Let the Camping Season Begin

What is the allure of pitching a tent, coaxing damp wood to life, trucking just the essentials (and ok, a few luxuries, too) out to nature, all to stay temporarily in a marginally cozy, generally less than clean situation? What's not to enjoy? We enthusiastically launched camping season by iniating our friends and our dog into the rituals. Scenes to highlight the year's first excursion:

 

A tasty dinner: teryaki chicken, grilled peppers and squash, and packets of new potatoes in butter and herbs. All cooked, served and eaten whilst still light out--a wonder!

 

The view beach-ward from our tent site.

 

It was Katie's first camp-out, which she loved (and not just because she got to wear her stylish coat).

 

This might possibly be her favorite moment of the weekend--fetch on the beach.

Radish makes a debut

 

A bit of success! I'm proud to introduce you to my first viable crop of radishes, seven, yes count 'em, seven ruby round-ish radiant beauties. (After only two lovely, promising globes, the first batch barely produced anything that even resembled a radish.) These were planted April 20, so that makes 37 days until harvest. That's not quite the 22 days the packet proclaimed!

Now, the big question is--to make glazed radishes, slice them in a salad, or gobble them raw?

Hosta in Bloom

I'm jealous of the gorgeous hostas in my mother-in-law's garden. The hostas in mine are too immature to bloom, and the slugs have discovered them anyway. I can't bear to document the carnage in photographs. Survival doesn't look promising.

Hearst Castle Critters

 

Hearst Castle Highlights

 

Flowers of Coastal San Simeon

 

Yellow?

The iris patch was planted by the previous owners of our house, so I don't know much about them. Only that in the nearly four years under my guardianship, they bloom for several weeks starting in April and into May. The blue petals sway atop their tall stalks for a while, then flop to the ground under their own weight. By Mothers' Day, a few weary but still beautiful blooms remain, defining what it means to "grow old gracefully."

One year it was time to divide the rhizomes, but even after I got rid of the soft rot and borer damamage, I had way too many to put back in the same spot. I started another iris patch and gave the rest away. They needed a year to recover before returning to their usual blooming pattern, but a few did bloom and I had a lovely section of lush green (until I gave them a crew cut).

This year, they were back on track--sort of. All blue, all these years, and now this yellow version. I can't explain it, but I think it's nifty.

It could be true...

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course
no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.

--Jane Kenyon




When a pretty cloud passes overhead in the sky, my nephew of six years says, "That one. That's the cloud where Papa sits today."

Soon...

 

Soon the end of year frenzy will begin. Soon, the reality of deadlines, due dates, final projects and semseter grades will hit us all, students and teachers alike, like a ton of bricks. Soon, the schedule will be even more crammed with assemblies, field days, chorus rehersals, band practice, next year's student council elections, and graduation rehersals. Soon, my email and voice mail will explode with querries about extra credit, redoing assignments, and the ever popular "how can I bring my grade up in four weeks?". Soon, I will be staying awake nights grading term papers and portfolios to get my report cards in on time.

Soon, but not yet. This weekend is the calm before the storm.

The Radishes Are Here!

I plucked two rosy globes from their earth beds last night! They look exactly like the Beatrix Potter illustrations of radishes, only without Peter Rabbit holding their leafy tops and scooting out of the garden before Mr. McGregor discovers his thieving.

And of course there were no batteries in the camera!

Sit, Stay, Please, Thank You: Obedience and Manners

"I have something for you to see," my mother-in-law tells us as we unload our car for a weekend stay. Katie is bouncing around, sniffing everything, while we gather what ends up being mostly her stuff.

My mother-in-law has Tivo-ed an Oprah episode for us--appropriately, one on dogs. The central guest star is Tamar Geller, whose book The Loved Dog is currently a hot topic on Amazon (look through the comments, and the comment threads on the comments, for a cat fight about this dog book!) (And shame on Amazon, for apparently removing relevant customer reviews from a product's description, but that's another post.)

Geller's philosophy on dog training is that dogs need manners, not discipline or obedience. Appalled by unquestionably ruthless dog training practices in a military situation, she developed her kinder, gentler methods by observing wolf families in the wilderness. Memorably, she says (I'm paraphrasing here), "We need to train dogs like they are dolphins, not dogs." What she meant is that dolphins are trained with heavy emphasis on game play and treats because, Geller says, if they get bored or fed up, they can just swim away, back into the vast blue sea without a backward glance. Dogs are more captive and are therefore not treated so gingerly by (perhaps in Geller's view, many) owners and trainers. Ok, I'll buy that for a dollar.

With a mental note to check out Geller's book on Amazon, Oprah's show and my attention move on to the tallest dog in the world who takes up two seats in a commercial passenger jet plane and can say "I love you." And I don't think about any of it again until Mr. Hands and I are with Katie at her obedience class tonight.

I have a lot of respect for the "Dragon Lady" and the trainers at our dog training group. They clearly have years of experience with accepted methods, and a passion for dogs and working with dogs. Katie is responding really well, and all three of us are feeling comfortable with what's going on. Her personality certainly isn't being eradicated by cold disciplinary tactics that are turning her into an obedient automaton. And we have no intention of creating a canine servant; our goal is a four-legged family member who trusts us and whom we can trust implicitly around children, other dogs, the general public, etc... Best of all, the activity and perhaps the challenge suit Katie. Nobody celebrates more than her when we get a skill right--she literally wiggles with pleasure.

But make no mistake, we are being taught how to train Katie to be obedient. There is a time for play, and there is a time to get to business, and though all of it is done with respect and dignity for the dog, the business is: sit up and pay attention, no foolin'.

So as the class comes to a close and the instructor demonstrates with his own dog how the preliminary skills we have been working on prepare us to do more nifty and impressive skills, I think of Geller and the "manners versus obedience" question.

I lean over to Mr. Hands and whisper, "I don't think we're training dolphins here."

He chuckles and whispers back, "That's ok, Katie doesn't like to swim."

Where Are the Radishes?

According to the seed packet, these radishes mature in 22 days. I planted them March 31, so there should be radishes now, right? Nope, not yet. What's the deal?

They live here, I just visit

With bee colonies disappearing, I feel lucky to have this visitor to the lemon tree.


While I was stalking the bee, I spied this less welcome visitor. Still, it's beautiful perched here, so high in this thorny tree.

I uncovered a whole salamander colony when I relocated some wooden planters. This was one of the littlest ones...

...and this is one of the biggest ones. I discovered several of these large spotted ones. Pausing only long enough for me to admire it's spots and snap a picture, it vanished with its companions under the iris patch.

First I thought this was a centipede, but I learned on What's That Bug that they have only one pair of legs per body segment, therefore this is a millipede because there are two pairs of legs per segment. According to the site, millipedes sometimes eat seedlings, but mostly eat decaying matter and help break down debris. So, carry on millipede, but stay away from my seedlings, okay?

The Zen Sunflower

Shane with future sunflowers on her hands

In April, we cannot see sunflowers in France, so we might say the sunflowers do not exist. But the local farmers have already planted thousands of seeds, and when they look at the bare hills, they may be able to see the sunflowers already. The sunflowers are there. They lack only the conditions of sun, heat, rain and July. Just because we cannot see them does not mean that they do not exist.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Red-winged Blackbird

Twirping madly, this little man wanted some attention! He was resting on the fence at the parking area of a nature preserve near my work. I have just recently begun driving a different route home, passing this park. I've been thinking, "I should pull in there." And finally, I did, and was boisterously greeted...
by the bird as well at the California poppies.

The guy in the tree

 

I love this tree outside my classroom. I've tried fruitlessly for years to name it; I just can't come up with anything worthy. My students call it "the guy in the tree." Do you see the profile of the face?

Katie, chill!

A perfectly executed chill command--Katie's got this one down pat!

It's back to school time for Katie. She's got impeccable manners, but chooses to "think about it" when asked to sit.

This class is more rigorous than the ones we took over summer. Mr Hands and I dubbed the head trainer "the Dragon Lady." Katie likes her, but she scared the hell out of us! Now that first impressions are done, "Dragon lady" has been revealed as what she really is--a gruff, no-nonsense lady with a heart of gold. I guess Katie knew it all along! But the name's gonna stick.

Garden Projects, redux

This is the planter box that all other planter boxes wish they could be!

Lovingly and cleverly made by Mr Hands.

I'm dabbling with the square foot method, so Mr Hands made this nifty grid to keep things tidy.


More a planting bed on a raised platform, veggies and herbs (and a few flowers, too!) will thrive in this sunny spot.

P.S.--this shade of green paint was agonizingly chosen to match the iris patch near by. The top photo shows off best how close we came!

Bush lilies in bloom

This clump of bush lilies was damaged by our unusually frosty January temperatures, but has rebounded spectacularly!

First Iris of the Year