In search of sunflowers

On of the things I find (annoying? challenging? tricky???) is being able to find somewhere to stop and take photos when driving around Northern California. Often, there's nowhere to stop--especially when you see something from the freeway, or you're on a narrow Delta road with deep ditches on either side. Even some of the designated "scenic routes" are no-stopping-zones! It takes some patience, time, maps and/or GPS, and then bravado (walking onto someone's field), and even-then there are people who hoot because they have to drive past a parked truck and nearly hit an oncoming cyclist on a quiet back-road running parallel to the freeway... (maybe he hadn't had his morning coffee yet, it was after all before 9 a.m.) (Moron.)

So when Sacramento Bee published a photo last week, with an indication of where it had been taken (Mace Rd, Davis, south), I just had to go and find them, knowing that if the Bee could get a photo then so could I. And I woke up early-enough on this heatwave Saturday to drive over there before it was too hot, and before the sun bleached all the colours.

Though I think monochrome sunflowers are wonderfully intense.

Driving around the "county roads" (they don't have names, just numbers... "County Road 65",  "County Road 105"), listening to Beware of Darkness and Marillion,  finding out that some roads end in the middle-of-nowhere (unless you're a farmer, and then it's the middle-of-somewhere); saw many hawks on telegraph poles, squirrels who live in burrows and not trees (there were no trees within sight, but lots of squirrels who disappeared down a giant burrow, fluffy tails like flags behind them), acres of sunflowers and pepper-plants, acres of solar panels, a traffic jam of farm labourers behind a pickup truck carrying two porta-potties; Davis joggers and runners and cyclists; and lots and lots of wide, open, space.

And sunflowers. Huge sunflowers, huge fields. The photos make them look tiny as daisies; they were taller than me, by far.

And, wonderful to see: rows and rows of beehives, in the margins of the fields. And active, busy bees, feeding on the drooping heavy flowerheads, and buzzing around the entrances to the hives.

More photos from the sunflower drive: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alisontoon/sets/72157634391058003/

I still have to find the perfect spot to shoot the full moon rising over downtown Sacramento. Well to be precise: the perfect spot to safely shoot the full moon. The perfect spot is in the middle of the Yolo Causeway. Given that it's an interstate freeway, it's a little less than perfect.

A gluten-free-vegetarian's swag bag

Early-morning stop at the Yolo Fruit Stand, just off I-80 between Davis and Sacramento. Picked out a load of gluten-free, vegetarian, natural, local goodies: several types of dried beans, carrot chips, dried cherries, a bulb of fresh fennel, a punnet of fresh strawberries, a bag of sweet small peppers, and two jars of honey. One from bees that had been among the blackberry flowers, and one from those enjoying clover.

Yummy...

Sacramento bloggers!

Had a very nice time yesterday evening, meeting other local (Sacramento) bloggers: this is the group, Sacramento Bloggers (logical really!), in a new downtown hangout, Church Key at Hock Farm. It's a courtyard bar, shaded by the surrounding buildings, just across the street from the state Capitol. (You can find Church Key on Facebook, too.) They are growing hops on the patio, up tall wires, to make a canopy (and I bet by the end of the summer, it will be a heavy, rich-scented canopy).

Made me think of England, and the masses of hops that grew in and over and along the hedgerows at the bottom of High Street in Syston, Leicestershire, when I was a child. And how wonderfully strange they smelled when you rubbed the green flowers between your fingers.

And the bloggers: so many good blogs and so many interesting, and diverse, topics! Check out the list here on the Sacramento Bloggers Blogroll (which is growing all the time).

I really like Cinamon's No Hurry to Get Home (we seem to have similar travel philosophies), Margaret's Nanny Goats in Panties (heck, who can resist a blog with that name), Susi's FiftyTwoChanges (great philosophy--we should all try this!), and Jennifer's The Queen of Dating (heck, people meeting in real life and not on a website? Well that's unique ;-)  Ha.) But these are just a very few of the great blogs in this region--go and see!

Now I need to write more, and more often.

Rainy-day

Third day of rain, here in Northern California. Rain is unusual in June; but the garden is really enjoying it. We'll be back to scorching by the weekend, so this is a good respite for the flowers and the vegetable garden.

Birds are swooping low, catching bugs in mid-flight. I hope they snack on the snails, too.

Dahlias are starting to flower. Just found one, already bowed-down by the weight of its single flower. That one will be in a vase by this evening.

Onions make pretty flowers too... but I don't think it should have flowered before making a nice onion...

Strange summer

Reminds me of the Tourists, "Strange Sky".

Today, it's the end of June, and it's overcast, muggy, damp. In Sacramento. Northern California. Where most often, you don't see a raindrop, or even a cloud, from late April until the very end of October.

There are still oranges clinging to the tree, the white turkey has two sizes of chicks (how did she do that?), and it rained yesterday.

What's going on out there???

Wonderful sight: a swarm of bees

They are resting in a liquidambar tree in the front garden, after swarming around the Japanese-zen-like corner of the back garden. The tree hangs over the fence by the drive way. They may have moved on by tomorrow, but it's a heartening sight to see. We need our bees! Happy there are lots of flowers open for them today; many daylilies, roses, lilies in bloom--and squashes too. Food for hungry bees!

Hollyhocks!

Hollyhocks are such a traditional, English-cottage-garden flower. And they are well worth the two years' patience. They tower to over ten feet tall. I have some in both side gardens, and these wonderful, almost-black ones by the deck near the pool.

Their buds remind me of Iced Gems; tiny unsweet biscuits (cookies), each of which had a different colour swirl of hard sweet icing on the top.

They are very easy to grow. Just throw a packet of seeds out, and wait a couple of years for the show. After that, if you don't disturb them, they'll self-seed and come back year-after-two-years. (Should be flowers every year, it's just each new plant that takes two years to flower.)

A few more here in the garden photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alisontoon/sets/72157630899045556/

Memorial Day weekend. It's more than a holiday.

The first year I lived in the USA, in California, the first Memorial Day holiday, I went to the ceremony at Mount Vernon Memorial Park, a cemetery in Citrus Heights. While in England, fallen and wounded soldiers are remembered and honoured in November, "Poppy Day", with the flowers that represent the fields of Flanders where so many lost their lives, in the USA it is the last Monday of May.

The most moving part of that ceremony was witnessing a group of men, older than myself but not by much, leather-clad bikers, Vietnam veterans, who arrived and left on their Harleys and whose participation in the memorial ceremony moved me to tears. It brought home--if it was needed--that wars are fought by real men, real women, real human beings. Not numbers--though the number of lives lost, and damaged, are horrendous. After all the years that had passed, these tough leathery men were shedding tears for their lost colleagues, friends and comrades.

And while enjoying the festivities at this year's Sacramento Music Festival, again and again I noticed the veterans. Some bikers, some not. One gentleman with not one but three Purple Hearts on his hat, witnessing his bravery and his war wounds.

This gentleman reminded me that the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall was at the Mount Vernon Memorial Park this weekend. I went there on the way home. It had me in tears.

No matter how inane you consider any war; no matter how stupid you find the justification for fighting; no matter how little you agree with the leaders who declare; no matter how fervently you believe and want and strive for that elusive existance, "peace"; how can you fail to be moved by the sight of nearly sixty thousand names, each one an American soldier lost to the conflict in Vietnam.

Each name, one person. Somebody's son (or daughter). Somebody's husband, friend, lover, brother, soul-mate, father. Gone. All gone. But not forgotten.

"He joined up when he was fourteen, lied about his age.  He was fifteen when he died."

Snippets of conversation, as people sought the names of loved ones, of family members. Rubbed pencil over paper to make and save an image of the name; one of 58,227, embossed in a 3/4 size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall that stands in Washington, DC.

(And yes, of course, there was loss on the "other side" too. And they all had families and loved ones and lives that were forever changed. War leaves no-one undamaged. This is not a statement about right, or might, and wrong. Remember too... for the most part, Vietnam was not a volunteer war. Young men were conscripted. There was no choice.)

And so this Memorial Day weekend, I think of all the men and women who have given their time, their youth, their courage, their health and often their lives, by serving the people of their country through military service. They all fought for what we believe in: freedom.

Thank you, Veterans.

A few more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alisontoon/sets/72157633728604373/ 

It takes two years...

... to knock a garden into shape. By that I mean two years of hard work, and you have a garden (English garden, which equals everything on the property outside the house, rather than the American "garden-being-a-vegetable-patch-only.) I don't mean that the hard work is over, and it's all finished; the work has only just begun. Rather, the framework is there, it's more-or-less under control; you know the problem areas, you've seen two full-year cycles of seasons and weathers and rain/heat/drought, you've planted some perennials and they are growing into their space, some annuals have self-seeded, the first lilies have already multiplied, and people other than yourself-the-gardener can actually visualise what it might eventually look like.

Two years ago, there were no flowers in this garden, except for the privet trees that were standing dumbly around the swimming-pool fence, and the wild blue flax that showed its pretty face down by the creek. Now there are roses and daylillies, there are a few footpaths, I have a vegetable garden and herb garden, lavendar and daffodils and two pomegranate trees which each have more than one flower.

So I can have a cup of tea, surrounded by lipstick salvia, before the next round of weeding.

Pictures shortly!

Roots and blooms!

You'll start to see more postings here, on this blog, again. It's going to be used for my gardening stories, life stories, things that are not music and event reviews (those you'll find on my other blog, over here).

At the risk of repeating myself, sunrise was beautiful today

And then it turned into a beautiful springlike-but-with-snow-on-the-ground day.

Saturday sunrise

Yes, it was. Just like this.

Winter thrush

This guy has been turning up a lot, recently. Just one, feeding with the sparrows like an oversized brother. He's beautiful, but that beak makes me suspicious that he's a grackle in disguise.

Snow, again.

Shirley sunset

Shirley beach is the perfect viewpoint for sunsets on this part of Long Island. About five minutes in the car from home.

This evening, the bay was frozen flat; a mirror of ice; the sky turquoise and pink and faded.

I have never, ever felt so cold, so quickly: I understood frostbite. Thermometer said 22 degrees farenheit, it felt colder... the breeze across the bay helping numb fingers and nose inside a short moment.

Not a time to be living outdoors. I hope the car-people have somewhere warm to go tonight.

Seriously... every day.

This morning, it was like someone was shining a red light up, behind Fire Island, into a solid grey sky. This persisted long after the sun must have been clear of the horizon.

Nice to have a dawn above freezing; birds singing, sound of the ocean faded and more gentle. Yesterday's rain washed all the snow from the deck and reduced it everwhere; can even see tufts of grass where the snow hadn't drifted.

It will probably freeze this way now, but spring will arrive, one day soon.

Orange morning

One thing I have learned to appreciate since living here is the colour orange. It just happens: at sunrise, at sunset, in lillies that appear in the garden as if by magic. It doesn't look out-of-place next to pink or turquoise or grey anymore... it's a natural and beautiful colour that, before living here, only meant citrus to me.

Frozen bay, frozen (ocean) beach... but the hunt goes on

Smith Point ocean beach on Fire Island, frozen this morning; baby waves rippling onto the sands where plates of sand-mixed-with-ice had floated and cracked. A strange and unusual sight.

How cold must it be for the ocean to freeze?

Seagulls standing on their reflections on the bay; deep ice in Pattersquash Creek this morning.

Cold, but not cold enough to deter us from going to the beach, nor to keep hunters-and-their-dog at home, nor preventing the guys in the rowboats from going with the ice floes at the end of Cranberry in Mastic Beach.

It's the sunshine that does it. Makes everthing possible, despite what brain/eyes/thermometer says.

Never two the same... just spectacular

Keeps happening. Every day.