(R.H. Herron)
The Easter fambly walk:
Look at those poppies!
This is up in Leona Canyon, only a mile or so from our house. It's hard to find, but the BEST dog-walking route when you get there. It's unbelievable that urban butts up against rural like this.
Anyone know what these flowers are? They are CRAZY awesome.
Click to see those wild petals better.
Lala and Harriet!
That is all. xo
Look at that! We didn't expect this harvest! In cleaning up the yard yesterday afternoon, I found a thick stand of something hiding in the grass that had infested my square foot garden. I pulled — green onions! Loads of them!
And Lala harvested a bunch of collards from her garden, and there is SO much rainbow chard, and that makes us happy, since last week we had some and IT IS SO GOOD.
Amount of care put into our gardens in the last six months = 0.
Okay, I weeded my garden once, in preparation for putting in seeds a couple of months ago. Then I didn't put in any seeds and the goddamned bermuda grass grew back. I'll just have to be diligent in pulling it out more regularly from now on.
Yesterday was so unexpectedly productive in the garden. Lala was on a mission to move her whole 4X4 squarefoot garden from its concrete pad (yes, the grass attacked us on a concrete base) to the yard below, and I got home from my RWA meeting in time to help. We'd put the gardens on weed cloth two years ago, that was awesome, because basically, she took lifted the plywood frame, moved it out of the way, and then we lifted the whole garden and moved it to the cardboard base she'd laid out on the grass. Then she put the frame back on.
The chard and collards didn't even seem to notice:
(That's one of our tremendous artichokes in the foreground.)
We hate the grass. Well, what we hate is that it's bermuda grass and foxtails, a horrid combination. I mowed the "lawn" yesterday (using the lawnmower I got on Craigslist for twenty bucks — I'm the only person who can start it. It takes more than a hundred pulls to get it to turn over), but the real goal is to cover everything with cardboard and then build up mulch on top of it. (Anyone with a line on free mulch in the Bay Area? We have a HUGE driveway, ready to receive it.)
And me, I weeded (again) my bed, leaving the onions, adding a zucchini (I know, I know, but I love zucchini bread).
Then I went CRAZY with the seeds. I'm working on a polycultural garden. Doesn't that sound cool? (Yes, we're living by The Urban Homestead. LOVE this book.) A polycultural garden is one in which you sow the seeds of everything you want to grow, hopefully things that have different maturation dates. Since I sowed just about everything, I think I did well in that category. You eat the baby things as they grow, allowing a little room for other things, but what you want eventually is a pretty dense chaotic tangle of plants. As you eat through one thing, say, the radishes, then you fill in the holes that occur with other seedlings as the season progresses.
It was hard for a type-A person like me to throw seeds willy-nilly, but it was good fun, too.
For posterity and my inability to remember a thing, here's what I sowed:
Radishes
Stumpy carrots
Golden beets
Rainbow beets
Dark red beets (oh, for one homegrown beet, full failure last year)
Lemon cucumbers
Buttercrunch lettuce
Rainbow chard
Basil
Super bush tomatoes
Heirloom baby leaf lettuce
Italian bush beans
Edamame
Foxglove and columbine, for fun.
Hopefully out of all those, I'll get some nice return on investment. I can't kill everything, can I? Hmmm.
We also set out ten tomatoes, including two different heirloom types (including Mr. Stripey! I want a Mr. Stripey!) and two Early Girls.
Now, today, on an unexpected Easter off, we are going to the store to prepare for an impromptu dinner to which we just invited sisters and brother. I think we'll do the traditional Easter sushi roll-yer-own dinner, followed by Pavlova and hot cross buns. Time to get my ass in gear.
But you know what I have for you?
HOT CROSS BUNS!
Oy. I feel psychically damaged from putting those photos up yesterday, and it's because you were all SO NICE. Seriously. I was exhausted last night, and then I realized it was mostly due to the pictures. People voting on my looks. It felt like a game of hot-or-not with myself. I was winning! But I was losing! Ack! This picture is good! No, THIS picture is good, not that one! Ack ack!
I am so bad at this.
There are now more than 600 votes a day after I put them up. (Hi, New Zealand! Hi, Iceland! Hi, Newfoundland! Hi Taiwan!) Number one was far and away the winner, and I thank you for voting. It was VERY exciting, and I'm done now, so I'll try to divert you a bit, okay?
Things I've been thinking about:
Good morning! Hey, guess what? I got my author photos done! Whoohoo! It wasn't as painful as I thought, mostly because I had them shot by the phenomenal photographer Khalil Robinson.
But I can't decide. Let's talk it out, shall we, and there's a poll or two at the bottom for your convenience (if you're reading me in a blog-reader, click on in to vote! Please?).
COLOR POLL
Number 1:
DELETED: I was going to write my criticism of each photo. I even did a couple and it was fun, because it's always kind of fun to be self-deprecating. Instead, I'll just shut up and let you vote. I will ask, however, to consider if my shoulders look too high in this one. Moving on.
Number 2:
Number 3:
(Same as above, but cropped and shadows lessened.)
Number 4:
Number 5:
Number 6:
VOTE!
MORE FUN – BLACK AND WHITE!
Would you vote on one of these two, also? THANK YOU!
Number 1:
Number 2:
Documentation of nose-kiss
I have various small things on my mind, so I will list them here. It's easier than trying to string them together into something cohesive….
1. I had the most wonderful afternoon yesterday. I sat in Janine's living room, and ate delicious snacks and drank sparkling juice, and talked with Maia and Brooke, Nancy, Becca, Celia, Joy, and Therese (am I forgetting someone? I probably am….. Apologies in advance).
I would never have imagined, when all this knit-blogging stuff started seven or so years ago, that I would end up surrounded by such amazing women. I felt blessed and lucky to count them as friends. It was one of those afternoons during which the hours flew away on the wings of laughter. Annoyingly poetic, right? But it was honestly that lovely. I can't remember an afternoon with friends ever being so completely enjoyable and renewing.
2. Facebook. I'm really the last one to the party, and I never thought I'd like it, but I do. I love the Scrabble. I like being able to comment on my friend's doings without direct messaging them in Twitter (although I've set up my Twitter to post to Facebook, so I don't have to think about two different places). Friend me over there! (Rachael Herron – the only place I really go by my name instead of Yarnagogo.)
Also, I might be the only person in the world (no, wait, La's with me on this one) that likes the new Facebook. I find it way more intuitive. Thought the interface was kinda crappy before this one. I bet interface isn't how the computer people put it, but you know what I mean.
3. Yoga gets harder the more you do it. I both love and hate that about it. I've been going every week — the same studio, the same teacher. I even accept that I'm doing the same moves. But I'd forgotten that when you start yoga, you feel great, and you're good at it. The more you do, the more you realize how to drop into the pose, move into the opening (THERE I GO BEING ALL NEW AGE AGAIN, GAH), and then it's HARD. It's seriously kicking my sorry ass, week after week. But I love it. And my skinny jeans, the ones I hadn't worn in a year because of the dreaded muffin-top (oh, how I hate that very accurate turn-of-phrase), are a little baggy today. While not trapped by need to lose weight, I love the feeling of loose jeans. You know? (Lala says mournfully, "You're letting yourself go…" Heh.)
4. For the Digit fans in the house, he just kissed my eyelashes. It was very nice. It was better than punching me in the chest, which he was doing just a few minutes ago, trying to fit himself on my while I type.
A flashback photo, our man at his best:
I just found this photo and scanned it in the other day. I love it. That's our boy. He would like you to believe he's doing that at this moment, but don't believe the lie. He's trying to suck on my tee-shirt and purring as loud as a wooden roller-coaster.
1. Couldn't afford Vegas, so went to Bolinas and Pt. Reyes instead. WAY FEWER SLOT MACHINES. Dude. Who knew?
2. Pt. Reyes is closed on Tuesdays, we found. I am surprised the ocean dared wave, but it did, and we explored Tomales Bay and found oysters, oh, such oysters. I'm a fool for oysters, but Lala is a recent convert, finding that fresh ones really are the way to go.
3. Dinner at the Olema Inn was everything everyone says it is, and more. And the oysters there? Oh, my. One had caviar on top. I think I liked it even more than the one with pink grapefruit (who THINKS of that?) but it was a close call. Oh, such a happy brain explosion of flavor.
4. Bolinas on a Tuesday is not closed, and it's nice that the bartender knows you from the Whoreshoes days. The hotel room is quiet despite the loud Irishman next door, and the sheets are soft.
5. I'm one of those drivers who toodles along, ooh-ing and ahhh-ing at everything, and for that reason, I pull over at every turn-out to let the locals blast past me. It does not cross my mind that it looks suspicious when I pull into a turn-out to let the cop pass me. Then, when he waits and pulls in behind me, I also don't think it looks suspicious that I take the immediate first right turn into what is basically a field (but I wasn't even really paying attention to him! The sign said Historic Life-Saving Cemetery. Wouldn't you turn in? What the hell could that be? We must find out!). It is when I pull over that we realize Lala's brake light might still be wonky, and oh, the reg just expired. However, the nice cop, Ranger Craig, liked Lala's "I adhere to my chihuahua's radical agenda" bumpersticker, and after running my license, registration, and gun info, he whipped out his iPhone, and he and Lala compared chihuahua cuteness. His, however, are five months old and still wearing e-collars from getting fixed, so he won. And we got away without a ticket (to DMV tomorrow! Haste!). (BTW, the Coast Guard cemetery was awesome and weird and great, up on the hill overlooking the green hills, cows, and water.)
6. The lighthouse was closed. Tuesday, dontchaknow. But the wind was asTONishing, and we saw tule elk, little elk that are just so cute you want to put them in your pocket.
I love this picture, from South Beach below the lighthouse:
7. Driving home, we got the best sandwiches at Cowgirl Creamery with homemade bread-and-butter pickles and triple-cream Swiss.
8. Once home, we made it up to the dogs by taking them to the beach. O joy. Forgive the metric crapload of pictures to follow, but we do love us our dogs. 
Keeping watch.
I am very small. This is serious.
You think this is sandy?
I IZ SANDMONSTUR!
Stackables.
Drying at home in the sun (that jasmine smells WONDERFUL).
Looks like one didn't make it.
Three years. No foolin'. xoxo