Our Garden!

As many of you probably know, Crystal and I have two gardens in our yard that we are very excited about. Last year was a trial year, to see what would grow well in our gardens and what wouldn't. This year, we threw together a mix of successful vegetables and fruit from last year, plus some new ones that we thought would be exciting. We're actually getting MANY more tomato plants than we planted. We suspect that last years tomato batch is to blame. We had so many tomatoes last year that many simply fell off the plants and rotted because we weren't eating or cooking them fast enough. It's these fruits that broke apart and let the seeds fall to the soil and planted themselves for this year. We are on constant tomato watch for new plants popping up - even in the mulch outside the garden fences (as you can see below).

You can see we have two 30 sq ft gardens. One against the fence (5'x6') and one along the house (3'x10').

The garden along the fence has tomatoes, sunflowers, basil, stevia, red lettuce, green lettuce, mint, oregano, chives, and cucumbers. In this photo you can see the mint in the middle and the three tomato plants along the back. The sunflowers are right in front of the tomatoes (you can see one stalk getting pretty tall), as is a basil (at the base of the sunflower stalk) and stevia (to the left of the basil). Also you can see the red lettuce and chives.

From the front, you get a feel for how much mint we really have! The green lettuce is to the left, as are the two cucumber plants, and rogue tomato plants in the front.

Here's a good pic of our apple tree to the left of the garden.

And the apples are beginning to form!

Our lemon tree was pruned back to almost nothing last Summer. It was growing so many lemons that the branches began to break. We were literally harvesting 25 lbs of lemons every two weeks. It is slowly making a comeback...

The garden alongside the house has strawberries, brussel sprouts, tomatoes, corn, sugar snap peas, chamomile, thyme, chives, parsley, and rosemary.

The right side are our two strawberry plants that are growing AMAZING strawberries. The small plants in the front are the brussel sprouts. These pictures were taken about a week ago, and since then we have seen these plants really grow quickly.

The middle of the garden are the peas. This is our first attempt at sugar snap peas and they are growing really well (and quickly!).

This picture is the left side of the house garden, where we planted mostly herbs. Moving clockwise from  "3:00" is chamomile, parsley, rosemary, thyme, then corn at the top. In the middle are more chives. 

And finally, can we have a post on TRN without including a picture of a dog?? I don't think so! So here's West showing how big the mint plant has gotten...

Even since taking these photos a week ago, the garden has filled in. We're very excited to start eating the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor!

Rafting Down the American

Crystal and I went whitewater rafting up in Northern California this weekend. We went with 5 other people up to Lotus, CA and rafted the middle fork. We arrived up at the outfitter (Action Whitewater Adventure) and camped the night. We woke Saturday morning to a nice steady rain, but luckily the inside of our tent was dry. We spent the day rafting in the rain, starting at around 11:00, stopped for lunch (and hot chocolate) around 2:00, and continued down the rest of the river finishing up around 5 or 6.

It was sooooo cold! The girls were almost unwilling/unable to go back out for the second half of the day, but after a hot shower in their wet suits and some lunch, they were able to muster the courage to get back in the cold water. And as a group of 7, we had two big benefits: 1) the rafts hold 7, plus one guide, so we didn't have to mix up with other groups, and 2) we were able to buy all the pictures offered by the photography vendors at a pretty minimal cost to each person. I couldn't be happier that we got the photos because they are really great! We got about 60 photos in all.

I sat in the front of the raft across from Tim. Crystal was a few seats back. She switched sides halfway through the trip, so you may have to look for her on both sides of the raft. We only had one person fall out of the raft the entire day (and it wasn't me) and Crystal did a great job following protocol, grabbing Kim by the life vest and pulled her back into the boat. Quite impressive, indeed! We did at one point get VERY close to tipping straight over the left side (or port side, for those who care) of the boat, but luckily we saved it by all quickly shifting our weight to the right side. I honestly was ready to start swimming in the cold water, but somehow we managed to right the raft and all stay on-board.

Our guide, Harvey (or as he said "Havi"), was a 24-year old Aussie. For the last 4 years he has traveled through Africa, Central and South America, the south Pacific, and the US rafting and guiding tours down some of the most dangerous rapids on the planet. He was a real cool guy - definitely an adrenaline junkie. In his previous job he worked as a construction worker repelling from heights (bridges, buildings, etc) to perform his work.

Anyway, we managed to get a little sunshine just before we packed up on Sunday afternoon, and thankfully it was enough to dry out our gear. The absolute worst thing is coming home after a wet camping trip - when all you want to do is relax - and you have to set up all your gear again in the back yard to dry it out. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we didn't have to go through that...

Now, on to the photos... If you're looking for me in the photos, I'm the one with the blue jacket and yellow life vest ;-) !!

Here's a photo of us heading hard into some rapids. Look at us, working together like a well oiled machine!

Here's a series of us heading into, through, and out of a big rapid. The front position on the raft was really wet. Actually, the whole raft was really wet.

And the last three photos, just to show how much fun we all had (even including Becca, despite her face of outright terror in every picture - can you spot her?).

Oh yeah, and did I mention it was COLD!

The New Science Of Understanding Dog Behavior

Terri Gross had John Bradshaw on her show Fresh Air on NPR today. He's an animal behaviorist who talks to the same methods of dog training that we use to raise Sonoma and West. I suggest if you have an interest in dogs or training dogs, that you listen to this interview. Or, if you're interested in the approach we take with raising our two dogs - relationships based not on dominance, yet more of a family hierarchy - this interview explains just that. I haven't listened to the whole thing (yet), hopefully he doesn't change his tone halfway through!

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/26/136497064/the-new-science-of-understanding-dog-behavior

Hopland Passport - 2011

I finally got our pictures from Hopland Passport on the computer. We got a million shots, a few came out nicely.

It was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect. A group of 9 of us attended the event. The tasting went from 11 - 5... We were very thankful to have shuttles driving us around!!

We took a walk along an organic garden at one of the vineyards.

The girls - Kim, Crystal and Becca

Us.

The vineyards put out food pairings for the wine. Some places had grilled foods, pastas, you name it...

C and Kim

Me, double fisting...

Us on Sunday (yes, the event was two days).

Crystal got a feather wrapped into her hair.  Hippie...

Brandon and me.

The group sitting around on Sunday.

Easter Weekend Camping Trip

Crystal and I spent the weekend camping at Uvas Canyon Park in Morgan Hill with the dogs. We re-discovered this beautiful park last weekend while hiking with Tim and Becca. C and I took Sonoma there years ago when she was a puppy, and forgot about it ever since. Our hike last weekend was amazing - waterfalls, dense moss covered trees, redwoods, creeks and brooks - just great. So this weekend when we arrived for camping, we knew what to expect. And Uvas did not disappoint. It's only a 45 minute drive from our house, most of the time spent winding your way away from Hwy 101 into the deep woods just south of San Jose.

We arrive around 5:00 on Friday night, and spent that night drinking wine and eating dinner. Dinner was balsamic marinaded skirt steak and baked potatoes, both cooked over the campfire. The next day we played around the campsite and found a deserted path along Uvas Creek for the dogs to run around a bit. Tim and Becca arrived at the site Saturday night. We woke up on Easter morning and went for another walk along the creek and took a lot of photos. It seems like every single photo the dogs were in came out blurry - go figure. In the afternoon another couple (Kim and Jake) arrived at the site and we enjoyed an Easter feast. Each couple brought a portion of the dinner, and together had ham, BBQ chicken, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, cous cous, and rolls. Everything came out really delicious!

After dinner, we took down the tent and packed up the campsite and were home and unpacked by 5:30. All in all, it was a great weekend, extremely relaxing, and it's always refreshing to spend extended time outside. Enjoy the photos!

The four of us at the campsite.

This was right down the hill along side our campsite.  The walk down here was gorgeous.

Uvas Canyon Creek

Crystal, Tim, and Becca strollin' along.

How Easter-esque (minus the beer).

Documented evidence that Tim does, at infrequent times, act like a gentleman.

River monster.

C

More green lushy-ness.

Cool tree roots.  This is the background on my work computer for now.

C again.

I thought the water looked cool in this picture.  Taken with a slower shutter speed.

Our Easter egg coloring setup.  Well done, ladies.

Artistic genus at work.

Becca's first time coloring eggs.  Glad we were all there to watch the 'magic'.

The colorful outcome.  Even the puke colored ones look cool.

Our camping Easter feast!

Hopland Passport - Part 2

It's that time of the year again. Crystal and I are going with a group of friends to the Hopland Passport up in (where else?) Hopland, CA. It's full blown wine country and a wonderful day in the sun of tasting wines at different vineyards, eating food pairings, live music, and driven around by shuttles, for only $50. I blogged about it last year in this old post. I'll put pictures up ASAP after the weekend.