Flowers and a Trip to Donner Lake

I took the fish off the hook for Kathleen.

  Tuesday, two days ago now, early in the morning and with the boat strapped to the roof of the Subaru, Kathleen and I set off on a trip to Donner Lake.  We took the dog with us, and though he was mostly calm in the boat I think he prefers the land.  Kathleen caught a trout.

A really nice thing happened: We found a berth on the lake and it only cost $250 from now through mid-September.  Very happy about that.  Kathleen and her kids are spending a month there this summer and I was worried about her lifting the boat on to the roof of the car every day to go from her rental house to the lake but now that is not a problem.  I'm very happy about that. So, we left the boat on the lake and drove home at the end of the day.  Little did we know that CalTrans was repaving I-80 from Truckee to Auburn.  So we had to take a 30 mile detour through Tahoe National Forest at 25mph.  As we approached the Bay Area I thought we could take a short cut through the Caldecott Tunnel (my first time since the 4th bore oppened in 2013) but soon discovered that I-880 through Oakland was reduced from 7 southbound lanes to 1 southbound lane, and I-280 and U.S. 101 were both backed up due to road work. We did not get home until one o'clock on Wednesday morning.  But, still, it was a fun day.

Flowers on the Sweet Millions vine

Today we didn't do much.  Worked in the garden, watched some lectures from Hillsdale College, prayed the troparion and kontokian for Ascension and that's about all.  It was too hot to cook so we just had sliced vegetables (including tomatoes, radishes, and cucumbers from our garden) and cheese (Point Reyes Blue and Laura Chenel fresh goat cheese) for supper.

I talk about the tomatoes and other food crops in the garden but I think I like the flowers as much as the vegetables.  Here are pictures of some of the flowers in our garden.

Streaming Vespers and New Seedlings

St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Saratoga is live streaming a;; the services, even tea time with the priest is streaming.  I watched vespers twice last night but did not watch the DL this morning.  It's kind of fun.  I send the checks and they keep streaming.  It's like Netflix but better.

We lost one of the Cherokee purple plants today  I think we over pruned it.  But that's okay because yesterday we visited something called The Finca in downtown San Jose.  It is a non-profit that runs a program called ValleyVerde.  They gave me some seedlings and then I bought a whole bunch more.  They let Kathleen and I just walk through their greenhouses picking out whatever we wanted.  We came home with seedlings for Clemson okra, zucchini (unknown variety), thai chilis, and the following varieties of tomatoes:  San Marzano, Amish Paste, Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarf, and Indigo Cherry Drop, We also brought home cinnamon basil, Greek yevani basil, holy tulsi basil.

The poppies have germinated and the plants are thick but no flowers yet.  All the bulbs have put up beautiful plants but, so far, only the echinacea is blooming.  All the different kinds of sunflowers are putting up big stalks but there are no blossoms.  The zinnias and the marigolds still haven't germinated.  I am beginning to think, because it is almost June, that they are not going to.

I shot another squirrel in the garden yesterday.  The nematodes seem to have done their job on the grubs.  I over fertilized the radishes with nitrogen so the leafs are huge and green but the roots are tiny.  Of the hundreds radishes I planned to harvest this week only about 20 were worth keeping.  They tasted good though.  The female pumpkin flowers came out this morning, about a week after the appearance of the males, so I went out and fertilized them by hand.  I tried to be delicate.  I hope I didn't damage anything.

We Bought a Boat

Kathleen and I bought a 15 foot boat three days ago.  It was a bit of an adventure.  We drove to the Bass Pro Shop in Manteca to buy it but when we got there it had already been sold.  It was the last one they had in stock.  From there we drove to Sacramento to buy one Kathleen found on Craigslist.  When we go there we saw that it was not water worthy.  So we decided to head home without a boat.  As we were passing by Davis, Kathleen, using Craigslist again, found one in Stockton.  We pulled off the freeway in Davis so the dog could take a little walk. (It was my first time in Davis since 2011.  It was full of memories for me.)  After the dog did what it needed to do we drove to Stockton (Like all the towns in California's central valley it has a beautiful downtown area that is neglected as the suburban tract house developments expand n to the surrounding farmland.  It is very sad.) and bought the boat.  Then we had to strap it to the top of the Subaru.  Driving it over the Altamont Pass was a little scary; boats on car roofs are kind of like big sails. We got home just before midnight.

Yesterday I went and bought a 55 lb thrust Minn Kota trolling motor, battery charger, and marine battery.  Also, yesterday (but she is still working on it today) Kathleen has been trying to get it registered and pay all the taxes.  It is a headache because officially, the boat never entered California.  She has found records of it leaving  Canada but not entering California.  And the state offices are closed because of the Wuhan Bat Virus.

In other news...

Today was a day of repairs in the garden.  I had to rip out a row of radishes an throw them in the compost pile.  They should have been ready to pick last week but too much N in the soil caused big beautiful plants above the ground but at the expense of developing big yummy roots.  Thankfully it isn't even June yet so I can still plant something else.  Kathleen took out some volunteer potatoes that came up among the tomatoes.  We compost potato scraps from the kitchen so, it seems, the compost isn't getting hot enough.  Now I'm a little bit worried about other seeds that might be surviving the composting process.  I'll have to figure out what to do about that. The harvest today was a handful of small radishes, 3 zucchini, and a yellow straight-necked squash. And the boys came over last night and we played Risk!

Seed Companies I like

Yesterday was Mid-Pentecost, the halfway point between Pascha and Pentecost.  I didn't know this until a few days ago (I'm always learning new things about our Faith.), but Mid-Pentecost is the day the Orthodox Church blesses fields and gardens.  So, I sent a message to my priest and asked him for a big jar of holy water (The archbishop won't let him do any services during the Wuhan.) so I could bless the garden myself.  He left the jar and a cross outside the church for me to pick up.  Then Kathleen and I went in to the garden where we said the prayers.  Then she sang the Paschal troparion while I splashed holy water all over the place.

I buy some plants already sprouted at local nurseries but I also do some planting of seeds.  I get really good service from the following companies.

I love Wild Boar Farms for their crazy beautiful tomatoes.  Very fast delivery.

Victory Seeds is my go to for carrots, turnips, herbs, tobacco, and beets.  They also have cool stickers you can buy.

I get flower seeds and paste tomatoes from Fruition Seeds.  They include a handy planting guide with your order for free.

Oh, two days ago I shot the rabbit that was laying waste to our garden. It ruined eight zucchini and all the verbena in one day. 

The rabbit is dead.

The First Radish

Yesterday after the garden blessing we harvested the first radish from the garden.  It's red globe variety, but we have several other varieties growing, too.

Oh, I should also mention two other companies I like very much.  The first is Gardeners Supply Company.  I very much like their stackable tomato towers.  The other company is Arbico Organics.  They are my go to for ladybugs and nematodes. 

Back on Zero Carbs

Pascha was strange this year.  No services.  Still,  I decorated eggs, made a big dinner, and  the boys brought over paskha and  kulich, 

After bright week I went back on my zero carb diet.  I had gained probably 10 or 15 pounds since Christmas.   It's not very easy.   I call it zero carb really that is impossible unless one only eats meat and butter.  Nevertheless, I can get close to it by only eating meat, bell peppers, cucumbers and cabbage.  I can get my carb content down to 1% of total calories.  My goal is to lose 5 pounds per week until I am below 200 pounds. 

The garden is doing pretty well.  Because of not having any work due to the over-reaction to the bat virus I have lots of time to work in the garden.  Because I have so much time it has grown since my last update.  Currently we have:

Food Plants
Cherokee purple tomatoes: 6 vines
Sungold tomatoes: 7 vines (rom seeds)
Celebrity tomatoes: 2 vines
Early girl tomatoes: 1 vine
Beef steak tomatoes: 1 vine
Bonnie Original tomatoes: 4 vines
Black cherry tomatoes: 1 vine
Sweet Millions tomatoes: 1 vine (We've already harvested some of these.)
Pickling cucumbers: 4 vines (from seeds)
Eating cucumbers: 5 vines (from seeds)
Bell peppers: 4 plants
Straight necked squash: 1 vine (from seeds)
Black Beauty zucchini: 3 vines
Golden Zebra zucchini: 3 vines
Spaghetti squash: 1 vine
Cantaloupe: 10 vines (from seeds)
Pumpkin: 2 vines (seeds saved from last years garden)
Green onions: dozens and dozens in a 18" x 10" box.  I harvest them by cutting off the tops and letting them re-grow.
Grapes:  3 vines (Too early for grapes but we ate some of the leaves in a salad a couple of days ago.)
Hundreds of radishes, beets, carrots, and turnips of many varieties planted among the tomatoes and bell peppers.
Dozens of lemon basil plants, sweet basil plants, licorice basil plants, and red basil plants planted around the tomatoes.
Lemons: two trees (One is old enough to produce fruit this year).
Rosemary (planted three years ago.)
Oregano (new this year)
Thyme (Planted two years ago)

Flowers (hundreds and hundreds located all over the garden)
5 varieties of sunflowers
Zinnia
Poppy
Daffodil
Echinacea
Black Eyed Susan
Candytuft
Wallflower
Lupine
Verbena
Bee Balm
Gladiola
Iris
Crocus
Calendula
Smap Dragons
Allium
Assorted California wildflowers

I used to dream about disappearing into the wilderness and starting a farm.  It looks like I've achieved the farm without leaving Silicon Valley. I even have a farmer's tan!

I broke the Bat Disease lockdown rules a couple of times.  Kathleen and I went to Nevada for a night. I bought .380 ACP ammo and pipe tobacco while we were there.  She and Basil and I went fishing at Stevens Creek Reservoir during Bright Week. We didn't catch anything.  Last week we drove up to Donner Lake to fish.  It was beautiful.  Snow on all around us and the lake was like a mirror.  But, again, we caught no fish.