Sunday, December 5, 2021

Foggy Morning At Eaton Canyon

Seems we rarely get much fog around here. I enjoy it when we do.  So, when I saw it was foggy early yesterday morning, I took the dog and headed over to Eaton Canyon for little hike.  When we started out it was see-your-breath cold and fog draped the mountainsides.  


 After a while, the fog started to clear.  If you just stay on the trail and keep your eyes open, you will find spots in Eaton Canyon that are simply beautiful.

Friday, October 22, 2021

Taylor hits 3 HRS; Dodgers-Braves Go Back to Atl for Game 6

 

Last night's game (Thursday's) was spectacular.  Dodgers get 17 hits and win 11-2.  Chris Taylor three HRs.  AJ Pollock hit two.  Bellinger showed signs of returning to his old self.  Trae Turner got some hits. And the bullpen shut down the Braves except for a rocky first.

The photo above is from Wednesday night's game which the Braves won.  That game was dismal.  But, from our seats in the reserved section looking north, we had a great view of the San Gabriel Mountains. As a bonus, the 5:00 game time yielded a nice sunset sky. 

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Bird Flies Over the Rainbow in East Pasadena


This phenomenon was captured last month.  

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Bobcats at Eaton Canyon

While hiking in Eaton Canyon early this morning, I crossed paths with two bobcats.  Initially, I saw one cat peak its head out of the bushes, then walk across the trail.  That all happened too fast for me to get a picture. Then, I was surprised when a second bobcat appeared in the bush.  That cat looked our way and was still for a minute or two.  Then, like the earlier cat, the cat pictured above calmly walked across the trail.  


 As I have posted here, we have seen bobcats before strolling through our yard and jumping over the fence into the neighbor's yard.  These sightings have been at dusk and each time we have seen one lone bobcat.  The sighting today was early in the morning on the main Eaton Canyon trail.  According to Wikipedia,  bobcats are  mostly nocturnal and typically solitary.  So, I got lucky with the early morning sighting.  But, it seems unusual that I saw two bobcats travelling together. 

Though I have seen several bobcats by now, I have yet to get a decent picture.  When we have seen the cats at our home, it has been dusk.  Combine the lack of light with the bobcat's propensity to skirt the edges of fences and trees and you have a tough photo.   

Today, I was walking with our 6 month old puppy who,, even without wild cats on the trail ahead, was a frenzied nut wanting to smell every tree and rock in the canyon.  So, I had to use one hand to hold the dog leash which was whipping back and forth.  That left me only with one hand to hold my camera phone and take the photo.  Definitely not optimal camera conditions.  Still, the cats are beautiful to see and, even in subpar pictures, the distinctive bobcat markings are easy to see.    

Monday, October 4, 2021

My Favorite Photographer Graduates From PHS - June, 2021

When she was five years old 

my daughter played in our garden

and took pictures.  


She took pictures of her shadow.


She took pictures of an apple tree's first flowers. 


And she took pictures of her cat.   

I posted the pictures on this fledgling blog under the heading Garden Shots on a Sunny Day.  I gave photo credit to "my favorite photographer."    

That was April, 2008.  

Thirteen years have passed.  Matty, the cat, has died.  

The apple tree has grown.     
 
And, my favorite photographer ......... 

Somehow 13 years of a young girl's life got crammed into a mere blink of her father's eye.  The five year old became 18.  The kindergartner; a graduate. 

So, I took a stroll through this blog's early days when sometimes my favorite photographer appeared in these pages.  Here are a few stops I made on my trip down memory lane: 


In November, 2008,  excitement rang through the family as our chickens at long last had produced an actual egg.  I posted Egg! with this picture of her little hands carefully cradling that very first egg.  


My favorite photographer helped me "discover" Earthside Nature Center, which was the subject of several blog posts.  At Earthside we picked wild grapes, crushed them and made juice, uh wine.  The juice was good, but it turned out I was not a great wine maker.
                                       

My favorite photographer and I like the parades.  They were kind of our thing.  On July 4th she put out the flag and, while her mom and brother stayed home, she and I went to the Sierra Madre Parade.  Come to think of it, she and I went to pretty much all the parades.  When she was very young, I put her on my shoulders so she could see.   I don't do that any more.         


As parents we raise up our children. Then we let them go -- not completely of course, but incremental moment by incremental moment.  In the photo above, my wife caught  such a moment at dusk as I watched my favorite photographer scooter down the street, backpack in hand, to her first sleep over.


Fast forward to June 4, 2021.

It is a warm morning in Pasadena and my favorite photographer is on the field at the Rose Bowl. She is there as part of the 2021 graduating class of Pasadena High School.  She is 18; now a high school graduate.  

Graduations are interminable and my mind wanders.  I think back to a morning thirteen years ago when she and I entered this stadium and we stood together on the field.  Back then, she was a beginning soccer player and I was her coach.   Back then, we stood with the a team of green uniformed young girls who named themselves the Lightening Lizards. 

This day, graduation day, June 4, 2021, and my favorite photographer sits on the field with hundreds of  other red gowned graduates.  It is not the start of soccer season.  It is the start of something infinitely more important -- the next phase of their lives.   
 


Saturday, August 7, 2021

Cat and Deer


Cats have a way.  

I was out walking the dog and caught this scene taking place on the neighbor's front yard.  There were about five deer standing on a small patch of grass when the cat decided to slink on through. Reportedly the cat believed she was invisible at the time.   

Monday, June 28, 2021

Juliet Tomatoes and Garden Update


 Juliet tomatoes, thyme and garlic ready to be roasted with a little olive oil and blended with a basil for a wonderful tomato paste.  All fresh.  All from our garden. The only exception is the garlic, which we are growing but is not quit ready for prime time. 

We are on our third straight season with this same juliet tomato plant.  It just keeps going.  The fruit is a little bigger than a normal cherry tomato.  But the plant is just as prolific as a cherry tomato.  

There is just nothing like the taste of fresh fruits and vegetables and it is fun to mark the seasons with what we get to grow, harvest and eat around here.  

As I posted earlier, the citrus lasted well into the new year.  Now, the lemon, grapefruit and orange trees are though with flowering and have little green fruits.  The Fuerte avocado had a good year, but was done about a month ago.  Our stone fruit produced like crazy last year, but is less this year. The nectarine is done as is the early Eva's Pride peach -- we savored the last with dinner last and I saved a perfectly ripe one for this morning. We have a later bearing peach (Brittain's Peach) that is loaded and a few weeks away from picking as are the figs.  I am starting to pick the Reed avocado, which produces large night softball size fruit and everyone seems to enjoy. But, they are so big, we have to space out picking them.  We have some summer vegetables coming, but are having to fight the deer which, for some reason, have decided to frequent our neighborhood this year.       

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Grapefruit

Last weekend we picked a lot of grapefruit. I will leave it to you to figure out which of the grapefruit in the picture is Ruby Red and which is Oroblanco.  Both are a great mix of sweet and a bit tart.  Grapefruits are said to have originated in Jamaica around the 1700's as a natural hybrid of orange and pomelo trees that had been brought to the island.  Fresh grapefruit juice is a joy to have.


But, why do they call it grapefruit?  It doesn't taste anything like a grape and is ten times bigger.  The name "grapefruit" refers to the clusters of fruit on the tree that are said to resemble a cluster of green grapes.   That is a cluster of young ruby red on our tree right now.  An early name for the fruit was "forbidden fruit."  I wouldn't say either name makes a lot of sense or helps in the marketing.  

Monday, April 26, 2021

Rain? No. Weeds? Yes. --- Stinging Nettle in the Yard and on the Table.


Most of our rain falls from November through March. We might get rain in other months, but generally you can count on rain during these months.  What you can't count on is how much rain we'll get.   From 1906 to 2020, rainfall in Pasadena averaged 19.7 inches per year.  Looking just at the last 30 years, the highest yearly rainfall was 55 inches in 2004-05 and the lowest was 4.17 inches in 2006-07.  This year (20-21), we are trending to the low end with only 5.66 inches of rain received by end of March.  

Rain or not, about February/March weed season starts.  You don't have to water them or care for them at all.  The weeds just appear.  One of the weeds we get in our yard is stinging nettle.  That's a healthy little patch of nettle pictured above.  The nettle is easy to spot with its bright green color and jagged leaves.

And, as weeding goes, a nettle is fairly easy to pick out of the ground.  Root and all, the nettle plant comes right up.  But, there is one thing about stinging nettle -- and that's the stingers.  The leaves have some barbs, but its the barbs on the stalk that can really get you.  So, gloves are good when picking or handling nettle.   

The fun thing about stinging nettle is that it automatically arrives in our yard every year and is a legitimate food source. With a little seasoning, nettle tastes good and it is also good for you.  Think of nettle leaves as kind of like spinach in that it is a dark leafy green packed with nutrients.  When cooked, the nettle sting goes away and you can handle the plant without fear of stingers.  There are lots of nettle recipes but we generally just pick off the leaves and use the fresh nettle leaf like we would spinach.  
 

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

January sky


 Since it never (or rarely) rains in California, we mostly have to trudge along with blue skies.  Sometimes, though, we get treated to a beautiful sunset.    

Sunday, February 14, 2021

The Last Mandarin Orange

Today I picked the season's last piece of fruit from our Satsuma Mandarin Orange tree.  The tree starts bearing in late November and has given us a steady supply of sweet and juicy mandarins all the way through to today.  The great thing about these is that they are easy to peel.  The even greater thing is that they are home grown, we can walk out and pick one anytime from about November - February and they taste far better than anything you can buy at the store.   

The Satsuma Mandarin has been called the "perfect" fruit tree.  For citrus, the trees are hearty and are said to tolerate below freezing temperatures.  They are self pollinating.  And, best of all, the fruit is delicious, super easy to peel and has no seeds.  In our garden, they are also the first of the citrus to bear, which means come Fall the Satsuma Mandarin gives us the welcome first taste of sweet and juicy citrus for the season. The only downside is that the tree tends to be alternate bearing with a heavy crop one year and light one the next.  We had a heavy crop this year, so I'm thinking next year is going to be light.   

Below you can see the loose orange peel that just breaks away clean from the fruit.  


 

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Garden Update

Our cara cara tree was prolific this year -- about 80 oranges.  We picked a lot of the bounty today, but have been eating them for some time. These oranges are, I think, better than the regular Washington navels.  They are just as sweet but with a light tanginess.  Less than a tangarine, but more than regular navel.    Plus the color of the flesh is this deep orangy/red.  

The cara cara has an interesting history.   They are thought to be a cross between a Washington navel and a Bahia navel orange that grows in Brazil.  The orange was discovered in 1976 naturally growing at Hacienda Cara Cara in Venezuela.  So, the cara cara was an unplanned naturally growing hybrid.  It has been grown in the US since the 1980's but is still a speciality item in stores and restaurants.


Here is the Kona Sharwill avocado I picked a couple weeks back.  It seemed ripe enough, so we cut into it today and had it for lunch. This was my first avocado from our 3-4 year old tree.  The seed is a little smaller than other varieties and I thought the taste was excellent, just a bit different from our Fuerte avocados.  Also, this was much easier to peel since the peel on the Sharwill is thicker than the Fuertes.  We have been eating the Fuertes since late December and it is fun to have a slightly different avocado to try. There are a few more fruit on the Sharwill and I am going to leave them for couple more weeks before picking to see if the taste changes at all.   


I am watching the stone fruit trees for flowers and our Eva's Pride Peach is first up.  This tree really produced last year and we had jam, ice cream and froze some peaches.  Hopefully around late June we will have some peaches off this tree.  

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Hawaiian Avocado


Pictured above are five smooth skinned Fuerte avocados and one smaller deep green Sharwil avocado -- all from our yard.  Our Fuerte tree is mature and we've been eating Fuertes now for more than a month.  Our Kona Sharwil tree, though, was only planted a few years old and the fruit above is the first I've picked from the tree. That makes today a big day.

I am calling the Sharwil my Hawaiian avocado because the Sharwil avocado is what is primarily grown in Hawaii as a commercial avocado crop.  It is reported to be high in oil content and is "considered by some to be the worlds best" avocado.  One site says that USDA restrictions prevent shipping the avocado to the mainland for sale.   But, a Big Island grower says restrictions lifted in 2018 and they do ship Sharwils to mainland US.  Either way, I'm growing one here.

The Kona part of the name I get.  But "Sharwil?"  Apparently the avocado variety was first developed in Australia by Mssrs. Sharp and Williams -- hence the avocado name of "Sharwil."  Kind of disappointing to me.  I was hoping maybe it was a reference to Hawaiian royalty.

I haven't actually tasted a Sharwil yet.  The fruit pictured above is the first I've picked from our tree. Can't wait for it to ripen. 

Our Kona Sharwil tree has had some challenges.  Our Reed and Fuerte trees have done OK with days where we have unusually hot (116 a couple years ago) or cold (in the 30's for us).  However, the Sharwil is bit more delicate than those trees and two years ago it got badly burned.   It seems healthy now and I hope we get a bit more growth this year.  I planted the Sharwil and Reed at the same time and the Sharwil is now maybe a third the size of the Reed.  



  

Monday, January 25, 2021

New Years Eve - 2021


Like everything else, New Years was different this year.  On a typical New Years Eve, the day includes a visit to the Rose Bowl, to watch float decorating and enjoy all the preparations for the game and parade.  This year there was no parade and no game. New Years Eve could have been any other day of the year.  I saw a few tourists that were noticeable for their out of state school gear.  Otherwise, all I saw were the  normal joggers, walkers, bikers, and skateboarders. It was a beautiful sunny day.

So, instead of negotiating the crowds to watch floats getting their final touches, I walked around the stadium with just a few others around.  Turns out the Rose Bowl is a great place for pubic art.  Now good public art is fantastic.  But, in my opinion, too often public art just is not very good.  The Keith Jackson statue at the Bowl entrance is very good especially for those of us who remember Jackson's announcing career and even, like me, hear his voice in our head.  But, the Jackie Robinson statue is extraordinary.  It is the unusual statue and display that is itself worth the trip to see.  The statue depicts Robinson in the uniform and gear he would have worn when he played football for PCC in1937-38.  Of course, he was a four sport star at both PCC and UCLA.