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Not sure what's going on with this site, but just imagine that I put spaces between paragraphs and inserted photos. Blogger wouldn't let me. Maybe they will later?

Friday, December 28, 2018

Another Different Kind of Christmas, Palm Springs Style

We've adapted pretty well to living in a smaller space, going from a 5 bedroom, 3 bath home in the San Francisco Bay Area with plenty of room for a 7 foot Christmas tree, to a trailer in a mobile home park in Palm Springs, California. Well, as I like to say, ours isn't your average trailer, and just get the thought out of your mind about "trailer trash".

Ours may have been one of the first trailers to be installed here. We think so, because we have our own mailbox. Nobody else does. Our lot butts up to the city street, and we propose that it was one of the first "mobiles" to be installed in the park. It's a 1955 Columbia, and the first owners cleverly added on a big room with a vaulted ceiling and wood-framed windows that make it look more like a beach cottage. One friend enthused that it reminded him of cabins in Maine. Another room was added on to the other side of the trailer probably years later, and now folks have a hard time even realizing that there's a mobile home smack dab in the middle of it.
Still, our first Christmas here, I knew, wouldn't be a big Douglas Fir tree in the living room.


It worried me.
I would have to be creative.

Then came an inspiration. Actually it was in a dream. I figure out a lot of things in my dreams. There's a nice, tall wall in one of the added-on rooms, where we had installed a sconce light on the wall. I decided to use that as the top of a Wall Tree (my new invention).  I made the outline of a simple Christmas tree with strands of holiday lights.

So, I don't suppose we will be doing the traditional Danish singing and dancing in a circle around This tree. After all, someone might bump in to the wall....  I knew it was a good idea, when someone mentioned to us that he had walked by our place one night and saw our tree through the window and he thought, "How did they get that Huge tree into their place?"

The coolest thing about this tree is that we've figured out how to use solar lights to illuminate it! The tiny solar panel sits outside the door. We waited like "Johnny at the rat hole"*  to see when they came on in the evening. At first it was at 4:46pm, and then gradually got a couple of minutes later each night as the days got longer. If you blink or turn away, you miss it. So frustrating!

Along with the cherished ornaments, I brought down the, what I call "antique" snowflake ornaments that we used to hang on our ivy covered wall back in the Bay Area.
Our Ficus hedge was just the place for it here in Palm Springs, so there it twinkles proudly after sundown.

I regretted not bringing down more of the historical ornaments, since my idea of decorating a tree involves not having any uncovered spaces. Never fear though. The entire Coachella Valley is known for wonderful thrift shops, chock full of Christmas cheer for me to pick through.

We have a theory about why there are so many. Palm Springs has been a mecca for retirees for years, and you know, ahem, when they finally go to their final reward, their collection of ornaments are liable to end up in a thrift shop, for all of us to pour over. I have a friend who returns most of her decorations every year and starts from scratch. I would never do that.
I'm too sentimental....but this little guy was chosen to come home with us, and he seems happy hanging on our front door.


So, family traveled down from the Bay Area for our first Christmas here. While I was going through stuff in our Richmond garage I ran across some marionettes my family had made in what seems like another lifetime.
 After a trip to a craft store for some missing parts, I had enough supplies to make 8 puppets and, once again delighted a new generation with our "Boogie Birds", a toy that had been manufactured back in the 70's and 80's......long before any of the grandkids were born.

As dinner time approached, everyone helped out in our tiny trailer kitchen, taking turns with the mixer and the cutting boards and the oven, happily bumping in to each other. The assorted tables were being set out on the patio, but then it was realized we were short by 7 forks!

"How about some plastic ones?", someone suggested?

"Nooo!", said I, since I've been campaigning against plastic for years. I stood there, sweat forming on my forehead both from the oven and the outside temp of 82 degrees. And then it dawned on me.  "Oh gosh", I said, "I remember when Doug and I got together, I bought some new silverware to accommodate his big family, AND, I thought ahead and bought another set of forks" (as, I thought, most assuredly this family would be growing.)

"Now, what did I DO with them?!" We had moved and sorted through all of our possessions so much. Where were they??
Then I automatically started asking .... "St. Anthony, Please come around, the forks are missing, and can't be found."

My mother-in-law, Helen, used to swear by this, and now Doug and I find amazing parking places with St. Anthony's help. Catholics are just that way.

Well, what do you know? I marched right in to the little bedroom of the actual trailer and found a box that we hadn't yet unpacked, and there they were, all still wrapped in their original packaging!!


So....a good feast was had by all, and no one had to share a fork. This will hereafter be called "The Miracle of the Christmas Forks."

Hope everyone had a wonder filled Christmas. Here's to a new and improved 2019.

* What does "Johnny at the rat hole" mean? I believe it refers to an animal, such as a dog, waiting at the edge of a gopher hole, anticipating the emergence of the gopher. ....or someone who anticipates your needs.



Thursday, October 4, 2018

My Gardening Obsession: Seasonal Gardening at South Lake Tahoe

Some of you may have read a previous post about what I call my "stealth gardening" at our condo at South Lake Tahoe, California. When we first moved here for the summers in 2014, the landscape was pretty bare, but the watering system was regularly sprinkling the dirt at least twice a day......and this was during one of the worst droughts we've had!
I couldn't stand it, since I consider myself the Water Police when we're in Palm Springs, Even though the HOA (Homeowners Association) handbook said "Thou shall not change the landscaping", I decided I would disobey, and plant a few things in front of our place wherever I saw water being wasted. Our yard started looking pretty nice, so I expanded to the area around the pool.

After 3 years, I finally confessed to the board of the HOA, that it was I who have been beautifying the neighborhood, and they proclaimed that they thought it was great and proclaimed me "The Beautification Committee". They also gave me the dubious honor of being in charge of the sprinkler system, and told the residents to come to me if they wanted to add a little feeder to the existing water hose in their yard. I even got a special tool to attach them..... Little did they all know that I am learning as I go, and have only had success at gardening the last few years.

This year, I decided that I would open my mouth and ask if some of the residents would perhaps give me small gift certificates to the local garden center, since Doug and I had been purchasing all the plants and soil ourselves for the last three years. But our maintenance man, who appreciates the free help I give him, piped up and said, "How about we give Pat $250.00 this season from the budget, and we can address it again next year?" There was some discussion, and then to our surprise, after the maintenance guy pointed out that "She doesn't charge for  labor", they okay'd it. The only thing was, they said, "We'd like you to beautify the WHOLE complex." My jaw kind of dropped, since there are 72 units, but I'm figuring out that I can also plant some wildflower and poppy seeds and then more bulbs at the end of the season. Feeling kind of flush, I got a good deal on a couple of lilac trees...$20. each, since I've seen them making a splashy impression around town. Many of the perennials have come back from the years before, having hidden under the snow in the winter.

The GOOD news is, that the rodents, the "Name that shall not be said.", except in a whisper, "the voles AKA the Little Bastards", haven't shown their fuzzy little heads yet. (Shh!) They caused me such heartache last year, and I was glad to see them gone......I think they are.
I have great fun feeding the squirrels and chipmunks every morning, even though I know they are rodents too.
A squirrel, though, may dig a little hole next to a newly sown plant or bulb, probably thinking there's a new squirrel in town that has buried a nice nut that he wants to abscond with. But no, it was only me beautifying the place. At least he doesn't tunnel under it and eat it's roots.

The birds have great fun eating the nuts and seeds with the chipmunks and squirrels and drinking out of my blue glass bowl of water I provide for them. They've come to expect me to come out the front door in the morning to pick up the morning paper, and shaking my jar of seeds. Blue Jays fly to the tree above me and on the fence and squawk to the rest of their friends, announcing that it's feeding time. I'm discovering that one of them likes to collect the peanuts and set them on top of the fence post of the pool for a later snack.  A pair of Mourning Doves make noises with their wings as they soar to a different branch, but actually one of those doves has "attitude" and chases after the Stellar Jays, who squawk back at him. Quite the drama to behold as we sit on the porch or I peer from our front window.
Chipmunks sit near the steps or hide under a Lupine bush, venturing a little closer if I sit to watch, then run to the rock to get a drink out of the bowl, holding on to the edge of it with their little hands.

When we first arrived in May, there was a pesky bunny that chewed off the tops of most of the plants that I planted. He especially likes the Shasta daisies that I want to plant. He ate them even though I faithfully sprinkled hot pepper flakes on the dirt around the plants, and now, in July, he's been gone for so long, that I stopped doing even that. Guess he burned his tongue. One of the best native plants to plant around Tahoe is Lamb's Ear. I imagine the bunnies don't care for it because it's fuzzy grey leaves probably feel icky on their tongues.

When I finished spending my stipend for plants for the year early, I asked one of the board members if I could get a little extra so I could buy more plants while the season was still young. I was so hot to plant my vision of a bunch of hollyhocks and daffodils and Clarkias, and I was on a roll. He said that the board was trying to stay in a budget, so no. The next day however, his wife came over with a nice donation of quite a bit of cash and 3 plants!

Yellow Clarkias and Magenta Hollyhocks 
We immediately went down to this other  nursery and found plants that I hadn't seen lately, but were a bit more expensive....  hollyhocks that were two in a pot for $12 and close to blooming, and stargazer lilies which everyone had been missing by the pool, since the voles (shh!) ate up their roots last year.
Then, when our friends upstairs, who are becoming my co-gardeners, took us down to Costco in Carson City, we bought $100. worth of daffodils, tulips, and freesias. They went back the next week and bought 5 More bags. All four of us had the best time running around digging holes for a few days, and depositing an "uneven amount" (maybe a wives tale to guarantee success) of bulbs in each hole all over the complex. The effect should be glorious in the spring!

I saw a T-shirt advertised that I should probably have bought,(but I don't like T-shirts). It had a nice, colorful painting of several birds, and on top of that said "Easily distracted by birds". I really have been lately. It's become another obsession. Sometimes I'll be talking to someone, and notice a bird, and interrupt my own sentence, or theirs, to point it out. Well, the birds DO seem to like me.....
Recently I was planting a couple of yarrow plants over near this huge pine tree that looks like the most beautiful, perfect, 30-foot Christmas tree. I've always noticed that a flock of Chickadees likes to hang out in it. The whole time I was digging, they were nearby, making their cute little sounds that I liken to a squeak toy. I was, of course, squeaking back, as I do. I sometimes feel at one with St Francis and his love for animals as I am with the birds, digging holes, planting plants. I took my little watering can to pour some water in the hole, and one of the little birds flew down to get a drink as it came out of the spout! It fluttered mid-air as I kept pouring. Delighted, I poured a little more, and another one came flying to me! I ran to the house to get some birdseed to give them a little gift, and place some on a wooden post that they frequent. When I peeked later, they were busy eating the seeds.  Now, is it just me, or isn't that the cutest thing?

So now, as I finish writing this, at the beginning of October 2018, we've only got one more bag of freesias to plant, and it's scheduled to snow in about a week and a half in Tahoe. Just before then, the watering system will be shut off and my plants will be on their own. The bunny was spotted again the other day, and cute as he is, he was caught munching on a Hollyhock leaf. Humpf! We'll be leaving in about 2 weeks for Palm Springs, so I won't have too many days of watching my growing garden succumb to the cold weather. The good thing is, the bulbs will greet us when we come back in May, and it'll be exciting to see all the perennials popping their little heads out of the ground to have another go at it.
As my Grandma Diddo used to say...."Ain't Life Grand?"

Sunday, July 8, 2018

This Artist's Yard Is His Gallery

In the Bijou area of South Lake Tahoe, California, you don't have to travel far to find original art.

Every person who has come to visit us in the past few years, we have treated to a tour that includes a drive past a certain house on Bobby Grey Circle. It's hard to miss the place. The house, garage, and entire property are covered in designs made of barbed wire, branches and old rusty tools.



This artist, Gilberto Ramos, is not new to South Lake Tahoe. Born is Jalisco, Mexico, he's lived with his wife, Lilliana (a dealer at Harvey's Tahoe), in South Lake Tahoe for 30 years and has been working at Cafe Fiore for 27 years.....25 of those as the head chef. The restaurant is just off of Ski Run Blvd, and is known for being a romantic place to go for a special occasion and to taste the delicious Italian cuisine, but it also is another

venue to appreciate Gilberto's rustic art.



You're greeted at the door by a 9-foot tall weathered wood and rusty metal guitar. "Nothing is thrown away," he says, as proven by the rusty nails for tuning pegs and the old wrench as the guitar's nut.














Diners are treated to smaller items by their table while they're sipping their wine. The owner, Nick, lets me fill up the empty spaces on the wall. If someone likes them...." he gestures toward a heart, made out of wine corks and sticks, displaying a blue Lake Tahoe shape, "....they can buy them."









Back home on Bobby Grey Circle, we walk under this mare and her colt, as we come through the gate.

"I don't work so much with barbed wire much any more. It's too hard on my hands", he says.










Still, he has a a huge display of wire-made items, including what I call "Woman Walking", which shows off his talent for design.



Ramos has never been trained as an artist. He says, as he raises up his hands to the sky, "I just receive inspiration from God."










Something that he says he'll never sell is a replica of Roberto, a

small donkey that he grew up with in Jalisco. the baby donkey's mother died when he was one day old, so Gilberto's mama raised him indoors like a family pet. When he grew big enough he was put outside, but Roberto knew how to get into the house, which was made from adobe and sticks.
He commonly entered the kitchen on his own to pilfer some fresh tortillas and then ran back outside.
The donkey lived till he was 25, finally succumbing to a rattlesnake bite. Ramos' model of him is a loving tribute.



When asked which piece was the artist's favorite, he thought for a moment and his eyes landed on the big wooden bird that stands in his yard. It's also the favorite of a woodpecker that has bored a very round hole high up on its neck for a nest.
The majestic bird resembles a Sandhill crane, and it is sturdily attached to the ground by rebar and made to hold fast against the wind by a hardly noticeable wire. The legs are made from branches that have tufts of moss on them, and the body is formed from only a few big pieces of weathered wood.





Finding the right piece of wood for the bird's head is the deciding point of beginning your basic bird. It's a gift that Ramos has, it appears.

There are a couple more of Ramos' big birds hanging out at the pool at the Alder Inn on Ski Run Blvd. The owners, Mike and Laura, are big fans of Ramos' work, and have even included some of his smaller items in their room decors.



Probably the most surprising piece is yet another guitar. Ramos loves it when folks do a double-take and are shocked by his work. That's his goal.
This guitar is made of mostly branches, and is still a work in progress, but the decision has been made to leave the branches sticking out in the back. Now that makes it a "Wow!" piece! It's as if the guitar just blew into town, or it emerged right out of a tree. This piece should have Hard Rock Hotel and Casino's name on it. 







His personal collection of cowbells, spurs and cow horns, reminds Ramos of his past, growing up in Jalisco with horses and cows.
 He once had a booth at the cowboy Fest in

Genoa, Nevada, where he appropriately displayed some of his baskets made from lariats. People told him "you've moved so far away from everybody else.... your work is so different." Those words are ones he loves to hear. 

In his gallery of a backyard, nature has an effect on his work. The stream that runs right now at the edge of his  overflowed so much after the big snow in 2016-17, it crept up almost 2 feet on the "outhouse" he built to keep some of his supplies.

"It was kind of scary," he says, his wife Lilliana nodding in agreement. "We could see the water coming closer and closer to our deck!"     
Just imagine his big bird wading around in the marshy yard.


You'll just have to make a trip to see Gilberto's work for yourself. There is so much more to see, like the big wooden swordfish swimming on the side of his house. The tail was made from one piece and stripped of bark until he came down to the core.
There's the other, metal fish jumping, it seems in mid-air, to be caught on the hook of a giant fishing pole.

Then, there's the life-sized teepee made from barbed wire, rusted knife blades and railroad spikes.










"Everything is recycled," he says.

This guy is prolific! And there's going to be more-
- a beautifully made little wagon is stocked with more branches. "It'll all be used", he says. "God always inspires me."

Many of his items can be found locally at Wildwood Makers Market on Tallac Avenue, in South Lake Tahoe, and more of his art is on display at Fire and Rain Gallery in Folsom, CA.

Not everyone wants to buy the big things, so I make some small things for them."

________This article was printed in the Tahoe Daily Tribune on July 7, 2018, but only with 3 pictures, so I thought I'd do Gilberto justice by putting it on my blog. Pat Reilly Harbo     
                                                               

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Seasonal Gardening in Tahoe and Palm Springs

I've always had a garden....or at least tried to have a garden in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. I've never had a great one. We always had high hopes of a beautiful vegetable garden, with huge Beefsteak tomatoes and abundant zucchinis, but I guess since we were working, watering sometimes didn't get done, the soil was hard clay, probably didn't get amended enough, and nothing really ever flourished. I also blamed the foggy weather that headed right for our house on a hill across from the Golden Gate Bridge. Then the drought happened and we resorted to planting native plants and grasses that we got at Annie's Annuals, a magical nursery in Richmond, right near the train tracks. It's a good thing we did, because those plants are still thriving! Now that the house is rented, I don't have much control over that garden, but the perennials that I planted are still holding on.

Our lifestyle has changed, and this year the change has really kicked in. This is the first year that our retirement dream of spending winter in Palm Springs and summer in Tahoe has seemed to fall into place.

This picture of the Palm Springs garden was taken in late December! We have access to a little garden next door to our place, that we share with our neighbor, who has a Kelly-green thumb. The really crazy thing is, that in this climate, we were stunned that we could plant tomatoes in November! The kale and chard that we planted thrived and we felt so healthy. We planted collard greens too, and enjoyed eating them, when suddenly the plant sprouted a lovely cauliflower! I had wondered if it was okay to eat the abundant leaves on cauliflower, and now I can tell you they are NOT poisonous, and they are delicious, steamed with some kale and chard, and served with butter and salt and pepper, and maybe a little vinegar if you're so inclined.
Makes your mouth water, eh?

We'll have to start again from scratch when we come back in mid-October though. The temps that go up to over 125 degrees during the summer don't allow many things to keep growing. We pay a neighbor to try to keep the orange and lime trees that we planted alive while we're gone. And then there's the hibiscus tree that went in this year. Others have installed automatic watering systems, so maybe that's a project for next year.


a giant Lupine near the pool
In the summer, when in Tahoe, I've been doing what I call "stealth gardening", since I saw in the condo rules that we shouldn't be changing the landscaping. Well, the sprinkler system kept going on regularly, and I just couldn't stand it! I figured if I put some native plants in next to the sprinklers in front of our place and near the pool, who could complain? But here I was watching to see if anyone was looking from their porch just waiting to report me. In the next three years, I didn't get reported, but I did gradually get thanked for beautifying the place. Folks came by and talked to me and told me how much they appreciated my taking it upon myself to spruce up the place. In fact this year, at the meeting of the HOA, (home owners association), I confessed to what I had been doing, and was given a title. I AM the Beautification Committee.
That made me bold enough to go out and buy a little gardening seat, and an "old lady" grocery cart to put my soil and supplies in. No money was offered for my services, just praise, but my husband Doug says he's supporting the arts and my hobby since I enjoy it so much. I've loved going over to the local Nel's Garden and Hardware to buy my plants at such good prices.
Sometimes I go to their "clearance rack" to try to save a little on the damaged plants.
 So, I've just kept on planting next to the already spouting sprinklers. The day I "came clean", I told the board of the HOA that I had visions of planting a mass of hollyhocks near the pool fence to fill in when the existing lilies had passed. Running off to the garden center, I bought 2 six-packs of promising looking hollyhocks and planted them. The next morning, I discovered they had all been devoured by voles, their young lives cut short by ravenous critters that are related to field mice and moles! Heartbroken, I  went to the internet to study up on these destructive rodents, or "little bastards", the name I've coined for them.
The garden ravaged by vole holes and trails.
Turns out, they had made themselves a home in a system of tunnels under the juniper bushes near where I had planted my doomed hollyhocks. It was suggested online that putting granulated garlic, crushed dried chili peppers, or cayenne pepper in the hole when planting would deter them. I made a concoction of all 3, and then also left a dose on top around the plant. There was also an idea, about scaring them away with a predator. I saw a neighbor brushing masses of fur off his German Shepherd, and asked him, rather awkwardly if I could have his dog's fur to put down the vole holes. He started leaving little gifts of balls of fur on our patio table, until he moved and I lost my supplier. Going to Petco's grooming department didn't do much good, since all they had was hair from poodles that day, and it didn't seem to work as well.
Hearing that voles don't like plants with yellow flowers, my neighbor and I invested in dozens of daffodil bulbs, which had thrived the year before. I was also told they didn't like mint, but our voles have different tastes, I suppose, because they thought it was delicious!
Another idea presented to me was JuicyFruit gum, which they are supposed to choke on, but they ignored it. Fire crackers down their holes was a notion that we rejected, along with poison. But no, we're trying to stick to non-violent methods. Besides, we don't want to have the death of a family dog or cat on our hands.

The rest of the garden was thriving when we left in the fall, so it will be interesting to see what revives after a snowy winter. I look forward to walking along the path to our place, head down, watching for any new growth.
So after so many years of being a frustrated gardener, I can't say that now....except for my nemeses, the voles. The little bastards.
A baby squirrel taking advantage of my water bowl.
Glorious foxgloves.