Month: May 2015

I was sitting on the patio with my camera waiting for some hummingbird action when a male lesser goldfinch landed on my new bubbling fountain about a foot away from where I was sitting. He immediately realized his mistake as I turned and he retreated to a nearby branch. I took several shots of him looking for “gesture” and although I got a couple of him scraping his beak on the branch, this one caught my eye. He’s looking straight at the camera and sticking out his tongue! I guess he was expressing his displeasure and he wanted me to leave so he could bathe and drink from the new bubbler (with apologies to anyone reading this blog who does not approve of anthropomorphic comparisons—or not…after all it’s my blog).

D7100 – 70-200mm Lens with 2X teleconverter
Focal Length 400mm; ISO 640; f/8; 1/80s

My mother had a large copper mixing bowl hanging over her stove——for how many years, I don’t know. I’d forgotten it was there until my brother John asked me if I wanted it. Yikes! It was covered with grease spatters that had turned to turquoise globs from a chemical reaction to the copper and the once bright copper was a dark, dingy brownish black. The entire bowl was a gummy black mess, inside and out. I took the bowl and decided to clean it today but didn’t want to use any harsh chemical cleaners because it is, after all, a food vessel, and I hate most commercial cleaners because of the smell. I try to use less toxic and less smelly cleaners like baking soda, lemon juice, salt, and vinegar which top my list of household cleaners—when I DO get around to cleaning, that is. A quick internet search had ketchup (recommended by the folks at American’s Test Kitchen) as a good copper cleaner. I tried that first but although it brought back the copper color, the grease globules were still there. Next on the list were salt and lemon juice so I sliced a lemon in half and poured on some Kosher salt. It worked like a charm, quickly removing the greasy globs and brightening the copper.

I wish I’d taken a “before” picture but that didn’t occur to me until I was almost done cleaning the inside of the bowl. This shot shows a few streaks on the inside but I think I just didn’t rinse off all the lemon juice thoroughly. The second picture is the ever curious (in both senses of the word) Bobo who came home Saturday after being boarded at the Vet for a month, and reclaimed her window seat as I attempted to use it as a photo studio.

We were patting each other on the back for the great job we’d done finally getting everything packed and either out of the house of ready to be moved out when somebody mentioned that the Pest Inspector had noticed a box of old magazines in one of the attic spaces. I ran upstairs to look and could see stuff there but could not bring myself to crawl inside because of the creepy crawlies that might be lurking. One of the benefits of being the little sister is that your big brother might just protect you from those creepy crawlies and my big brother did. Arthur crawled inside and discovered a box of old newspapers and magazines featuring the 1969 moon landing. Sunset Line and Twine, Co., my family’s company, made all the parachute cord for the Mercury and Apollo flights so that event has a special meaning for my family. Further investigation revealed all of the colonial style braided wool rugs that had once adorned the living room and bed rooms in the house but that were now riddled with moth holes and we made the decision to leave them there. When Arthur dragged out a few more boxes containing the tracks from his HO Gauge train set, aging Christmas decorations, pine cones, and plastic bags of stuff, we thought it all to be junk until I peeked inside one of the bags and there were THE PENNANTS! I had wondered what happened to those baseball team pennants that had once been tacked to my brothers’ bedroom walls before Mom repapered it with National Geographic maps and turned the space into a pool room. They are now moth-eaten, badly faded, and the tips of a few are missing due to moths and thumbtack holes, but they are a fascinating glimpse at 1950’s teams. We have 1950’s pennants from the Kansas City Athletics, the Milwaukee Braves, the Stanford Indians, the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, and lots of others. Dad collected them for my brothers when he attended games around the country during his business travels.

I singled out these two pennants to feature because in 1958 the Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers. Dad took my brothers and me out of school on April 15, 1958, and we sat behind home plate at Seal Stadium in San Francisco and watched the opening day game between the now San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. I have vivid memories of watching my baseball hero, Willy Mays, kneeling in the on deck circle waiting to bat. The Giants won, by the way. I didn’t remember that they defeated the Dodgers 8-0. Thanks, Google.

When we looked at these pennants yesterday, we commented that “da bum” on the LA Dodgers pennant looked suspiciously like the famous clown of that era, Emmet Kelly, and indeed, it was. Apparently, Emmet Kelly’s likeness was used by the Dodgers in the last year or so of their time in Brooklyn and for a time in Los Angeles.

We’re all jumping for joy right now including our realtor Joe McNeany who was on hand today to tamp down the 30 yard dumpster we filled to the brim with the unwanted accumulation of 65 years in the Santa Rosa house. My brothers and their wives, assorted friends and neighbors, and especially Joe have been working tirelessly to empty the house and get it ready to put up for sale.  Thanks to everyone and a special thank you to Joe whose efforts have gone well above and beyond our expectations. 

This is an iPhone shot. And I created this blog post from my iPhone as well. I had my camera with me today but my iPhone was in hand at this moment!

 

One of the casualties of pruning at the house in Santa Rosa was an elegant but overgrown and intrusive bird of paradise. My mother planted it years ago and it had grown to at least six feet tall and its rootball was wedged against the foundation of the house. It had to go. This sublime specimen is now in its own paradise. It was in full bloom so my brother cut the flowers and I brought them back home to enjoy for a while. I took this shot of one of the stems as the early morning sun backlit the petals.

My brothers and I are in the process of cleaning out our family home and we are working hard to get it ready to sell. The house was built in 1950 and we moved in that August just after I turned four. For the first fifty years its existence, our mother kept the house in pristine condition and the garden was magnificent. Both could have graced the pages of House Beautiful at one time. Sadly, in the past few years, the house has deteriorated a bit from neglect and the garden has overgrown. The house has evidence of termites and will be tented and fumigated in a couple of weeks. To get ready for the pest company to tent the house, we had to prune back overgrown shrubs and trees. I’d been so busy with sorting and packing things in the house that I didn’t take any photos for a couple of days but when I saw my brother, Arthur, sawing a branch off a huge, ivy-choked birch tree that was touching the house, using an ancient looking crosscut saw, I knew I had to stop what I was doing and take a photo. It’s not exactly a Sawzall, but it got the job done!

Last week, my friends Jesse and Lyle built a raised garden bed for me and yesterday, I planted it. While I was at Green Acres buying my tomatoes, basil, and marigolds, I saw this garden toad and decided he would be the perfect adjunct to my garden. I don’t have a real toad to eat the bugs but maybe this guy will help to scare away any potential munchers. I planted five different varieties of tomato, an ambrosia melon, a Japanese eggplant, and four varieties of basil as well as a few other herbs. I still have space (I’m trying square foot gardening) for more herbs and I’d like to try onions and garlic.

I’m also using a drip system so I’m complying with the drought restrictions here. Jesse and Lyle installed a dedicated line and two drip heads. All I had to do was attach the tubing and the drip emitters. For me, that was easier said than done. As the sun beat down on me mid afternoon, I attached all of the tubing to the on/off switches then attached the other end of the tubing to the wrong part of the emitter so when I tested the system, water was spraying from the drip heads, not through the tubing. An hour later, thoroughly drenched in sweat, I’d reattached the tubing to the correct places and repositioned the emitters so that they would actually emit. Finally, I was ready to plant. I must learn to read the instructions before I start a project, not afterwards. I finished planting about 7PM.

When we visited Sego Canyon near Moab, Utah, we came across some petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon walls. Although this could be considered ancient graffiti, it was really a form of communication to let tribal members and other tribes know where to go and what was happening with the tribe. The resemblance of some of the figures to more modern drawings of aliens from outer space is striking. Sadly, over the centuries, others have made their marks on the ancient pictographs and petroglyphs. Those that date to the 1800’s are considered historic by the National Parks System. More recent etchings and disfigurements are considered graffiti. The first two shots contain evidence of more modern graffiti.