A Short Lull But Here's Why....

I I was waiting for these beauties to ramp up! Namely a variegated blue iris started from bulb and two Canterbury Bells which I started from seed in the Sping of 07'. They did not bloom last year but this year I'm happy to report that are more than making up for it. Other pictures include Italian Purple Artichoke plants started from seed, sweet pea plants climbing a bamboo trellis, a grape vine and giant sunflower vying for space. I forget the name of the pink flowers pictured but I simply scattered the seeds in this bed and so far they've come back each year. I don't have much else to show or tell. The back vegetable bed is doing fantastic as are all of the new fruit and berry bushes I planted. May is a busy month but June is down right crazy so I'm trying to enjoy my sanity while it lasts.

Just some idle chit chat today....

For some time now I've been thinking about joining La Leche League. I've got a full plate, brimming actually, but experiences I've had both recently and in the past have compelled me to give it serious consideration. Over the past few years I've helped women who were having serious doubts and or issues with breastfeeding their babies. Most recently, I assisted a friend who gave birth to a healthy baby boy in January and didn't think she could get the hang it. After several failed attempts and much frustration in the first few days, her husband called us over and I helped her get the latch technique and holding position correct. She had actually gone so far as to make a bottle of formula and was in tears at the prospect of having to feed her son with it. With a little coaching and support I've seen a few mothers meet with success. Usually it boils down to a lack of confidence or fear that the baby is not getting enough. I battled my way through these same "demons" and know that every woman is truly capable, if willing.

There's no doubt that it's frustrating business but mothers needed to overcome these obstacles before formula was invented. Sadly, studies show that only 30.5% of women in the U.S. breastfeed their babies exclusively to the age of 3 months. Having breastfed both my boys for 9+ months, 6 of which were exclusively from the breast, I know the challenges involved and would like to share my experience with others who face the same obstacles. One of my hurdles included being in NICU when my first was born and having to demand that I be allowed to breastfeed him exclusively. I found myself constantly having to fend off nurses who wanted to give him formula from a bottle for their own convenience. I learned with this experience that the difficulties of breastfeeding can be exacerbated by the fact that the entire world is not necessarily hospitable to the notion.

A flurry of activity last weekend

To start the weekend off, we had a party on Friday night. It was small but lively. Mauricio made ribs and chicken - he's a master of cooking meat over fire. There was a nice ecclectic group of people present and fun was had by all. Saturday the boys both had baseball games. I also continued planting the tiers with the various specimens I ordered or bought at the local nursery. The pomegranates, which came from Raintree Nursery, are the spindly little plants on the bottom tier and the blueberries are interspersed with lavender on the second. I've also included a close up picture of a Sunshine Blueberry plant. As you can see, it has dainty pink blossoms as opposed to the white or blue blossoms that most blueberry plants have. These are especially suited to our mild climate and need less acidic soil and a modest 150 hours of chill time each winter to produce at full capacity. I spent some time laying out a small curved retaining wall planter which is an addendum to the larger bed behind it. This is where I will plant potatoes. I'm not keen on using the larger planter for potatoes as they can muck up the soil should they acquire one of many dreaded potato diseases. Also, potatoes need very good drainage and super deep, loose soil. I have Yukon Gold, Red Pontiac and Purple Pride seed potatoes ready to go in as soon as I dig out the foundation and get my compost in there. One really good potato seed can produce up to 10 pounds of potatoes. I have two pounds worth of each type of potato seed. I can't use them all so if y'all want to try your hand at potatoes, it's not too late to get them in the ground. I get my seed potatoes from Potato Garden. Just as Tomato Festival knows tomatoes, these guys know their potatoes. Mauricio and I spent a good three hours constructing the geodesic dome in the next picture. The kids absolutely love it. It's great exercise and so far has really kept them occupied in the back. I made corned beef and cabbage and warm yeast raised, glazed donuts last night for dessert... mmmmm... Krispy Creme can't hold my jock.

The great news and the bad news

Mauricio and I went to Michael's parent teacher conference yesterday. For a special education student, which Michael is, it's actually referred to as an IEP.

First, the bad news. Michael, as we've begun to suspect, is dyslexic. His teacher and the school's special ed. director confirmed this yesterday. This is incredibly difficult news to swallow as he's already been diagnosed and is being treated for APD (auditory processing disorder) and ADD (attention deficit disorder). To add another learning disability to the laundry list is both crushing and daunting.

Now for the good news. Michael's made amazing strides academically and is testing at or above average in almost every area and in the areas that he is deficient, he is just barely so. It surprised us to learn that his teacher actually considers him a math wiz. It has and will continue to take an enormous amount of effort on his and our part for him to perform on par with his regular ed. peers but it looks as though he's slated to be mainstreamed very soon, YAY!!!!

His teacher also added that he is an absolute joy to have in her classroom and is obviously extremely bright and talented in many areas. This meant the world to us. We have come along way with Michael and for those of you who have been along for the ride, you know this represents a spectacular turn around.

Along with putting in long hours working on reading and other areas of academic weakness, we made the decision a few months ago to hire U.C. Berkeley graduate, Dr. Leda Ciraolo, Ph.D. who's background includes working with and tutoring children with special needs. Leda is an amazingly gifted author, scholar and of course, tutor. She continues to work with Michael three times a week and they have formed a very special bond. We owe a serious debt of gratitude to Leda for Michael's academic progress which she's seriously helped facilitate.

My battle with the squirrels...

We have a magnificent old Black Mulberry Tree in the upper most corner of our yard. It's a very pretty tree with great branch structure and large fan like leaves that offer cool shade in the summer. Outside of its' beauty, what makes it particularly endearing is its' prolific production of delicious black mulberries which brings me to the title of this entry. I am at war with the squirrels who seem to have a voracious appetite for these sweet tart fruits.

Every morning I hear the dogs bark at the same time which signifies that the squirrel mob had descended in to the mulberry's branches. In most cases I have a very tolerant view of the natural fauna, a live and let live mentality if you will but these squirrels are literally squandering the fruit. I see the half ripened and newly formed berries dropped to the ground by the dozens with just the tinniest nibble taken from each one!!! It is heinous blasphemy! What's more, is that they have far easier access to a kumquat, plum and apple tree mere yards away but they insist on nibbling the unripened berries of my prized Mulberry.

This morning as I heard the dogs bark, I ran out and aimed my hose at the little vermin, giving them a thorough soaking. Ya see, my dogs sit at the base of the tree eagerly waiting for one to have the slightest misstep which means there is no exit down the trunk. In order to escape the hose, they had to scramble to the furthest tips of the mulberry's branches and make a death defying leap to the next closest tree, the kumquat. I felt a little bad because it was kinda cold this morning but also a bit smug. I'd like to think that I've made it that much harder for them to overlook the lower hanging fruits from the plum and kumquat trees, mere feet away.

By the way, in case you've never had the pleasure of tasting a black mulberry, the fruits are dark red, almost black, and resemble a very large raspberry, or a loganberry, with a delicious, but rather sharp flavor that is totally unique. I you leave them to become very ripe on the branch,
the flavor begins to ferment and seemingly turns in to a berry filled with a delicious wine. They make the most amazing preserves, desserts and drinks.

Some pictures of the back garden bed

I thought I would add some commentary to this entry although little is actually needed. We went and picked up some free used stepping stones which we found on craigslist.

This bed is 18' long x12' wide and 24" deep, double dug and amended with earthworm castings, bat guano, compost from my bin, crab meal, kelp meal and steer manure.

In it I've planted corn, tomatoes, squash, snap peas, basil, melons, peppers, cucumber and loads of lettuce.

The sugar snap peas are just now sprouting. I've planted them along the entire length of the deer fence so that the pea vines can climb it.

Phew!

After dinner last night, I cooked and prepped then took a break to do homework with the kids, give them a bath and read a few bedtime stories. Once they were tucked in, I went right back to cooking and prepping. My efforts produced 4+ pounds of sweet Italian sausage containing free range pork ground fresh, fennel, green garlic, herbs and other vegetables plucked directly from my garden. I stuffed the links fat so that they were positively bursting from their casings. I like my sausage to have some girth. I'll freeze most of the links using my food saver and the rest will be sliced in to coins, fried golden brown and sandwiched in between the delicate sheets of spinach pasta which I will roll out tonight for the lasagna. The tiramisu I made last is setting up nicely. I made a full 9"x13" sheet pan of it. It's rich stuff so that quantity will go a long way.

Why, you ask have I gone to all this trouble? The answer is simple, this type of effort is not anything unusual for me and I certainly do not consider it to be a bother. I love to cook for friends and family. Furthermore, growing and then cooking much of what we eat gives the boys respect for the fact that food is grown in the dirt, harvested fresh brought in to the kitchen and used to nourish their bodies. It is an idea that has sadly been lost on many in our quick gratification culture. Most kids will point to the local supermarket when asked where their food comes from.

The fruits of my garden are the inspiration for many of my culinary creations. Growing delicious, wholesome, organic ingredients and incorporating them in to my cooking is an ultimate form of self expression for me. The spinach to make the lasagna pasta sheets will come from my cool weather vegetable bed which currently contains spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, garlic, onions and cauliflower. My relationship with the food I grow in my garden is made more intimate by the fact that I created the compost which nourishes the soil. From beginning to end I have helped craft the results.

Tiramisu & Italian Sausages

Mmmmmm... I am making both this weekend. Mauricio looooooves tiramisu and well, so do I. To prod me, he brought home all the ingredients which I usually don't make from scratch such as marscapone and Kahlua. I will be making the other major components such as lady fingers and zabligone from scratch.

Wait a minute, here I am talking about Dolci and I haven't even mentioned Il Secondo! I'm planning to make a massive lasagna or two and will be making freshly rolled sheets of spinach pasta to use in the lasagna as opposed to that no-boil boxed crap - ugh! The kitchen will be brimming with creamy bechamel, herbs from my garden and a steaming kettle of home made tomato sauce using tomatoes I canned from last Summer. I will be using home made spicy Italian sausage, as mentioned above in the title. Perhaps I will even find the time to make some mozzarella fresca to melt over the top.

Tonight I have my work cut out. I'll grind the fresh pork roast, season, stuff and link the sausages. Fresh as in not smoked or cured sausage always tastes better after a resting period which allows the flavors to meld.

After I am finished linking the sausages I will proceed to make the tiramisu. It too will benefit from a nice day or two of resting time which will allow the lady fingers to soak up the coffee liquor and creamy zabligone. If I am not passed out after all that, maybe I'll get around to making some fresh mozzarella cheese. I don't have any raw cow milk right now so I'll just have to limp along with some cream-line.

Lavender Lady Lilac

I forgot to add this picture. I am so excited!!! I planted this lilac over a year ago and this is the first time that it has bloomed. It is so fragrant I can smell it when I stand on the porch about 20 ft. away.

Some pictures of my front garden

From top to bottom are a volunteer painted sunflower, key lime baby lettuce which I direct seeded about a week and a half ago, flowering sage, and a Thompson Seedless grape vine.

The soup was good but I'm still sick!

Heh, but definitely on the road to recovery.

An interesting thing happened yesterday. We were at Jason's baseball practice and the same boy that assaulted Michael and threw rocks at his head came up to Michael and offered what I perceived to be a very sincere apology. He said, "please forgive me, I'm sorry I hurt you". He could barely make eye contact with me but stood solidly in front of Michael and seemed to really be looking for Michael to respond in kind with an olive branch. It dropped my jaw. I mean, I had this kid pegged as a future serial killer based on the physically and psychologically vicious nature of his attack but this unsolicited apology over a week after the incident made me look a little closer. Michael must be the most forgiving soul on Earth because he flung his arms around the kid who just stood there, looking embarrassed.

I explained to the boy, who is 13, six years Michael's senior, that Michael has a hard time with communication because of an auditory processing disorder. I told him that it sometimes affects his social behavior. This was not offered up as an excuse but rather to demystify Michael's sometimes awkward behavior. No point in beating around the bush as it would do no service to either of them. They played together a bit and there were no further altercations.

Blech!

Mauricio and I went to a friend's 40th birthday party on Saturday night. It was a fun and raucous party with excellent food. Mauricio bar tended which contributed to me having a little too much to drink, although I did not drink nearly as much as most. The bad news is that I became ill, as in I caught a bug and woke up with a sore throat and cough Sunday morning. The good news is that I was not hung over. I am however currently sick and losing my voice, much to my children's delight, heh.

In light of this, I will make an Italian turkey noodle soup tonight. This is an old Italian peasant soup loaded with vegetables and tiny pork and beef meatballs which has been in my family for many generations. It's actually a soup that is traditionally served at Italian celebrations such as weddings or baptisms. This will hopefully boost my ailing immune system.

To make the soup I'll start off with bones from the carcass of a roasted 20 lb. free range turkey with all skin removed. Bones are the essence of any good stock. Without bones to boil, there will be only a shadow of flavor and the resulting soup will taste bland and watery. When I roast a turkey or chicken for dinner, I always save the bones/carcass and make soup with them immediately or freeze them for use some time in the future. It's a pain in the ass to roast a bird just to make soup from it and roasting a bird adds an amazing flavor that cannot be achieved by simply plunking a whole raw bird in a pot.

I will just barely cover the bones with cold water. The cold water will slowly be brought to a boil and then immediately lowered to a very gentle simmer. This is key in ensuring a relatively clear broth. I'll add a whole yellow onion split in half with the skin on, two whole bay leaves, a small handful of peppercorns, a stalk of celery and a bouquet garni from my front planter consisting of thyme, sage, parsley, rosemary and marjoram which will be tightly bunched and placed in a large tea ball infuser. All of this will gently simmer together for three hours. After three hours, the bones will have lost all their connective tissue in to the stock and the stock will be a light golden color and rich in flavor. I'll strain the stock and pick off any turkey meat to be added back in. I will add the miniature Italian spiced meatballs which were roasted in the oven, medium egg noodles, peas, diced carrots and spinach from the garden. I'll season with salt and pepper and serve with shaved Parmesan cheese on top. Crusty Italian peasant bread will be used to soak up the soup. Mauricio and the kids love this soup and my cold has given me a great excuse to make it tonight.

Planting, planning and pragmatism...

The backyard space is coming along nicely (pictures to follow). I cannot hide my unabashed love of lavender and have demonstrated no restraint in this capacity. There are at least five varieties planted about the area. My love of lavender is enhanced by the fact that bees love the stuff and are sadly, rapidly dwindling in number. I always try to think of the local flora and fauna as I create any semi-permanent landscape. After all, it is the wildlife that has been pushed to the fringes to make way for us.

My grape vines, blueberry bushes and pomegranate plants arrived yesterday from Raintree Nursery and I will be working on weaving them in to the existing edible landscape consisting of thyme, rosemary and lavender, strawberries, marjoram, oregano and chives along with plum and apple trees. I started moving seedlings which I started weeks ago from seed and grew under lights, outside to harden off. Among them are peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins lemon balm, cucumbers, echinacea, fennel, squash, artichokes, chamomile, basil. Yesterday I proceeded to direct seed several types of lettuce and greens such as collards, swiss chard, spinach and kale.

I planted a honeysuckle vine to grow on one strip of fenced run which should attract hummingbirds and butterflies. We are now searching for natural, flat stone to use as paving stones for a decent sized hard surface patio sitting area under a large shade tree on the second tier. The patio will be approximately 15'x12'. We plan to put a table, chairs, a bench or two and possibly a fire pit on the patio. For the play area on the upper tier, I found a used 8' high, 15' diameter geodesic climbing dome . We're trying to get most of our patio furnishings and decor second hand in order to be more green with our project and of course save money. I even found a used wood fired brick pizza oven on craigslist.com.

Our neighbor is going to go in on a small drilling rig with us so that we can both drill wells on our property. I ran the idea by him months ago and he actually said that he had been thinking of doing it for a while before I mentioned it. He works at Ace Hardware and gets a 15% discount which he will use to purchase it. We are going to get the well water sampled and if it' s suitable for drinking, which I suspect it will be especially when compared to what's coming out of the tap these days, we will plumb it in to our house. If it has high levels of any impurities, it will be irrigation water for gardening and landscape purposes. We should be able to dramatically offset our water usage either way and hopefully find an even cleaner source of water than that supplied by EBMUD.

The solar panels for our roof are also in the works. So far, with the quotes we've received and based on the rebates currently being offered, it will run us approximately $15K. This type of home improvement can be easily financed and the payments will be more than offset by the fact that they will be less than our monthly PG&E bill. It will also increase our home's value but best of all, it will reduce our carbon footprint.

April Fool's!

April Fool's is a big day at our house. The kids and I had a blast yesterday with a fake cat poop gag. Ya see, we have an overabundance of cats in our hood and we used the cat poop fatigue felt by our neighbors to further our devious purpose. With our plastic mounds in pocket, we set off to prank the unsuspecting residents that live on our court.

We put the piles in the middle of walkways in cherished garden beds on doorsteps and even on the hoods of a few pampered vehicles. It was a big success which resulted in just about every neighbor sighing and muttering under their breath with disgust as we solemnly pointed out the offensive piles. In theory, we were just strolling by and found it our civic duty to alert the home owner to the foul blight on their property. Noses wrinkled and annoyance surfaced until we ended our prank with one of the kids flinging a pile in their general direction. Each neighbor ducked or dodged the projectile poop with a look of sheer horror but just as quickly grinned and began laughing at their own gullibility.

Good times! The kids were absolutely gleeful as we repeated the prank over and over with each neighbor, down the street and around the court. Everyone seemed genuinely relieved that the piles were in fact plastic and not an actual steaming mound on the hood of their car or in their garden bed.

Black Currant Strudel

The kids and hubby bugged me to satisfy their sweet tooth last night so I decided to make them a black currant strudel. I began by making a rich egg, butter and yeast pastry dough. It was very soft and easy to work with. I kneaded it for about 15 minutes and then allowed the dough to rise until doubled. I divided it, punched it down and rolled the two pieces out in to large rectangles. I then slathered some very good quality black currant jelly down the center of each rectangle leaving ample space on the top and sides to braid the dough. I then added a lightly sweetened cream cheese filling over the top of the jelly. I cut the sides of the dough where there was no filling in to strips and layered the strips, one on top of the other to create a braided look and tucked in the ends. I brushed each strudel with a light coating of heavy cream and sprinkled coarse sugar over the top. I baked them for about 35 minutes on parchment paper and then took them out of the oven bubbling, oozing, flaky and golden brown. We enjoyed them with fresh ground and brewed coffee last night after dinner. The tart black currant jelly was a perfect foil for the rich and buttery cream cheese filling.