Books and Boxes

Flicker Box

You should have seen Dwight and I putting this flicker box up in the oak tree!  This box is big and heavy since it is full of wood chips which Flickers like to remove before building their nests inside.  A year ago we installed this box on the Southeast corner of our house.  We took it down this Summer when all the work was done on the outside of our house.  When Dwight opened the box to clean it out, he found the beginnings of a Flicker nest, then obviously Starlings chased the pair away and built their own nest, hatching two broods.  Starlings are not my favorite birds.  Hopefully this mating season a pair of Flickers will choose this box as their nesting sight AND Starlings will not move in!

Recipe box

Leeks and celeriac root growing synergistically -
more about this in an upcoming post

The essential ingredient for Celeriac Salad Remouldade
Recipe follows:

•  One large organic celery root (celeriac root),  about 1 1/4 #

Washed unpeeled celeriac root

Peeled celeriac root

• 6 T. organic kefir milk
• 6 T. homemade, organic mayonnaise (recipe below)
• 3 T. organic Dijon mustard
• 4 T. chopped fresh, organic parsley (we like Italian leaf)
• 4 T. finely chopped fresh, organic chives
• 3. T.finely chopped fresh, organic onion

Mix the last 6 ingredients in a large bowl.  Grate the celeriac root in a food processor, then add it to the large bowl, mixing well.  Allowing the salad to sit at room temperature for about an hour melds the flavors together for a more flavorful addition to any Winter meal.

Homemade mayonnaise

Into the glass container of an electric blender, drop 1 egg (of course, we use duck) and whirl for 30 seconds.  Add 1 tsp. organic ground mustard and 1/2 tsp. sea salt, whirl.  While the blender is whirling slowly, very slowly ! drizzle organic virgin olive oil.  After all of the oil has been added then add the juice of 1 organic Meyers lemon quickly. This will make about 1 1/2 C. mayo which will last if refrigerated for about a month.

A smattering of the BOOKS I read during 2011 on

Awakening:

An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days by Susan Wittig Albert

A wonderful book of days which I read on the matching dates in 2011.   I was fascinated to read and watch Susan’s awakening to the blight of the Mother Earth caused by none other than we humans. A voracious reader, as well as an author, she shares the many books she read during 2008, the “extraordinary” year of possibly a woman or black as our next president.  For an ongoing update from Susan you can access her blog http://susanalbert.typepad.com/lifescapes/

Baseball:

Flip Flop Fly Ball: an Infograhic Baseball Adventure by Craig Robinson was loaned to me by Rose’s Auntie T, aka Tanis, “baseball buddy” and extraordinarily good friend.  Tanis likes to support independent book stores so while frequenting one in Sonoma, this book “fell off the shelf into her hands” and she brought it home. I knew nada about infographics. This book was a wonderfully informative baseball book as well as richly illustrating the new to me word, infographic.

It Takes More than Balls: the Savvy Girls’ Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball by Deidre Silva and Jackie Koney both from Seattle and Mariners’ fans.  This book is wonderfully funny, irreverent as well as informative.

Food:

Placer County Real Food from Farmers Markets: Recipes and Menus for Every Week of the Year by Joanne Neft with Laura Kenny.  This book which “fell off the shelf into my hands” is full of simple, wonderfully flavorful recipes made with fresh, in season, local produce from Placer County, California, Farmers Markets.  A book to treasure for anyone who raises their own food OR buys locally from their Farmer Markets.

Fun and Laughter:

Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven by Fanny Flagg

A Redbird Christmas also by Fanny Flagg  In fact most any book this author writes is funny, bringing forth much mirth. This very sweet Christmas story I read this past Christmas Day as Dwight and Rose were napping.

Mother Earth:

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

I have read all of her books in the Earth Children Series, enthralled by each one as though sitting on my Gramp’s lap as he told me similar stories in my early childhood. 

30,000 Years of Art: The story of human creativity across time and space The first few pictures in this tome are of the painted caves Jean M. Auel  presents as the backdrop for her latest and last in her Earth’s Children Series.

The Butterfly’s Daughter, a novel by Mary Alice Monroe in which she uses the Monarch’s cycle as a metaphor in human’s lives.

Please share you favorite books read this past year in "Post a Comment" while you 

Autopilot or Awake

Early last week Dwight attended the Occupy Sebastopol Town Hall Meeting.  As we talked about both The Occupy Movement and his experience with the meeting, I moved to the computer and Dwight in English Prof. mode edited.  The below "commentary" will appear in the next issue of The Sonoma West Times and News, without the pictures of course.  Your comments, thoughts, feelings are welcome!


And we are reminded of our global connection with Time magazine announcing their chosen Person of the Year:  the Protestors from Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow.  The articles are attribute to awakening.  Heartful, certainly, for all of us.

Blooming Christmas cactus

Each of us has been afforded an opportunity by The Occupy Movement to awaken.  There are 9 billion of us on Mother Earth.  This is too many with each of us participating in too much consumption/entitlement.

In a recent issue of Sonoma West Times and News Marty Gerber provided an 11 point ‘occupy’ plan, “goals that need to be achieved in order to salvage our nation”.

We live in a country that is chaotic at best, destructive at its worst.  We are a very young nation with behaviors often seen in the rebellious teenager.  We cannot focus on fixing or salvaging what is irredeemably broken.  Like the phoenix arising out of the ashes, awakening and turning our attention to the consequences of our own individual choices fueled by our own attitudes, values and behaviors is essential to finding a way for all living creatures, including humans, to cohabit our planet.  Waking up to our every day choices and their consequences will affect the people around us as well as the 1% that now brain wash us to do their bidding. 

Rather than remaining on autopilot we can choose to practice “essential living by BEing rooted,” aka awake, and create a conscious connection to where we live, like noticing which native plants grow here providing the basis for a whole healthy, evolving ecology.  When we are rooted in our spot on the planet, we become awake to our learned habits, attitudes and behaviors.

Most importantly, BEing rooted/awake allows us to embrace the whole and release our tightly held viewpoints.  The Occupy Movement is showing us that we are all in this together.  If we choose to face the chaos humans have created on Mother Earth, we can heal ourselves and the planet.   Choice opens BEing with the whole rather than accepting the either/or thinking our culture supports.  Peace/war, male/female, physical/spiritual, birth/death, health/disease, awake/autopilot are part of the whole.  The key to BEing awake is awareness of choice and ensuing consequences.  Remember the 1% want us to be asleep victims so their bottom line is unaffected.

LESS is better than more, for us individually and collectively.  Choosing less is simple, not easy.  Our young dog Rose was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her left hind knee.  In obvious pain with limited mobility she participated in an amputation.  Six months later Rose with 3 legs does everything she did with 4.

Rose running along the gravel road from Test Station Road to Lee Vining Creek

Mother Earth has not the resources to allow each of us to continually shop to fuel the economy. So we might, for example:

1.  share jobs that are available

2.  stop driving everywhere with only one person per vehicle

3.  grow some of our own food using GMO free, open pollinated seeds or at the very least buy locally grown organic produce at our nearest Farmers Market

4.  stop spraying Roundup and other toxins in our yards and roadsides

5.  use less water by taking out our lawns and replanting with drought tolerant natives, installing low flush toilets and eliminating swimming pools

6.  buy organic clothes, household goods and cleaning products 

8.  feed all our children, of course organic food

9.  embrace death rather than seeing death as a disease that can be defeated for megabucks

10.  take responsibility for our own health instead of waiting until you are sick then seeking quick fixes of the symptoms

11.  seek out health promoting practitioners instead of disease care ones  

12.  choose financial institutions that welcome our money and redeploy it locally instead of diverting it to its top executives

13.  support education that prepares our youngsters for everyday life 

BEing rooted/awake has an enormous ripple effect.  We are filled with gratitude that there are individuals, i.e. The Occupy Movement, who are choosing awake rather than autopilot, benefiting each and every one of us.  May more of us make this choice so that being awake predominates in our country.

Welcome Opportunity Plus Great News

Walker River running East of the Walker River Lodge

We have returned from our annual Thanksgiving/Anniversary celebration in the Eastern Sierras.  After 20+ years of this tradition we have decided, finding the Walker River Lodge no longer a hospitable place to stay, this year will be the last.  This decision opens another doorway through which to travel.  Shifting from our usual mode of business to a state of BE-ing and enjoyment right here at MuRefuge seems to be a welcome opportunity.  As we began our road trip Rose looked at me in her quizzical way, clearly asking "Why do we have to get in the car to go someplace to relax?"

In the Eastern Sierras the weather was glorious . . . cold at night of course but warm and sunny during the daytime.  Rose did NOT like the car ride to and from.  However, she reveled in returning to all of the good smelling hiking places, running with abandonment, 

tuckered out each evening!

Unlike last year when snow was in abundance, we saw only skiffs of it while we were crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The aspen trees as well as all the other deciduous bushes and trees were without their leaves.  

The colors in the Winter sunshine low to the horizon were nothing short of awesome, causing our souls to celebrate in the great fortune of BE-ing present in such beauty.

The Matterhorn from Doc 'n Al's

Robinson Creek near Doc 'n Al's

Mono Lake's Tufas viewed from the West side

Rose and Cathie looking East towards Mono Lake with Lundy Canyon in the background

Spectacular Lundy Canyon rocks

Dwight with Rose and more spectacular Lundy Canyon rocks

Mono Lake in the background
Rose, Cathie and Dwight in the foreground
from the Visitor's Center

Even though we returned almost a week early, we enjoyed our traditional pinyon pine tree cutting on our way back to MuRefuge through Nevada on Highways 182/338/208, connecting with Highway 395.  This drive affords barren beauty which both Dwight and I find spectacular. The National Forest Service charges a whopping $5 to cut a tree on their land AND, in many areas where we have cut our trees, the NFS is felling pinyon pine trees to provide more habitat for the sage grouse.  We love bringing home a pinyon pine tree to decorate for our Christmas tree which fills the house with that wonderful pinyon pine fragrance.

  

Tufas in and out of the water
Mono Lake

And upon return we received the news below from the Mono Lake Committee. 

Dear Dwight and Cathie, 

We did it!

Congratulations! After a six-month grassroots public effort, the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve has been officially removed from California’s 70-park closure list.

For Mono Lake friends and supporters this is certainly a moment to be thankful for, and cause for celebration.

Upon hearing the news yesterday our Board of Directors Chair, Sally Gaines, said, “This is the best Christmas present we could ever wish for.” I couldn’t agree more!

Thank you Mono Lake Committee members and Mono Lake fans near and far for writing letters all summer, opposing closure and offering possible solutions. Over 4,000 letters and petition signatures were hand-delivered by the Committee to decision makers in Sacramento. This huge show of public support, combined with dedicated work from our Committee team, lead directly to this success.

 

You can check out their web site for additional information about Mono Lake and the Mono Lake Committee's mission at  http://www.monolake.org/.  This is great news for all of us who so love the small part of the Planet that offers so much to all her inhabitants.

We finished decorating our tree for the holidays just in time for Rose's Auntie T's visit. 

Please share your own "welcome opportunity" below in "post a comment".

Monarchs and Murder

Another level of BEing ROOTED has been the discovery we live in an area of Sonoma County with the most termites.  I understand they ride the wind currents from Hawaii and probably points West.  Since we live on the North edge of the Wind Gap, they arrived to inhabit MuRufuge’s house.   BEing in  physical form as a termite is difficult at best!  Humans want to get rid of them and with the imbalance on the planet, their natural predators that keep them in check are not in great numbers.  

The humans here at MuRefuge put into motion murder of these BEings since the wood of the house was riddled with them.  Since we had to vacate our house to allow this process, Carmel for a few days seemed like a good getting away destination.

When we arrived at the lovely dog friendly Carmel Beach for some ocean experience, Rose was “beside herself”.  We thought is was the noise of the surf and her inability with three legs to negotiate the soft sand.  Later, in an email from Sandy, we realized she was distraught about the murder of all the BEings trapped inside of the tent over our house for fumigation.

The highlight of our four days down South was a lengthy morning visit with the hibernating Monarchs.

Upon our return, walking into our house, I felt the emptiness.  Our house no longer was inhabited by spiders, ants, termites nor any other living BEing.  The murder we set in motion, decimated the whole ecology similarly to the process of humans ingesting antibiotics.  The following day I smudged the house inside and out with White Sage grown here at MuRefuge.  Each room got a couple of spitzes of Rescue Remedy then several bunches of locally grown roses were divided into vases set in each room.  The healing and restoration of the ecology has been set in motion . . .

May each of your Thanksgiving holiday be filled with health, love and much gratitude.

And feel free to

while you leave a comment below.

Hot and Sweaty

Day of the Dead Marigolds (companion planted with tomatoes, asparagus, parsley)
 Buckeye Butterfly and Morman Metalmark Butterfly nectaring

With global climate change deeply embedded on our planet, our “normal” hot, dry September and October only occasionally visits, however here in late October it is in full force.  Delightful!  I just love working outside getting all hot and sweaty with the full sun embracing my body as I work.  During those wonderfully hot, sunny days when all the native plants are resting (dormant, in estivation), I tackled nonnative removal.  First the Hot Poker, aka Kniphofia uvaria, native to South Africa and extremely drought tolerant, which I originally moved to MuRefuge from our place on Cunningham Road where we had Baltimore Orioles who loved the nectar the bright yellow and orange flowers provided.  Alas, rare to none of these gorgeous birds come here to MuRefuge.  Those few transplants over the eighteen years here at MuRefuge grew to a sizeable number.  As I was pulling, chopping, covering with our no longer wearable natural fiber clothes, cardboard and newspaper then arbor mulch from Grab n’ Grow, I was struck by the lack of any creepy crawly life . . . no lizards, no snakes, no insects of any kind did I observe.

Native Goldenrod will fill in area
where the Hot Poker plants were removed

A few days later on another sunny day, I moved across the driveway to remove the substantial bed of just beginning to bloom Naked Lady, aka Amaryllis belladonna, also a native to South Africa that thrives in most any kind of soil without any watering.  A well meaning friend gave me a few bulbs when we moved to MuRefuge and had essentially a barren garden.  I cut all the just beginning to bloom stocks, brought them into the house and stuck them into a huge vase.  The arrangement was not attractive since the stems drooped from the weight of the buds.  I left them and returned to the task at hand of digging up all of the bulbs.  Oh my gosh, I did not have any idea how many there were!  I filled up some dozen cardboard boxes and a huge black plastic bag I had brought home from Harmony Farm Supply last Winter with a bare root apple tree.  The first 6 boxes I set near the mailboxes, the second six I dropped off at various nearby intersections, and the large black plastic bag I just left at the end of the driveway.  “In a hot New York minute”, as my friend Lynette would say, all the bulbs disappeared.  Again, being observant to life other than human I noticed none among the bulbs.  On a joyful note we did enjoy the fragrance of the Naked Lady flowers for well past a week.

Native aster sprawling in the front providing late Fall nectar
and Common Checkered Skipper

Lustrous Copper nectaring on native aster flowers

Whew!  I am so happy to have these nonnatives out of MuRefuge as well as the ornamental pomegranate bush, aka Punica granatum ‘Nana’, and Apple Blossom camellia, aka Camellia sasanqua.  Clearing plants, just like clearing ones living quarters of clutter, provides space for native ones.

Then in preparation for the massive project of replacing all of the failed siding on our house, I pruned back all the natives around the perimeter of the house.  In doing so I was absolutely astounded by the number of native insects, frogs, caterpillars I saw in the process.  Last Winter I read Douglas W. Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants where he writes that native oaks support some 500+ species of insects while non-native ones less than a dozen.   While I was impressed with his entomology statistics, I was astounded seeing it with my own eyes in my own habitat, MuRefuge.

West Coast Lady nectaring on Day of the Dead marigold

Please feel free to share below your personal experiences with native plants and their benefits.  And

Just Awesome

A few months hiatus from gardening and writing a post.  Monday while Vickie pulled errant bindweed and I pruned back going to seed annuals, we were rewarded with the most spectacular viewing:    Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars,

a pupating Pipevine Swallowtail 

and a tree frog all nestled among the tangles of Pipevine.

A month or so ago on a warm, sunny day I saw a Pipevine Swallowtail hovering about the native Pipevine.  A few days later I searched for the black dots of recentlylaid eggs, not finding any. But she obviously did lay her mirade of  eggs.
I just could not find them in the tangles of California Pipevine.

This just awesome sight of Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars and pupae just blew us all away.  It has been a few years
since we have been treated to Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies in the making.

Let me know if you all have viewed equally just awesome sights. And