Beans and Holy Unction

Tonight for dinner we had beans. But not just any beans. We had GIANT BEANS FROM GREECE! Fr. Basil introduced me to them a couple of weeks ago. I love them. Sadly, no one else in the house loved them.

After dinner I took Basil on another mini-pilgrimage. Tonight we went to St. Stepen Orthodox Church in Campbell. They were doing Holy Unction. Much wonderfulness.

Bridegroom Matins at St. Herman of Alaska

Last night Anselm, Kathleen, and I (Basil is concurrently enrolled in high school and college and is weighed down with much academic work, so he didn't go.) went to St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Sunnyvale for Bridegroom Matins. It's a ROCOR parish so I expected there to be a lot of Slavonic but there wasn't any at all. My little OCA parish in Saratoga, St. Nicholas uses more Slavonic than we heard last night. St Herman has a gorgeous building, and the choir is pretty good, though it is heavily loaded with altos and soprannos. They need some Bassas and tenors, but as Donald Rumsfeld said, "you go to war with the army you have not the army you wish you had". One thing I really appreciated is that all the readers read perfectly: not too fast, not too slow, every word annunciated clearly.

After we got home from church I had lots of homework for my water classes to do. I was up till 2 am. Then I went to bed and couldn't sleep fom the excitement of Holy Week. So at 4 am I took a spoon of NyQuil. BIG MISTAKE! I slept to 1:30. We'll that puts me behind schedule for the day. Have to run out and get the red egg dys (using onion skins is too hard.) atInternational Food Bazaar.

Oh! Why did we go to St Herman last night? Because during Lent and Holy Week we are going on mini-pilgrimages to the different parishes in the area. A few night ago we visted St. Lawrence in Felton and tonight, I think Nativity in Menlo Park is on the schedule.

Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

On Lazarus Saturday I made Grandfathrs cioppino but since it wasn't a Fish Day we we left the fish out of the recipe. Also, I couldnt find any crabs. Essentially, it was the same recipe but we used scallops, clams, and shrimp instead of all the animals called for in the original recipe. It was still good. And because Lazarus Saturday is the only caviar day during any of the Church's fasting periods, we had caviar. We served it on slices of English cucumber with avocodo and chive. It was the first time in many years I didn't order from Marky's but that's okay. Also, because finances are tight for me (lack of work due to the Covid) I only bought the least expensive edible fish eggs I could find in a local store but it was still very good. The boys and Kathleen enjoyed it. After dinner I had to go to work but Kathleen and the boys went to the festal vigil for Palm Sunday.

On Sunday the boys and I went to church. It was a glorious service. Anselm and I carried the palms branches during the procession around the church. After the service I picked up the paskha and kulich I ordered. I am not making my own this year but bought it from the parish fundraiser. THe woman in the parish who makes it does a good job. Her paskah is better than mine but I think my kulich is better than hers. It balances out. Also, the parish needs the money.

After church we came back home and and I fried up crab cakes and served them with a corn and pineapple salsa as a snack. Then got to work making dinner. THere was a cucumber tomato and red onion salad dressed with soy sause and rice vinegar, grilled tuna steaks, roasted potatoes with garlic cumin parsley black epper and thyme, and a fruit macedonia. While Anselm was getting the coals ready Basilwent out to the garden and turned the compost pile.

Speaking of the garden, here are some pictures Kathleen took yseterday.

Planting and The Great Canon

This morning I worked in the garden. I guess, really, it is two gardens. The small one is right outside the front door. It has three grape vines a lemon tree, rosemary, thyme (It started bolting a few days ago. I don't really know what to do about it. I think I'll just let it so I can learn what happens.), two potted tomato plants, and the green houses which still have a lot of seedlings in them. We just ate a lemon off that tree yesterday and it has dozens more growing. It's only 6 feet tall and, maybe 5 feet wide. I think its going to be one of those house-sized lemon trees so we are going to have to keep it pruned back because the growing area is small. The grape vines woke up from their winter nap and are putting out lots and lots of new leaves and starting to grow over the porch again. There is a jasmine growing up the other end of the porch. And there is a pot of strawberries. I didn't think the strawberry plants would survive the winter but they did.

The second garden is the one I usually write about. Yesterday two neighbor kids, Elijah (6) and Zachariah (4) helped me transplant some tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants from the green house to some of the beds. Their mother died 2 weeks ago so they live with theor grandmother now, six doors down. The socond garden is just crammed withplants now. The plantings are more dense than we've ever tried in previous years: For example, just one 4x8 bed has 3 bush tomato plants, 3 cherry tomato plants, 3 other tomato plants, 1 spaghetti squash vine, 1 eggplant, a zucchini, and radishes planted around the edge of the planter box. And we have three more boxes crammed with tomatoes, squash, poppies, sunflowers, chilis, eggplants, tomatillos, and radishes, And then there are 2 wash tubs growing beens and peas, a trash can with 7 cucumber vines growing out of it, a watering trough full of tomato vines and radishes, and lots of other pots and barrels growing zucchini, musk melons, spaghetti squash, tomatillos, ceyenne peppers, sunflowers (the first one opened up yesterday.). And along the fence are the two apple trees (i love the smell of the blossoms), sunflowers, poppies, ragweed, bee balm, and otherflowers. It's so much fun just to go out there and watch it all grow. Today I transplanted four more spaghetti squash vines from the green house to one of the beds in the big garden.

Tonight, Anselm, Basil and I went to church for the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete with the Life of St. Mary of Egypt. Wow! What amazing people those two are. What a beautiful service. Sadly, Basil sprained one of his thumbs during a prostration. After the service the priest prayed for the thumb and Anselm immobilized the thumb with an Ace bandage. We are going to try to visit four other parishes between tonight and Pascha. It is so good to be able to be back in church again.

Shooting with Son #3

Anselm Samuel (AKA the little boy) and I went shooting today. I bought a Stoeger Longfowler for myself because my Stevens side-by-side is almost a hundred years old and can't take the pressures of modern ammo. Today I broke in my new gun. It's not as pretty or high tech as the Mossberg Silver Reserve I bought for Kathleen but it is servicable, the price was right, and I don't have to wory about it breaking every time I pull the trigger, like I do with the old Stevens. So, Anselm and I went to Coyote Valley Sporting Clays today. He shot Kathleen's gun and I shot the new Longfowler. It was a lot of fun. He had a good day, hitting about 75% of his clays. I didn't have a very good day. I only hit about 50%. I'll blame it on getting used to a new gun.
I can hardly wait for next duck season.

Old Stomping Grounds

My son, Anslem and I went hunting up in the Mendocino National Forest. There is a population of Merriam's turkeys on Mount Hull we were going to hunt but the daybefore we got there the California Department of Fish and Wildlife closed the area to hunters. I don't know how they can do that in a U.S. Forest; maybe CDFW has some kind of agreement with the U.S. Forst Service. So, our hunting trip turned into a camping trip. It was fun even if we got no turkies or pigs. (Pigs were our secondary prey but we learned from a local that in the last 10 years a growing mountain lion population eats all the piglets and they never get a chance to reproduce, so no more pigs in the forest.) We saw a two large heards of elk, a bald eagle, Great blue herons, wood ducks, chipmunks, rabbits, geese, and lots more besides. We wee there during the super moon event so it was light all night.
On the way home I took Anslem by the place I lived from October 1979 to October 1981 when I was a boy of 10, 11, and 12. Ukiah. The population has increased 16,000 since I lived there when the population was 12,000. Lots of car dealerships and fast food and convenience stores are on State Street that were not there when I was a kid. Several indoor growing and hydroponic stores serve the marijuana industry. The strip mall that was named The Pear Tree Center is gone, as are all the pear trees. They've been replaced by vinyards. (I saw my first big marijuana farm in a little valley between the forest and Ukiah. I guess that explains all the new car dealerships and other businesses) In place of the Pear Tree center is a new shopping center with a Staples and a Wal-Mart. The Staples surprised me. The town only has 16,000 people. How much office furniture and printer paper can it buy? I saw The Forks Cafe where my Dad ate lunch almost every day. And the Forks Ranch Market. where I used to buy my National Lampoon's and Mad magazines.

Of Course, I took Anselm by the house I used to live in and showed him the church my Dad pastored. Strangly, they have changed the name of the church. When my Dad took the pulpit there in 1979 he asked the board to change the name from Calvary Temple to Calvary Way because of the recent mass suicide of the members of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple. (A lot of people do not remember that before Peoples Temple went to Guyana to die, but after they left San Francisco, they stopped in the Ukiah area for a few years.) The word temple was thought to be off-putting after the suicides. Now the church has changed its name to Legacy Church. I wonder what was the thinking behind that decision? Protestant church names are complicated; not nearly as straigforward as Orthodox parish names. The bishop picks a saint or a feast that doesn't already have a parish in the diocese assigned to it and that's all there is to it. It doesn't change.

The Forks Market, the Forks Cafe, and the Parducci Winery were all within walking distance of the church and the pasronage I lived in with my parents. The Parducci winery was one of my favorite places. I loved the smell of the crush in the fall. I spent many hours playing in the vinyards with farm workers kids. I ate a lot of grapes. Every year before Christmas the church kids would sell ceramic bells to raise money to go to summer camp, and I would take my box of bells up to the winery and Mrs. Parducci would have everyone in the place buy a bell. They were good neighbors. Sadly, they sold out to a big wine company. I don't think the Parducci family is there anymore. Just their name.

Birds And Lent

February was so warm that in the first week on March we planted all the boxes, half-half barrels, and pots full of of seedlings. We didn't count on the birds. It seems that in other years when we planted our garden in April or May there was lots of food around for the birds to eat. But that is not the case in March. The birds ate everything down to the ground, except a few tomato plants. Then there was hail. Thankfully, we still have a lot of seedlings growing in the greenhouses.
The only Lenten services I've been to, so far, are Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday night and the first night of the Great Canon. My boys are going to confession tonight. But I have to work. (I'm getting more hours at Bass Pro Shops).
School is going well for me. Gosh, I can't believe I just wrote that. Hopefully, when I finish this program (this time next year) I will never be a student again. But, as I said, it is going well.
Yesterday was Kathleen's birthday. I gave her a leather-bound Orthodox Study Bible and two boxes of CCI rat-shot for her Rough Rider.

Crabbing and Gardening

On Saturday, Kathleen, the boys and I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (Did you know that Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico is the first person to draw up plans for and promote the bridge?) to go crabbing at Ft. Baker. The sea lions kept raiding our traps but the boys did take one rock crab home to eat. After that we drove home, stopping in Chinatown, where I got steamed pork buns for the boys and Kathleen. It reminded me of Pascha 2009. It was Kathleen's first time to have them. She was amazed.
On Sunday, Kathleen and I went to Church then worked in the gaarden. We took out the last of the onions, lettuce, kale, and garlic, though we did leave one big pot of beets growing.
On Monday we took all the soil out the beds and put about 3-4 inches of straw in the bottoms of the beds, returned the soil to the beds, fertilized with bone meal, amonium nitrate, and magnesium sulfate. Finaly, we covered everything with the compost we've been making since this time last year.
Yesterday, Tuesday we moved plants from the green houses to the garden: 28 tomato plants (lots of varities), 4 spaghetti squash vines, 5 zuchinni plants (mix of green and yellow varieties), 5 wathermelon vines, beans and peas, 5 cucumber vines, and 4 eggplant bushes.
Today I am putting in another apple tree. We already have a honey crisp sappling in the ground but the one I am putting in today is a granny smith. I think it's funny to be planting trees at my age. Well, after I'm dead people will enjoy them, I hope.

Snow and Germination

Basil at Tahoe Donner

Today is Friday.  On Monday of this week the boys and i went up to the snow.  Anselm and  did most of the driving on the way there.  We stayed at Tahoe Biltmore for two nights.  The room only had two beds so Anselm paid Basil $10 to sleep on the floor.  It's a good thing I packed three wool army blankets. 

We didn't eat out on the trip.  Instead, I packed a

Anselm at Boreal

Molinari salami (I used to live a block away from them in North Beach back in the mid 1990s) half a boiled ham, some sour dough bread, some dry jack, brie, mustard, turkey salad, 12 bottles of San Pellegrino and a box of navel oranges.  Clearly, I packed too much food.

On Tuesday we went to Boreal where Anselm skied and Basil and I rode down the mountain on giant inner tubes.  I was a lot of fun.  After a couple of hours Anselm was still skiing but Basil and I were tired so we went to Tahoe Donner (Kathleen is a member and made a reservation for us) to use the pool/hot tub/steam room.  But there is Covid and the hot tub and steam room were closed.  So were the showers and lockers.  About Covid:  It has turned the north sore of Lake Tahoe into a ghost town.  There were only 4 occupied rooms in our hotel and Boreal was almost empty; my guess is there were fewer than 150 people on the slopes..  Hardly anyone is up there.  The boys were asleep by 7 that night and didn't wake up until 7 on Wednesday morning.  Then we drove home.

On Thursday Kathleen and I replanted about 32 of the little 168 pots in the our green houses.  For some
reason those 32 never germinated.  Something else about the garden: Kathleen advertised our seedlings for sale and demand is more than 10 times what we have planted.  Everyone wants the heirloom tomatoes.  I think we might have stumbled into a business!

Late January and Early February

Anselm, San Francisco Bay

Duck season Don Edwards ended on January 31.  Before the end of the season my son Anslem and I went out shooting a couple of times.  I lost my license and federal duck stamp so the last couple of times I didn't shoot.  But Anselm did and he had fun.  He cooked one pintail breast but but didn't like it.

duck breast

My birthday was fun.  Kathleen, her kids, and my kids threw me a surprise party with liver from Original Joe's and  carrot cake from Nothing Bund't Cakes.

Work is still not great.  Because of the government's covid response I am getting very few hours at Bass Pro Shops and I've only had one substitute assignment since October.  I've been applying for other jobs but not getting them.  So, I've gone back to school. I think I mentioned taking a waste water management class from Evergreen Valley College this time last year.  This year I decided to jump in with both feet and enroll at Gavilan College full-time.  Their waste water program is much better than Evergreen's and it is, because of Covid, all on online.  

The green houses Kathleen put on the front porch are doing amazing.  We will have to start transplanting soon.

Duck Hunting and Tragedy in the Garden

One of the things I have enjoyed about COVID is all the time I get to spend with my kids.  Just this morning the three of us went duck hunting on San Francisco Bay.  Much fun.  Also very important since Anselm is leaving for the Navy in 4 months.   Last night after dinner (They spent the night since we had to leave the house before dawn this morning.) we talked about stewardship and the importance of planning giving and not just handing out money to everyone who asks for it.  (Because they are inexperienced and have very few financial needs, young sailors and soldiers are often targeted by various charities.) So I told him about the OCMC and FOCUS:NA, and encouraged him to talk with our priest about other giving opportunities before he leaves to go to be a submariner.  I also made sure the boys saw me write 3 checks to our parish for various things.  I explained to them what the checks were for, and told them about Malachi 3:8-10.  And I talked with them about God's mercy because when we give money to the poor r to the Church, or do charities we will often do it then think of ourselves as good men for doing it, or how we've done it hoping someone will see us do it and thing highly of us  - that even the good things we do are polluted by sin.  Thus we ask God to show us His mercy.  As for ducks there were none, and the geese were flying too high to shoot.  But it was a good time boating around on the bay.

A few days ago Kathleen and I started a bunch more seeds in little pots.  Most of them have sprouted.  Altogether we have almost two hundred little seedlings of various kinds.  But now we have a problem:  I wrote the names of each kind and variety we planted on the outside of each of the little bio-degradable pots. Why is that a problem?  Because when watered the pots begin to decompose and I can no longer read what I wrote on more than 70% of the pots.  I planted six varieties of squash in about 25 pots but have no idea exactly which variety is in which pot.  I have the same situation with cukes, melons, zukes, peas, and tomatoes.  The only things I know for sure are black beauty eggplants and burley tobacco because those are the only varieties we planted of eggplant and tobacco. We'll just have to wait a few months to see what grows on all the other plants.

Christmas and After

On Christmas morning we went to church.  Because of Covid the service was held outside.  And because of a forecast of rain only a dozen people were there.  But that worked out perfectly because I only had a dozen fruit cakes to giveaway.  The boys had gone to Confession a few days before so they were able to go to Communion.

After church we went home an I cooked the Christmas sausage while every one opened presents.  That evening we had a crown pork roast for dinner.

On the third day of Christmas I baked three French hens.  It's noting too fancy, just chickens covered in butter and herbs du Provence. 

Kathleen and I wend duck hunting at Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge.  (I know it sounds weird to hunt at a wildlife refuge but the refuge was created to protect only two species, neither of which is a duck.)  We were only out for an hour because I didn't feel well (I hurt my neck and, as a result, had horrible pain in my shoulder and arm.  Had to get and MRI and then drugs.  The drugs made me sick and I spent 5 days mostly in bed. Only yesterday afternoon did I start to feel better.) but we still managed to shoot one pintail.  We could have had two but I missed a shot.

Kathleen got us a green house to start seeds in.  Remember a few weeks ago when we started seeds indoors?  Well of those 32 little seed starting cells eleven germinated.  We transplanted those eleven in to cow pots and moved them into the little green house.  We also sewed a bunch of seeds in cow pots and put them in the little green house. 

Tomatoes:  Paul Robeson, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Wood's Famous Brimmer, and Bush Goliath

Cucumber: Solly Beiler and Yamato Sanjaku

Squash: Hybrid Gold Rush

In the ground where we grew radishes in the fall we planted a row of purple kohlrabi, and along the fence where we have poppies and lots of bulbs, we transplanted milkweed (a gift from a friend), and sewed seeds for bee balm and butterfly weed.

The kale we planted a couple of months ago is doing amazing.  I just used a basket full of it, together with the last of the Christmas sausage, to make a very yummy soup.

Christmas is coming

 I have no big story to report but here are a few of the things that have been going on since my last post.  

Kathleen and I have been fishing and hunting a few times.  We really like the Delta but we are not good at fishing and the weather has been against us regarding water fowl.  On our last trip we caught one little striper, maybe 10 inches long, and set it free.  Then when we got back to the dock a sea lion swam up to us with a BIG striper, about 22 or 26 inches long, in its mouth.  It threw its head back and swallowed it.  Then it dove two more times and swallowed even bigger fish when it came up from each dive.  I really think it was taunting us.  It caught those three fish before we even got the boat out of the water.

As for waterfowl hunting, well, except for one canvasback that was on the water (legal but not sporting to shoot) all the birds have been flying too high to shoot.  We need blustery, overcast, and rainy weather for good duck and goose hunting.

We've launched onto the main channel at the City of Antioch's Marina but because of wind, boat traffic, and currents we prefer the Holland Riverside Marina.

Oh, Kathleen bought me an early Christmas present: A membership in the CWA and entrance into the hunt lotteries!

The Christmas tree up.  The wreath is above the door.  Kathleen, the boys and I have been reading one chapter of Luke's Gospel each day since the start of the month.  We've been doing the advent wreath services I compiled a few years ago.  All the present have been wrapped.  I have two turkeys (One for Christmas Dinner, one for 12th Night), three hens (for Poules du Provence on the 3rd Day of Christmas),  8 pounds of homemade Italian sausage and 7 pounds of homemade Greek sausage (for Christmas breakfast), a double crown roast of pork (also for Christmas dinner), and a big beautiful ham (For St. Basil's Day) in the freezer.  I still have to mail out Christmas cards and fruitcakes.  I found an address for my son Devon.   I haven't seen him or talked to him in 10 years.  I'll mail him one and see what happens.

I'm surprised I never mentioned it on this blog but a couple of years before the divorce I began buying Lemax Christmas village pieces for Anselm and Basil.  After the divorce I was too poor.  I started up again this year.  It has been fun giving them another one every few days during Advent.  I don't buy them new but I look for deals on eBay.  It's a lot of fun.

Something I did not do this Advent is read the Advent Storybook to my boys.  I'm a little bit sad about it but they are too old now, I think.  They are reading Luke now.  Oh well, if I ever have grand children I'll get to read it aloud again.

Did I tell you that my old boss at the Census Bureau asked me to apply for other position with the Bureau?  She emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me to submit my application before the opening was announced.  I have an interview scheduled tomorrow afternoon.  If they hire me it will be at 4 grades higher than I was at when I worked for them back in August, September and October.

 

Seed Companies I Like

I used to only buy plants and seeds from Home Depot or a local garden store in Cupertino named Yamigami's.  But Kathleen and I started watching videos put out by Roots and Refuge Farm about a year and a half ago.  And from those videos and some of the other fans of those videos I became a customer of several seed companies.  In no particular order, here are my favorites.

1. Wild Boar Farms in northern California breeds crazy beautiful tomatoes.  

2. If you like cool looking stickers to put on your lap top or bumper in addition to rare vegetable seeds to plant in your garden look no further than Victory Seeds.  They are also the only supplier of tobacco seeds I know about.  I bought some but I haven't planted them yet.  This is one of my favorite companies to do business with.  Very fast delivery.

3. A problem I have in my garden is a lack of pollinators.  I think it is because the landscapers in my neighborhood use a lot of pesticides, but I am not sure.  Helping me solve that problem by offering seeds for dozens of pollinator attracting plants is Park Seed.  They also sell tall seed starting trays.  If you've ever tried to start seeds in a typically sized tray you hae run into the problem of your seedlings getting too tall before you are ready to plant them in the ground.  There "bio-dome" product helps with that.

4. Maybe you've heard of the Open Seed movement.  It is a reaction against Big Ag's efforts to patent seeds and use the law to control access to food.  Fedco Seeds is on the forefront of the movement.  Support them!

5.   The Name says it all:  Totally Tomatoes.

6.  I like Pinetree Garden Seeds, a family owned business out of Maine, and I wish I'd read their article about gardening without breaking the bank before I started gardening.  Also, they sell seeds for a black brandywine tomato that is absolutely gorgeous.

7.  I haven't actually bought anything from MI Gardener but I watch their videos on youtube.  They have helped me so much with my garden I feel like helping them out by putting a link to their seed business on this list.  They taught me how to grow beets, how to prune bell peppers, and lots of other stuff.  I am sure their seeds are high quality, too.

8.  This is a seed company all preppers should love; also anyone who pays attention to the past because they know the future needs the past.  Seed Savers is a seed bank, a business, and a political movement.

9. High Mowing is, really, an organic and non-GMO seed wholesaler but they sell to the public, too.    

10.  Gosh, the seeds from Hudson Valley are good, but the packaging is art.  You're going to love opening your mail and finding these beautiful seed packets inside.  You'll want to frame them and hang them on your walls.

11 & 12 .  It's kind of funny that Fruition and Baker are the last companies on my list because they are the companies I get most of my seeds from.  I love doing business with them.  They always helpful on the phone, quick to deliver, and the seeds I buy from them have high germination rates.  I think these two companies are responsible for 1/2 the food grown in our garden.

Election Worries

I woke up this morning and checked the news. All kinds of people in the media and politics and punditry are panicking about the President not admitting he has been defeated. I think there is nothing to worry about, and I encourage all those who might be worried to consult Article 2 and Amendments 12 & 20 of the US Constitution, and 3 U.S. Code ss 1 -18) You will see that in the selection of the President there is no regard for the votes of the people . Though I think he lost the vote earlier this month and is behaving foolishly, I do think his words since Election night provide a reminder to the American people that we do not elect the President ; the Electors meeting in their Sate capitols elect the President. And Electors are chosen by the State legislatures according to the procedures established by each of the legislatures. (The legislatures of Connecticut, Georgia, Delaware, and South Carolina have all in past years forgone a vote of the people and chosen the Electors themselves.) Now, if President Trump keeps saying he won after the Electors cast their ballots on December 14 we might have a problem. Until then there is nothing to worry about. Its all just a bunch of noise from people who want to sell your eyeballs to advertisers.

Starting Seeds Indoors

The New Ferns

The New Flowers 

Today, Kathleen got tired of seeing all the bare dirt in the garden   so she went to the garden center and bought a bunch of flowers.   Now, where once had been tomatoes, and basil, and
radishes, and   beets there are splashes of color.  And in one place that is shady,   except for three hours a day, she planted ferns.

 I am trying something new.  Usually, I plant seeds directly in the   ground or transplant seedlings purchased from a nursery.  But   today I planted seed indoors.  12 little pots are planted with Beni   Kodima watermelon seeds, 12 little pots are planted with Sierra   Gold cantaloupe seeds, and 12 little pots planted with Solly   Beiler cucumbers. My goal is to have all of these plants in the ground in early February and begin harvesting in late March.  If even 1/2 of the seeds germinate, grow, and produce fruit I will be very happy.  

The melons I am growing for the neighborhood kids but the cucumbers are for me.  Kathleen bought me a T-Fal canner some time ago but I rarely have enough cucumbers at one time to haul it down from it's shelf and put it to work.  It is my hope to have bushels of cucumbers to pickle next summer.  

Anselm has been talking to a Navy Recruiter.  Because of Covid-19 shut downs has not had any luck getting in to the sheet metal or pipe-fitter apprenticeship programs.  His plan had been to become a reservist and train to be a SeaBee.  But since talking to the recruiter the plan might be changing.  They are dangling dive school (for underwater welding) if he goes active instead of reserve.  And yesterday he took the ASVAB and scored very high, so now the recruiter wants him to train to be a nuclear reactor operator.  It is an important job but it doesn't translate in to the civilian career he says he wants.  Well, he's an adult now so he can do what he wants.

St. Matthew's Day

Last night was much fun.  The boys were here.  Kathleen's kids were here.  We did the Christmas wreath service, ate the cioppino (I used rosemary and thyme from thegarden, and bay leaves from a , and then I gave everyone little presents to kick off the fast.  Yes, I gave each person a can of smoked oysters.

Today, my name day, I worked out in the garden.  I transplanted all the basil plants from around the garden to one of the planter boxes that is kind of shady.  We've tried growing onions, carrots, parsnips, poppies, tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers in that box but it just doesn't get enough light.  The only thing that ever does well there are pumpkin vines, and that is because the vines grow into the sunlight. I have read that basil does well in shade.  I am hopeful.

I shot another squirrel in the garden.  I've lost track of how many I've killed since I started shooting them in the spring.  They started eating the garlic bulbs a couple of days ago.  I have never heard of squirrels eating garlic, especially when there are lettuce and cabbage plants nearby.  Very strange.

Today's harvest was small but, hey, it's November so I'm not complaining.

First day of the Nativity Fast

Basil, Kathleen's youngest son, and I went to church this morning but the church was full (Wuhan restrictions) so we didn't stay.  We stopped at Noah's Bagel's o te way home.   had my first bagel in a couple of years.  WOW!  It was good.  It was poppy seed with peanut butter.  Then I went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for Grandfather's Cioppino.  They are all sitting on the table waiting for me to get started but I took a few minutes to go out to the garden to cut some rosemary and redwood to make an Advent wreath.  Starting tonight we'll light one candle and do the readings each Sunday and Christmas Eve, then it will be Christmas.

Hunting, Fishing, the Garden, and Getting Ready for Advent

Kathleen, Basil, and I went camping last Saturday morning.  We fished (caught nothing) and hunted (shot nothing) at San Luis Reservoir.  It was the first cold night of the winter, getting down to 33F.  While we were there we went by the San Juaqin National Cemetery and the Korean War Memorial.  I wanted to do that because Basil ha heard people say the U.S. is a colonial power that only takes from the world.  I wanted him about my Uncle Fred who fought in Korea, and to see the graves of some of the 33,686 American's who died to save a tiny insignificant county from the gaping maw of Communism. On the way home Sunday afternoon we stopped as Casa de Fruta and had deli sandwiches for supper. 

Yesterday Kathleen and I team taught her American History class.  We were dealing with the Modernist/Fundamentalist conflict in American Protestantism.  In one hour we dealt with Hegel, Marx, Wellhausen, Allbright, Fosdick, Bryan, Darwin, Franklin, Washington, Coolidge, the Mayflower Compact, James Brookes and the Niagara Bible Conference, the split between Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, the Lyman Brothers, the 5-Fundamentals, and much more besides.  It was a lot of fun.  I hope she lets me team teach with her again.  She said her students really enjoyed it.  They were texting questions to her late into the night.

Last night Kathleen and I drove over to the San Antonio Valley.  We were looking for a wildlife preserve where I could shoot turkey and pigs we never fond it.  It appears that the maps were inaccurate.  What we did see were lots of small cattle ranches, a nut orchard, 2 white tale deer (I don't have a deer tag), and 3 amazingly beautiful tule elk bulls. (I don't have an elk tag).

Today at dawn, after finishing morning prayers I went out to the garden.  I saw no squirrels to shoot.  That's a good thing.  Maybe, I've reduced the population enough that they won't be a horrible pest in the spring and summer. There were no raccoons in the live trap.  (There was a juvenile opossum in the trap yesterday.  I set it free.  They don't hurt the garden.)  While I was out there I counted twenty-one ducks (they were flying too high for me to make out what kind of duck.  My guess is mallard, since we have more of that than anything else.), a ruby throated hummingbird, a seagull (Not sure what kind.  It was flying too high.), a pigeon, two crows, a red tailed hawk, five Canada geese, three goldfinches, a red breasted nuthatch, two mourning doves, and some kind of flycatcher.

Right now we have growing cucumbers, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, onions, garlic, broccoli, kale, radishes, sugar snap peas, acorn squash, bell peppers (IT TAKES THEM FOREVER TO MAtURE!!!!), lots and lots of beets, eggplant, spinach, broccoli, green cabbage, five kinds of basil, thyme, parsley, rosemary, oregano, Brussels sprouts, and, of course, the two lemon trees and three grape vines.  (We are thinking of planting two apple trees.)

Well, it' almost 10 o'clock in the morning.  I should, I guess, eat breakfast.  After that. I'll sart getting ready for the start of Advent on Sunday.

Work last night

Last night at work I did something pretty neat. You might have heard that there is a national ammunition shortage. (It happens before every election but this year is worse because of covid.) What you might not know is that the shortage isn't just modern cartridges but extends to reloading supplies (e.g. primers, gunpowder, and empty casings) and black powder/muzzle loader supplies. Well, last night a couple came in looking for .50 & .36 cal bullets (not cartridges. just the lead.) and black powder. And we didn't have any. So I showed them how to make black powder and where to go to get the ingredients, and, using a pocket knife and pliers, disassemble .50 BMG rifle cartridges and 000 shotgun shells (000=.36 caliber) so they can use the lead therefrom in their guns. The end result: They bought all the .50 BMG and all the 000 buckshot we had on the shelves, and the customer has a new hobby.

I think I should get paid extra for that.