Update!

 Sparkles and the new succulent beds.

 Sunset through the agave.

 Villa Rat, Michoacan style.

The Kid got married! It was a lovely wedding, one of the best I've attended, good job guys!

I will be attending this event.

Wishbones. I worked for T. Danger for a few days and stayed at his and Claire's new apartment. Pretty nice! White carpets, I felt like I was there at the birth of the Congress House, heady stuff.

If you only have room for eight cassettes in your kitchen this is not a bad lineup.

This picture got no love on r/bikeporn but it's foxy to me. 

#rarepuppers

a walk around

Strawberries in October? Thank you genetic science.

The tomatoes are mostly done though.

I thought I didn't like kale but it turned out I wasn't using enough bacon grease.

The winter beds. We emptied every single clod of dirt, found and patched the holes in the mesh where the voles were getting in, refilled the beds with new dirt and compost and planted radishes, mustard greens, cabbage and more.



Natty's eyebrows.

My killing team has kicked it into high gear. It's been an endless parade of mice, shrews, snakes, dragonflies, a few birds and the occasional worm. Next up : voles, moles, gophers and squirrels.

a walk around

I remember my mom ordering some semi-illicit poppy seeds from Amsterdam. I like to think these are an example but I'm not sure.


Disaster in the lettuce bed! The day before these were orderly rows of heirloom lettuce and spinach.

At first I thought of deer but they could have reached all the lettuce without trampling in the bed.
Then I noticed a few holes, so it's an invader from below but not a mole or gopher as there were no mounds at all. Any guesses?
I think the solution is to dig all the dirt out, reline the bottom and sides with heavy steel mesh and refill with new dirt.

Big and little.

I've let a few parts of the Annex go without mowing to see what would happen. The result is (predictably) a mixture of the last crops grown in the field plus weeds.
The majority is this stuff. It seems like a perennial rye grass. I think it might have been grown in the field some years ago but I'm not sure.

There are a few patches of wheat from last year.

This looks like oats to me.

There are a few patches of this thin grass with feathery seeds. I'm pretty sure it's never been planted here. Maybe it's a native or just opportunistic.

This looks like fescue, which was growing here for several years. I expected more of it to come back.

The pit version 2.

In the interest of evening out the twin berms I scooped out the inside track and added a kicker into the right side of the s-curve leading into the harsh berm. Still not even but closer.

the good life

Once again I waited a little too long to harvest the morels. Quite a few were melted but there were some giants left.

They were super pungent to me from across the room, I can't imagine how it was for Natty.



A nice haul from the Polk County Master Gardener's sale at the fairgrounds and the Independence farmer's market. In a late bid to revitalize the herb garden I picked up cinammon basil, Vietnamese coriander and something labeled "7-Up plant" that really does smell like lemon and lime.

Also a delicious mushroom and garlic ciabbatta from The Bread Board, out of Falls City. A little chatting up also got me the secret business card with directions and news that they'll be offering wood fired pizza on the weekends to lure the apres Blackrock crowd.

Coolest album cover ever?

I took this picture a few weeks ago, right before it started raining. Not a bad harvest for late fall. The purple tomatoes were especially delicious. The round seeds in the bottom bowl are coriander. I get tons of volunteer cliantro every year but I never knew the seeds were called coriander. I roasted them in cast iron, ground them with a mortar and pestle and used them to encrust a nice coho salmon steak.
Not pictured are the incredibly hot jalepenos that I just picked. It was a tiny plant over in the corner and shaded by tomatoes. It didn't get much water and maybe that concentrated the flavor.
I grow lemon cucumbers every year. They remind me of my grandmother Barbara, she always grew them in her garden. We would cut them into wedges, sprinkle them with salt and have them on the side of our tuna and pickle sandwiches while we watched horse racing or football. Good times.

photographic evidence

Inspired by Dabby, here are some recent photos :


This is what Team WRECK is all about.

Dabby almost made it but the dog was in the way.




Still life featuring Dabby's heat rash, victorian ankle brace and some beef jerky I gave him out of pity.



Natty cooling off her feet in Stebbins Creek.






Lucky taking a picture of a butterfly.



I made it up this switchback for the first time ever, with a little sideways bunny hop move in the middle. Personal Record!




The garden is growing rapidly. I'm very happy with the seeds I got from Baker Creek




My nascent vineyard. The posts are cherry trees that were knocked down by the latest oak to fall in the woods. At nine feet long they were too heavy to carry and too big to fit on the cart so I tied a slip knot into one of Jaden's ropes and drug them out, digging a furrow across the lawn.




Interlaklen table grapes, courtesy of B&K. I helped them plant about 70 over at their place.



One of my posts is trying to become a tree again. I hope it succeeds.



I'm not sure what these plants are but they look good together, my mom had a real flair for garden design.