goats (normal).
By on October 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
los angeles is the most magical place. a couple of weeks ago the CRA decided to rent some goats from Monrovia to take care of a weed problem on the hill by Hill and 4th Street. My brother and I stopped by to feed some nice alfalfa to our hooved friends. Apparently a group of business men joked about roasting said animals and the kind shepard on duty responded, ” you wouldn’t want to do that. they’ve got poison oak all over them.” what a friend. The goats were supposed to stay for two weeks but they finished the job early, returning to their inland empire home after only four days of cud-chewing. we need goats here ALL the time.
a nice juxtaposition
a brother and a friend
things to think about in LA (home)
By on October 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
I moved back to LA to be a gardener here and write about it too! So this nice blog will now be known as una(LA)ska. Here it is a heat-wave and the crisis of a beginning. I am trying to be the next Jane Jacobs, manifest destiny style.
things to think about in LA
Rancho Cucamonga- a former ranching/growing community.
Activity,
Green roofs
Alaska colony project? Failed.
Humanity
Sense of self
Possible locations
Sense of time and space
Victory gardens
Gas prices
Hillsides
Protected land
into the wild
By on July 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
i am on an adventure this week with my little bro. we have already spotted 13 glaciers, which reflect blue because it is the shortest wavelength of color. the other colors all fractallate into infinity in the ice crystals of the past and future. i learned that there was a mini ice age in 1813 (temps dropped 3 degrees or so) and a certain exit glacier flowed hundreds of feet closer to seward alaska. glaciers are slow moving rivers of ice- they recede about 1000 ft a year or so in this time of global warming. pioneer species such as aspen and birch grow up where they once were, shedding leaves until a layers of soil forms on the ground and the ecosystem can support more forms of life. i am reading into the wild, there are old blue school buses everywhere in alaska! and lots of beardeds headed everywhere.. there is a gale brewing, the midnite sun colored sky vibrates greys and the myth of caribou. i saw a blak bear from 50 yards away. barry lopez would call the eye contact, the deliberation, the back and forth between two species when they meet in the wild, the conversation of death. our conversation ended in the the bear fleeing. i saw her later on the mountainside with her two cubs. society.
4th of july
By on July 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
im watching sky change from super gold to the myth of black. here it seems all i do is wait for the stars. it doesn’t happen. there are no firework shows in alaska for the reason of the midnight sun. i think they sell products that make more noise though. feels like forever, our free-doms, our houses built of stories we tell over wires and with artificial light. im looking in the dirt for all of it, wondering what a truly brown sky would be like, maybe it would give me a couple choices, mix up the greens and whites scattering fields and growing before my eyes. this is another dream in a farmhouse surrounded by mountains, this time im purple. a howling malamut outside, 165 lb native alaskan dog makes the ground shake.
system
By on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
radical radish
By on June 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
This week we are harvesting the first root vegetable of the season: the radish. The radish, botanical name Raphanus is a brasica and a member of the crucifer family. The radish, a spicy, often slightly sweet root that tastes great eaten directly out of the ground, as well as in a fresh summer salad is a fast grower with quite a past. The radish has been cultivated in China since 700 BC. In ancient Greece small replicas of the radish were made out of gold and given to the god Apollo. It was heralded as an appetite stimulant, served in France at the beginning of lavish fifteen course
meals at the palace of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV.
We planted radish seeds a month ago. Things are starting to happen fast in this land of 18 hours of sunlight a day….
Heres a recipe:
Japanese Radish Salad
4 Servings
Ingredients
8 oz red radishes (large bunch)
1 1/2 ts rice vinegar
1 ts sugar
1/2 ts low-sodium soy sauce
1 ts toasted sesame seeds; more
-or less
1 radish leaves; garnish
Instructions
Wash the radishes well to remove all grit. Trim, reserving a few leaves
for garnish, and thinly slice.
Combine vinegar, sugar and soy and mix to dissolve sugar. Add the
radishes. Refrigerate for 1 hour. When ready to serve, sprinkle with
sesame seeds and garnish with radish leaves.
harvest #2
By on June 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
rhubarb
By on June 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
harvest #1
By on | Permalink | Comments (2)
an early harvest for alaska, as the days are just starting to really warm up. my skin is sunburned, but i still wear my striped long johns and pioneer peak is still covered in snow. today’s was deer tongue lettuce and red russian kale. a small csa delivery but the most delicious. spring kale. a treat. we cooked a shopping bags worth up in some braggs, tons of garlic and olive oil, a feast. im thinking about kale cake now and all the uses for rhubarb! there is rhubarb growing up though all the cracks, its christmas-y strands soon covered in a custard, and resting in a pie dish. its rhubarb curry now, rhubarb crisp, rhubarb sauce on everything. with 20 hours of sunlight a day, everything bolts so quickly, seeds predicting future seasons of chewy stalks. almost everything has been planted out, the 50mph winds make it hard for the delicate squash stems. the second type of mosquitos of the spring are much smaller and harder to catch than the first. buzzing now, lady bugs too.
molasses
By on May 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
we sprayed the beets and potatoes, sweet peas and beans with the sticky black-strap sweetener, my nose filled while i transplant root vegetables to beds with a view of omnipresent mountains. I think of the bread we made a few nights ago, rising and punched, cracks on the top to be layered with butter shaken in a mason jar. everything tastes better of glass you know.
for the gardener…
molasses has nitrogen fixing microbes….
One of these nitrogen-fixing microbes is Azotobacter, a microbe that can fix nitrogen straight from the air without living on the root of a legume as long as it has a source of energy such as sugar or molasses. Both are rich in carbohydrates, a good source of energy. In lab tests, Dr. Louis M. Thompson discovered that if given sugar weekly, the Azotobacter could fix from the air the equivalent of a thousand pounds of nitrogen per acre in ten weeks.
