Spreading the Love

Part II of Other Things I've Been Doing of Late: the Awesome Creative Session. My friend Ann (the one I mentioned yesterday who recommended the bookmaking book to me) recently took a HUGE leap and become 100% pro-actively unemployed like me (she was 50% pro-actively unemployed up until then). This means I have another friend I can play with during the weekday (because, as always, it's all about me). Creative, positive, energetic, and outgoing, Ann is simply fun to be around. Add to that list, "avid traveler" and "childfree," and you know what that means to me! I met her four years ago at the Peach Tree Pottery Holiday Show where I was selling my Hope's Flame candles...though it seems like I've known her for a much longer time. She's THAT kind of person--the one that just fits into your life like a pair of comfy jeans.

She was at my house for a dinner party one night in December when I showed her my marbled papers. She expressed serious interest in learning about the art form and I suggested she have a studio day with me where she can roll up her sleeves and give it a shot herself. She happily accepted the invitation.

A month later, when weather conditions were just about perfect (low temps, high humidity), I told her to get her butt over to my place, wear clothes she didn't mind getting paint on, and bring any acrylic paints and special paper she wanted to use.

The day before her visit, I went about cleaning up the studio (which is also my candle space/laundry space/storage space/oh...and garage space!), preparing the size for the bath and the alum for the paper, setting out the marbling tools, and prepping the work area. Normally, I find this process tedious simply because I'm so anxious to get marbling. But somehow knowing Ann was going to be in the studio with me made the work seem interesting. I knew she would want to know the "why" and "how" behind the marbling process and so it was an exercise of mental preparation as much as physical preparation for me. I even got out my notes from my very first marbling workshop to refresh my memory with instructional words that describe what my body now intuitively does. I felt like a teacher preparing for the first day of school after summer break.

Our marbling day far exceeded my expectations. Sure, I knew we would have fun together in the studio, regardless if Ann fell in love with marbling as much as I did the first time. But I didn't expect Ann to GET IT--the "it" being what marbling feels like from head to toe and inside-out--which she did so quickly. I didn't expect her to embrace (or, more accurately, fall head-over-heels for) the traditional designs as much as she did, which made me see them in a whole new light. I didn't expect her to RESIST free form as much as she did, which made me see my work (I love the free form!) in a whole new light. And I certainly didn't expect her to feel EXACTLY the same way I always do after a day in the studio--EXHAUSTED and SPENT and A LITTLE OUT OF IT--but she did.

Marbling is not for the weak. Or the timid. It is a full-day commitment (no balking or you waste expensive size). It is a constant strain on your creative mind (each paper requires a new design and new colors...even if you're trying to replicate the same look). Your concentration is tested (how is a color reacting in the bath, what color did you put down first last time, which tool is used to create a certain design). You are on your feet all day (this is not an art form that can be done sitting down). You are always moving (going from the paints to the bath to the tools to the line where the finished pieces are hung to dry...it's a full day of lifting, pushing, wiping, stretching, walking, holding steady). You are always adapting (weather and use perpetually change the bath). But in the end you are rewarded with a bounty of beautiful work...that ALWAYS takes you by surprise. "I did that?" you ask yourself as you go through paper after marbled paper, usually around 30 to 40 of them after a two-day marbling marathon. "My goodness these are stunning," you finally admit to yourself. And the mental and physical toll of a hard day's work vanishes in a snap.

THAT, I am proud to say, is the experience I got to share with Ann. And while those who have seen our finished works can (and do) admire them, can (and do) ask about the process, can (and do) complement us on our work, they don't fully experience the art the way I, and now Ann, can (and do). That is not to say they can't appreciate it. Indeed, I can appreciate and admire and connect with, say, a sculpture. But because I've never sculpted before, on some level I am missing out on something...a component of the sculpture...and that impacts my ability to wholly experience it.

But now I have someone who understands---as much as I do--the thrill, the addiction, and the lure of marbling. Call Ann and me what you will: partners in crime, co-conspirators, marbling soul mates, joined at the marbling hips, whatever. I, however, will simply call us lucky.

(Click on the first photo below to be taken to a page where the photos are larger and you can advance through them using the arrows in the upper right-hand side.)

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Other Things I Have Been Doing Of Late

Confession: I have been holding back on you. Please don't be mad. It's just that I've been so focused on my veganic garden (tragedy struck yesterday...something ate SIX of my tomato plants right down to the stems!!) and on getting my computer fixed (which didn't  happen...just got  my computer back from computer dude who was not only unable to extract anything from my hard drive, but also was unable to reinstall the backup files so now I have to start all over!!) that I've let a few fun things slip by without telling you. I'm here to make up for that. Over the next four days, I'll be posting two awesome creative projects, one awesome creative session, and one awesome adventure. "Awesome" is subjective, of course. I think they are awesome and since this is my blog, I guess that's what counts the most. First up: creative project #1.

My friend Ann told me about a book she recently bought which was written by her graphic design instructor, Erin Zamzrla, called, At Home with Handmade Books. Now, I already have a wonderful bookmaking book by Esther Smith called, How to Make Books. I love this book for so many reasons (the book itself is letterpressed, has great illustrations, is full of wonderful  ideas that don't require complicated tools), but what it lacks is binding techniques. And understandably so. Binding is a whole other beast. When I've taken bookmaking classes, the hardest part of the class is putting into words how to do the binding (you usually don't GET it until you see the instructor DO it), especially if it's one of those fancy, exposed ones that are stunningly beautiful (check out this artist's Etsy store). The point of How to Make Books is to show how easy it is to publish your own work in various book forms. At Home with Handmade Books, on the other hand, is more about the ART of bookmaking (stepping outside the formal concepts of "book") and contemporizing a traditional binding technique called Japanese stab-stitch. And that is what compelled me to buy At Home with Handmade Books; I really liked the graphics used to describe the various stab-stitch techniques.

So I thumbed through the book several times admiring the photography (gorgeous), reading through the instructions (great detail), and trying to figure out which book project to make first (so many unique ideas!). Since what drew me to the book in the first place was the stab-stitch technique, I thought for sure the first book I would make would involve that. But alas...another book project jumped out at me that I just had to do.

This is the "Sewing Notions Pincushion Book," as it is called in the book. I prefer to call it my "Quilting Notebook." I made two of these, one for me and one for my aunt, who taught me how to hand quilt this winter. It took me about a day and a half to complete them both, mostly because everything is hand stitched. The instructions in the book tell you to machine stitch and I'm sure if I had a sewing machine, it would have taken just half a day to finish up both of them.

So the cover of the Quilting Notebook serves as your pincushion and inside are 15 blank pages to jot down notes. As I've been quilting (more on that in another post!), there are sometimes several days that go by where I don't do a single stitch and when I pick it up again, I often have to try to remember where I left off and what it was next that I needed to do. I started writing this stuff down on pieces of scrap paper and pinning it to whatever section I was on. But now, I have a lovely little Quilting Notebook that fits perfectly inside my quilting tin or the pocket of my quilting bag. It's simply adorable!

It is obvious that the author, Erin, is not only creative (as I mentioned before, there are some really fun projects in this book), but she's clearly an instructor and very good communicator. Each project comes with detailed, step-by-step graphics and instructions, making it nearly impossible not to succeed.

I'm really excited to tackle two of her other projects in the book soon. I'm also excited to apply the various stab-stitch binding techniques she outlines to my own journals that I'm making.

So that's how I spent some of my time last week as I tried to distract myself from the healing poison oak blotch on my right leg and my messed-up computer situation. Tomorrow I'll share with you the results of my "awesome creative session."

And This Is Why I Do Veganic Gardening

If you have been living under a rock these past few days, then you haven't heard about the 16 people in Europe who have DIED from E. coli-related disease as a result of eating cucumbers (or possibly other vegetables). (Link) DIED. Dead. Crossed over to the other side. No longer with us. Toes up. Six feet under. Sixteen people in less than a week. And there's another, oh, 1,500 or so folks who have sought treatment for the same E. coli outbreak.

Let me make something very clear here, People: cucumbers DO NOT cause E. coli outbreaks. POOP DOES. Yes, poop. Agribusiness still thinks it's perfectly safe to use animal manure to fertilize your food crops.  Obviously, it's not. (CDC E. coli outbreaks) (FDA E. coli outbreaks)

I've gotten a  lot of funny looks when I tell people that I'm growing a veganic garden (organic gardening without the use of animal or animal byproducts). As their eyes roll back into their their heads, I can hear their silent groan and know exactly what they are thinking:  "Freakin' vegan nutcase." (Yes, I'm a nutcase but it has NOTHING to do with being vegan.) I'm here to tell you, you never have to worry about getting E. coli from eating out of my garden. Can you say the same about yours?

Anyway, my garden continues to grow, grow, grow like mad and I am thrilled. I've got BLOOMS on my bush beans, vines from my fava and Kentucky Wonder beans climbing up their poles, buds on several of my squash and melons, and I'm harvesting the last of the wonderful French Breakfast radishes.

From the beginning of this adventure, I was optimistic about the quality of the soil in my veggie bed. I knew the 7-layer burrito Tom and I created would do the trick. I just didn't think it would be so immediate. I figured this first year we would struggle a bit to get things to grow abundantly and then next season, after a year of decomposition and growing plants that would boost the soil's nutrients, things would go gangbusters. But my timing was a bit off because once the seeds were planted, there was no turning back for this veggie garden.

So far, my pest control has been very basic. One could say it involves hand jobs, carnivores, and India. Each morning, I go out to my garden and hand check every leaf of every plant. I turn the leaf over and look for tiny worms, aphids, and eggs and then squish any that are there. It sounds like a lot of work but it's not. Once your eye gets trained on what to look for, the process goes pretty quickly. Then there's the "good bug" factor. I'm happy to report that I've seen lady bugs in the garden and I just bought a couple of praying mantis egg cases that I will hang in my fava plants next week. Both of these bugs are carnivores and eat the previously mentioned offenders. On the "application" front, I've sprayed neem a couple of times onto plants that seem to be getting munched on the most (kale, okra, and golden beets). Neem comes from a tree in India where it is called the Wonder Tree (not very sustainable, I know, so I use it only when I'm desperate...and I'm currently looking for an alternative). Neem oil has been used for centuries in Indian agriculture as a natural pesticide and organic fertilizer. And boy does it work. Oh, and I recently noticed some mildew on my squash leaves and learned that a simple baking soda spray (one tablespoon baking soda mixed into one gallon of water) to the top of the leaves will not only stop the mildew, but prevent it in the first place. Who needs nasty chemicals when you've got baking soda and your own hands?!

As far as fertilizer goes, I've been scattering coffee grounds directly onto the soil (I try to stay about an inch or two away from the base of plants). Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, magnesium, and potassium (what garden doesn't love that?!) and are not acidic as some believe (the acid ends up in the first brew of the coffee leaving barely a trace of it left in the grounds themselves). The coffee grounds' effect has been immediate...so much so that I was suspicious of a coincidence. When my okra plants were looking a little tired, I put the coffee grounds around them and the very next day, they were standing strong and tall. Hmmmm, I thought. Then I put some grounds around my kale plants and lo and behold, the next day, they had shot up about an inch and grown new leaves. So my plan is to continue with the coffee grounds both directly onto the soil as well as a "coffee tea" (1/2 lb. of wet coffee grounds in 5 gallons of water) which I will water with. In addition, I plan on augmenting the soil with stinging nettle tea, compost tea, and worm castings. Who would want to fertilize their food with poop when you've got coffee and tea?!!

And speaking of, this past holiday weekend, my lovely husband helped me check off a few things that had been in my garden to-do list for a while. One was to build the compost bin and the other was to make a home for my worms. Yes, I'm vermicomposting and am so excited about it.

The red worms came from Tom who has a ton of them in his compost pile. And by a ton, I mean thousands! He gave me about 200 or so and they seem to be loving their new home--they are eating away and even making babies! Yay!

And finally, I transplanted my tomato starters into larger pots. Once these guys are big enough, they will be transplanted one last time into the garden or into 5-gallon containers. I have 15 plants that have survived this far...we'll see how many last through the season.

So you're up to date on the veganic garden, although now that a few minutes have passed, so much has changed in the garden already. Just this morning I was out doing my regular routine and noticed my arugula and cilantro seeds bursting through the soil as well as the second round of purple basil I planted last week.

All this success without animal manure and E. coli. Imagine that.

Score One for the Animals and Yourselves!

Great news...the "ag-gag" bills introduced in the Florida and Minnesota legislatures are dead (link)! And it appears that the sponsors of the Minnesota bill were so bombarded by negative feedback and took so much heat for their proposed legislation that at one point, they simply stopped talking about it to anyone...reporters, citizens, even their fellow representatives. If that doesn't make you believe in the power of your voice, then I don't know what will. Way to go, Minnesota! I am so proud of my hommies! Unfortunately, both Iowa and New York still have ag-gag bills under consideration. But the pressure to back off is mounting, even from the bill sponsors own political party. Famed Republican strategist and former President Bush adviser Mary Matalin recently wrote to Iowa House Republican leadership, stating:

"I'm sorry to hear that House File 589, which would criminalize filming on farms, is still getting pushed along in Iowa...if [it]succeeds, it may well single Iowa out as the state with something to hide, which I know can't be the case."

Well, that IS the case, Mary. But thanks for chiming in nonetheless. (And send my regards to that marvelous husband of yours! Love him!)

And in other animal welfare news, five weeks after Mercy For Animals released undercover video exposing systematic animal abuse at E6 Cattle in Texas, felony arrest warrants for animal cruelty have been issued for five of its employees. Additionally, E6's owner and foreman have both been charged with Class A misdemeanors (link). This is great news considering that documented animal abuse on factory farms is rarely investigated by officials, let alone prosecuted. Hats off to the Castro County District Attorney and Sheriff's Office for stepping up to the plate by taking swift action.

I wrote about the E6 incident last week and how hard (or rather, impossible) it is to watch the undercover footage. Fortunately, there is an alternative. I encourage you to watch this 12-minute short film that takes you through every important detail of the E6 investigation without resorting to heart wrenching, soul-shredding graphic imagery. The film also talks about the consequences of our consumption of commercial milk...so if you drink milk or eat cheese, this is "must-see TV" for you!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IkwE8tHBAs&w=640&h=390]

Simple, Simple, Simple...I Love Me Some Simple

Today, you get a twofer. Several years ago, my friend Stephanie and I went to Key West. (Yes, THAT Stephanie; the one with whom I just went to Point Reyes.) While there, we ate at the restaurant Hot Tin Roof. Hot Tin Roof has a specialty drink called the Hot Tin Tini. I ordered the Hot Tin Tini. I drank the Hot Tin Tini. I loved the Hot Tin Tini. I was told by the waiter that the Hot Tin Tini was nothing more than pineapple-infused vodka. And that's it. I believe he said something like, "They take a bunch of pineapple and soak it FOREVER in vodka and then pour it in a glass."

Last month, these amazingly HUGE pineapples were in my grocery store and suddenly I had a craving for pineapple. But these babies were GIGANTIC. I remember thinking to myself, "I want pineapple but I don't want to be eating it for the next nine years. I wonder what I can do with some of that Bad Boy, Big-Ass Pineapple?" And that is when I remembered the Hot Tin Tini.

I first started infusing booze last year (cucumber vodka, rosemary gin) and have come to learn that 1) it is easy to do and 2) it tastes a billion times better than flavored booze you buy from manufacturers. The most "technical" component of infusing vodka is learning HOW LONG you should infuse for. For cucumber vodka, it's three days. For rosemary gin, it's four days. For pineapple vodka, the magic number is 10. Ten days. So that's what I did. Then I took the pineapple that had been soaking in the vodka, puréed it, and stuck it in the freezer, making a sort of pineapple slushy.

This is how Emmett makes me a Hot Tin Tini: he fills a shaker with ice, pours in 3 oz. of pineapple-infused vodka, adds a generous teaspoon of pineapple mush purée, shakes the contents "vigorously," and then pours it into a chilled martini glass.

But don't take my word for it, see him in action below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lre2yVjK6k&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]

If you were paying attention to the video, you may have noticed the sliced radishes on the cutting board. This is where your second simple snippet for the day comes in.

I've been harvesting radishes from my veganic garden for about a week now. They are a variety called French Breakfast and rather than being little round globes, these radishes are long and narrow. They are mild and earthy with a hint of sweet. And they are damn good. My favorite way to eat them is plain, right from the garden, after shaking off the dirt. But a few have managed to make their way onto our spinach salads. On Sunday, as I was considering quick happy hour snacks to accompany the Hot Tin Tini, I remembered a little recipe idea I saw a while back on a vegan blog: mash up an avocado, mix in a little lemon juice, put it on top of a radish slice, and top it all of with a little smoked salt.

Oh yes I did. And it was fantastic.

Nothing makes me happier than being able to go from "Happy Hour, The Idea" to "Happy Hour In Action" in under 30 seconds. The Hot Tin Tini and the canapé-like radish-avo-smoked salt combo are just the ticket.

Cheers!

Veganic Garden Right Now

Let the Sprouting Begin!

NOTE: I've decided to post this veganic garden update without the photos. I'm not sure if Computer Dude will be able to get them off my dead hard drive and so much has happened in the garden since then that I want to share with you. I'm really bummed there are no photos to accompany this but the next update will have lots of them and you'll be surprised at how much has happened in my little plot of earth! ********************************

Oh, so much exciting news to share with you! I’ve been a bad blogger on this subject because I’ve been too busy OUT IN THE GARDEN and haven’t made time to do a write up on what’s been happening of late. So let me get you caught up.

[If my hard drive hadn't died, there would be a photo here of the "final" garden. Mira would be standing next to it. It was really a cute photo.]

The last time I wrote about the garden, we had just finished up the “7-layer Burrito” where we layered in our soil and green manure to create a rich bed of well fed, nutrient-dense soil in which to grow our veggies. The next step was to put a final layer of humus (not to be confused with hummus) on top in which to plant the seeds in. Or, at least that’s what I thought was all that we had left to do. Tom being Tom, had some other ideas for finishing off the garden as well. This is what is so wonderful about working with a master gardener…you have access to years and years of knowledge and experience that makes a huge difference in the success and functionality of your garden. Someone like Tom is full of little details—things that either I wouldn’t have thought of until too late or things that I’m not even aware are possible—that will make my life easier and my plants happier.

So this is how our kinda-final two days went:

We sifted through the mulch that is my front yard. My front yard has no grass. Instead, I have two huge Chinese elm trees that provide filtered light throughout the day. These elms drop their small, slender leaves onto my front yard throughout the year, keeping the yard in a constant leaf-bed cover. (Read between the lines here, People…NO MOWING!!). Since Emmett and I have lived in the house, that would be almost seven years now, we haven’t done anything with this layer of leaves. Nothing. Never raked them up or anything. Just walked on top of them. So you can imagine what kind of wonderful things have been happening under this leaf bed…namely decomposition! Tom was thrilled with the quality of the humus we were getting and that was what we wanted to use as the top layer for my garden. Unfortunately, there was not enough of this wonderful stuff to cover my full garden so we had to augment with a commercial vegan, organic soil that Tom uses on other clients’ gardens. I was a little bummed about that but also realize had I had my act together and been composting for at least a year before starting the garden, I could have made it work. So I sacrificed a bit on the permaculture side of veganic gardening in the interest of time. I can live with that.

[If my hard drive hadn't died, there would be a photo here of Tom putting a shovelful of humus on a make-shift sifter over a big, black 20-gallon nursery container. We sifted the humus to get out any rocks and leaves that we didn't want in the final product. It was a really fun process.]

[Then there would be a close-up photo of the humus here.]

[And then there would another photo here of the bag of organic, veganic soil we augmented with.]

Next, Tom placed stepping stones down the middle of the garden plot and around the perimeter so as I’m working in the garden, I’m not going all Twister and over stretching or balancing on one foot or accidentally stepping on all over our hard growing plants. This is one of those suggestions Tom made that I didn’t think was necessary but now am so incredibly grateful for that I can’t imagine my garden without. Tom was right—if you can’t easily and safely maneuver around your garden, you’re going to be miserable. Not walking in mud or dirt, having stable ground beneath me, having easy access to the middle of the garden…priceless.

[Let's pretend there is a photo here of the stepping stones in and around my garden.]

On the backside of the garden, we double dug five holes (in between the stepping stones) and lined them with wire mesh. These new holes are home to vine veggies like cucumbers, melons, and squash, all of which like growing on hillsides (which the backside of my garden butts up against).

[Now close your eyes and envision the above scenario. You just created a mental picture of the actual picture that would be posted here had my hard drive not gone AWOL.]

And finally we planted seeds! Tom asked me how I wanted my garden to be laid out—in rows or in clusters. Having had a row garden in Minnesota, I decided I wanted a less structured garden and opted for clusters. I’m really excited about this as it feels like I have more options on how to use the space, that it makes it easier to do complementary planting, and that it will be easier to multi-crop throughout the year (planting new veggies as the old ones are harvested).

[Had the Universe been kinder to me, you would now witness a photo of Tom and me planting seeds. He was on one end of the garden, I was on the other. Mira was in the middle watching with extreme fascination. Again, this was a very cute photo that the Universe has now denied you the pleasure of viewing.]

[And here you would see all my seed packets laid out. It was colorful.]

I got my seeds from two places. First, I started with Peaceful Valley Farm located in Grass Valley, Calif. They have a reputation for high-quality seeds and their commitment to organic agriculture is very strong. Whatever I couldn’t find there, I bought through Botanical Interests located in Broomfield, Colo. At both places, I got only organic, heirloom seeds. I decided early on that I would mostly plant veggies that I couldn’t get at my local farmer’s market or veggies that I use a lot of (such as herbs).

Once the seeds were planted, I gave them a good watering. I mean, a REALLY, REALLY good watering. As in a solid 15 minutes of directly hosing down the plot to ensure the water saturated the first few inches. This is, after all, the home to my seeds who are trying to burst into life. Tom said the key to successful germination is in keeping the seeds constantly moist. In California, with humidity levels barely in the teens (and sometimes in the single digits), that can be a challenge. One way to address the issue (besides going out and watering every three seconds) is to cover your garden with something to keep the moisture in. You can use anything for this (plastic tarp, cardboard) but the best thing is burlap or a cotton material (such as a blanket or t-shirts!) which keeps moisture in but also doesn’t keep the bed too hot.

[Argh. I'm so upset that you can't see this photo. It is of my garden covered in two blankets. YES! I used two old blankets and put them right on top of our planted seeds. It was the coolest thing. And I have to say, it worked! My seeds were so happy to have all that moisture to themselves. It was a happy sprouting environment.]

So with all of that done…it was now time to sit back and wait for germination. The first few days are HELL as you anxiously check the bed a thousand times a day for signs of life (besides the pill bugs and slugs). Then, about three days in, just as you’re thinking, “Crap, this isn’t going to work,” WHAM…there are your radishes popping up. And then the next day, your Yellow Pencil Beans and Royal Purple Beans burst through the ground. And then your Kale. And then your Golden and Candystripe Beets. And finally, after about 10 days, all the rest of your seeds decide to follow suit and make a break for it…Purple and Thai Basil, Broad Windsor Fava Beans, Kentucky Wonder Beans, Burgundy Okra, and Bunching Onions. Then, last but not least, you finally see the wispy green shoots that are your carrots. And all is well in the world.

[Insert mental image here of tiny sprouts.]

[Insert another mental image here of more tiny sprouts.]

[Insert mental image here of me pouting over not having real images of tiny sprouts for you to see.]

Until you plant your vine veggies—Delicata Squash, Lemon Cucumber, Armenian Cucumber, Patty Squash, Cinderella Pumpkin, and Nutmeg Mellon. That’s when sometime while you’re peacefully sleeping in the night, some creature comes in and goes all buffet on your newly planted seeds. So, after building little cages around the vine veggies and covering the garden in a layer of cayenne pepper and cinnamon, I’m happy to report there have been no other major intrusions!

I think I’ve got the veganic garden story caught up. In addition to checking my garden at least four times a day (I’m not kidding you…things are happening throughout the day in that thing....I’ll check it in the morning and there will be a tiny hint of a seed germinating and by the afternoon, it’s popped through the soil and by the evening it’s an inch above ground and has leaves on it!!), I’m now moving on to potting some herbs and starting my tomato and pepper seedlings for planting next month. I’ll do an update on that process in the next week or two.

In the mean time, I’d like to hear everyone give a big shout out to veganic gardening! YES, IT IS POSSIBLE!! It’s happening right before my eyes and it is so, so exciting!

Point Reyes Roundup

The facts are easy to sum up:

• Seven days in Point Reyes National Seashore (five of them with Stephanie and two with Emmett)
• Two eight-hour days on the road with Emmett getting to and from Point Reyes
• 1,255 miles driven in Mine (more than 300 of them in the park)
• 19 different trails hiked for a total of 54.9 miles (32.6 of those miles with Stephanie and 22.3 miles with Emmett)
• three vodka-lemonades consumed by Stephanie the first night
• at least one mama-and-calf gray whale sighting every day (12 on one day alone!)
• one naked hiker (not any of us!)

And the Big Picture is easy to paint:

But it's all the little stuff in between the layers of tangible information and within the tiny cracks throughout a day that are hard capture in words or photos. Sometimes, you just have to be there. But I can tell you this much...

We were lucky with the weather (sunny and warm every day), to be there during wildflower season, to catch the last of the migrating gray whales heading north with their calves, to have stayed at the same lovely cottage Emmett and I stayed at three years ago, to be in great physical health to take on whatever trails or activities we wanted to, to have the park almost to ourselves.

Our daily routine never got old: breakfast, hike, trail lunch, hike, happy hour, dance to music while making dinner, eat dinner, crash. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And yet, every day was a new adventure. Happy hour could have been on the beach at Limantour Spit (with beer and chips and salsa), on the side of the road at the top of Mt. Vision (with wine and nuts), or simply on our cottage deck (with vodka-lemonades and pickled okra and pepita paté). Every hike had a surprise for us: clusters of butterflies, watching a Cooper's Hawk hunt and score a mouse for lunch, a young man (with no tan lines) hiking the Palomarin Trail with nothing more than hiking boots and a small backpack on, an abundance of banana slugs, Tule Elk, stumbling upon a secret beach right before high tide, a group of white pelicans feeding on a school of fish they rounded up on Drakes Bay.

This is the third time I've been to Point Reyes National Seashore and it, once again, did not disappoint. This is why I love living in California. Or, perhaps more accurately, this is why I love living.

To pause the slideshow below and advance through photos manually, hover your cursor over a photo. Click on the solid square that appears between the two arrows and that will stop the slideshow. Click on the arrows to advance the photos at your leisure.

[slideshow]

Something I Can Stomach

If you're anything like me, it's hard just to HEAR about animal abuse on farms that raise animals for food let alone SEE it in action in undercover videos. Whenever a video is released, I can't stomach watching even a single second of it and instead opt to read the write up. Quite honesty, I'm not sure who can watch them besides the owners of these farms who believe their actions are "acceptable" industry practices and the employees committing these gruesome acts as if they were doing nothing more than taking a walk in the park. Last month, a Mercy For Animals investigation of E6 Cattle Company in Texas, which raises more than 10,000 calves for use on dairy farms, resulted in some of the most disturbing video produced in the animal protection movement’s history. The investigation sparked national outrage, caused the live-cattle stock price to drop, fueled efforts to halt legislation to criminalize whistleblowers for videotaping animal cruelty and holding abusers accountable, and prompted countless consumers to consider for the first time the plight of calves born into the dairy industry.

And yet countless others couldn't bear witness to such suffering nor the horrific images in the video and therefore were unable to fully appreciate the whole story. Until now.

In this 12-minute short film by director Zohar Julius, he masterfully takes us through every important detail of the E6 investigation without resorting to heart wrenching, soul-shredding graphic imagery. At the same time, he shows us how the dairy industry and the veal industry are joined at the hip and why one can’t purchase commercial milk without supporting the abuse and killing of calves.

If you haven't been able to watch an undercover video in the past, I encourage you to check out this one. It is vitally important everyone understands where their food comes from...including the milk you put in your morning coffee. And if this doesn't inspire you to, at the very least, cut your dairy consumption down, if you can still put milk on your cereal for breakfast or make a grilled-cheese sandwich for dinner knowing what you know about the dairy industry, then please share this video with others who may be inspired to eat more compassionately. You owe the calves suffering at your hands that much.

And one final note: if you don't believe your milk is associated with a place like E6, please do your own investigation. Call up the company you buy your milk from and ask to visit their farm. I bet you a million dollars an invitation will not be extended to you. Then ask them to tell you what they do with the calves that are "by products." Get the name of the company they ship them off to. Keep asking questions until you can trace your milk back to the cow which it came from and the calf it should have gone to. And when they don't give you specific answers, when they toss out words like "bio-security" and "confidential" and "company policy won't allow us," sit back and ask yourself, "What are they hiding?"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IkwE8tHBAs&w=640&h=390]

A Perfect Post-Point Reyes Dinner

I haven't posted a recipe in a while so I thought I'd start with this one. It's the only one I have a photo of right now SINCE MY COMPUTER WENT ROUGE. (Please, let's not talk about it...it royally sucks.)

Anyway, this was the first dish I made when I got back from Point Reyes. I had been eating healthfully for the week I was there but I also had been eating heartily...as in food that would allow me to put one foot in front of the other for eight to ten miles on the trail each day. So I was looking for something still on the healthy side but a little lighter. And whenever I have this kind of a craving, I know I'm looking for a recipe with just a few simple ingredients. Dishes like this allow one or two flavors to shine without having to step over other complicated layers of other flavors that can weigh a dish down.

I kind of found what I was looking for in a Ginger Bok Choy and Soba Noodles recipe from Appetite for Reduction, but after looking at the list of ingredients, I knew I wanted to jazz it up a little bit. And I'm glad I did. I think if I had followed the recipe to a T, it would have been lacking a bit in flavor. I'm all for light and low cal/low fat, but that doesn't have to mean you need to sacrifice taste. In the recipe below, I've added a few ingredients that weren't in the original one and I've increased amounts of ingredients already in there. I think it's a dish that still would be considered acceptable by those watching their waistline...I mean, seriously, how many calories can rice wine vinegar or soy sauce add?

What I liked about this meal was both the texture of the crunchy bok choy and the soft soba noodles playing off one another and the complementary flavors of fresh ginger, soy sauce, and seasoned rice wine vinegar (when those three come together it's like watching a dance perfected). Feel free to substitute with other veggies (broccoli for the bok choy would be nice or chopped scallions instead of the red onion) or noodles (udon or somen would work perfectly well here too). If you haven't tried gomasio yet (sesame salt), you need to. You can find it in the Asian section of grocery stores. Better yet, make it. It's ridiculously easy and it's an incredibly versatile condiment. I've included a recipe for it below.

Ginger Bok Choy and Soba Noodles

Inspired by the recipe of the same name from Appetite for Reduction Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 8 or 9.5 oz. soba noodles
• 1 teaspoon veggie oil
• 3 bunches baby bok choy, leaves and stems separated, stems sliced across in 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 small red onion, cut into thinly sliced half moons
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 generous Tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons seasoned rice wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Bragg Liquid Aminos OR 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• Toasted sesame seeds or gomasio for garnish (optional, but highly recommended)

Cooking Instructions:

Prepare the soba noodles according to the package directions. Note: Since soba noodles take only a few minutes to cook, I prefer to let the water come to a boil as I'm cooking and then drop the noodles in AFTER I have everything all sautéed up. But feel free to prepare them ahead of time and set them aside, covered to keep them warm, until ready to use.

Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the bok choy stems and the onion until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes and sauté until fragrant, another minute or two. Add the bok choy leaves, soy sauce, and vinegar and sauté until the leaves begin to wilt.

Add the soba noodles and then Bragg Liquid Aminos (or extra soy sauce) to the pan and sauté for a final couple of minutes. The noodles will want to clump together so be sure to take a pasta spoon (or a couple of forks) to break things up and get everything mixed together. I added a few extra dashes of equal parts vinegar and soy sauce to help things along when I felt the noodles weren't cooperating.

Serve immediately topped with toasted sesame seeds or gomasio. This dish is also great cold and makes for a wonderful lunch the next day (if there is any leftover!).

To Make Gomasio:

Toast 1 teaspoon sea salt in a pan until it turns a light brown, set aside. Toast 6 Tablespoons sesame seeds in a pan until light brown. Combine the two and grind, using a mortar and pestle, until about 80% of the sesame seeds are ground. Store in an air-tight container for up to two weeks. This is fantastic sprinkled over roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, salads, popcorn, and anything else you'd add salt to.

Wild Luck

Steph and I happened to have hit up Point Reyes during wildflower season. We didn't intentionally plan to be there during that time...it just sort of worked out that way. It was a bonus we both very much enjoyed. Although now that I think about it, this was never actually articulated by Stephanie. I may be simply projecting my own feelings of the experience onto her. But whatever. I'm sure it's not that far from the truth...within a mile a so at the least.

Side note: I've been lucky in my travels of late to experience wildflower season unexpectedly...from our trip to Perth, Western Australia to Anza-Borrego. Not sure why the Universe is giving me this gift but I gladly accept it!

I hadn't brushed up on my wildflower identification skills in a while and was a bit rusty. I even got a few things wrong (mistakenly identifying foxglove as hollyhock for some damn reason) but Steph was quite forgiving. And she should have been considering she can't tell the difference between poison oak and California blackberry which at least I can.

If I didn't know what the heck I was looking at, it didn't matter (or I pretended it didn't matter). I simply snapped a few photos of the flower and when we got back to our little cottage, looked them up in my National Audubon Society's Field Guide to California (which is not the best resource but after a long day of hiking and a few vodka-lemonades will do the trick in a pinch).

The fun part was when Steph and I would quiz each other about our wildflower learnings (as well as other floral beauties I pointed out to her) on the trail. "Remember what this one is called?" she would ask. Or I'd say to her, "So, do you recall what is so special about this one?" Things we would never utter in casual conversation flew out of our mouths like a Charlie Sheen diatribe--likes disturbed areas, it's hairier than the other one, eat it and you'll wish you didn't have a stomach, I can never remember if it's cow's parsnip or cow's parsley, there's a leaf opposite the other, poppies love me.

Whatever the field guide couldn't tell me, I looked up on the internet when I got home. Most of the time, I'm fine with not being able to identify something out in "the wild" (in fact, I'm happy just to be able to know the difference between a hawk and an ant), but for some reason, not knowing the names of wildflowers drives me up the wall. On the other hand, I remind myself  that I've forgotten how to spell the last name of my boyfriend in high school...and I knew him for three years! I sure as heck shouldn't put that much pressure on myself when it comes to flowers I see maybe once every year or so. Right?

There are still a few flowers I haven't been able to nail down yet, but a little time and distance has allowed me to stop fretting over their names, scientific or common, and just go with "that's a pretty wildflower we saw in Point Reyes." It's the same approach I take to handling questions about my car. When I make an oil change appointment and they ask, "What model car do you have?" I simply reply, "It's a white car." Or if I'm asked, "What kind of engine do you have?" I reply, "I have a convertible." You get the point.

I'm pretty sure with even more time and distance, I'll be happy just to be able to recall the trip at all. Now that I'm 40, I'm proud of myself when I remember what channel Modern Family is on. Regardless, I hope I never forget the feeling that comes with stepping smack dab into a vast space filled with wildflowers or spying tiny hints of new life that is everywhere in late winter and early spring. It is a feeling that reminds me that underneath it all, after long winters or nasty droughts, there are always--always--hidden gems hovering beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to pop up, dazzle our senses, steal the spotlight, and leave us longing, and wishing, for more. It is the feeling of hope alive. It is the feeling of being alive.

And that, I never want to forget.

Mesmerizing

One of my favorite moments on the trail (aside from all those gray whale sightings) happened when Stephanie and I were hiking Palomarin Trail to Alamere Falls. About two miles in, we came across a muddy patch occupied by lots of small, blue butterflies as well as a few slightly bigger ones that were orange with black spots. Slowly, we crept our way along the trial (being very careful about where we stepped, of course) and took in the fluttering flurry as these beautiful insects feasted on whatever moisture or bugs or microbes were present in that muddy patch.

If you've never seen large clusters of butterflies before, you're missing out on something magical. (I've even been fortunate enough to see them by the thousands at the Coronado Butterfly Preserve in Santa Barbara during the Monarch's winter migration season.) I'm not sure what it is about these delicate little creatures that is so stunning when they amass, but it is definitely something that stops you in your tracks, makes you hold your breath, and leaves you feeling, well, just a little lighter.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MidwliyNr8&hl=en&fs=1]

Write On

I'll post more about the wonderful trip I took to Point Reyes ONCE MY COMPUTER IS UP AND RUNNING AGAIN (no word from Computer Dude yet on its condition) but I wanted to quickly share this observation with you.

On the drive home, Emmett asked me if I had a good time with Stephanie. Of course, I said yes. Steph and I get along very well. We like a lot of the same things and what we don't share in common we can easily appreciate for the other. She's a great fan of good food, making her a delight to cook for. She can be silly. She can talk politics. She isn't afraid to learn new things. And now that she's in the best shape she's ever been in since the day I met her more than a decade ago, there's no stopping her from going wherever she wants to go for as long as she wants to go. We hiked some serious miles out there on the trails and neither one of us once raised a white flag.

I shared all this with Emmett. And then, after a bit of a pause, I added: what I loved most about being on this trip was experiencing it with another writer.

Point Reyes is full of natural beauty and wonder...things most of us (except the park rangers) are not used to experiencing on a daily basis. Couple that with Mother Nature's overall dramatic flair for the mysterious and obvious at the same time and you've got quite a show. On this trip, Steph and I were always verbal in our expressions of the extraordinary (dozens of gray whale sightings) as well as the little things that made an impression upon us (butterflies congregating on a muddy patch on the trail). What I didn't realize until the ride home (after I had had some time to sink into the memories we created together), was that these conversations and brief outbursts were, in a word, poetic. Without trying to sound overly dramatic, the more I thought about them, the more I realized they were as beautiful as the thing or experience we were trying to describe. As writers, Steph and I are always trying to paint a picture for our audience and take them on a journey with us. Sharing with Stephanie, in Point Reyes nonetheless, that innate desire (and for most of us writers it IS an innate desire) to convey to another something specific about a moment in time...well, that was in and of itself as magical as Mother Nature.

It wasn't as if we were TRYING to be all writerly. There were no verbal sparring matches. And aside from a few "hey, that's a good way to describe it" comments from me, there wasn't even an acknowledgment of our situation. It was simply a collection of HONEST and HEARTFELT exchanges that just so happened to be at a conversational level and pace only two professional writers can share. That is to say, had I been on this trip with one of my non-writer friends, I would have used the same words to describe things but the reaction or response would have been different from the ones I had with Stephenie, who in turn fueled my passion and excitement with her words which come from a writer's way of articulating something. And I know this to be true because while I spent the first four and a half days exploring Point Reyes with Stephanie, I spent the last two days exploring it with Emmett. My time with him was just as delightful but out on the trail it was a whole different experience than the one I had with Steph. Not worse (the man loves hiking and nature as much as I do). Not disappointing (he's just as observant and reflective as I am). Just...different.

I wish I could give you an example of a conversation between Steph and me but I can't...they are such a natural part of our being that it is almost unnoteworthy to us (except when I write about it!). It would be like asking Michael Jordan to recall what it was like to share the court with Magic Johnson.  I'm sure he'd say it was spectacular but not be able to describe for you each flick of the wrist or pivot or pick that made it so. Because when you're that comfortable with your skill, when you're that good at the game, when you just do and don't have to think about it...there are no words to describe the experience.

Please Hold While Computer Dude Works His Magic

Sorry for the communication black hole. My computer's hard drive has either blown up or been destroyed by a virus. In either case, Computer Dude (recommended by my neighbor after he worked miracles on her computer) is trying to get my files off it. Unfortunately, I didn't back up my system before I left for Point Reyes last week (thought about it and then totally forgot to do it until I was three hours away from San Fran) and I may have lost everything since my last back up in January. Yes, January. Shame on me. Surprisingly, I'm not too stressed about it. I'm most bummed that I may have lost the photos from my Minnesota trip and the entire veganic garden process. Other than that, the few essays I managed to squeeze out these past few months, I can re-write. They are just words and I've got lots of them floating around in my head so I can easily put fingers to keyboard and have at it again. But the photos...ugh. That's another story. I refuse to experience another Minnesota winter just to snap a few good shots of a red cardinal outside my bedroom window. Oh well. I have a great update ready to go on the last few steps of the veganic garden but I want to hold off posting it in case Computer Dude can get my photos back for it. Trust me, it will make for a much more interesting story with photos. I also have a some great recipes to post (again, waiting to see if the photos for them can be saved) and a wonderful write up on my trip to Point Reyes with my friend, Stephanie.

So please be patient. I'll probably post the write up on Point Reyes in the next day or two and if Computer Dude hasn't been able to restore my system by the end of the week, I'll put up the veganic gardening update followed by the recipes shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, go back up your computer. Right. Now.

Things I Love: The Wine Pour

I love it when my hubby pours a glass of wine for me, specifically when we’re eating dinner and I have just a sip or two left in my glass. It feels like I’m being given a gift, as opposed to the feeling of gluttony when I pour my own glass or the feeling of begging if he were to ask me if I wanted more. I’ve had this happen to me only once (maybe twice) at a restaurant too, where a particularly good server beat both Emmett and me to the punch and had our glasses of wine in a constant state of occupied.

Emmett is really good about doing this when we have guests over as well. He rarely asks them if they want another drink, whatever that drink may be. He just grabs their near-empty glass and returns it to them full. Many times, our guests don’t even realize what went down until they grab for their drink and express delight when they discover its new heft. And I know exactly how they feel—special.