Sow There

I have a reader who every once in a while will share pictures or a story about something she thinks I will like. For example, she has send me half a dozen pictures of the deer that come right up to her front door and hang out in her yard.
This weeks she sent a note about her recent back yard plant sale.
Apparently, shes gone a little hog-wild with her interest in gardening and propagated about 40 plants in pots. Its easy to get so into something you dont realize youve gone overboard until you cant make it across your patio.
So she logically decided to have a plant sale. She put just a few signs up in her neighborhood and charged $1 for a 4-inch plant and $2.50 for a one-gallon pot. With prices that cheap, her neighbors flocked and she sold 30 plants within four hours.
Not only is this a way to make a handful of cash, she likely also got to know her neighbors better. Likely she will get a neighborhood moniker such as plant lady.?
This sounds like a great project for kids. It teaches them perseverance, dedication and reward.
This sounds like a great Christmas gift idea. Tulips planted in pots right now will look like just a bowl of dirt by Christmas. Yet, they would make a great gift. Just tell the gift giver to put the pot out in the rain.
My gardening friend sent some before and after pictures of the paperwhites which are threatening to bloom on her kitchen table. I always forget about paperwhites until its too late to plant and I see them on other peoples tables at the holidays.
Oh well.
Heres the pictures.

We really can all work together. That was the lesson from a daylong bus trip Wednesday with the Butte County Resource Conservation District. About 40 of us piled into a tour bus and were shown the types of projects that are helped by the RCD.
The name Resource Conservation Agency pretty much sums it up an agency that strives to conserve resources. Not resources like bank accounts or stock portfolios. Rather, the basic needs of humans, plants and animals.
It was a long day and more than a dozen presenters had shared information.
We pulled into the last stop where the Butte County Association of Governments big-wigs gave a talk about vernal pools that had been created to mitigate for the construction on Highway 149.
Resource Conservation District director Pia Sevelius summed up the days presentations by telling us how the RCD can serve to bring together different agencies for common goals.
It was the end of the day, and we were tired.
The bus was huge and a locked fence made it difficult to whip the bus around. A county supervisor and the head of a watershed conservancy sitting behind us joked that they hoped the driver didnt get stuck in the mud.
Of course, we got stuck in the mud.

Continue reading “Pushing conservation” »

Monday was a gray day. It had been raining off an on and fog hung thick along the sides of the road. We were driving along Clear Lake, that winding road that passes by little towns with older-style motels and boat docks in various states of decay.
Tommy and I were both tired after spending the weekend out of suitcases.
We were on a stretch of road in between towns and saw a white car pulled over on the opposite side of the road. Tommy shook his head and said: “Why am I the type of person who has to stop?”
“Is there someone in the car,” I asked.
“Yes.”
“OK,” I nodded.

He’s like that.
A few weekends ago he stopped for a 19-year-old who had a flat tire. The kid didn’t know how to change a tire. Tommy muscled under the car and found the spare, wedged up under the bottom of the trunk of the minivan. The kid had been traveling from some other state and didn’t know where the spare was located. The two lay under the car until they were both red in the face and sweating. Tommy was trying to show him how to change the tire, but ended up doing it all himself. The kid was grateful.

Monday I wasn’t surprised when he stopped for the old man with the broken-down car.

He likes to say: “Pay it forward.”

“We don’t have a cell phone, but we can call at the next town,” I said.
He walked across the road, and I was proud that he is that type of man.
A man with a white beard was behind the wheel and I got out of the truck to stretch my legs. I saw the two of them talking briefly.
Tommy gave a departing gesture and the man rolled up his window to keep out the rain.
Tommy walked back across the two-lane road toward the truck and the man rolled down the window and thanked him again. Tommy, in mid-stride, looked over his shoulder to tell him “no problem.”
Just then, a car whizzed around the blind corner. Tommy was two feet from the unbroken yellow line.
I yelled “Honey! No!”
Tommy stopped, just an instant before a car zipped past at about 45 miles an hour and then disappeared around the curve into the fog.
He strode quickly across the street and opened the door to the truck.
“Thank God you yelled,” he said.
“I think I just saved your life.”
He nodded.

“He said he had triple-A and was waiting for a tow,” Tommy said, as if nothing had just almost happened.
He started up the engine and we drove for a few minutes.

I asked him to pull over at the next safe place along the road.
“I want to hug you,” I said, crying.
He found a gravel area along the road and pulled the truck over as cars whipped by.
I hugged him with all of my strength, that kind of hug that likely leaves indentations on your skin. It was raining, so my tears just added to the wetness on his T-shirt.
“I can’t believe how close that was,” I said, hugging him.
“We’ll have to tell this to Leify when we get home,” he said. “Tell him how important it is to look to the left and look to right when crossing the street.”
“Then look to the right again,” I said.

When we visited my mom recently, we were making chicken burritos to serve with the batch of salsa we had just whipped up. Mom was scavenging through the refrigerator to find cheese, sour cream etc. She reached into the crisper drawer and said: I dont know if this is any good. Its three weeks old.?
What she had pulled out was a plastic, clamshell container filled with lettuce. The label read: Absolutely fresh because its still alive.?
Theres water and a little soil in a slot at the bottom of the container and the lettuce stays alive, rather than being lopped off by machinery and starting its rapid decay.
I questioned mom as to how much this lettuce cost. I figured it must have been pretty expensive because she wouldnt answer me. She said: I bought it because I thought it would be fun.?
My mind wandered to those commercials where the cartoon tomato is talking to the lettuce, and everyone is crying because of the onion.

I called Safeway on East Avenue and the nice guy in produce said the butter leaf lettuce called Live Gourmet,? sells for $2.99 a head. They have a Web site at www.livegourmet.com.?
Vince Choate, director of marketing at Hollandia Produce in Carpinteria, said the lettuce is grown with hydroponics. This is the system of growing plants in water and a nutrient solution without soil. Its done with grow-lights, similar to those often used for illegal indoor gardens.
Continue reading “Sow There! 11-10 It’s alive” »

A gal named Kristina wrote in a comment about a recent blog. I had mentioned stomping around in wildlife refuges and how that’s one of the best things about having a job covering water and agriculture.

“Wildlife refuges? Where?,” she wrote.

I’m glad she queried because this was on my list to write about this week, maybe in the printed version of the column.

The annual trek of waterfowl in Northern California is one of the treats of living in the Sacramento Valley. Our tromping ground is an important stop on the Pacific Flyway, where migratory birds travel from South America to Alaska.

Just last night I heard the first flock honking overhead. Like the fall leaves on the Esplanade, the traveling birds are one of those familiar things that makes one really appreciate living here. If its not cloudy you can see the migratory birds in their familiar V-formations.
Continue reading “Bird Watch” »

Tuesday night wasnt your usual night in the Enterprise-Record newsroom. Most of the reporters work regular daytime hours, with the occasional stint when there is late-breaking news or a late meeting.
Usually when I forget something at my desk (like filling out my time card) and come in late at night, the copy editors are busy putting together the paper. Occasionally one of them will look up and say hello. But generally they are feverishly working at their computer stations.
Its hard not to feel sorry for the copy editors. All of them have pale complexions and you know it cant be fun to work until midnight every night.
At least when I was a graveyard waitress working my way through college I had really interesting characters to share the time with. These guys have to concentrate.
Continue reading “Newsroom culture” »

After last week’s column a reader wrote in asking about the popcorn trick — making popcorn in the microwave by simply putting kernals in a paper bag.

I knew this would be a hit because everyone I told this to me said the equivalent of “who knew?”

I love when live is so simple.

The tickling tomatoes trick was a big hit as well. Several readers said they had great success with that trick.

Decidedly there needs to be more tickling in this world. However, last time Tommy and I had a tickle fest I somehow gave him a black eye with my foot.

Contrary to what some folks think, I don’t make this stuff up.

Sharon asked how much popcorn to put in the bag. She was afraid if she put too much it would dirty up her microwave. Well, first off, dry popcorn isn’t dirty. It’s dry. So if you put too much, so be it. Personally, I like those half-popped kernals that are very crunchy and threaten to wreck your dental work.

Answer to Sharon’s question, about 1/3 of a cup for a lunch-bag sized paper bag.

Next spray with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and salt, and dream of Fabio.

Tommy and I visited my mom last weekend. Mom and I made salsa and fried green tomato and corn fritters as per the recipe printed recently in Sow There! Meanwhile, Tommy worked on Moms trellis, taking down the dilapidated structure that had covered the patio for years.
Mom and I decided its much easier to hire someone than to have family members work on tall ladders. When its a worker up on the ladder, you sit inside and cringe to yourself that there is banging going on outdoors. When it is a loved one up on the ladder, you cant help but hover. You hold the ladder from the bottom so he doesnt lose his balance while wielding power tools.

One thing I learned at Moms house:
While picking up nails Tommy threw down from the lattice, Mom and I rushed around on the concrete and picked them up. Talk about a glamorous weekend!
Mom was excited when she came across an especially rusty nail and stuck it into the soil of a potted hydrangea plant. Apparently her best friend from high school, Innie, taught her that putting rusty nails in the soil of a hydrangea makes it thrive. I have no reason to doubt Innie, who has been gardening for decades.
One Web site explains that rusty nails can make the soil turn acidic, which makes hydrangeas turn from pink to blue. Limestone has the opposite effect and makes the flowers pink.

Continue reading “Sow There! Nov. 3 misc.” »

Sometimes its hard to let things go. I have a ratty stuffed turtle at the back of my closet that I had when I was five. When I buy T-shirts as a keepsake from a trip, I dont wear it so it doesnt fade in the dryer.

Theres many more things like that I dont want to mention, lest Tommy decide to hunt them out to make room for all my clothes.

Right now were shopping for a comfy couch.
Continue reading “In search of comfy couch” »