Here We Go Again...

Thanks to my neighbor Melissa for pointing this lady out to me. She is living under the eave of the garage, in the back--so, right above my swiss chard. I've never looked up and found one of these before. Pete smooshed the egg sac, but she ran away. Which is OK, I just don't want 500 of these running around in the garden, composter, and earthquake bin (yes, I have one!). Last year they got into the garage, which was no fun at all. This was only the second I've seen this year. By far the biggest, but I do know where we have 4 different webs. So there are at least 4 more in the yard. *sigh*. She is really quite lovely, though probably angry at us now. Do spiders get angry?

"The Best Peaches EVER!"

Says E-man. And I have to agree. We are getting peaches from our peach tree, and they are so good. Sweet and tart at the same time.

I spent a bunch of time 2 years ago researching peach trees in the Armstrong catalog. Trying to find one that would make good eaters (as opposed to bakers), not be too sweet, and that would actually make peaches most years here! It looks like we have a winner. I wish I could remember what variety I had settled on. White Queen? Santa Barbara? Snow Peach? It ruled my life for so long I thought I'd never forget. Haha. But wait, there's more:
Unfortunately, some critter has found them too, and is hiding them, behind the rosemary, half eaten. Squirrel? Raccoon? Boy? I know not. And for some comic relief, here is the actual tree.
Yeah, it's maybe 4 feet tall. Little tree with yummy peaches. But a year and a half ago it was a bare root stick about 3 feet tall.

And for something completely different, after all the database stuff and computer work for the silent auction, and all the crocheting on the doll I donated and making baby stuff for Kari, I rewarded myself with a little quilting. I started a Halloween quilt that I bought fabric for probably 2 years ago. Some new techniques for me, but it's been fun in spite of the frustrations of corners not matching and sewing the wrong edges together and so forth. I should finish the quilt top this week. It's small :)

What's up in the yard?

gWell, it has finally stopped raining and there is no more standing water in the yard. Finally. We have radishes and carrots up and still alive. They were underwater for about 2 days, but seem to be fine, even if they haven't grown in a week.

The peach tree and lavender are both blooming. I need to cut the lavender back again, it takes just forever and I put it off, making it all worse. Of course. We haven't seen a hummer today, but they love the lavender too. If I can just get it cut back it will bloom even more.

And of course, the lesser goldfinches are everywhere. They eat the niger, they eat the sunflower chips, they eat dandelion seeds, they are hungry, beautiful, singing little guys. I'm hoping to get some good pics of our other birds, but they are so much more skittish.

We need to do some more planting, but the ground is so saturated that we can't plant anything right now. And the ground is so saturated that with the last storm one of our downspouts sent water into the garage instead of the lawn. We'll see how long it takes to dry out!

Lettuce

Yum. Fresh, organic lettuce right from the garden. T-bone will actually eat lettuce on a sandwich as long as it's from our yard. So at 6:45 this morning I was in the rain picking lettuce, in my jammies. Unfortunately, lettuce is one of many things E-man has decided he no longer likes.

Even better is the fact that we didn't even plant this. It reseeded from the lettuce we planted last year. I used a lettuce mix from Renee's Garden. Their seeds do really well here. All in all, a happy success--the boys and I love to suddenly discover lettuce growing amidst the weeds. The weeds have now been pulled, several times! 

Eagle Rock

Yesterday was a beautiful day, and we managed to get out. After a bit of a detour to Solstice Canyon (closed til May), we ended up at Topanga State Park. Where we should have gone first, since it is so much closer and really nice. We took sandwiches, saw some deer hopping fences, visited the nature center, and then took off on the nature hike. And then to Eagle Rock. Yes, both boys walked all the way to and from Eagle Rock. With a bit of whining, but they thought the shale outcroppings were way cool.

It was such a nice day we weren't the only ones to have this idea, but we did get a spot in the lot. And of course, this is one of the parks good old Arnold wants to close. It already doesn't accept the state parks pass (what exactly is the purpose of a pass when it's not accepted by the same dept selling it?). What is this guy angling for? Other than slashing public school funding, again, I mean.

On a completely different note: the radishes T-bone and I planted last weekend are up!