ranunculus

After 3 years of prep and struggle to get a permit, today was the first day of construction at Henry St. That is to say the crews came in, hauled away a bunch of junk that we couldn't get rid of fast enough (detritus from 27 years of living there plus the junk left by former tenants. YAY!

It is a little dry, but today I got the tractor out and graded the road. Hopefully we will have a light rain soon to settle the gravel in it's new home. 

This weekend it Obstacle Practice.  I'm mostly ready. 

The greenhouse is full of little plants growing lustily. 

As of a few days ago we FINALLY have a permit to do the planned construction at Henry has been 3 long years since we set out to find an architect to draw new plans for a renovation. 


This is a picture from 2004, showing the back of Henry St house. In it you can see, on the left side of the house, that there are two enclosed "porches" hanging off the back wall of the house.  The top one is little, only about 7 feet wide. The lower one is 15 feet wide, so just over half the width of the house.  Both porches leak a bit in big storms. Yes, since before 2004. The construction will take both porches completely off the back of the house, remove all the siding from the back of the house and move some of the windows.  The window changes will allow us to put in 2 - 4 ft wide "sheer walls"  running from the foundation to the roof.  These will strengthen the house in an earthquake. Currently there is a window or a door, on one level or another, making it so there is almost no place where even one support runs all the way from foundation to roof.  Speaking of foundations, our is literally crumbling away and has no tensile strength. NOT good.  After demolition the first step will be to pour a new foundation across the back of the house.

I have been down to SF several times in the last few weeks, helping Donald clean out the garage, and hauling things to Ukiah. 

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Way back in the mid-1960's my mother planted some rosemary.  She deliberately chose a variety that would sprawl out and act as a ground cover.  For a couple of decades she kept the plants sheered off at about 8 inches.  ( Read more... )

It must be spring, the living room is beginning to look like a greenhouse. ( More + pics )

Another weekend obstacle practice successfully completed.  
This horse is having a good look at that stuff hanging on the fence.  I tried for a vaguely Valentine's Day theme, plus the nice shiny, silver insulation from a box that M brought back Alaska Salmon in. 


This Arab gelding was showing off as he trotted over the Tic-Tack-Toe.


Lots of people found that the jousting was harder than it looked.


On Saturday we only had four riders (Sunday there were 10).  I got Firefly out.  She was both very interactive and calm.  Sunday I wanted to turn her loose in the arena while I cleaned up.  When I went to get her I wanted to ride through the corrals.  I started to climb on a fence panel to mount (my knees just won't bounce enough to vault on anymore).  Several months ago she had fussed and moved away from the mounting block. At that point  I picked up a whip and simply showed it to her. That was enough for her to be very polite when I mount - from her left side.  Today's effort was on her right. Horses don't transfer skills from side to side very well.  Firefly thought she would just step away. The third time she stepped away I gave her a single, open palm slap on the side she was moving toward.  The head went up and she offered to run away from my cruel beating.  Then stood nice and quiet and calm while I got on.  Today, for the first time, I opened the latch on the two gates from horseback.  It wasn't elegant, but it did teach her that the noise was ok, and that the gate would open if she stood in the right place.  While I cleaned up the arena, she got to run around in the nice soft sand, and roll. At least sand doesn't stick like the mud in the corral does!  When I was done she walked up to me and we went off to a nice patch of green grass for her to graze as a treat.  What a greedy thing she is. She stuffed grass in her mouth as fast as she could bite it off for at least 10 minutes, chewing extremely hastily, before slowing down. 
Tomorrow is another walk up to the Dogbane patches, this time with some of the local basket weavers.  I'm excited about this. 

I now have five dozen cells happily growing seeds.  Some of those cells just have a couple of peas in them, but others are more densely planted.  Very soon some of that stuff is going to have to be pricked out and moved to the greenhouse. ( Read more... )

I cleaned out a whole cabinet  plus another very small drawer unit and several shelves in San Francisco.  I remembered my drawers as being quite a lot better organized than they were. Now I have 5 crates of stuff to sort.  A couple of them won't be bad, but at least two or three need a lot of work.  I'm tempted just to toss the lot, but can't quite make myself do that, there is a lot of hardware in there, much of it new.
Discovered that there were no large sized screwdrivers left down there.  I'll take some back. 
Dug a few iris, including a light blue one that will very much be in the way of the construction project. I really wanted that color in the mix here in Ukiah.  Took a bunch of containers with fertilizers and other soil amendments that will never get used in SF but can be used one way or another in Ukiah.  
It is a bit overwhelming. 
Dealing with our elderly downstairs tenant was no fun. He is resisting both our project to fix the house and my attempt to get the electrical fixed, saying that it is an enormous disturbance and he will have to move everything in his flat when we do it, which is not true.  Yes there will be some disturbance, but he's way out in left field.  Then he started in telling me that we had told him we were starting our project "right away" when we started the planning process 3 years ago. The opposite is true. We have told him repeatedly, monthly, weekly (basically every time we talk to him) that we are NOT starting yet, and that he will have at least 2 weeks notice before we do.  I know it is just him getting more frail and less able, but it really rubs me the wrong way. Sigh.  

This recipe came from "The Swallow Family Heritage Cookbook" that my friend Lisa wrote.  I have changed the recipe somewhat, mostly adding more spices and cooking them into a sauce.  I'm almost happy with this version. 

1 head cabbage, preferably red. Chop into chunks about 1 to 1/12 inch square. Read chop into easy to eat chunks.
3 baked or otherwise cooked potatoes in about 1 inch cubes, or to taste size wise. I like russets for this, but any potato is fine. 
Knob fresh ginger grated or very finely chopped.  Last time I used about a tablespoonful of finely chopped.
2 tsp of cumin seed.
1 tsp ground cumin.
1 Tbs + mustard seed
Small pinch cardamon seed cracked.  You could certainly use a pinch of ground cardamon. 
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 -3 tsp ground coriander
2 cloves Garlic, minced (I use garlic oil, or omit).
Chili powder or cayenne flakes or omit.  I use a pinch of jalapeno flakes.
Salt to taste.

In a large pot, I use my 4 quart pan:
Bloom the spices in oil, seeds first, (heat for a moment until fragrant, usually a few seconds to a minute).  Add about a cup of hot water and simmer slowly for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until the sauce begins to smell really good and look more like a sauce and less like spices in water.   The object is to get the seeds to soften and  flavor the sauce.   Water may need to be added during this process.

When sauce is ready add potatoes and cabbage and cover.  Cook over a low heat until the cabbage is just beginning to soften, you want it to remain a little crunchy.  Stir a couple of times and add a little water if it begins to stick.  Overcooking the cabbage will remove the flavor, texture and sweetness of the cabbage. 

I sometimes add 2-3 cups of diced corned beef to this mix.  If the corned beef is very salty omit any extra salt. 

California is basking in reasonable temperatures and even sun.  It did freeze last night but warmed right up. 
Yesterday's chore was to "groom" the arena.  This required taking the tractor down from the house, a distance of about 2 miles in the chilly morning air.  Before hooking up the drag I made a faint effort to move some sand from the south side of the arena where the sand is thick, to the middle where there are some dips that become pools when it rains. I did get some sand moved we will see if it did any good in the next good rainstorm. Got the whole thing dragged, fluffing up the sand and hopefully killing all the grass that had germinated.  Took about four passes over each square foot of sand in a 140 x 250 ft rectangle.  With that done I got out the sprayer and sprayed the edges for the second time this year.  I suspect there will be a third time as well. There was spray leftover to use on the weeds in the pastures. Almost all the plants I target are mustard, dock and fiddleneck.  Horses don't eat any of them unless starving. Dock and mustard can take over a pasture, reducing the area that can be grazed dramatically.  Both plants are perennial in this climate. Mustard at least has the advantage of fixing nitrogen in the soil, but that isn't enough for me to want it in the pastures. 
Today's chores involved  paperwork and a trip to town to take iris starts to a lady, plus grocery shopping.  
Rain tomorrow, the first rain since Jan 8th.  Apparently a one day wonder before it goes back to being reasonably warm and sunny.