the world as i see it … humboldt county and beyond

Doesn’t seem to have any problems that I have found yet.
I will need to do some major reconfiguring of content and php templates to use the new Twenty-10 theme, so that will be the next push.

Testing a upload photo now: Michael Franti

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Today I went out to pick some dill head and leaf.. and found a least seven black swallowtail caterpillars on my dill plant! Guess they love dill, and I am mostly done with it so they can eat it. I hope they form their chrysalis close by so I can watch that transformation.
Next year I will plant more dill and some fennel to bring them into the garden.

Here’s another site with some good butterfly info: butterflies

I was picking the dill for another round of squash pickles, because we have just too much squash! I canned up 7 pints this time.

I have been making Pesto every couple of days, and freezing about 2 cups with each run. I figure I have at least 7 runs (6 cups packed leaf) left to do. And we figure we can eat pesto every week all winter and until harvest next year starts! What a treat that is.

Our tomato plants are 6 feet tall! Lots of just now starting to ripen toms. We will also be canning tomatoes, quartered & cold pack way I think. Russel will be helping me with that!

Blueberries started coming into the Farmers Market in the middle of July, I have been buying lots to eat as this is the only time of year we get them and I like to buy local. I also found a great new recipe for blueberry -zucchini bread that I like way better than the one I used to use with raisins. It’s been quite a hit with everyone.

Our garden is doing really great. We have watermelons (not harvested yet), and tons of winter squash on the vine. The lettuce is still producing and I just put in more starts. We have enough summer squash and cucumbers to eat all we want, the peppers are big and still green, I am waiting for them to turn red to pick. Lots of work, but worth it to eat good organic food that you grew.

Tagged as:  canning · garden · PhotoOps || 1 Comment

I have an E-friend, Terry, who I met through my old friend from the Boulder days, TR, who now lives in Florida, he connected us years ago, (they are a couple) and we have been emailing and now Facebooking for almost 10 years! She was in Washington state, heading south, so I encouraged a visit.
It was wonderful having her here, meeting her was like greeting an old friend, which I guess we are, but we only talked on the phone once or twice in all that time and this was the first face to face.. it went so good. She is always welcome here.
She slept outside in the screen house / tent with her very old small dog.
It was also the first time anyone has stayed with us longer than over night. I felt like this has opened the door to that, especially if they are into camping. (no more dogs here though.. just doesn’t work for me).
The one room house doesn’t really afford anyone the amount of privacy they would want for any long term stay inside.
She stayed 6 days, it was hard to have her leave. We both got great massages the last couple of days she was here.
There was no lack of conversation, and I feel we barely scratched the surface and hope that she will put us on her list of ‘must visit’ folks when she is traveling.

See that jacket she is wearing? I went through a few containers of my Guatemalan clothes & tipica, she became the proud owner of several items. The same with my ‘too small for me to wear’ batik rayon dresses and some other clothes. It was good to pass some of this on to someone who really appreciates it. I just never got around to Ebay-ing the items, it just seems like too much work for the return.

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Whatever I had / have I don’t think it was any kind of allergy. I started on antibiotics July 31, after many really bad days of coughing day and night. I finally called the doctor and specifically asked for antibiotics and codeine cough syrup (which did not help at all).
Within 4 days of starting the antibiotics, the cough was almost gone, by a week into the antibiotics, it was gone and energy was returning because I was sleeping. It actually felt like life was starting again!
After 3 months of this thing dragging me down.

So now, August 15, I am 2 days off the antibiotics and have just a light cough occasionally.. has me a bit worried that I will fall back into what ever it was, but I am trying to get stuff done while I have some energy.
And no spring cleaning was done this year.. and if it didn’t have to happen for the last several months, it didn’t .. so I have a ton of stuff to do to catch up.

Speaking of getting stuff done. I tried my first pickle-canning July 26, using zucchini instead of cucumbers. We just opened a jar a few days ago and they are quite tasty!

Tagged as:  canning · cough · health · PhotoOps || 1 Comment

Even while I was still in the grips of the ‘cough’ we managed to go to Reggae on the River at Benbow, 2 day event put on by Mateel Community Center. It was in the 100s the first day and very hot the next. But we kept a slow pace and had a place for our big chairs under some shade trees. Met up with the usual reggae posse that we often sit by, some wonderful women from up north, it’s always fun to see them.

We also met up with old friends and new friends. And it was great to see ROR go to 2 days, sell out, and be irie!

I only had 2-3 coughing fits and didn’t feel any worse for being there, it was great to finally get out and about.

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The garden is doing much better now that some heat has finally come on.

We started harvesting butterstick summer squash and black beauty zucchini last week. With tons more to come on. We also have planted light green Lebanese squash, some globe zucchini and a few others, I am sure Russel will be tired of it long before the harvest is over!

We have been harvesting salad greens, cilantro, mustard, mizuna, parsley, dill and arugula for about a month now. So wonderful.. so thankful we can do this.

I am starting more seed now, and hope that it takes.. the birds, mice, quail.. who knows? have been eating the tiny little starts so I have covered the latest batch with remay.

The basil is about ready to start harvesting for pesto. Did you know there is a shortage of pinenuts this year! I am so bummed.
The next town trip I am buying all I can find (if I can find any).
Besides using in pesto, they are one of my favorite foods..being allergic to most nuts, makes them all that more desirable for me.

The tomatos are doing great.. we have about 15 plants of 3 or 4 different varieties.. hopefully there will be enough to can at some point.

The rats have eaten the corn crop down to the ground 2x.. and Russel replants.. it’s not even ‘knee high by the 4th of July’ but perhaps because our gardening year seems to be about a month behind, we may actually get some corn.

We spend at least 2 hours a day in the garden, many days if both of us are out there, it’s really 4 hours. We don’t have anything hooked up to drip or timers, so watering daily is needed for several things. The rodents of all kinds have played havoc on lots of the beds.. trapping doesn’t seem to make a dent in them at all. But as my friend Sue would say, ‘ya gotta share’!

Tagged as:  garden · homestead · PhotoOps || 2 Comments

As I talked about ( in this post ) I have, for lack of a better way to describe it, been sick for going on 7 weeks now.

We also had a cold and wet spring, which made the sugar snap peas very happy.. and me too.

This doesn’t look like it, but every other day for the last 3 weeks or so we have been harvesting 2 to 3 pounds of sugar snaps!
Best snack food there is:

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I didn’t mean to abandon my blog. Again. I do have some beginning posts of content being organized that I plan on adding either here or in my other website, www.creationdreams.net, when it gets updated to WP.

So in early May, Russel’s sister Carol, came to visit, (May 5-9) and Russel was running back and forth into town to bring Carol out here.

It was a nice visit and the weather was good, sunny and warm, but the evening we were to go to Shelter Cove, my 4 Runner wouldn’t start. I had had some problems with it the day before in town, and we figured out the alarm system, that we never used, decided to say a door was open and wouldn’t let us start it up.. quite the drag. I stayed home and Russel took Carol out to the cove for dinner.

Then it rained again.

I took the 4 Runner to be fixed by Leo’s. Sunny breezy day after a good rain in May. I need to focus on the rest of the garden planting.
And returning to the Bruce bubble .. where life is just sublime.
I spent the next week working on www.cockburnproject.net, and staying in that Bruce bubble.

I was feeling pretty good for me, and starting to plan out all the projects I wanted to accomplish this spring, before Russel leaves for Aikido Summer Camp on June 13.

On Friday, May 14 – I went into the Farmers Market. How fun! So many happy smiling faces, and lots of good connection. Feels good to be out and seeing people on a sunny bright day! And preparing for the Russel’s upcoming Mateel Aikido workshop at Beginnings this week end and potluck on Saturday. I prepared a non-bean enchilada dip and a pesto, pasta and pine nut salad for the potluck. It was a warm and sunny day on Saturday too, and as always the Mateel Aikido potluck was a blast with good friends and lots more socializing.

2 days of socializing had taken its toll on my, throat hurts from talking so much, my life in general is so isolated that 2 very social days in a row wipe me out! Which is how I felt on Sunday.

Then it rained — again.
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Tagged as:  Aikido · allergy · cough · health · Russel || Leave a comment