A Quiet Corner

Trudy's final resting place is a quiet corner next to Fluff Mama. H. helped dig the hole. We put plenty of heavy rocks on top to discourage scavengers like racoons and skunks. I planted a little rosemary seedling on top. Fluff Mama's salvia plant grew to more than twelve feet in height, like a lush tree with countless tiny red tubular flowers beloved by hummingbirds. It finally toppled over from sheer gargantuousness. It's nice to have another plant there. I hope this one lasts.

Goodby Trudy

R.I.P. Trudy the Cat, November 20 2009

We don't remember when she first showed up. It was a few years after we moved into this place in 1992 -- so maybe around 1995. Suddenly there was a big grey square-jawed feline hanging around with the other backdoor cats. We don't know when she was born or where she came from.

We thought she was a male because of her size and large head. We called him Intruder, a real misnomer because he was shy and amazingly gentle, didn't hunt like the other cats or even chase bugs. Just stayed close, but not close enough to touch. It was a complicated process getting him to the vet -- setting out a rented Humane society cage with goodies inside, then watching anxiously from the window until he nosed his way in and sprang the trap, hurrying out to throw a towel over the whole rattling kaboodle of cage and cat.

When the vet informed us that "he" was a spayed female we changed her name to Trudy. Eventually she allowed me to stroke her fur, purring softly and stretching her neck. But that was not a signal that she could be picked up -- no undue familiarity was tolerated. She was simply Always Around, following me into the garden, sitting up when my car pulled into the driveway, circling an emply food bowl patiently. Her version of close companionship was to walk just in front so there was no room to put down the next step, or to sit nearby in an unobtrusive spot, sharing the quiet splendor of simple existence.

It won't be the same without her.

First Big Storm of the Season

As promised, a major storm gusted its way through the Bay Area today. With remnants of a Japanese typhoon amping up its wind and rain power, there are plenty of stories of blocked roads, downed trees, and power outages. My tour of the backyard showed only minor local effects, however. A small branch of one of the white locust trees fell onto the leaf pile.


The hollyhocks were flattened. I'm sorry to see them go, but they have had a nice run. This is the second batch after the first round grew so tall they fell over all on their own. I had to cut them down; then this junior varsity team took their places. Now the season's really over.

The wheelbarrow was almost filled by what were evidently record breaking downpours.


The Red Sails lettuce was also flattened. I'm hoping against hope that they will be able to stand up again. I might try to prop them. Lettuce season is not over! We need those leaves to keep our salads going until the new seedlings size up.


Here's what the Red Sails looked like before being cruelly struck down before their time: putting forth proud stalks with little florets just forming. And the leaves are still tasty.

Equinox

Journey Round the Sun: September

The crystalline light of a lowering sun
Fills the valleys,
Gilds brown hills gold,
Makes every trembling leaf and blade
A tiny mirror.

Equinox: Earth rides its axis straight.
Night and day see eye to eye.
Morning has teeth: premonitions of frost.
Noon blares hot.
Light and dark are in fleeting balance
While temperature see-saws.

Knowing the portents,
Birds flock for fall flight,
Swallows are gone,
Long-necked geese mark the sky
With directional signs, all pointing south.

We who enter a private autumn
Hear their fading cries
And remember the
Hurrying arrow of time.

Tomato Extravaganza

By Labor Day, last Monday, the tomato situation was getting critical. It was quite clear that soon there would be tomatoes tucked away onto bookcases (which has happened before) and in the bathroom cabinet (which has not happened so far). The photo above shows everything on hand on Monday afternoon -- mostly Better Boys, lined up from ripest on the left to just-picked, still-slightly-orange on the right.

There are also bowls of Sungolds and the volunteer red cherry tomatoes for snacking and salads, and two demonstration Black Krims at lower right, just to show we are capable of growing heirlooms.



A plethora of Better Boys means it's time to go rummaging in the garage for the mighty Squeezo, the venerable Vittorio Strainer, veteran of many a tomato sauce session of Septembers past. It didn't take long to clean it up from its long hibernation and attach it to the dining room table.

The whole process is so simple. The ripe tomatoes are first rinsed and quartered. (Let the orangey ones sit for another week to ripen up.)



Then all you have to do is fill the hopper with tomato pieces, press them down with the mallet, and turn the handle to push the juicy mass through the screening funnel. Skin and seeds drop out at the end of the funnel while the luscious juice and pulp flows down the trough into a bowl.



The next step is to cook the juice down a bit and package it up in pint size freezer containers as a base for tomato sauce. Take some out in gloomy November or in chilly February and make it into sauce for a vivifying taste of congealed sunlight, a distillate of summertime itself.

Farewell to August

The pink lilies which are the hallmark of high summer in our backyard and all over the area are faded now. But before all traces of this fruitful August, just past, disappear completely, here is a memento.

Journey Round the Sun: August

Sudden pink lilies on tall bare stalks
Leap from dead ground.
Ripe fruit thuds into hot dust.
Perseids streak the night sky,
Space gravel burning in air,
Silent and swift as Newton's thought.

Earth turns in its spiral dance,
Leaning into light.
Up, down, around,
We all move to the same music.

Monday Harvest -- Fruits of Our Labor Day

Today is a holiday so I can get this post up on time for the harvest round-up at Daphne's Dandelions.

This week it has felt like the garden is slowing down because most of the plants look middle-aged, a bit like stressed-out parents with too many children. But bedraggled as the plants might be, their progeny is beautiful and plentiful. The peak harvest time continues.

We are pretty much keeping up day to day with eating lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, Black Krim tomatoes, an occasional pepper or eggplant. But the heavy producers that need to be processed for the freezer are accumulating. Counter tops are covered with Better Boy tomatoes and there are bulging bags of beans and zucchini in the refrigerator. Not to complain, of course. Abundance is not an obligation but a celebration!

Week of Sunday, August 30 through Sunday, September 6

Sunday, August 30 (This should have been included with last week's portfolio, but I got the days mixed up.)
Above, left to right: one Cochella zucchini; a handful of Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; lemon cucumbers; volunteer red cherry tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans.



Tuesday, September 1
Blue Lake pole beans; Better Boy tomatoes; one lemon cucumber; one Black Krim tomato; Green Racer zucchini; Sungold cherry tomatoes.



Thursday, September 3
Red Sails summer lettuce; Better Boy tomatoes



Friday, September 4
Sungold cherry tomatoes; Better Boy tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans; one Japanese eggplant (first one -- yay!); three Pimientos de Padron; one lemon cucumber; one Black Krim tomato; Green Racer zucchini; volunteer red cherry tomatoes



Saturday, September 5
Better Boy tomatoes; lemon cucumbers; a surprise resurgence of Tavera French haricot beans; lots and lots of Sungold cherry tomatoes; Blue Lake pole beans. Not pictured: another pile of Red Sails summer lettuce, picked before dawn because a certain canine companion just HAD to go out. Prime lettuce picking time.

The Kentucky Wonder beans have pretty much stopped producing -- nothing harvested since August 30. The spider mites got them. But that's a story for another time.