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 They've been replaced by vinyards.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.