A View from Sierra County

G is for Going Gray

Image is a powerful thing here in the United States, and my issues of 'self-image' have been manipulated by the media for as long as I can remember.  Back when I was in late elementary school, I didn't want to admit that my eyesight wasn't as good as it should be, because wearing glasses was 'geeky' and uncool.... I spent 5th and 6th grade sitting in the front of the class so that I could see the board rather than acknowledging there was a problem and finally broke down and told my Mom I needed eyeglasses when I started 7th grade, but only because one of the coolest girls needed them in class.

In high school I began to worry about my weight, and though I never became anorexic, I have dealt with concerns about not being skinny enough ever since.  Much of the time, it was more in my mind that in reality, though middle age has led me to appreciate the body I used to have a lot more.

Middle age has also led me to confront another image issue... why Americans don't want to look old.  Everywhere you turn, there are ads promoting anti-aging foods, cosmetics and other products.  Diet and exercise along with modern medicine, have created the potential to live far longer than our grandparents did.  However, it is the young look that is revered in our culture.  Love of youthfulness is now competing with a longer lifespan, to the further detriment of having a healthy self-image. 

While I was pondering how to keep a healthy body the past few years, and noticing that I had to exercise more simply to lose less ground, while not really getting 'better' (meaning trimmer, firmer, stronger, etc.), I didn't notice that those highlights my hairstylist had started putting in my hair when I thought it would be fun to change my look in my late 30s, were now being used to cover a steadily increasing amount of gray.
I have been very faithful about keeping my hair well styled for the past two decades, and my hair was never, ever growing out, so it wasn't until I read Going Gray last fall that I watched more closely the next time I had my hair painted.... oblivion can be such a comfortable place to hang out in!

This photo was taken in the summer of 2004, at the height of my 'blondie' period, and even my stylist and I could agree that it was 'over the top'... to artificially blond for me to be comfortable wearing.

I realized that I had been eating up all those compliments I had received for the past five years about how young I looked to have grown children, etc.  What I knew that others didn't was that was just genetics, which is pretty much the same as saying I was just lucky.  Over the course of 2007, as I was turning from 52 to 53 in years, I was also watching a streak of white grow in over my left temple, which my stylist was highlighting a blondy-white to blend with the rest of my fakey-colored hair.  Here's a nice, but grainy photo of me from last September...

a more natural look, and those good genes sure don't hurt in promoting the myth that I might be much younger than that number on my driver's license, but, hey, I'm all about authentic living and integrity in the other areas of my life, and I suddenly didn't want to be lying, covering up gray hair, trying to appear younger.  I am proud of much of the experiences of my 53 years, and humbled by the rest of them.  I also don't work in any of those youth-driven industries, and didn't need to think about going out and finding a job, so I decided back in November to give up coloring my hair and 'go gray'.

I was worried about having roots that looked awful.  I was anxious about my stylist and if she would 'fire' me as a customer and be unwilling to go through this journey with me... she might not want people to know I was a customer if I went around looking bad.  So, partway through the past several months, I decided to have her cut my hair shoulder length, so that it would look even more well-groomed each and every day.

By the time I modeled my turquoise Ballet T shirt in late March, my hair was tidy, but growing more gray.  It was interesting to learn that the top of my head has the most in the way of light gray hair, while the undersides and back were more darkish.  My haircolor in childhood varied from the bleached dishwater blonde of summer to the chestnut reddish-brown mix of hippie longhair in college.

The line between colored hair and new growth was becoming more pronounced.  My hairstylist had suggested a few months back that if I allowed my hair to dry naturally rather than blow-drying it straight, the line would be less pronounced due to the unevenness curliness produces, so I tried that and was reminded once again how lucky I am to have the possibility of wild, curly hair.  So, about a month ago I took the radical step of cutting my hair shorter still, to reach the length of maximum curliness....

This photo taken on Mother's Day, with oldest son Cody, in the light blue cap, and youngest, Jesse, on my other side shows me as I am today, with shorter, curlier hair, a middle-aged woman with grown children.  I miss having long hair a bit, and once I have shed much of my color-damaged hair, will probably let it grown longer once again.

I am lucky not to need to go out into the bigger world and try to convince someone I am 20 years away from retirement and will work myself into the ground for them.  I am luckier to have the love of family and friends helping me to live my authentic self.

F is for Frugal

I was born in California, but I believe in the manta "Use it up" as much as if I were from New England.  I have been living a less consumptive, resource-conserving lifestyle for most of the past few decades (there are those lapses into yarn consumption and occasional forays by air), and mostly do my part for the planet.  For me, the most critical part of the Earth Day theme song, 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle', is the reuse portion, because it is a creative act trying to keep things out of the waste stream.... in fact, I have been spending a lot of time thinking up new ways to use old things.

I got inspired by my friends who are part of Troupe de Trash, and also run the Ridgestop Cafe near me... they featured an art show of some of the extreme fashions designed from trash on the walls in March.  Go and take a look at their gallery of fashions, and then come right back... you will be amazed at how creative these women can get with spare garbage lying around (of course, they intend to educate and not to wear these creations daily!).

Then, I stumbled upon Subversive Seamster at my local library; it is full of ideas for re-working clothing found at thrift stores and yard sales into cute, new things, and has the same fun kind of voice to it as Stitch and Bitch.  I started looking around for things to re-make, and at the same time, Stephanie and I decided we would have a booth of our crafts at our community's annual plant sale on the first Saturday in May.  I have been knitting things up for the crafts cooperative in Downieville for a few years, and also making up greeting cards with my photos, but got to work this weekend on other possibilities...

First, I practiced making a lettuce edging around the bottom of a tank top I found at a thrift store last week - shirts are always too long on me unless they are petite-sized, so this is a great trick to learn.  You use a wide but close-together zigzag stitch, stretching the fabric a bit before it gets sewn.

I took my new-found edging skills and converted an infant onesie into a "dogsie" - little Jake would look really cute in this, but it still looks a bit too much like a baby shirt to be 'saleable', I think.  I will have to
put him in it and get a photo to share, but he was too dirty!

While up in my studio, I dug out a lot of little, leftover bits of yarn, and wound them onto cards, since they are the same kind of novelties I see offered in the scrapbooking sections of our local crafts stores.

They need labels, but a collection of yarn potpourri in this basket I found at another local thrift store looks pretty cute, I think!  I can't bring myself to throw these tiny bits away, or any other potential supply for knitting, sewing or the other crafts I have been creating over my long life, so my studio is a better source for future repurposing than any thrift store. 

I gathered together  leftover yarns from past projects to knit up some washcloths from Foxfibre cotton chenille and a few ballet Ts for young girls and a matching skirt! 

I am not sure if all of these items will be done by the beginning of March, but the lovely patterned fleece I picked up at a neighbor's yard sale a few years back will be sewn into pillows one upcoming evening, and I also 'discovered' several packets of Cushing's dyes I had gotten at the same sale.  I will also manage to finish at least two Jeans Purses... made from the top part of kid's pants, lined with re-purposed fabrics, including these red pillow cases (another thrift store find) I disassembled.  Bed linens are very good sources of yardage, whether bought brand new at full price, at a close-out store such as Ross or Big Lots, or a yard sale.  I have a lot more red than I will need to line one small purse, and also have some nice floral fabric  from a dress I found at the clothes closet our Headstart maintains (and that I clean out and take to other thrift stores monthly as part of my "other duties as assigned") and deconstructed last spring, simply because I thought the fabric was beautiful... I know that some of you are beginning to think I have a problem, so I hesitate to mention that DH is much the same way with saving parts and hardware.  However, he often has just what he needs to fix a problem out in the garage, without having to make a trip to town!

Shopping at home got me sorting through part of my huge button collection, and some of the vintage ones will be attached to cards to be sold off...

This is a small sampling of the bone buttons I have collected over the years, as well as a few of the random ones that have come with clothing purchased new.  Many of my favorite items have come from the Ananda Living Wisdom School's thrift store this year, though I have always bought underwear new, and most of my shoes and jeans (not to mention all that yarn).  I have learned over the years that the small thrift shops run by churches and volunteer fire departments have the best prices, followed by those run by local charities, while the larger chains have had a steady rise in prices over the years.

I also have collected textiles for years, not really knowing what I will do with them but just because they are beautiful... I decided to take four slightly yellowed damask napkins and dye them with some tea that had been in my cupboard for something like eight years... black tea with lavender flowers.  It smelled wonderful but tasted (at least to me) awful; the repurposed tea can will come in handy too!  There's that philosophy of wasting nothing, poking out from a corner again:)

I will sew all four napkins together to make a nice Shabby Chic tablecloth about 40 inches square... elegant and rustic at the same time, thanks to the tea dyeing.

These napkins must be linen, as they were a challenge to iron, one of my last tasks of the afternoon yesterday.  I got to put to use a great re-purposed find from an antique store. 

This bottle was probably originally a 7-Up bottle, and some creative, artistic, frugal person a lot like me decided about 50 years ago to paint it blue and apply the cute, little decal and the sprinkle top (which could be easily purchased at the local hardware store back then, probably for around a quarter) in order to have their own customized ironing accessory to cheer them through this job.  Ironing can be tedious, but also allows the mind to wander, and I got to thinking about how my frugal ways have allowed me to slow down sometimes, while making something new or re-purposed, and connect with where things come from and how they are made.  I hope that creating does the same for you.

I have been knitting, and am working on a post about my current projects for tomorrow... see you then!

E is for Elation

Elation is a hard emotion to define or to capture in a handful of words, or even a picture for that matter.  We all know when we are feeling it, but it is fleeting and can't be used to describe enjoying something routine, like morning coffee, or sitting down to that next row of knitting.  It is easy to feel happy, but elation is a whole other category.

Sometimes I feel elation briefly when I view something spectacularly beautiful... a waterfall, wildflowers, a painting or a beautifully worked piece of lace.  But really, a better word choice would be admiration or awe.  Elation comes unexpectedly and can't be sought or depended upon, though I did feel elated immediately after the delivery of each of my three children (but, then of course, everything had gone well!).

Elation does meet me in the high mountains, though... and getting out on the snow with my son and daughter to snowboard have brought some of those rare moments to me over the years....

Cody and I... I am wearing a hat that I made for him almost three years ago while he was staying with us and recuperating from emergency surgery for a bad break in his femur that occurred while out on heavy, wet, spring snow.  Sometimes, we are elated just because we live in an era when a person can be surgically healed and return to something that brought them so much joy.

Nikki and I... we have learned together over the years, and still are only barely intermediate, but for me the joy is in being there.  I heard some news about acquaintances last week that brought me up short, cleared the cobwebs of self-pity at being sick away and made my problems seem small and insignificant.  I could still get well (and am finally starting to!), I could still work and pay my own way, I could walk, in fact I could ride down the hill and bask in the mountain's sun... it was a good zen day.

D for Donkey

A logical choice! Let me introduce you to all four of the current long-eared residents of Slate Range Camp: First, there's Rose, who has been here the longest.  She arrived in November of 2003, is a Frosty Russet (referring to her coloring) and is now 12 years old.  She is versatile, having experience in packing and being ridden, and I hope one day to train her to drive a cart. Unfortunately, she is also a piggie when it comes to food, and tries to push everyone away, so we have to watch her weight.

April came next... she was once living in the wild on the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge and was harvested by the California Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2003, along with a small herd of animals removed from the range because they were at risk of being hit by cars and trucks on Highway 395 at the edge of their habitat... she lived with my friend Ginny, who has a licensed animal rescue facility, for three months after being released from quarantine... Ginny had agreed to bring a half dozen animals to her ranch and begin the gentling process, so that they would be more adoptable.  We visited her place right after the group arrived, and Glenn got to choose this time... he liked her distinctive dark coloring.  After Ginny had been working with April for awhile, she realized that we had selected a 'twofer', meaning April was pregnant!  Ginny and her husband Dave delivered April to us in May 2004 - here she is with Glenn when she first arrived...

she looks pretty durn round, doesn't she?  Her ear position shows that she isn't quite sure about that hairy guy, even though she thinks butt scratches sure feel good... how come he doesn't have long ears?!

Well, we were still surprised when she gave birth to Assteroid only a week later... we had been watching for the usual signs of impending labor, and thought she had more like a month to go (did you know that donkey gestation is 365 days?)

Here, mama and baby are resting just a few hours after birth.... I also managed to catch another photo of donkeys at rest this morning, in preparation for this special post... you see, while donkeys here at the Camp like to lie around in the morning sun,

they don't like you to catch them at it... they are generally a bit too wary to be caught on film napping!

Assteroid is now almost four years old, and a grown-up.  He has the traditional donkey coloring, with the cross marking on his back, just below the base of his neck (see the poem below, for a reference to the myth associated with this marking)  He was gelded when young, since breeding donkeys wasn't in our plans, and now that he is fully grown, we will begin training him to pack as well.  He already leads well, and likes to hike with us!

Assteroid is the wooliest of our donkeys, and we are already brushing to shed out his winter coat.  He is sporting a rope harness in hopes that I can get his still semi-wild mama to let me put it on her once it smells like him...

Our most recent addition is Abraham...

This photo is the best one I have of him so far... he is posing in pack gear with a friend of his former owner, Sally and one of Sally's mini-donks.  He is also in the foreground in this morning's pastoral shot of donkeys at rest.  Abe is a 10 year old BLM donkey, brought in from the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area near Susanville, in northeastern California, and is a gelded Blue Roan.  Here's a close-up of Abe... not the best portrait, but you can tell that he is stockier than the others, though close to the same height.

Do we have a favorite?  Well, we can't tell you that, because they might hear... each has special qualities and each is a great joy to have as a part of our lives... since we aren't playing favorites, D is also for Dog... the dogs don't understand what all the fuss is about donkeys and want you to know that they improve our lives daily as well!  Jere are Jake (l) and Elwood (r), clamoring at the barrier to the inner yard, as I return from taking donkey photos... who could resist their appealing faces?!

I leave you with this little poem, though not reflecting our own sentiments about donkeys, it does accurately reflect the commonly held beliefs... we hope to educate you further and encourage you to love them too!

 

The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

-  G.K. Chesterton

B is for Balance

I thought back in January that I knew exactly what my 'B' post was going to be - my Bohus sweater kit.  But then I got bogged down in the swatching process and too overwhelmed with studying for my college classes and didn't get a chance to do the fantastic research I envisioned in order to enlighten you all on this subject, which led me to pondering how easy it is for me to let my life get out of balance in one way or another.

The term 'balance' implies harmony and an equality of the parts of the whole that allows for smooth sailing.  My life, on the other hand, has often been more like a fisherman snagging a big fish that is pulling him out to sea more than he is landing it! 

I have three main areas where I have had to steadily work for years to keep things in balance: money, food, and time.  I have always been heavily involved in volunteer activities, and gradually learned how to say 'no' when people asked for help, realizing that it was better to do one thing well than a shabby, under-committed job of several.  I have become the voice of reason in our combined Headstart programs who asks if we are really ready for the size of project being discussed, and who is showing others ways to delegate, round up enough help, etc., so that good organizers don't fall by the way from burnout.  Spending on stash has been more an 'eyes bigger than my stomach' phenom with me than being unable to resist the sensuousness of yarns... I have a bad tendency to think I can accomplish far more than there really is time for in one lifetime!  Hard lessons learned, those!

Money is a different story... it is more a matter of being over-generous.  Each year, we end up in debt at the holidays because we want to do so much for our family and friends.  Over time, realizing that this is a pattern DH and I both participate in, we have installed certain mechanisms that allow us to work with this problem rather than it completely steamrollering over us; one is agreeing in advance on spending limits and austerity measures for the first quarter of the next year.  I have gotten much better about not over-shopping as well, and have been busy finishing up projects and pulling new ones from stash in 2008.

Food may well be an addiction... there were times when food was scarce enough, both in my early childhood and back when my children were very small.  I can recall making mayo sandwiches on white bread when I came home from grade school the last day or two before my dad's payday, and scraping a spoonful of peanut butter out of a mostly-empty jar for a snack near the end of the month when my kids were toddlers.  I also baked and cooked from scratch all that time, to save on the food budget, which was constantly under attack from other segments such as rent and car insurance.  I am pretty good at whipping up a meal from random ingredients, and didn't need to worry much about my weight until I hit mid-life.  Over the past decade, I have spent a lot of time exploring how food issues affect me, and facing up to some of the cravings I have and whether they are healthy.  My weight stays just a bit one side or the other of 'healthy', but I do have to be vigilant not to cross that line into 'overweight'.  Staying in balance takes real work and attention.

Blogging and knitting are not listed in those top three life-balance issues, but I have to work to keep them in balance too.  When I first started blogging, I wanted to be "Super Blogger", posting every day and providing witty and insightful information.  It was kind of like wanting to be the popular grrl back in high school.  As I focused on knitting, I realized that I had a lot to say, and loads of experience to share, but then so did a lot of other knit bloggers.  Over the past three years that I have been blogging, I have had to compromise, and accept that sometimes the rhythms of my lifestyle shift and keep regular blogging from being a valid possibility.  And that it's ok.  I have discovered that there are certain people who like me and what I have to say, just like in my real-world life, but I wasn't superstar material out in the big, wide world either.

Blogging has made staying in balance with my knitting far more challenging.  I am easily attracted by visual images, being a spatial-graphic learner, and get excited by so many of the things other bloggers are working on.  Following Rudolf Steiner's Temperments theory, I am a sanguine personality, easily swayed to jump from one thing to another... I may even be mildly ADD; I know my sons are.  I have been examining my stash this weekend and thinking about where IT will lead me over the next few months rather than where ideas from Blogland will.  I have lots of good ideas and interests.  I have a few choice items in my stash, as well as a huge Ravelry queue, but sometimes get to feeling paralyzed by so many choices.... do you?  That is where meditating on balance and its importance in my life really comes in handy. 

Therefore, this weekend I have been working further on finishing up DH's grand vest.  As this photo shows, I have

managed to get one front done and the other close to bind-off.  What you can't tell is that I am almost out of this deep forest-green Cascade 220.  Knowing I wouldn't be able to get the same dyelot, and that I had originally planned to use black wool to edge the entire piece and the armholes, I am opting to finish the upper back with a black yoke.  This pattern is from Felted Knits, and it feels like it is stretching on forever.  I was complaining about the fussy little details awhile back, but my attitude has changed; I am now considering those as the finishing touches that will really set this item apart.  DH works for the US Forest Service as a high country ranger, and goes off on 6-8 weeks of fire assignments each summer/fall so my idea in making him this vest was so he would have something unique from home to take with him.  I am employing my best Zen thoughts to carry through to the end of the project.

Learning to be in balance is worth the effort, though effort it is for someone like me!!

A is for Assteroid

I had every good intention of starting the ABC Along in early January, but somehow here it is, the very last week of the month, and I am just now getting to it.  January has been all about finishing up December for me, and I have managed to finish up three major knitting projects in the past few weeks, but I do wonder what it will mean for the rest of the year if I am already almost a month behind!

Many of my dear readers have cats to feature prominently on their knitting blogs when things lag a bit; not me.  I DO have a cat, but she is semi-wild and strictly an outdoor grrl.... and doesn't consent to posing for photo shoots.  No instant fodder around here.  What I DO have to offer that is totally unique, at least in my Blogland experience, is BURROS!!

Assteroid is the youngest of the three burros currently living here at Slate Range Camp.  He will be four years old in May and was born right here...
His mama, April, is a wild grrl who was born on the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge in the northeast corner of California.  She was very pregnant when she arrived here, but our burro expert and rescue operator, Ginny Freeman, was convinced when she trailered April over to us that it would be another month before she gave birth.  I went out a few days later to discover this fresh young one... a very pale grey and looking like he must have fallen from the early morning sky... hence the name.

Of course, being our very own homegrown burro, he is very special to us... he has been a 'pocket burro' from very early on, and his training started with imprinting to us his first day (though Glenn almost got a serious kick from mama when he accidentally got between her and baby within the first hour of birth).

We have halter trained him, but donkeys need more time for their skeletons to fully form and are not to be ridden until after age four, so more advanced training has waited.  I don't know if he will get much taller, but he certainly will begin to carry a pack saddle in the coming summer and maybe even learn to drive a cart!

Just in case you were wondering (and Kathy isn't the only burro fan out there... you all know who you are!), the burros DON'T like the snow... they bray in order to convey their disgust with the cold, wet stuff and really would prefer the drier conditions of the desert... here, Assteroid is on the far right, his mama April in the middle, and Rose, the oldest one we have now (she is 11) is on the left... they are enjoying some extra grain to make up for the cold.

Thanks to everyone who writes periodically asking after my critters.  You can expect to see more of them in 2008, and also to learn some interesting things about me through the ABC Along.

Next up will be details about TWO finished objects off the needles yesterday... whoo, hoo!!

Z es por Zapatos

Nosotros queremos zapatos!  It's a family thing... one son set a goal to collect thirty pair while working at a local sporting goods store (although he later decided this was excessive!)

The first photo is of a pair of Barbie sandals I made as a special order this month for a local who wanted to get a desert-dwelling friend an appropriate gift... it is fun fur crocheted around the tops of flip-flops!  I also have a set of clogs to finish up and felt for myself, and promised DH a set too.

I featured my fab rain boots earlier this year, but boots are a popular item for mountain dwellers with equines...

I have at least four pair to meet different needs at any given time, your hiking boots, snow boots, snowboarding boots, rubber mucking boots, insulated barn boots, dress Western boots, you get the idea (actually, while making this list, I counted and realized I currently have 7 pair of boots alone).

In the summer, I switch to the most minimal shoes possible for conditions, whether that be in the water in my Keens or barefoot... although there is always a pair of barn shoes waiting at the door, just in case... those donkeys have pretty heavy feet and though they are careful, it's just best not to have them step on one of my feet!

I have loved participating in the ABC Along this year, and each entry has been a rich surprise, teaching me more about so many of my blogging buddies.  Thanks to Anne for a creative and worthwhile project!  And don't worry, dear readers, that this is turning into a Spanish-speaking blog... although I studied Spanish from sixth grade through to college, I am not fluent and promise to stick primarily to English... but I do live in California.

Y is for Yoga

Knitting was touted as the next yoga, and then crochet, but yoga really is a multi-faceted dimension all its own.  Yoga has filled my life for many years... at my best, I get a half-hour of postures and contemplation in daily and an hour and a half class or two in a week, and at my worst, this reduces down to three  20-30- minute sessions a week, but over the years, yoga has been a constant.

I don't need to go on and on about the health benefits; there has been a lot of positive press and recent scientific inquiry into the virtues of yoga in the past few years.  Yoga reshapes your body, restores flexibility, tones, strengthens, and lengthens your muscles, strengthens your spine, improves circulation, raises energy level, diminishes the effects of stress, increases balance, coordination, focus and discipline and clears your mind and calms your soul.  All good ideas for a busy life.

That is partly why I was so excited to learn that DH's DD (the only one out of our combined five that did NOT grow up with us), had decided to open a yoga studio.  Although it took over a year, and the birth of granddaughter Mia, Amy's studio in Sugarland, Texas opened at the end of the spring, and she is thriving.  Amy's best tip for me was to turn the heat up in the morning from our propane fireplace and do my yoga right in front, so that the warmth would loosen up my muscles.

This is the right time of the year to consider giving yoga a try, and getting lessons as a gift for a friend or family member.  I have benefitted enormously from my teachers: Josef, Laurel, Sun, and Marshall. Om Shanti Shanti.

X is for Xeriscape

Xeriscaping, or drought-tolerant landscaping, has definitely gained in popularity here in California over the past three decades... the first demonstration gardens sprung up with state government support back in the early 1970s, following three years of drought.

Here in the foothills of the Sierras, I log an average annual rainfall of around 70 inches a year, however all of that falls between November and May, leaving around five months with barely any precipitation.  While I might irrigate a tree or shrub I am getting started for the first couple of summers, my overall goal is to choose plants that can withstand the stresses of high summer heat and very low moisture... they need to be able to root deeply to dip into the aquifer and depend on groundwater for moisture, as we end up watching water closely many summers. 

Of course, now that I am posting "X" in December, I don't have much in the way of lovely plants to photograph for you, but I can suggest a dynamite resource on the web, Colorado's Xeriscaping website.  You will find that many common garden plants, such as the sages, lavenders and iris all are fairly drought-tolerant. 

A good source of plants for xeriscaping is High Country Gardens.

Oaks, which root deeply and live a very long time, are a prominent part of the drought-tolerant California landscape.  Trees, shrubs and plants that are native to your area are often the best choices for landscaping, as they have already figured out how to adapt to the unique climate... the California Native Plant Society maintains a unique demonstration garden in Sacramento for the purpose of educating the public about choosing native plants to incorporate into their home landscape, and offer plants for sale several times a year.

Garden practices to conserve water are also a big part of xeriscaping.  Using mulches is the best way I know of to reduce the amount of water you need in the garden... two feet of straw mulch will protect almost anything and reduce your watering schedule down from once a day to once a week, but that is a lot of straw!  I deeply covered my perennial bed at the start of summer, and discovered that the birds had a great time each morning kicking my straw around to look for bugs... well, I wanted to encourage their participation, but also noticed it made it harder to keep that deep layer needed.  Straw compresses over time as it decomposes, so I will be buying several bales at the start of next season.  As the straw breaks down this winter, it will add structure to my heavy clay soil, so after several years I will have something more along the lines of garden humus that art class clay.

The best photos of a drought-resistant garden that I could find for you are of the Water Efficient Demonstration Garden in Fair Oaks, maintained by the UC Cooperative Extension program.  It's not too early to begin planning for next year's gardens, and I hope you will enjoy some of the information on xeriscaping, even if a lack of summer rainfall isn't a problem where you live.

W is for Winter

Probably my favorite season! (Did I say that for summer, too?)

Maybe it's the snow on the mountains.. adding to their immense beauty.

Maybe it's all the fun I have had over the years, playing in the snow... yes, I am recycling this photo of DD and her cute lil' snowfriend from a previous post, but I do so love the sun shining on the snow and the chance to be out playing in it!

I love them all... snowshoeing, sledding, snowball fights, and especially snowboarding.  That's really me, and sometimes even I can't believe it!

But this is how happy playing in the winter snow makes me feel.

Maybe it is that SNOW DAY means getting to stay home, with an unexpected day off and no way to get out and address the world's responsibilities.  Instead, I can play outside till I'm all wet, then come in and sit and knit.