TRIP TO DAD'S -- PART THREE

I know, I know, some of you are probably sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what happened to the Little Hab, since the last report was that he had just turned red before we left. Well, we took him on the trip with us along with the other three much smaller peppers from that same plant. I placed them all near a window and waited to see if they would all turn red. Since Little Hab was already red, I cut him up and ate him with my burrito that we had for supper one night. I know, it pained me to have to do that, but after all, that was his purpose in life.

The most unkind cut of all

Linda took a picture of me right after I ate a small piece of the pepper, just testing to see if it would be too hot for my burrito. Here was my reaction. I am pleased to report that he was not hot and actually had a bit of habanero flavor to him.

After Linda's sister and brother-in-law left on Wednesday for their vacation, we settled in to our job of taking care of dad. To tell you the truth, there wasn't a whole lot to do while looking after dad because he is still pretty much self-sufficient, even at 97 years old. He just amazes me with all he does. I sometimes felt worn out trying to keep up with him! I spent a lot of time hanging around the back deck, watching birds, which was perfectly fine with me. Dad has a wonderful, huge bird feeder that attracts all kinds of birds, so you know I was in heaven.

By the way, you may recognize some of these birds as the "mystery bird" from last week's blog. No one came forward with the name of this bird, but as promised, I will let you know right now. Although this bird is not native to Southern California, there was a quite sizeable flock of them at dad's house. They are commonly called Nutmeg Mannikins, also known as the Scaly-Breasted Munia or Spice Finch. From what I read, they are most likely the descendants of someone's pet birds who escaped in Orange County area in 1988. When I mentioned this to dad, he immediately got out his California state map so he could show me the area we were talking about.

Pinpointing the origin in the wild of the Nutmeg Mannikin

Dad just loves maps (so that's where Linda got it from!) and doesn't hesitate to bring one out at the drop of a hat! This little bird was the most frequent visitor to the bird feeder the entire time we were there. They are actually quite small, even smaller than a goldfinch.

These guys in the bird bath are an adult male and three juvenile males. You can just barely see the beginnings of their scaly feathers under their chins.

The other birds got their share of time spent in the bird bath as well. It was rather warm while we were there and I am sure that they welcomed the chance to take a bath and cool off a bit! They sure seemed happy!

I took a boatload of pictures and video. However, when I got back home I was dismayed to find that most of it was out of focus. My camera has been acting up for the past few months and it decided to really act up while we were at dad's. So I don't have nearly as many pictures and videos to share with you as I had planned. Still, I did get some good pictures in spite of the camera. Needless to say, Santa is going to fix that come Christmas. Anyway, this video below is of the Bottlebrush Hedge that separates dad's house from the road. It is as tall as his house and was in full bloom while we were there. The hummingbirds and bees were all over it, and the other birds liked to hide in among the branches. The sound of all those birds chirping was almost deafening!

One day I took a walk up the road a bit, looking for something to photograph. All of a sudden I heard this very loud chirping sound, and it was so loud I thought it was right in front of me. I kept looking around and couldn't find anything that was making the noise, until I happened to look about 25 feet away. There was the little rascal, sitting on top of a cactus plant. Although this video is a bit shaky, I decided to include it so you can hear the sound I heard.

Dad's house gives a great view of the town below and the ocean, when the weather is clear. You can even see the Channel Islands in the distance. I took a short walk up the road to a higher vantage point and took this picture below. You can see what appears to be hills off in the distance. That is the Channel Islands. I was shocked to learn that they are 22 miles offshore. It looks like they are only a couple of miles out.

Channel Islands in the distance

One of our duties while we were there was to help dad with watering the plants. Dad still gets out on the deck and mans the hose to water things. Linda assisted him with this task and between the two of them they managed to keep everything watered. It has been so dry in California the past few years that it is really a struggle to keep things alive. But there are some beautiful plants around his house.

Dad doing some watering

Lavender rose that is growing in a huge pot on the deck

Century Plant

Back view of dad's house

Orchid plant that is growing in dad's yard

Bird of Paradise flower

One thing we had promised dad was to bring him some fresh tomatoes from our garden. We managed to have a few ripe red ones to take with us when we left Yakima, as well as some green ones. We ate the red ones in the first few days that we were there, and fortunately the green ones eventually turned red as well.

Dad has been a member of the Lions Club since the early 70's, even serving as a District Governor during the mid 1980's. He continues to be very involved with the club, attending meetings whenever he can. While we were there he attended a meeting where they had their yearly picture taken.

I have covered the first week or so of our trip so I think this is a good stopping point. Don't worry, there are still plenty of pictures and videos to come so check back next week!

PARTING SHOT

This week's bird picture is of a Nutmeg Mannikin perched on top of a dead branch. I know, it's a poor substitute for the Summer Girl, but what can I say...you work with what you have.

TRIP TO DAD'S -- PART TWO

We safely made it to our motel on Sunday after two full days of driving. We didn't  have to report as dad's caregivers until Wednesday, so we decided to make a couple of day trips on Monday and Tuesday. We chose to make a trip to Santa Barbara on Monday. Every time we go down to dad's visiting Santa Barbara is a must, for three main reasons. One, to shop at Whole Foods and get some of our favorite tonic water for our drinkiepoos (it is Whole Foods 365 brand); Two, to shop at Trader Joe's and get whatever we need from there (usually tea, olive oil, soy sauce, and various other things we like); and Three, to eat lunch at Harry's Plaza Cafe (click here for their website). This has become a tradition every time we go to see dad, we must eat lunch at Harry's sometime before we leave. The reason we like it so much is it is a throw-back to the old days, and I do mean the old, old days of like the 50's and 60's. They have great food, too, and they always bring you a small plate of sourdough bread, sour cream, and their signature salsa to munch on while you wait on your order. The atmosphere is quiet and subdued, unlike most restaurants these days. You can actually carry on a conversation and hear what is being said. They have red leather booths and pictures all over the wall of different celebrities and dignitaries who have eaten there. It's just a very interesting place.

Harry's Plaza Cafe

After our trip to Santa Barbara we headed over to dad's house to spend some time with the family. With it being the playoffs to the World Series, we settled in to what would be our evening routine for the next couple of weeks: drinkiepoo, dinner and baseball.

The next day, Tuesday, we took a trip over to Ojai (pronounced Oh-Hi). This is a little artsy, spiritualistic community that we absolutely love (visit the city website here). A couple of years ago we briefly entertained the fantasy that we would move there, but reality eventually set in and we realized it was not possible. Still, we do like to make the trip whenever we are in the area, as it is only about 40 minutes away. One reason we like to go there is to visit Bart's Books (visit website here). This is an "outdoor" type bookstore because it is a structure that has no roof! The books, which are mostly under little overhangs, do not seem to suffer from the weather. Ojai is located in a somewhat dry valley, and I don't think they get a whole lot of rain. Also when in Ojai, we very much enjoy walking around the backside of their main street shops. The front side is right up against a busy highway and is very noisy, but the backside has trees and grass and benches to sit on. We got a sandwich and some chips at the Rainbow Bridge grocery store (website here) and ate our lunch while sitting on a bench people-watching.

Ojai post office

We returned to home base and decided to go in search of Little Free Libraries in Carpinteria, which is the town below the hills where dad lives. We found all three of them and also dropped off some painted rocks from the Yakima Valley Rocks Facebook group.

The next day, Wednesday, we decided to take a walk down on the beach before we had to begin our duties looking after dad. Linda's sister and brother-in-law were not leaving for their vacation until after lunch, so we drove down to Carpinteria State Beach for a walk. The weather was perfect with a slight breeze blowing. I think it had been years since we had walked on a beach, and it felt good.

I took a few videos. I thought it might be nice to show the hills opposite the beach, which is where dad lives.

We had a nice walk along the beach and ran across some really interesting things. Someone had made a sort of "art project" on the beach. Linda added her touch to it and I took a picture to document it for posterity.

Modern art?

I thought this was a pretty cool piece of seaweed.

Looking out over the ocean from State Beach you can see a number of structures out on the horizon that look like ships.  Upon zooming in on them with my camera, I could see that they were not ships but were oil drilling platforms. Linda says there used to be way more of them, but as they became inoperable they were taken down. I can't imagine going to the beach back in the day and seeing those things scattered all over the place!

Oil drilling platform

There were lots of birds walking along the shore, and some of them were kind enough to pose for me.

A big difference between the beaches on the West coast versus the beaches on the East coast is the amount of shells that are washed up on the shore. I don't think we saw any shells on the beach during our walk. Intact, whole shells are quite rare on the beaches out West. Back East, the beaches are littered with shells of all kinds. We used to walk on Holden Beach and pick up buckets full of perfect shells every time.

Upon leaving the beach we happened upon this cute sculpture that was just begging me to take its picture.

PARTING SHOT

As per my agreement with Summer Girl, for the posts about our trip we are going to have different pictures of birds stand in for her in the Parting Shot. Here is a picture of a very different kind of bird. Can anyone guess what it is? I will tell you that it is not a bird native to this country. I will reveal its name on next week's blog.

Mystery bird

That's all for now. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and I hope we all can refrain from eating too much...yeah, good luck with that!

TRIP TO DAD'S: PART ONE ~ PARTING SHOT

TRIP TO DAD'S: PART ONE

We left Yakima on October 14th at 7:00am and it was 26 degrees outside in Yakima. So you can imagine that we were eager to get to California and a little warmth. We made the boring ride through the eastern part of Oregon...at least the speed limit isn't 55 statewide like it was a couple years ago. We saw lots of open fields and then lots of trees. The 10-hour drive was uneventful and we stopped for the night at Red Bluff, our halfway point. We had our traditional beers and supper at Applebee's, a block from our motel. We like this set up so we can walk back to the motel.

10 hours driving down, 10 more to go!

The next day we set out on the second leg of our trip, leaving the motel at 7:15am. We had decided to go down Interstate 5 to get to Dad's, as it is supposedly a bit faster. We had done this years before but we couldn't remember if it was faster or not. We usually go down Highway 101 because the scenery is better, but this time we opted for speed. So, we proceeded down I-5. The further we got along on it, the more the scenery became monotonous and boring, even worse than Eastern Oregon. From about the halfway point on I-5, we saw nothing but dry, brown hills and fields, with the wind making a haze of dust in the air so that we could barely make out the surrounding hills.

Picture taken early on, before it got really boring

There was no scenery of note, no towns to ride through or even come close to, nothing to indicate where we even were. We started to wonder if we were even going anywhere, and at one point Linda remarked, "How can we be sure we're on the right road?" I replied, "We might even be in Mexico by now and not know it!" I checked my watch and announced, "It's 1:35." Linda gasped, "You're kidding me!! You mean to say it's only been an hour since you last checked the time? It seems like days." We rode on for what seemed like forever, about to go insane from the boredom and then...in the distance...came a glimmer of hope! Cries of "Hallelujah!" went up from the passenger seat, and our intrepid driver wept tears of joy. For there, approaching slowly on the horizon, was our salvation...The Grapevine.

The Grapevine

For those of you who don't know, The Grapevine is a long, windy road over Tejon Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains, and includes a 6% grade, which is always fun (not). But it was a welcome sight as there is plenty of scenery to look at while making the trip over this pass. And it signaled that we were getting closer to our destination at Dad's house with only about an hour left to go.

Finally, some scenery!

We arrived at our motel at 4:15pm, which was actually about an hour sooner than we would have arrived if we had gone down Highway 101, proving that it is indeed faster. But I don't know if it was worth the mental anguish of enduring that boring, boring, boring drive down I-5. Did I mention it was boring? We would be staying at this motel for three days until Linda's sister and brother-in-law left to go on vacation, at which point we would move into their RV. After settling in to our motel, we went up the hill to Dad's house and enjoyed a nice visit with everyone, including cocktails and dinner...and baseball! After all, it was the playoffs leading up to the World Series. It has always been a treat watching baseball with Dad because he really loves it. We left a bit early and went back to the motel because we were exhausted.

PARTING SHOT

Since Summer Girl wasn't with us on the trip and would not pose for a picture for my friend who was taking care of her, I don't have a parting shot of her. I have discussed what to do about the "Parting Shot" with Summer Girl and she is perfectly fine with a bird picture as substitution. I didn't show her what bird picture I would be posting, so I'm not sure if she would be happy about my choice!

Turkey Vultures perched in a tree outside our motel room

Coming up in next week's blog edition:  Day trips to Santa Barbara and Ojai. Be sure to check back next week for more on our trip to Dad's!

THE BLOG IS BACK!!

THE BLOG IS BACK!!

As some of you may have guessed, it wasn't Summer Girl who was on vacation the past few weeks, it was Linda and I, hence the absence of blog posts. We drove down to Carpinteria, California, to stay with Linda's dad while Linda's sister and brother-in-law took a much-needed vacation. I did try to publish the blog while we were gone using my iPad, but it was just too problematic because the blog program is a Google product and the iPad is an Apple product. The two are not always compatible. We are home now and I am sorting through the many, many pictures and videos that I took. It is taking longer than I anticipated because I'm having to deal with pictures on my phone, my iPad, and my camera. Plus, Linda contributed some pictures that she took with her iPad. So now I am trying to get everything offloaded, uploaded, and downloaded. I am afraid I will not be able to get the blog up today, which is my traditional blog-posting day. However, I will be working diligently to get it posted as soon as I can. You know I want it to be right, and that takes time.

PARTING SHOT

To tide you over until I make the next post, here is a picture of guess who from 2012....

NO BLOG POST THIS WEEK, SORRY!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I don’t have access to my computer again this week. So, I’m afraid I will not be able to post this week. However, I am hoping to be able to post again next week, although it may be a couple of days late. Please hang in there with me and check back again next week. Thanks!

LAST OF THE GARDEN ~~ PARTING SHOT

LAST OF THE GARDEN

This past week was a flurry of activity as Linda & I did our best to get the last of the garden produce put away for the winter. In the midst of doing that, I decided to dehydrate some peaches. Linda had gotten a few really big ones, so I figured they would be good ones to dehydrate. I blanched them to get the peelings off, sliced them and then put them in some lemon water. I laid the slices out on the dehydrator tray and 11 hours later we had peach chips! They were pretty good, although a bit chewy.

I still had 3 nice-sized zucchini left from the garden, so I decided to dehydrate a couple of them. I sliced them up, sprinkled with some salt & paprika, and set the dehydrator going. About 8 hours later they were done. I think these were the best zucchini chips I have made yet.

I still had a whole zucchini left, and I found another half of one in the fridge (they hide everywhere), so I decided to cook them with some butter and onions and put them in our almost-full freezer. We will certainly enjoy that in the middle of winter.

 

Since we had picked all of the peppers the previous week, I still had a lot of bell, Shishito, and banana peppers left. Linda really liked the Red Bell Pepper jelly I made her, so I made another batch, only this one was green. It came out really good, so I think she is set for jelly all winter.

We went to our local fruit stand and they had a few peaches left there, so we got a few of them. Idecided to make a peach cobbler. The only problem was that I didn’t have any milk, and the recipe called for a cup. I happened to have some Caramel Peacan flavored liquid creamer in the fridge, so I used that. The cobbler came out pretty good, although nowhere near as good as my Aunt Grace’s, the golden standard by which all cobblers are judged. However, because I used the creamer, it was a bit on the sweet side. I figure if we put vanilla ice cream on it, that it will make a nice winter treat for us some cold afternoon. Into the freezer it went.

 About the last thing we took up in the garden was the beets. Linda got out there and dug them up and we had a half bucket full. We cleaned them and boiled them, then I slid the peels off, sliced them up, and pickled them. I can attest that they were pretty doggone good!

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl is on vacation this week, but she has agreed to let the little Hab stand in for her under the Parting Shot. The little rascal has finally TURNED RED!

ONE PERFECT ROSE ~ GARDEN UPDATE ~ RECIPE OF THE WEEK-COWBOY CANDY ~ PARTING SHOT

ONE PERFECT ROSE

When Linda and I moved out to Yakima in 2007, we brought with us some of the plants that we had at our house in Lumberton. Some of them lived and some of them didn't make it here, but the one I am most happy about is one of my mother's roses. We actually transplanted this rose from her house on 14th Street over to our house on 17th Street. It did pretty good there, so when we moved out here we brought a couple of small cuttings with us. I am happy to report that both of them lived and have been doing very well in the Yakima weather. They actually do better here than they ever did at our house in Lumberton. Below is a picture of one of the roses. I call this my "perfect" rose because whenever I look at the flowers on this plant, it reminds me of my mother.

The Mary Rose

Another plant we brought with us was a variegated Solomon's Seal. We had this plant and another native Solomon's Seal at our house, but we only brought a piece of the variegated variety. We planted it and the next spring we had one lone Solomon's Seal come up. Over the years it has multiplied, and below is a picture of the area where it finally settled in. The changing weather makes the leaves on these plants so stunning this time of year.

Change of Season Colors

GARDEN UPDATE

This week Linda and I finished taking down the garden. I did a lot of last-minute cooking of produce so I am just about done with that. I still need to dig up the zucchini and tomatillo plants, but that won't take long. We got about two buckets full of tomatoes and Linda was able to stew up another pot of those for this winter. I gave some to a friend of ours and the rest are on the card table in hopes that they will ripen up.

Fried green tomatoes, anyone?

I know everyone is wondering about the little Hab (yeah, right). Since we had a couple of nights that went down to freezing this week, I cut it off near the bottom of the main stem and put it in a glass of water in the window in our living room so it would get some light. Believe it or not, it is starting to turn red!

The little Hab, hanging in there

After we were done with taking down the garden, I discovered why my plants produce so well. I have a green thumb, plus four fingers!

Getting my hands dirty

RECIPE OF THE WEEK - COWBOY CANDY

After I pulled up all the pepper plants, I had about a half bucket of hot peppers (jalapeno and Anaheim peppers), plus another half bucket of the mild peppers (bell, banana, and Shishito peppers). The mild peppers are going to be made into another batch of jelly for Linda. I decided to make some pickled hot peppers and also one of my favorite things, Cowboy Candy. I used this recipe here from the website Old World Garden Farms. I have used different recipes over the years for this, but this was a new one so I gave it a try. I was quite pleased with the results as they were pretty hot. Now they need to sit in the fridge and cure for a couple of weeks. Here is what the finished product looks like.

Mighty tasty!

PARTING SHOT

As we move further into fall, the weather gets increasingly colder. So, it only stands to reason that during this time, Summer Girl gets increasingly inside. At least she can sit in the window, watch the birdies, and pretend like she is still outside.

That's all for this week!

REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS ~ PEPPER SAUCE UPDATE ~ BELL PEPPER JELLY ~ ZUCCHINI BACON ~ WINTER SQUASH ~ MULTI-TASKING ~ PARTING SHOT

REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS

Our next-door neighbors went on a fishing trip to Alaska last month and brought us back a magnet as a souvenir, as well as a beautiful piece of salmon. We always ask anybody who is traveling to bring us a magnet so we can put it on our refrigerator door. We collected quite a few ourselves during our truck trip out west in 2007 before we moved. We have so many now that Linda has to rotate them ever so often. Here is a picture of our refrigerator door as it is right now. The new Alaska one is the second from the top left.

Some of our magnets

Here's a picture of two magnets from opposite ends of the US.

Alaska (top) and Key West (bottom)

Out of all the refrigerator magnets that we have, I think this one below is my absolute favorite, for obvious reasons. Linda's sister gave it to us.

Sure, why not!

PEPPER SAUCE UPDATE

On my last blog I was in the process of making some of my jalapeno hot pepper sauce. I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that it came out great, and I actually got to make another batch, too. Here is a picture of the finished product.

Yes, it's hot!

BELL PEPPER JELLY

I usually make a recipe of jalapeno jelly every summer, but this year I still had some from last year leftover in the freezer, so I'm not going to make it again. However, I decided to make some Red Pepper Jelly for Linda, since she doesn't like the hot stuff. I had to use a large red bell pepper that I had bought at the local fruit stand because none of my bell peppers turned red this year. I also used several yellow banana peppers and a few red shishito peppers. None of these are hot peppers. I followed this recipe from the Inspired by Charm website. I picked this recipe because it used a little less sugar than other recipes I found. It turned out great and Linda loves it! Jelly is always an iffy thing to make because sometimes it doesn't set right. I made some jalapeno jelly one time a few years ago that turned out to be as hard as a brick. I had to microwave the jars to even get it out of them. I don't know what went wrong that time, but I haven't had a failure like that since then. I am always secretly ecstatic when it comes out right. Here is a picture of the Red Pepper Jelly I made for Linda.

Looks like we have a red theme going on here

ZUCCHINI BACON

My zucchini plant has been an true champion this year. I went out and picked four large zucchini yesterday, and already had two on the back porch. It has produced so many zucchini that one of my major quests this summer has been to find recipes to use it all up. My favorite recipe so far has to be Zucchini Bacon. This is made by thin slicing the zucchini on a mandoline, soaking it in a marinade, and then dehydrating it. I used this recipe from the website Cooking the Deals. I mainly went with this recipe because it was posted by a lady from the Facebook dehydrating group that I belong to. It takes about 28 hours to dehydrate, but when it is done it is absolutely delicious! I have done four batches so far. I store it by wrapping several pieces at a time in a sandwich bag and then put the sandwich bags in a freezer bag, which goes into the freezer. It only takes a couple of minutes to thaw out and you have nice, tasty "bacon." Of course, this stuff doesn't taste exactly like real bacon, but it is a nice substitute. And it is crispy enough, like real bacon. Here is the process in pictures, with the final result as I used it several times this week.

These 2 large zucchini filled up my dehydrator

Zucchini bacon and tomato sandwich, on white bread with mayo - heaven!

WINTER SQUASH

Right beside my zucchini plant is my Delicata squash plant, a type of winter squash. These plants do not start producing until fall comes. However, this plant has been the exact opposite of the zucchini as far as production. In its defense, it got a late start because something ate the first plants that came up from the seed I planted. So, I had to plant more seed and wait for those to germinate, which seemed to take forever. I planted the seed in a pot so the plants wouldn't get eaten again, and after the two plants got to be a nice size, I transplanted them into the ground. They never really grew very much from that point on, and a couple of days ago we noticed that one of the plants was dead. It had a small squash on it, so I picked it and brought it in. The other plant has only one squash on it, and it is about twice the size of the one I picked. That isn't saying much, though. Here is a picture of the squash I picked, with a toothpick beside it for size comparison.

Pitiful!

I don't know if I'll be able to eat all that in one sitting...

MULTI-TASKING

It's a good thing I got a lot of training and experience in multi-tasking during my working days because I sure use it now. For instance, today before noon I made a double batch of Zucchini Bacon marinade, sliced a huge zucchini and let it marinate for an hour, placed it on the dehydrator trays and set it up in the garage. Also during that time I got my smoker going and loaded it up with five Johnsonville Hatch Chili sausages and five Beer Brat sausages. Plus, I mixed up the ingredients for a loaf of Chocolate Zucchini Bread and got that in the oven. And, I mixed up a jar of Jalapeno Vinaigrette salad dressing. I also started working on my blog while I was waiting for the zucchini bread to finish baking. All the while I was washing up dishes to make space for the next thing I was going to do. By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was pooped. While I was doing all this in the kitchen, Linda was out in the garden picking Red Cherry tomatoes and pulling up those plants. That was a big help as we need to get all the plants up before the end of next week. As her reward for being so good to me, she's going to get a nice slice of chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon. The garden is starting to look pretty sad, but despite the late start and all the hazy, smoky days that hampered production, I can be thankful for one thing. We did not have a problem with squash bugs or stink bugs this year. That was such a relief not to have to battle them every day. Here is a picture of the garden now. It looks funny with that huge bare area where the onions, potatoes, and the red cherry tomato plants were.

A sad sight

I know most of you are just wondering what happened with the little Hab (no?). Well, it is still hanging in there. It actually has four peppers on it, but sadly none of them have turned red. The biggest one still may be able to ripen but I'm not sure. At least it is in a pot so I can move it onto the back porch if we have a freeze in the next couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that it will finally be able to turn red (so I will quit talking about it). Here is a picture of the biggest pepper on the little Hab. It's about the size of a ping-pong ball.

My precious little Hab

PARTING SHOT

Now for the part of the blog I know you've all been waiting for...the Summer Girl! She is still outside most of the day doing her thing, and we all know her thing is sleeping. Here is a picture that Linda took of her yesterday, after waking her up from a nice nap. I wonder what she's thinking?

"Seriously? You woke me up for a picture?"

That's all for this week, please check back next week for more happenings around this part of the Northwest!