Can't Have Too Many Radishes!

So ... we have lots of radishes from our garden. More than we buy from a grocery store in a year! So what do you do? You slice them into thin slices and make them into a yummy sandwich. No Kidding! Just add some mayo and a little gorgonzola, and salt and pepper to taste. Wonderful spring salad between slices of bread. You gotta try it! (Maureen substituted butter for my mayo and gorgonzola.)

More Produce!

Our raised-bed garden is flourishing. I have been harvesting crisp red beauties like these for about ten days now, and there are more to come. Maureen put some into a yummy cole slaw last week. I like to pop them into my mouth (after rinsing the soil from the root, of course) and listen for the "crunch" and wait for the flavor to fill my taste buds with piquancy or whatever it is that makes radishes hot.

Eagle Board

Here's how I am keeping track of my grandsons' scout rank progress. I sliced a thin slice from an oak firewood log, added rank patches, leather ties and leather arrowheads, each hand-stamped with grandsons' initials. The finished product is now hanging in my workshop where I may see it every day. I am duly proud of these young men, and always will be.

We're Graduating from Wii

We have enjoyed Wii bowling so much that we decided to begin doing the real thing. Jeff bought Mom bowling shoes for her birthday and Amy bought me shoes for Fathers' Day. We both bought each other bowling balls last week. Jeff gave us a bowling gift card. I have agreed to spot Mom whatever our total pin difference is the first time we use our new stuff!

Bounteous Harvest

The fruit in this bowl belongs to me in that I watered the fruit trees, dunged them, cultivated the ground around them, pruned them, carefully nurtured their branches, and then happily harvested the resulting oranges, limes and plums. But the real owner of the fruit and the trees is God, not me. He created the earth and it fullness. He provided the life-giving rain and the sunshine. And He allows me to care for a very small part of it all.  

He has given me more than fruit trees, however. He has given me a wonderful wife, the light of my life, and cherished children. He has given me friends and neighbors and he has asked me to love them as I love myself. This responsibility transcends a few fruit trees. It is my daily prayer that I can be worthy of that trust. 

Snakes Alive!

While watering my new raised bed garden this evening, I spied a pair of plant clippers that apparently had fallen out of my pocket earlier this morning when I was also watering. I stepped around the corner of the planter box and almost stepped on a 3-foot gopher snake, scurrying to get out of my way. In surprise, I jumped back and away from the gentle animal and almost stepped on its companion, who was following its mate by about four feet. Both creatures, very beautiful in spite of my phobia toward their species, quickly gained the relative safety and seclusion of the overgrown copse of trees/bushes at the corner of our deck. 

I finished my work at the garden and returned to the house. I then decided to walk out on the deck and try to find the snakes  on the ground under the trees. As I was peering over the deck wall, I heard a slight rustling sound, very close to my head. I looked up and found myself staring eyeball to eyeball, at one of the two snakes who was climbing the tree! Snakes can climb trees? This one could. He was about ten feet off the ground and two feet away from my nose. We looked at each other for awhile and then he turned away and proceeded to stretch himself somewhat horizontally toward an adjacent tree/bush. I ran back inside the house to fetch my wife and son, but when we got back, our reptile friend was not to be found. I think I am adding an item to my to-do list: trim the tree/bush back away from the deck wall about ten feet! I do not wish to find one of these creatures relaxing in my hot tub with me ... ever!

Mulch Anyone?

So ... Santa Barbara County offers free mulch and I needed some for my new raised-bed planter box, so I ordered some. The mulch guy told me the minimum order was 8 yards. Real men do not hesitate and carefully do the math, so I did the math quickly... and got it wrong. I thought I was ordering a pile of mulch 8 feet square and 1 foot high. Somehow, however, I got feet confused with yards. Boy did I ever!

Early Tuesday morning our street began to tremble as this HUGE dump truck rumbled toward our house. Ten minutes and one dumbfounded signature later there was a pile of mulch in my driveway ... 8 cubic yards of the mucky stuff. That's a pile six feet square by six feet high, or 216 cubic feet, three and a half times more than I really needed.

And it is decaying, or composting, warm mulch that smells like Eucalyptus trees and steer manure, from as far away as the bend in our cul du sac! One neighbor dropped by to say she really likes the smell. The other neighbors have said nothing (to me, that is).

So Jeff and I have been shoveling mulch into wheelbarrows and wheeled garbage cans in the early mornings and evenings and distributing it all over the top half acre of our property. Who knows, maybe the property values around here will drop as a result and our kids can afford to move in.