Strawberries

There are benefits to living in California beyond having a toothy Austrian as your governor. Vegetables and fruits grow here, maybe like nowhere else on Earth.

I was coming back from Costco this morning and spied a fellow selling strawberries along the highway. Look at these babies!


These were not grown locally, the local berries are still black from the freeze we had. But California is a very looooong state. The growing season in the south is a lot earlier than ours.

Of course, I’m always curious about these things, so I asked the nice Hispanic fellow who was selling the berries, “Where were these grown?”

“Djess.” He said.

For those of you who may not speak Spanglish, this means, “I can say ‘yes’ instead of ‘si,’ but that’s the only English I know, and I’m not understanding a word you say.” Oh well. When it’s the other way around and someone asks me a question in Spanish, I sometimes just say “si.”

I discovered something about the strawberries when I got them home. The cats are nuts for them. Velcro, who has previously limited her enthusiasm for produce to Sloughhouse Corn, was up on the table, rubbing on the box.

“Yay!” she says, “Jan brought me good stuff!”


I moved the box and turned my back on it for a minute. George jumped up on the counter, gazing fondly at the berries.


When he started rubbing his head IN the berries, I put them in the outside refrigerator.

What is it with these weird cats? Whenever we’ve had strawberry shortcake before, it was the whipped cream they wanted. Charley will even come running at the sound of the sputtering can. I sliced a berry to give them a taste, but they weren’t interested in EATING it, only in rolling around in it.

I’m glad they aren’t dogs, dogs roll in nasty stuff. I wouldn’t want to eat food that dogs were compelled to roll in.

I’m eating these berries, though. Cats or no cats.

ABBAWorld in London!

OK, you people across the ocean, please go and check this out for me. I love, love, love ABBA. It opens in London today. Is it still today there? (Wednesday)

A Present for Me

This morning I had a present from the Little White Hen. One-fourth of a breakfast. I'll have to wait 7 more days for the rest of it, she will only lay every other day.

LWH's eggs are small, but not the smallest around here. See?

Further Thoughts About Discipline

I’ve been downloading Cesar Millan’s “Dog Whisperer” shows on Hulu and watching them on my computer. No, I don’t have a dog. But there’s a lot about Cesar’s philosophy that works for all of us.

Yesterday I saw an article about how some educators are applying his philosophy to helping teachers learn to create a calm atmosphere in the classroom.

Notice I did not equate discipline with punishment. Cesar teaches people to maintain a calm assertiveness within themselves, which will in turn allow others to be calm.

It’s interesting to watch people on his show who are having problems with their dogs. In some cases they do well except for one particular problem and just need to learn the right cues. In other cases, the animals are totally out of control. These are people who think discipline is a bad thing and they don’t like to do it because they “love” their dog. They don’t just need cues, they need to see themselves in an entirely different light.

Animals are accustomed to a hierarchy, even the ones who don’t live in herds or packs. If the people in the house don’t accept the role at the top, the animals will (often reluctantly) assume it themselves. Chaos ensues.

One of my favorite shows was about two Great Danes. They snarled and nipped at visitors. The owners said people would not come to their house anymore because of their “vicious” dogs.

Cesar walked into the house by himself. The huge dogs were in the living room, behind a flimsy 3 ft fence. They were barking and snarling, all right, but Cesar said, “They aren’t challenging that fence. They could walk right through it.” They were protecting the house because they thought they had to, and using the fence to keep strangers away from them. They seemed to be nervous that someone would call their bluff. I know the feeling. In 4th Grade, when the teacher went out for a smoke break (as they did in those days) I got left in charge because I was the tallest in the class. I hated it.

I follow the blog of one young lady who has lots of animals. She says it seems like they move in with her and lose their brains. She seems to be totally opposed to discipline, preferring to give the animals free choice in their behavior. Every day when I check her blog, I expect she might be writing from a hospital bed. Some of the animals are big enough to hurt her.

I can imagine what Cesar would say, that by refusing to accept herself as the leader, she has created chaos. The animals aren’t acting the way they want to, but they way they think they have to on a rudderless ship, and this makes them unhappy.

So, back to discipline. Do we hate to enforce it because we hated it when someone else forced it on us? Those were probably times when we didn’t see the big picture. You hated being told to pick up your socks (you’re not the boss of me!), but took for granted that boss would feed you and love you and keep you safe. Maybe animals are smarter than kids, they know and appreciate who supplies the good things, they don’t expect it as their “right.”

Cesar says you have to stop thinking about everything in terms of yourself, and learn what the animal needs. It needs to know you’re in charge so it can relax.

Some of you have dogs AND are teachers. Do you think this might work, teaching teachers how to exude calm assertiveness in the classroom to encourage more disciplined students?

Gone to the Snow

Why do otherwise sane people, even young ones, want to go freeze in the snow? It's beyond me.

But they did. Jonathan showed up to drive. Here he is changing his wiper blades to new ones that can handle the snow better.


He just got back from Breckenridge, Colorado, from a few days in the snow with Kyle. What’s Kyle doing in Colorado? Near as I can tell he’s carrying a sign, “Will Work for Car Parts.”

Anyway, Jon’s car got loaded with all the essentials. They’re fortunate to be staying in Kirkwood at Alan’s family's winter house (that’s why they have firewood).


Bye, guys, have a great time! Bob, smile! I didn’t ask you to take Cap’n Picard along, did I? What a grump.


Jon, Grumpy, and Travis.

And anyway, the Cap’n is busy at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco this weekend. There’s a Star Trek convention. John F, did he ride with you?

Discipline, Saturdays, and Conscience

All these things really are related, at least in my world. I appreciate the fact that finally, after all these years, I think have them in the proper perspective. And I wonder if I can maintain that in retirement. Perhaps those of you (the number grows daily) who have already retired can comment.

Discipline has two levels. When it’s external, I resent it. When I manage to discipline myself, however, I am so proud. I gloat. I tell everyone else how to do it.

I do weird things. I’m told I have to be at work by 8:30 every morning. “You can’t tell me what to do,” I grumble to myself. “I’ll show YOU!” So I show up at 7 or 7:30 instead, and I’m proud of myself for being so disciplined that I can accomplish that.

Do you think that’s sick? Does it have a name? It has worked for me. I get to maintain the illusion that I’m in charge of my own life.

I see some young people who avoid self-discipline. I wonder how they’ll ever be able to hold a real job. People my age who never managed to do that, aren’t in a good place today. Is “freedom” the opposite of discipline, or can discipline set you free?

Weekdays fall into a routine and most days I don’t even have to think about what I’m doing. But Saturdays are different. There’s a choice.

Stay in that toasty bed a while longer? Throw on the comfortable old clothes and let the hair run wild? Sit in front of the computer all day, drink tea, and munch almonds?

In my life there are animals to feed and chores to do, beyond the daily ones. If I don’t start early, I’ll have to face Monday morning with a guilty conscience.

So, this morning I got up at 7, aided in that decision by a knock at the front door. The boys were going skiing today and met here. Bob managed to be ready on time by staying up all night.

I fed the cats, fed the horses, loading half a bale in my yellow wagon and hauling it to a spot in the field that wasn’t mucky. Filled the woodbox. Tried to catch a big strange dog that looked like a wolf (he ran off through the fields). Fed the birds and mucked wet spots from their pens. Collected the eggs, cleaned them and put them away. Took out the ashes, cleaned the woodstove, started a new fire. Folded clothes that had been lying on the table for a week. Cleaned out the freezer, used the stuff to make a fish stew in the crockpot.

Got a cup of tea (Lopsong Souchong), and here I am finally, at the computer with a clear conscience. Discipline is good.

Now if I could just do something about being indecisive.

Comments from Charley

George may think he’s top cat in the house, but I own the highest perch. My throne is 9 feet above the floor. Let it flood, I will stay high and dry.

So there! Raspberries to the rest of you.

Knock me off of here? Don't even think about it! I am sooooo evil.

PB Cookies

This recipe is for Uncle Bernard in Great Britain who just tried peanut butter for the first time. It stuck to the top of his mouth, which didn’t thrill him. I’m suggesting he can use the rest of the jar to make these peanut butter cookies that many of us here in the U.S. grew up with.

Traditional Old-Fashioned
Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda

Cream together shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. Stir in peanut butter. Add dry ingredients. Form into balls about 1 inch in diameter, place these about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten with a fork to make a crisscross. Bake in 375 degree oven about 10 minutes.

It’s okay if the cookies are still soft in the middle, they firm up when they cool. When they bake, they make your house smell great.

Uh Oh

The weather people love to predict doom and gloom, especially here in California’s Central Valley, where life is pretty much about sunny days. You can imagine how boring it must be to give the same report every day.

We do get some nasty weather every 10 years or so. The last time was 1997, so we’re due.

I have said before that I live on a long-narrow piece of property, 80 acres. It is bordered on one end by a seasonal creek and on the other end (closest to the house) by a river. There are levees at both ends of the property that confine the waterways.

The creek - Deer Creek - is mostly annoying, not dangerous. It can come out of its banks after 3 good days of rain. It spreads across its floodplain, sometimes out across the highway, and then can go back down in the same day. A lot of rain in the nearby foothills causes it to rise. Rarely, there will be so much rain so quickly that the water comes downhill all at once and the creek tops the levee. This still isn’t dangerous, no houses are threatened. It can be expensive, though, because it costs a lot of money to replace a washed-out levee and to re-level the farmland that gets eaten away.

The Cosumne River is another story. It’s usually 3 or 4 feet deep, just enough water to keep pollywogs and carp happy. There are two levels of riverbed where I live. The first is the actual river course. Most winters the water comes to the top of that area at least twice a year. Not a problem. (Sorry to those of you who hate that phrase.) The next level is the floodplain, bordered by a 14 foot levee. When the water gets onto the floodplain, we start to watch it carefully. The levees are made of the same sandy topsoil that fills our fertile valley. The same leaky, sandy topsoil.

Rain doesn’t affect the river too badly. Its headwaters are way up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. When there are heavy, late snows in the Sierras, followed by a warm tropical storm that melts the snow, that’s a combination that turns the sleepy river into a potential threat. When the water gets about halfway up the levee, we start moving the animals out, asking relatives to take the plastic bins of old family photos to higher ground, and getting the shovels and sandbags ready. Only once in the 63 years I’ve lived in my house have we actually moved out ourselves. That was in 1997.

This morning I read in the paper that the weather people think the El Niño pattern this year is very similar to 1997. This morning when I looked out the front door, there was snow down low in the foothills again, and lots more had fallen higher up.

Well, fooey. I’ll hope the weather people are just drinking too much caffeine, that the recent rain and wind has them over-excited. Or simply that they don’t know what they’re talking about. But, I’ll have Bob check the tires on the horse trailer and be glad that we only have one load of large animals this time, that all the chickens on the place will fit comfortably in their cages in the second load of animals, and that the cats can all be cozy at the nearby boarding kennel. Many of my relatives who used to show up during “high water” have passed on, but Bob has lots of friends who could load up our mountain of electronic equipment.

So we’ll be fine. The house is more than 100 years old and has never been flooded, to my knowledge. If it finally happens, I guess I’ll just have to look at it as an opportunity to make improvements.

Domestic Violence

The little old white Old English hen is in a cage in the dining room for a while. Her foster children, 3 young Bantam Dominiques, turned on her and pecked her pretty badly. She’ll be fine, but she’ll always have a scar on top of her head.

The Bantam Doms were hatched by their own mother, a nasty little hen who loved them until they could fly. Then she made them stay up on a perch, out of her way. I felt sorry for them, so I put them in with the little white hen, who was very kind to them. They’d been together for 2 months.

I guess it’s the same with animals as it is with humans, victims of child abuse often turn to violence themselves.

With chickens, there really is a pecking order. It’s a constant challenge to plan ahead and separate birds before they damage each other. You can’t add a new bird to a pen that’s already established. You can’t take a bird away from its siblings for even a day and expect to put it back with them. Anything that changes the order can cause havoc.

I really had to fight the urge to throw the now teen-aged brats back in with their birth mother.

The little white hen is enjoying her days in the house, though. She gets treats like scrambled eggs and cat food and she's toasty warm at night.

Busy Weekend

I should have had plenty of time on my recent 3-day weekend to sit down and blog a little. But I had to put away the Christmas stuff. I didn’t put many decorations out this year. Actually I grabbed the Christmas box closest to the front of the hall closet and made do with whatever was in it. Plus I bought some poinsettias (love them).

Even so, putting away the Christmas stuff is a fearful chore. I gathered it all together a week ago in the middle of the living room. Then I spent most of the weekend doing other things to avoid the closet.

I spent Saturday in the garden digging and composting. I planted two English hollies and three lilacs and some snapdragons before it started raining. I got filthy dirty and muddy, and that was great, but when I came in to take a shower there was only one clean towel in the linen closet. I knew I had more than that. Somewhere.

You can tell how much I hate dealing with the Christmas decorations when I tackle my son Bob’s room instead. He had evidently been stacking dirty laundry in his closet for months. By the time it was all pulled out and washed (13 loads) and dried and folded I had 40 towels. Bob has severely chewed ears. Little pig ears.

We put everything but a week’s worth of clothes in plastic bins to save for a day when he actually grows up. For now they are out of circulation. (That would be the “wear it once and throw it on the closet floor” cycle.) The fellow has so many good qualities, but he is still Pig Boy.

After that huge undertaking I had built up enough steam to finally tackle the hall closet. It’s 6 feet wide by 10 feet long. Everything we don’t use every day is stored there, mostly in plastic bins, but also in boxes and filing cabinets. I have thrown out tons of crap, what remains is the important stuff: tax paperwork, old photos, art supplies, Bob’s musical instruments from school, etc.

If it had half as much stuff, the room might even be handy, but right now it’s like a cave with creaky timbers. You could go in there to get the vacuum cleaner, something could fall on your head, and your mummified remains might be discovered years from now.

You know those little puzzles that have one square missing and you have to move the rest of the squares around to make a picture? That’s what this room is like. To get one bin out, you will probably have to move all the others. Twice.

Bob was watching Lara Croft, Tomb Raider this week. That’s the movie with Angelina Jolie. Yeah, sure she’s brave. But you don’t see HER in my closet, do you?

I had to get the house back in order, though. The cleaning ladies are coming today. So Bob did the lifting and kept the piles from falling, and we got everything back in place. Whew. So much for another year.

I think tonight I can actually sit down at my computer again. (I’m at work right now, hastily patching this together.)

Do-Gooders

Where I live, neighbors enjoy helping each other.

Where I work, the people are incredible. You can organize and collect a small fortune in a matter of hours for a person or cause that needs help.

The people I know are generous and thoughtful. When I was a kid, I remember being proud of living in a nation of people like that. Everyone aspired to be in the Peace Corps. The past few years have been a trial, it seemed like those days were long gone and our nation had become a place where it was every man for himself.

I have no idea if our nation’s aid to the people of Haiti will meet our expectations, and there are bound to be problems and disappointments, but it feels so good that the government is trying. It’s hard to teach kids to be good citizens and good people when the people in charge do nothing but bicker and act like self-serving idiots.

I hope the politicians can follow the example of US citizens and the good-hearted people from all over the world whose main goal this week is to help our fellow folks.

So Many Chores, So Little Time

Didn't realize yesterday was Friday until the day was half over. I'm not mentally prepared for a busy weekend, but that's what I need. I have a dozen bales of compost to spread, lilacs to plant, wood to haul and stack, Christmas decorations to take down, a baby shower for Cousin Libby tomorrow, chickens to feed and water, horses to feed, and I'm sure there are a couple of things I'm not remembering.

I like doing all these things. A little sunlight breaking through the gray would make it more enjoyable. I'm really sorry for the rest of you around the country and the world who are snowed in, but you know how it is, that's not MY issue. When I look out my front door I see fog.

There are different kinds of fog. I've seen the kind that wisps through the coastal forests. That's a fairy fog. It keeps the ferns and the forest green and beautiful. I've been on hilltop trails, looking down from my saddle horse onto a dense, rolling fog that looks like the ocean. It inspires poetry.

And then there's Central Valley fog. All it does it make everything grey and depressing. And it makes traffic, cars piloted by California's mindless drivers interspersed with huge trucks barreling along 20 feet apart, really unsafe. You can't go slow enough to make sense, you'll be rear-ended. If you want to use a freeway, you just merge into the insanity and keep saying your prayers.

I don't have to negotiate a freeway this weekend. It'll just be me and my little yellow wagon out in the yard.

I'll have to generate my own sunshine, from within.

Oh, here's something to celebrate: Merlene just reminded me that today would have been Richard Halliburton's 110th birthday. I'll imagine I'm spending a sunny day in Greece.

I am thankful...

...that my job, as much as it makes me nuts some days, is considerably more comfortable than this one. I’d hate to go to work dressed as Mr. Pickle, and spend an overcast, foggy day on a lonely street, trying to recruit customers for a sandwich shop.

Anyone who will stick to a job like this, though, is bound to be a success at something someday.

Best wishes, Mr. Pickle.

Avatar

I just got back from seeing it. In 3D at an Imax theatre.

I wanna ride a dragon. I wanna tail, I wanna be blue and not have a fat butt.

I wanna know why the characters are so similar to the ones in C.J. Cherryh's Inheritor series.

I'm really tired now, been running through the tops of trees and jumping off cliffs for the past few hours. The storyline is pretty juvenile, but what a great time!

As Ugly As it Gets

We do occasionally have some winter weather here in sunny California. Sunday morning I went out to take some pictures of my sad little flower garden. This is as bad as it gets. Even the weeds have given up.



But not the gardener! Two minutes after the winter solstice, I was out there cleaning up and planning for the coming year.

But not without obstacles. First I needed a shovel. Over the years I’ve bought many shovels, there should be at least 5 of them around here. Somewhere. I mean real, pointy shovels, the kind you use to dig a hole.

But this is all I could find.


Who needs even one of these? Let alone a whole bunch of them. These are shit shovels, the kind you use to clean stalls. I don’t even have stalls. Where did these things all come from?

I’m beginning to suspect that I buy pointy shovels and they sit in dark corners and morph into useless shit shovels. I read a science fiction short story once about how paper clips morph into coat hangers. You’d be out of paper clips, and go buy some. Within a year you’d have no paper clips, but there would be a surplus of coat hangers in your closet. The good news is that once in a blue moon (and we just had one, didn’t we?) one of those coat hangers will actually mature into a bicycle.

So I wonder what stage is next for the shit shovels? Meanwhile it’s off to the garden store for another pointy shovel. On the handle of this one, which I will paint pink, I will write: “Jan’s Personal Shovel. If you touch this shovel and you are not Jan, you will be maimed.”

Aunt Bea always said to use the word “maim” when you’re threatening people, especially guys, because it gets their attention better.

Dang I'm Good! (finally)

Before I had my RAV4, I drove a Dodge Caravan, and before that either an old Mercedes station wagon or a pickup truck. It was easy to back up to the loading dock at Sheldon Feed, our local livestock feed supplier. In both cars, the back door swung up, so there was no clearance problem.

It’s taken me a while to judge the proper distance in the RAV4, but please observe:


And I did this in ONE try!!! I’ve had the car for 3 years and made several trips to the feed store where I had to either pull forward to open the door, or the fellow who loaded the car had to walk a ways. So yes, I’ve had some practice.

But these days I’ll take success anywhere I can get it. And luckily I had my camera along.

Out in Chickenland

OneSpot (or is that 3-Spot?) and the cockerel that used to be beige. Now he’s a handsome young fellow that Bob has named Alan because he’s always talking. The black pullet to the left is his sister.

I think Bob plans to teach Alan some tricks. He’s a chicken trainer of great renown and Alan is very clever. He’s also a chow hound, and that helps. I meant the cockerel is a chow hound, but actually the boy is also.

One old hen died this winter and three old roosters went to the sale. The pens are not crowded, there are only 22 birds out there, so it’s been easy to take care of them.

Cousin Ken pointed out today that Patrick Stewart has been knighted. Cool.

One for the Guys

I have some guys in my family who are master mechanics. Uncle Jim and Brother Jerry come immediately to mind, but there are others as well. You guys go over to Bernard's blog and check out his January 2 blog about a Morgan Three Wheeler. Have you ever heard of these cars?

I can see my brother searching for the bones of one of these things and resurrecting it like he did Uncle Ray's ancient Harley Davidson, better than new. I wouldn't be surprised to one day see him driving it up my driveway.

Thanks For the Help

I was having trouble focusing my digital camera for close-ups, even though it has a macro setting. So I consulted Katherine the scrimshaw artiste, who takes close-ups of her teeny tiny pieces of work. She gave me some great advice. With my Canon Power Shot S5IS, I have to move the camera back and forth to focus, not use the zoom button. See, it works great. In this one I was focusing on the cup.


And this was focused on the Cap’n.


I love having friends who know stuff.