotten about those jerks who were lobbing dough balls at them.
I realized how silly I had been to let the 14 minutes lost at the “free pile” sully most of my outing.

Bulbs be gone
Before heading out on our sunset outing, I put my bulbs in the ground. This is not as easy as it sounds, because first I had to try to brainstorm to remember where the daffodils came up last spring.
Bulbs really are the biggest no-brainer of the garden. You put them in the ground and count on it to rain. If squirrels or gophers eat the bulbs, you probably won’t remember where you planted them anyway.
The thing is, it’s easy to buy the bulbs and then forget to plant them. I’ve found bulbs in the back of my refrigerator in December. I’ve found bulbs at the back of the storage shelf where I shove everything I don’t know what to do with when my Mom visits.

While I’m probably not best known for my sage advice, I would advise to get bulbs in the ground as soon as you think of it. Many people will chill tulips for 6-8 weeks in the fridge. But at least for me, these inevitably get smooshed up in a paper bag behind the less-used refrigerator items and forgotten.

Usually I do my own version of a rain dance, getting outside for a few minutes during that first drizzle.
I like those light rains. If you put your arms out to your side it feels like a thousand tiny kisses from the sky.

This week, I heard the rain at something like 3 a.m., so the extent of my “dance” was dragging myself out of bed to make sure the bag of briquettes was protected under the front porch.
Although the first rain is a clear indication of the time to switch gears on gardening tasks, my lack of gardening motivation this week can be directly linked to the purchase of a new video game on eBay.
My significant other has been out of town this week. Sure, I called a few friends and chatted on the phone a bit. But I also fully indulged myself in mindless diversion.

I found myself shutting my front door so the 11-year-old next door won’t see how much time I’ve frittered away on the XBox. I had to hide because I sometimes do that old lady thing and harp on him for not riding his bike more or spending quality time with his Auntie.
But I’m going to forgive myself and think of this wasteful distraction as time to realize how much can be done while doing so little.
The thing about being lazy is you can just hope for the best and not be disappointed if you don’t even remember where you planted things.

Post-rain is a really good time to work on pulling weeds. The ground is soft and it usually just takes a nudge with a hand trowel to dig up most of the roots.
It will be several weeks before the tomato plants are slowly dismantled and the tangle of zinnia plants dealt with.
In the meantime, bald patches in the lawn can be scattered with seed. It’s still warm enough for seeds to germinate. If there is rain, bonus, because you won’t need to help to make sure the soil stays moist.
I’ve also had good luck with the lazy-person’s rose propagation. This includes pruning back recently bloomed rose stems and sticking them into the ground.

Sometimes the stems rot. However, two years ago I stuck some rose stems in the ground and had my first blooms this year. I was doubly pleased because I had totally forgotten I had even done that.
I also plan to put poppy seeds in the ground soon. Poppies are extremely rewarding for so little effort.
There are several areas along fences and sidewalks where weeds grow. If weeds can thrive, so can poppies.
I’m not sure what the rules are on placing seeds on public property, but there is a roundabout near my house where a few packets of poppy seeds probably won’t do any harm.

Poppies are drought tolerant and one of the main reasons they don’t transplant well is they send down a tap root that can reach 15 feet into the soil.
This also allows them to grow in some areas where nothing else, except weeds, will prosper.

Many other types of wildflowers can be planted in the fall. That makes sense, because if we weren’t interfering with nature, the mature seeds would naturally drop from the plant and into the soil. For unsightly, underused areas of the yard you can usually just buy a box of wildflower seeds and sprinkle them willy-nilly. Being less fussy about where and how you plant means you will be surprised, and not disappointed, when some of the seeds do their thing.

Bulbs are in the big bins in gardening sections right now. Taking the hint from the Paradise Garden Club, planting daffodils is always a worthwhile investment.

I also like to plant at least a dozen tulip bulbs each year. Unlike daffodils, I don’t count on tulips producing more than one year. If they do, that’s a bonus, but usually by the second year the blooms are rather straggly.

Bulbs can also be planted in pots. Again, using my lazy techniques, they can be planted in old, black one-gallon containers and put into an underused part of the yard. Winter rains (if we have any) should do most of the work. When spring comes, these can be given as gifts to your friends who live in apartments.
For a good how-to on this, check out: http://www.daffodilusa.org/daffodils/potgrowing.html.
Bulb forcing can also be started soon, for blooms in the darkest days of winter. Amaryllis and hyacinth are best known for this technique. For hyacinth, you can buy a frou-frou vase that allows the bulb to be placed on top, allowing the roots to grow down into the water.

Good luck, however, finding a place in the fridge at Thanksgiving where the vase will not tip over and dump into the leftover mashed potatoes.

Everybody loves a love story, even though some have a less-than-happy ending.

Reader Cathy M. sent these fantabulous photos of some praying mantises in her garden.
While female mantises are known for eating their mates, I read recently (online) that science is unsure if this practice always occurs in the wild.

The group is trying to raise money to plant 50,000 daffodils this fall on the ridge.
Bulbs really are an investment in a gardener’s future happiness. The flowers do well in this area and left undisturbed will return every year. Deer and squirrels don’t particularly love to devour them.
But mostly, daffodils fill a legitimate need in late winter when watching those brave, cheery flowers emerge on an ugly, gray day can really do the psyche some good.

The idea for widespread planting of daffodils came after the fires that shook Northern California in general, and Paradise specifically.
Carolyn explained that the group already took the money they sock away for an annual special luncheon, and bought garden gift certificates for more than 70 households damaged in the fires. Paradise Garden Center was also damaged by fire, so the gift certificates were bought from that plant retailer for the fire victims to plant some new life in their yards.

(This original artwork by Sally Lee will be used to raise funds for the daffodil project).

Here’s the plan:
Garden club members have already agreed to plant 10,000 bulbs. They’ll focus on those under-used planting areas at businesses and open space on the ridge — tiny triangles of soil where yellow daffodils can shine.
The group is asking other community members to help with the project. Twenty-five bucks will buy 100 daffodil bulbs for club members and various volunteers to plant.
They’ll buy them wholesale and need to order in October. People can also choose to plant the bulbs on their own property, which extends the overall impact of the project.

Group members will have a booth at Johnny Appleseed Days Oct. 4-5 and need to have donations for bulbs ready by Oct. 10.
Carolyn said there has been a lot of community support, and more hands are welcome when it comes time in late October and early November to plant the bulbs.
To donate $25 (or smaller or larger amounts), send checks to Daffodils on the Ridge, P.O. Box 1246, Paradise, CA 95967. For more info., call 877-2432 or e-mail: daffodils4paradise@att.net.

Peat plunder
It was time to plant foxgloves by seed this week and I only had two crusty peat pellets left over from spring. I looked for more at three big-box stores, but only found cheesy plastic planting kits.
Making do with what I had on hand, I turned up some organic pots I had bought at a garage sale early this summer.
As I was filling up the organic pots with leftover, clumpy, bug-infested potting soil, I glanced at the package. Apparently these were made out of coconut fiber. The label stated that coconut fiber is much better to use than peat pellets, which aren’t environmentally sustainable.

Peat pellets aren’t environmentally sustainable? This really bummed me out. I love peat pellets. I’ve used them since I was a kid.
Wouldn’t you know it.
And then I was faced with that terrible dilemma within myself.
If I had not read the package on those coconut fiber three-inch pots, I would have never known.
But now that I know there might be something bad about using peat pellets, I couldn’t just pretend that I did not know better.

I went to the Internet and found an article about how peat moss takes hundreds of years to be created by nature and is being harvested at an unsustainable rate.
I mulled this over for a while.
Then another Web site, http://www.thisgardenisillegal.com/2007/04/peat-repeat-sphagnum-peat-moss-use-in.html, stated that supplies for peat in the United States come primarily from Canada, where the Canadian Sphagnun Peat Moss Association exercises sustainable harvest and restoration.
How is it an association in Canada manages to harvest sustainably, but other areas can’t?
However, on deeper digging, the CSPMA recently issued a press release (www.peatmoss.com/index.php) stating that abnormally wet conditions in peat-harvesting regions will mean a shortage of peat this year.
Then I came across an article at the Oregon State University (http://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/story.php?S_No=904&storyType=garde) that said the consensus is not in yet on whether harvesting peat moss can be done in a sustainable way, and to be safe, we should all use coir, which is coconut dust.
This is all entirely new territory for me, so don’t send me hate mail if you know more about this than I do.
When coconuts are harvested and husked, the long fibers that surround the fruit are removed and used for fibers for rope, doormats, etc. The shorter fibers are winnowed out and used in coconut peat.
Who knew?
Like peat moss, coir holds moisture well, drains well, decomposes slowly and can withstand compression.
There are still other fascinating articles about peat, including how in some places of the world, and in certain times in history, peat was so plentiful medieval people used it for fuel.
But that was then and this is now. People also were known to use whale oil to illuminate their houses.
Another alternative for planting by seed is to fashion biodegradable pots out of newspaper. There’s a nifty how-to article posted here: http://www.ehow.com/video_1745_create-seed-starting.html.

Sure, I do a lot of nice things for my friends and I'm not being vain by saying that if you called my friends they would agree. However, sometimes I feel like some of the nice things I do aren't being duly noted.

It's not that I want my friends and family to bow down and thank me from the pit of their hearts, from the deepest parts of their bodies, and from the cavities of each tooth.

But sometimes I feel disappointed when I don't feel like a huge hero for doing something nice for someone else.

Of course, if I'm doing something nice just to get a big thank-you, well, that's not what being gracious is all about.

When giving to kids, you can't really expect them to make a big whoop-dee-doo, especially when they already have the really cool things they "need," such as a computer game console and a bicycle.

The 11-year-old next door had a birthday in July, but he was away for the summer so I had more time to decide what to get him.

Gift-giving is difficult when you're not swimming in cash.

In the past, buying presents for Leif was easier. For a few years we got tickets to the local baseball game and we brought him along with us.

But now he is old enough to realize that we often get those baseball tickets for free.

This old guitar

This year I decided to ask the kid if he wanted a guitar class through CARD (Chico Area Recreation and Park District). He agreed that would be fun.

The fact is, the kid has reached the age when being cool is beginning to become a factor in his happiness.

I'm 39. I have no idea what is cool. If you doubt me, ask me if I still dress the same way I did in 1993.

I've known a lot of guitar players, including my dad, and I've never known playing guitar not to be cool.

Playing the guitar when Leif is age 16-21 may very well add to his success meeting girls. Who knows? This could be a fantabulous gift for the future of the kid's self-esteem.

If he turned out to be a really hot rock star, I could always hold claim to the fact that it was all because of me because I sprung for his 11th birthday for his first guitar lessons.

A budding star

Leif was in choral group up until last year.

I know I'm biased, but I think he's got some talent there. We've had the pleasure of hearing him sing at barbecues and he can do an incredibly impressive impersonation of Johnny Cash singing "Ring of Fire."

If this kid doesn't become a big rock star, he's going to grow up and be a formidable karaoke singer.

But this year he decided not to continue in the chorus. Probably he's at the age when playing tetherball is cooler than singing in the choir.

With the green light to sign him up for the guitar class, we needed to find him a guitar.

I happen to have a guitar hanging on my living-room wall. It belonged to an ex-boyfriend and it has a crack in it from a misunderstanding between my ex-boyfriend, the living room floor and the guitar.

I kept the instrument because it is still playable, if cosmetically damaged, and is nice to have around in case someone ever wants to play a guitar.

However, I was afraid Leif would be embarrassed if the guitar didn't look as cool as all the other kids' or adults' in the class.

Wednesday he had his first class.

Later that evening, he was done playing his computer game and came out onto his front porch to show me what he had learned in class.

There he sat on the front porch, with his shaggy hair covering his eyes. He showed me how he had learned to play a few notes, including A and E for the song "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

He also was pretty good at strumming and had been taught how to tune the guitar.

He's a lefty, but he said the guitar was OK for now, because he's fairly ambidextrous.

The point is, I think he really dug his first guitar lesson.

He's 11 years old, and I can't expect him to gush and give me a big hug and say "thank you for the awesome gift and for loaning me this old beater of a guitar."

But I know he really did appreciate the present for his 11th birthday, even if I couldn't remember whether he had said thank you.

Of course, if he does end up becoming a huge rock star, I'll expect him to credit me fully.

Fall to-do

Monday is the fall equinox. It's been a long, hot, dry summer and the leaves on the maple tree in my yard are already starting to fade and curl.

We made a list about mid-summer of all the things we wanted to do. There has been partial success, such as family visits and barbecues.

However, we'll really have to hurry this weekend if we want to check off some more things from the summer to-do list.

Meanwhile, looking around the yard, there are a bazillion "fall things" to do.

This week Tommy had a day off and ventured into the jungle zone to eradicate the invasion of spotted spurge and mystery weed growing from the compost pile.

There's a big patch of lawn that got gobbled by a mole and now likely a new gopher guest. Now is a good time to replant.

It's time to think about planting bulbs that will bloom next spring.

Also, there are seeds to be harvested, investigation of a spot for planting a citrus tree and dead plants to remove.

But who can think of all this when we're racing as fast as we can to finish off our summer to-do list?

Maybe that's one guideline from which to gauge if you're getting older — you tend to run out of time before the things on your to-do list have been checked off.

Click the below link to see some very graphic video of a praying mantis devouring a hornworm.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20004902&searchid=71906809-7290-426e-9ac6-cf23becafecb

Many times I use my garden as a way to breathe more deeply.

I keep an eye on the slow but steady changes of the plants as they go through their life cycle. My garden reminds me that when care is taken for the collective health of the plants I choose, life for those plants flourishes.

Action photographer Cathy M. sent me some photos recently from her garden in Chico. She was at the right place at the right time and was able to capture a photo of a praying mantis gorging itself on a big, slow tomato hornworm.

Having disdain for hornworms, and admiration for praying mantises, I was delighted to receive the photos.

I've bisected tomato hornworms on countless occasions, and felt a certain camaraderie with this praying mantis, unconsciously and viciously supporting my cause.

Below the burnt-orange petals of the zinnia, behind the cheery electric glow of the blue lobelia, similar battles of survival and satiation constantly occur.

Wings of abandon

On the roses, the ants are busy being their own version of imperialists and enslaving the aphids.

The ants herd the aphids like cows and milk them for their sweet honeydew. The aphids are apathetic as long as they are sucking on their rose buds. The ants provide them protection from predators.

Every so often, a rogue ladybug comes along. You'll see turf wars erupt as the larger ladybug will try to sneak in for a quick kill.

If undetected, the ladybug can mow through 50 aphids a day.

Given the power of flight, they can also drop down from the sky and land in ant territory. She quickly feasts on the aphids, hoping to get her fill before the ants note the damage to their aphid herd. Once the invader is detected, the ants send word to the awaiting army for attack.

Often, it's all a bunch of puffery for naught. As the first wave of defenders attack, the ladybug abandons the feast and flings about 50 feet into the air, headed to the rose bushes two doors down from my garden.

True turf war

Meanwhile, down in the mulch, there is another frenzied struggle for survival. The earwigs slither out after dark, taking their share of the insect spoils, in addition to feeding on soft plants. When conditions are good, they feel comfortable and their population soars.

Also occupying the night are the cutworms, the vampires of the garden underworld, seeking virgin blood. Cutworms victimize the newly emerged seedlings, intent on slashing new life at its base.

Slugs and snails tend to scavenge the garbage left by the rest of the plant world, sneaking out to the growing plants when opportunities arise. Slow to react, they are among the first to feel the crushing blow of night-time hunts by humans.

In the daytime, the brutal scenes of insect-vs.-insect continue.

On the tomato plants, the hornworm begins as an egg on the underside of leaves. Evolving from egg to caterpillar, over three weeks the hornworm spends all its energy and existence digesting the leaves of solanaceous plants.

Incapable of escaping predators, hornworms are not equipped to think of anything other than devouring as much plant material as quickly as possible.

In the process, they become a slothful, weighty mass of meat.

Being the exact same color as the tomato leaves, they often evade predators and continue their life cycle by flopping fat onto the ground and burrowing under the soil to pupate, emerging as the sphinx moth.

But sometimes their gluttonous journey is cut short.

A praying mantis is a killer so ruthless, if insects had laws, praying mantises would all be placed in prison upon birth.

The praying mantis is the Tyrannosaurus rex of the garden hierarchy. While often revered for eating pest insects, in reality the praying mantis merely devours everything it can.

Of course, this goes for its mate as well, and the female mantis would just as soon bite its mate's head off as thank him for the deed.

In the photos sent by Cathy, it's just another day for the praying mantis. The mantis is captured taking a leisurely lunch of a big, slow hornworm losing its primordial tomato ooze in Cathy's garden.

So what role do we, as gardeners, play in dramas of the soil?

I suppose from an insect's perspective, a gardener represents Mother Nature.

In summer, we bring the water and help enrich the soil. We build giant mountains of leaves and dig caverns for compost. And at times, we dictate which stones are overturned and which patches of earth become an oasis.

After sprouting last year I wasn't sure where to plant them, because the hottest of Chico's summer heat will fry the plants, so I put them in large pots I could move around.

I must admit, having them in pots was somewhat of a chore because they required almost daily watering or else the tall spikes would start to droop.

I think I'll forego the pots this year and just transplant them directly into the ground.

I know that now is an OK time to plant seeds because I have a few baby volunteer foxglove plants at the base of where the giant flower spikes once were.

About this time I start to get a renewed interest in planting new things, probably because there is an end in sight to the triple digit temperatures. There are also some bare spots where things just petered out.

I can handle that natural life cycle of the plant world. However, I'm not happy with the underground rummaging by moles.

In early spring there was some serious pillaging going on in one part of the yard. A few plants would be dead overnight and tell-tale sign of mole carnage would remain — the soil pushed up above its subterranean path.

The destruction slowed over the summer. Yet, we did apply a thick layer of mulch over much of the yard, so maybe we just didn't notice the mole mounds.

Recently Tommy remembered to water the poor lilac tree at the side of the house and noticed evidence of moles along the north-facing side of the house.

This lead to an investigation that determined the mole, and now likely his mole wife and mole offspring, had systematically worked their way three-fourths of the way around the perimeter of the yard.

That's why one pepper plant had started to lurch forward toward death and the leaves of one tomato plant were curled up like a papyrus scroll.

Veggie vacation

Unless Tommy decides otherwise, I have plans to scale down on the vegetable growing. There is something wonderful about going into the garden and plucking your own tomatoes. Like our own children, tomatoes grown in our own garden are more beautiful than any other tomatoes, taste better and should be bragged about.

However, I'm wondering if its worth the bother. We go to the local farmers markets at least once a week and for dirt-cheap can buy more vegetables than we could ever eat. Before the mole attacked the bell peppers, we had only harvested two very puny bells.

Buying vegetables at the market does not involve heartbreak, such as promising zucchinis that ended up looking like they had gangrene.

I guess I'll have some time to ponder these most important of life's decisions. In the meantime, I'm excited to go plant shopping again and find some replacement plants to fill in those gaps in the garden.

End-of-summer to-do list

The summer is finally wrapping up, by evidence of that great breeze we had last weekend. There are only a handful of remaining Friday night concerts and Thursday Night Market downtown.

In June my significant other and I wrote down a list of things we wanted to do this summer, knowing that weeks speed by in summer and unless we made an effort, it would soon be fall and we would realize we are total middle-aged duds.

We'll have to really hustle to fit in the "must-dos" before we're unpacking the cool-weather blankets.

Luckily, we're all signed up for Taste of Chico this Sunday. This is one of the many events that makes me glad I decided to stay in Chico for more than half my life.

Tommy and I play a game each time we go to a downtown event, the grocery store or an Outlaws game. We each make a bet of how many people we will recognize.

We're surprised if we don't tally at least a dozen.

There's a lot of comfort in being in one place for a long time. Even if you feel like you're getting old, you can go out and about and see a bunch of other people you know who are looking older as well.

Tommy returned from running an errand and pulled into the driveway.
“Oh my God,” he said in a strange way — a tone that was slightly alarmed, and a little bit alarmed.
“You’re not going to wear that to work are you?”

I didn’t really have time to respond.
I had chosen this happy sun dress because it was comfortable and I thought it looked OK on me.

“I pulled up into the driveway,” he continued, “and it totally looked like you were pregnant in that dress.”

Still, I did not have time to respond.

By this time, as he kept talking he knew he was on dangerous ground with this comments about my dress.

“Well, I’m telling you because you would want to know. That dress is totally not flattering.”

Then, as if answering some internal question in his own mind, he added:
“I’m sure you really want to know this. This is the type of thing you would want me to tell you. That dress doesn’t look good on you.”

Of course, I will never wear this dress in public.

I guess that’s a good thing. At least Tommy is certain of that.

And isn't that why we sometimes ask "does this dress make me look fat?"

I know there are folks out there who think killing them is barbaric, immoral, disgusting, etc.

I've spent some time pondering that.

But I've decided that while I agree it is unnecessary for me to use chemicals to kill slugs and snails, I also don't need to allow them free range in my part of the world.

Some people might have ducks that hang out at their house. Other people might hand-pick insects and feed them to their chickens.

I have no ducks, nor chickens.

I'm not sure if this is fact or folklore, but I've heard that snails were brought over from France during the California gold rush in hopes that miners would catch on to the delicacy of eating escargot.

As if there weren't enough native things to kill and eat during that period of time.

What? Deer and jackrabbits moved too fast?

Needless to say, importing the snails was a mistake, and subjected future generations to a long battle with snails.

Probably the big pitfall is that snails are hermaphrodites. Absent of a mate, the snails are perfectly capable of procreating themselves.

Ditto for slugs.

Over the years, I've become something of a snail-stomping fool.

When faced with nothing much better to do, I'll slog out in my gardening clogs into the darkness. Using a flashlight, I'll crush the snails.

When Tommy is in the garden, he'll toss the snails in my direction and let me do the honors.

Slugs, on the other hand, are much more difficult to spot until they are huge and blatant and their slimy backsides sparkle in the glow of my flashlight.

We were chatting about snails and slugs recently and wondered how if the French are so enthused by mixing snails, butter, parsley and garlic, why not the natural progression to the same procedure for slugs?

Pretty much anything drenched in enough flavor can be palatable.

Cultural food differences

Probably the main reason why we're grossed out by some foods is because our parents didn't make us learn to like eating them.

Part of my mom's family hails from West "Virginee," and Mom would periodically fry up chicken livers in flour and oil. She craved them when her body needed iron.

The cat would go crazy circling around the stove, and we kids would run outdoors for fear she might want us to "just try one."

When I was in Alice Springs, Australia, my grandmother and I visited a tourist attraction where the aborigines cooked up grubs. These are three-inch worms cooked over a campfire.

Another time, my friends and I ordered escamoles from a menu in Mexico City. Escamoles are ant larvae harvested from the roots of agave plants. They weren't bad chased by a Modelo beer.

But that's more something you do on vacation, rather than for dinner guests.

While on a quick Internet tour to determine if there were recipes for garden slugs, I came across this link for a family in Canada:

http://rickshawunschooling.blogspot.com/2007/10/wild-food-killing-our-own-meat.html.

As part of an educational exercise, they took their small children out into the forest and harvested some slugs. They took them home and boiled off the slime, cut out the digestive organs, then cut them into pieces and deep fried them.

That sounds like one way to spend a slow afternoon.

But personally, I'd rather just not add that to my life experiences.

Unless I am chosen to be a contestant on "Survivor," I see no reason to sample deep-fried scorpions, bird fetuses or cow eyeballs — at least not knowingly.

Other quick-kill methods

So, in absence of harvesting the voracious snails and slugs, I choose to stomp snails. For slugs, I choose to impale them with a sharp stick, clip them in half with the hand clippers, or smear the pest into a hard surface.

These methods of mollusk eradication seem to be more humane than metaldehyde found in snail bait. The chemical dehydrates the creatures until they slowly run out of slither.

It's similar to pouring salt on snails, which is a sadistic ritual of children. Plus, salt or chemicals in the soil can't be a good thing.

Iron phosphate snail and slug control have been on the market in the past decade. This is said to be environmentally friendly. Although I bet that makes little difference to the pests, which stop feeding and eventually starve.

In my limited experience with snail battling, I've tried the beer method. This involves burying a tuna can in the soil so the top is flush with the ground. Then fill to the rim with beer. The slugs will have one last hurrah. For added amusement, each beer bath can be named after a Chico bar.

A non-alcoholic method is to lure the gastropods with corn meal. Just put a few smidgens of corn meal in a container turned on its side. In the morning, return and collect the snails.

One Web site also suggested grinding up eggshells in a food processor, then sprinkling the mixture around sensitive plants. The texture of the eggshells harms the soft, slimy underbelly of slugs and snails.

The same effects can be made by using diatomaceous soil, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth, but this can also harm beneficial insects.

(Just to thoroughly gross people out, I found this photo online of what you don't want to see outside your front door).

(This is the first kitty — the one that ran across the street).

My significant other Tommy and I take walks several times a week. Usually we stroll around 10 p.m. It’s cooler then and by then we’ve made maintenance phone calls to friends and family.
Walking at that time is nice because you practically own the side streets, with most folks tucked away for the night. Even the college students who are still being social are usually having quiet little get-togethers in their back yards.
Tommy has this animal magnetism which really cracks me up. For some reason he is able to tap into whatever frequency domestic animals use for telepathy.
The other night we crossed the Esplanade and walked in a neighborhood we don’t visit as often.
Around Fourth Avenue and Laburnum I spotted something out of the corner of my eye about half a block down the street, street-level.
I tried to prime the video mode of my digital camera as a very soft gray and white spotted cat literally ran as fast as it could and across the street.
Before I could figure out how to take video, there was the cat at Tommy’s feet, purring and circling around his ankles.
We cracked up because it was such an absurd scene to have this cat racing in our direction.
After a particularly loving pet session, we reluctantly moved on.
When it’s a hot night, cats often don’t like to come inside. I remember my cat Hollywood seemed to like to lay outside in summer. I think the whir of the fan bugged him.
It was a short walk, but in about 20 minutes we encountered three more cats who were lured from their doorsteps by Tommy’s allure.
Just to prove I’m not making this up, here are the photos from that night.

In the summer we shop at the farmers markets at least once a week.
There are a lot of reasons to shop locally. But I must admit the No. 1 reason is because it’s fun.
I love strolling around and looking at all the gorgeous fruits and vegetables. Usually we stop to chat with a few friends or wave at a pal playing guitar on the corner.
I like asking vendors for salsa recipes or how they keep lettuce from bolting in the heat.
There are a myriad of other benefits from buying locally, such as supporting local farmers, and minimizing resources by not transporting fresh food across the globe.
But I won’t lie and say those are my main reasons.
Foods taste better when they are farmers-market-fresh.

Tomatoes are the prime example. This time of year along I-5 you’ll spot the tomato truck hauling green tomatoes from around here to somewhere else.

Too hot to trot
It’s August and the inevitable has happened — we’re experiencing summer garden burnout.
In the spring when we were excited about working outside, my significant other Tommy was expanding the area where we now are growing tomatoes.
He dug holes to add compost and steer manure and built mounds that would hold in the water.
This was no small chore.
As Tommy worked, smeared in dust and sweat, my best friend from next door warned we would be “slaves to our yard” this summer.
We knew she was right, but also knew we would fight through it.
Gardening is one of those freebie pleasures.
It’s a ritual to take a “garden tour” every morning and before the mosquito witching hour.
We’ll crack up as the hummingbirds buzz past us to suck on the flowers. They’re like jet planes and will hover just a few feet from our head if we’re standing near the hummingbird feeder.
Tommy will call me at work and ask if he should save a tomato hornworm in a container until I come home.
That makes me happy.
But one day recently Tommy said he was frankly sick of gardening and didn’t really feel motivated to even pull weeds.
I couldn’t say that I blame him. Yet, I also didn’t take it too seriously.
When you read about how its best to only water in the early morning and the evenings, they’re right.
Yes, this prevents water waste due to evaporation.
But another reason not to water mid-day is that it is ridiculously hot.
I’m not going to put much into Tommy’s timely conclusion that gardening in 100-plus temperatures is about as much fun as walking barefoot over blacktop.
He can take a week off if he wants.
In the meantime, we’ll be watering only in the morning or evening.

(The rubber chicken fit right in with the foxglove plants in Golden Gate Park. The plants don't cringe at the climate in San Francisco).

It’s nice to get away for a while. It’s also nice to be home.
Driving the back roads from Chico always reminds me of why I choose to live in Northern California. It’s nice to live in an area where you can see the mountains in the background (when we’re not bombarded by wildfire smoke) and see food growing 360 degrees around you.
One can feel smug hitting the traffic where Highways 505 and 80 converge, wondering how some drivers on the road ever passed their driver’s test and equally befuddled by why some folks are in such a hurry on a Saturday afternoon.

I grew up in the east Bay, and even within my lifetime, farms along 680 have been replaced by housing developments. My parents can remember when Walnut Creek was an area dominated by orchards.
In addition to a Giant’s game in San Francisco, we spent most of one day in and around Golden Gate Park.
The eucalyptus trees that line the bike and walking paths are a sharp contrast to the angular buildings of the city.

I’m glad people there have a place where they can throw a Frisbee and take pictures of themselves dwarfed by trees. The park planners managed to protect the type of quiet one seeks by driving out into the middle of nowhere.
Dad stopped the car at the Dutch windmill near where the park nearly reaches the Pacific Ocean.
The gardens there are meticulously kept and I noted that many of the flowers thriving there are things that flourish in Chico only in early spring.
The tall foxglove (digitalis) was a perfect hiding spot for the toddlers who were playing in the area. Other flowers thriving include begonia, larkspur and impatiens.

I wasn’t that envious of the agapanthas. They’re beautiful, but also do well in the planter boxes of every shopping center in Northern California.
Along the paths leading to the fly-fishing pools were huge plantings of nasturtium plants, a variety that wound into the other foliage like wild grapes.
I attempted to grow nasturtium this year in places I thought were shaded in my yard. The result has been several clumps of abused plants, with leaves the color of potato chips. The few “nasties” planted in a shady area of the yard are only beginning to bloom now.
In Golden Gate Park, the nasturtium leaves were the size of a dog’s head, with enough orange and yellow blooms to make you dizzy.

I liked needing to borrow my dad’s pullover and seeing the fog off in the distance.
I could see why so many people think we’re crazy for living in a place where people who work outdoors come home to nurse heat rashes.
But maybe we could swap a deal that if the Bay Area wants water that originates in the Sierra Nevadas, maybe they could find a way to export some of their fog.
There are reasons we live in a part of the country where heat-tolerant plants thrive.
By the end of the weekend, we fought our way through traffic in the Fairfield-Vacaville area.
I was glad I took the time to say some prayers before the return trip. A couple of cars broke down in the fast lane and the disassembled parts of a pink children’s carnival ride came flying off a truck and rested dangerously on the side of the road.

Just to remind ourselves, once again, how fortunate we are to live north of super-suburbia, we stopped at day’s end at the Llano Seco wildlife viewing area on Seven-Mile Lane. The dragonflies were out in full force, their tiny bodies silhouetted by the sunset.
Four cars passed by over about half an hour, and could be heard approaching from about a mile away.
I must admit that I grumble when it’s hotter than 100 for more than a week and when most things downtown are closed on a Sunday.
But I prefer to be a country mouse.
From Chico you can be at the river in 10 minutes and be at the wildlife refuge in 20.
Within half a day, you can arrive at ski slopes or the ocean, or deep into the postcard chaos of a beautiful, urban city.

I glanced over at my partner, Tommy, with a sad look.

"We forgot the rubber chicken."

We looked at each other with a sort of shocked expression.

The sad part about this is that we weren't that far from home and neither of us suggested that we turn around and retrieve our traveling companion.

After the significance of what had happened sunk in, I felt really bad. It's not as bad as driving away from a rest stop and realizing the dog was tied to the bumper or leaving the plane tickets at home, but it was definitely a sign of thoughtlessness with serious repercussions.

This is especially true since the chicken has given us so much. We have photos from so many road trips with chicken chatting with park rangers and soaking up the mist from waterfalls.

How could we forget? Had something changed in "us" that we would forget the chicken?

Sad, sad, sad.

We enjoyed the time with my mother, but there was a noticeable void when we posed for photos in Mom's lush backyard.

Leaving the chicken behind reminded me of friendships. Summer is a busy time, and usually when we catch up with friends we haven't seen over the winter. But this year I haven't made enough time to hang out with friends.

It seems like when my life gets busy, I am most likely to chat with friends when one of them has an emotional setback or when I have a problem I need to talk through.

And recently I have realized I should make an effort to call a friend when I have an unbearable need to crack up.

And that goes for the chicken as well. Chicken is a tangible, rubber, yellow, open-mouthed and wide-eyed example that sometimes you have to remember to bring along your own fun.

When we got home, the rubber chicken was still on his perch on the ceiling fan in the living room, gathering dust.

This weekend is another adventure on the road, this time to include a trip to the Braves playing at AT&T Park. I think that would be a lot more fun with the chicken.

Do greenhouses equal cheating?

Last Saturday my best friend since 8th grade and I wandered down to the farmers market, which was packed.

Not being an early riser, we arrived near the end, just as they were running out of salsa samples at the Tomato Weigh-in.

We still managed to catch the tail end of the fun, including checking out the tomato artwork. My favorite contribution was the person who took the skin of a tomato and carefully assembled it in layers to form roses.

TOMATOE WEIGH IN

That's thinking outside the orb.

Tomatoes are dirt cheap at the market right now and we've been enjoying fresh salsa a few times a week. However, I have yet to get much bounty from the 15 plants in my yard.

This really rubs me raw.

I felt so smug in mid-January when I planted tomatoes from seed in the windowsill. I was content that this summer I would have a boatload of tomatoes and freeze salsa and spaghetti sauce to eat through next February.

And while the plants are bursting with green tomatoes, we have yet to only harvest two.

There are several sources of inspiration for planting tomatoes in January. Likely the strongest motivator is that I'm extremely anxious for winter to be over. Also, it's much cheaper to plant dozens of tomatoes by seed than to buy them for $2.99 each at the store.

During early spring I was praising myself for my foresight as I heard about my friend Chanin who filled up her family's minivan with plants, only to lose them in a rare frost.

When we passed by the large tomato plants at the store, I thought it was unfair that those plants were so much larger than mine, as if growing something in a greenhouse is a serious form of cheating.

However, now I'm outright jealous. It's August, and I've only had two tomatoes.

I'm going to have to have some serious thought about my philosophy on tomatoes. I might just have to join the cheaters and ask Santa for a mini-greenhouse at Christmas.

Photo of my paltry producers. The tomatoes in my yard are green, as of July 29.

Fair-trade gardening

Last week a reader named Claudia brought in some mystery plants. She divides the bulbs every couple of years and this year decided to divide them by bringing them to me.

My joy was heartfelt.

Claudia said she did not know the name of the plants, and I asked if any readers had some clues.

The mystery is pretty much solved, thanks to Butte County's profound knowledge base.

The majority of the e-mails said the plant is Zephyranthes. One of the common names is "rain lily," another is "storm lilies," because they often bloom after it rains.

The Web site www.easytogrowbulbs.com suggests using rain lilies to fill in bare spots in the garden. They need good drainage (never waterlogged) and the bulbs should be planted about 2 inches deep.

Because the plant grows from bulbs, don't cut back the foliage after bloom because the bulb uses the energy from the leaves to refuel for next spring.

Over the last week, I thanked Claudia for giving me such a fun column topic. It turns out that the plants can be divided soon after they bloom.

When it comes to gardening, I am an extremely selfish person. So, although it is against my nature, sharing the foxglove seeds with readers this summer was a big step toward a change in patterns.

I know it's the right thing to do to divide the Zephyranthes plants and give them away to friends and readers, but I'm just not ready to commit to that.

Baby steps.

When I divide the plants later this summer, I'm willing to trade. I'm especially interested in trading for some shade plants that do OK in Chico's hot weather. Preferably flowering perennials, but I've already had bad luck with hostas.

Most of the irises in my yard came from divisions about 10 years ago from Style editor Laurie Kavenaugh’s yard.
I’ve planted numerous geranium plants from cuttings from friends.
And on and on it goes ...
Several weeks ago I harvested foxglove seeds from the yard and offered them to readers who sent me a note with their address.
I was delighted to receive nine requests. It’s fun to have a project in the evening and I monopolized the coffee table with my bag of foxglove flower debris.

I think there must be some sort of rule with gardening, that if you share your bounty you are almost guaranteed that some wonderful garden surprise will come your way.
This same concept seems to work with a variety of other small life details.
For example, guaranteed that if someone stops to help you with some minor car need, such as a jump-start or calling a tow truck, the opportunity will arise for you to help someone else.
On this same note, if you start giving compliments to co-workers when you find a particular outfit looks good on them, people will start telling you when you wear something particularly fetching.
Almost immediately after packaging up my foxglove seeds and sending them off to the nine readers, I received an e-mail from Claudia, who lives near Bangor.

She sent some photos of a delightful lily-type plant. Claudia said the plants came from a friend who originally brought them back from Japan in the 1940s after his war-time occupation tour ended.
Every time the guy moved, which was all over the United States, the plants moved with him.
The plants, which grow from bulbs, can be divided every few years and given to friends (or newspaper reporters).

I e-mailed Claudia and said I was up for the challenge of a plant that manages to thrive throughout the United States, needs little more than watering and can be divided every several years.
The plants were at the front desk of the office when I came into work one day this week. I carried the big box of six one-gallon plants back to my desk, drawing the curiosity of several plant-curious co-workers.
Clearly, I had a predicament here. The really, really nice thing would have been to offer several of the six plants to my co-workers.
How could I not? After all, there were six.

But instead I heard that greedy voice in my head.
Clearly I had the right to look around my yard first and decide if I had the appropriate spot for all these plants. After I had a chance to put the pots around my yard, I would decide if I would offer them up to others.
As I was attempting to soften the Gollum voice in my head (the one that makes you cling to belongings and hiss “my precious”), Claudia sent a follow-up note with instructions on care and feeding of the plants.

She said the plants, now in one-gallon containers, should be divided this year, as soon as they stop blooming.
This helped clear up my dilemma. I could actually have it all — hoard the plants and give a few to much-deserving co-workers.
Also, I predict that Claudia will soon have some unexpected garden-related windfall. Perhaps a neighbor will deliver a giant box of tomatoes or give her some exotic new plant for her windowsill.
Also, if anyone knows anything else about this mystery lily, particularly the name, please let me and Claudia (and yet-to-be-named plant recipients) know.