The Independent Stitch

High Park Fire, 10: Gardening, such as it's been this year

This has not been a great year for gardening.

Our raised beds got built a few years ago. We didn't have the repeated hailstorms pounding the tomato plants into green pulp before they had a chance to get started. There's been a drought, but the water's been applied regularly, if judiciously (none extra for the grass). The squirrels have been far less interested in devouring the vegetables—mostly because of the new reasons that the garden never quite got going with gusto this time around.

(Lady, a visitor, and Ceilidh, a local, very interested in where the squirrel went.)

This has been the year of the High Park Fire, and of resulting guests: Bear (in back) and Lady (in front).

That photo was taken just after they arrived to stay with us in June, when their home burned down. In our back yard it was very hot, although not fire-beset, so they hung out under the deck, where we wetted down the gravel. Later, Bear went to live temporarily with a bunch of livestock for him to protect. Bear is a sweetheart, but he isn't an inside dog (we tried). Lady was scared to come into the house for the first week or two—we could barely get her up the stairs to even look inside, but she's since adjusted.

The house is a bit small for playtime with close to 200 total pounds (90 kg) of dog, but they make do.

Our friends, their dogs, their cat, and their llamas are still living in separate places around the country, most in-state but three critters out-of-state.

I do need to do a fire update.

It's far from over. For those who lost their homes, the process of digging out and determining where, and how, to live next is still in the beginning stages. The fire itself isn't out, although it's 100% contained. During some of our friends' clean-up work this week, which involves removing debris, they saw a plume of smoke very close to where they were working, and discovered a still-hot spot.

Here's Earl's account of what he experienced at their property a couple of days ago:

Way back in June when the wildfires raged through our hills we heard that the danger wouldn't be over until the first snow flew. I didn't take it seriously at the time and was stunned to find smoke coming up from a small pile of rubble uncovered by the clean up crew this week. As I walked up the hill to the barn site I was smelling smoke and wondering if it was just the smell of all the ash that had been pushed into one pile prior to removal. That wasn't the case and as I rounded the corner at the top of the grade I saw a plume of smoke. What ever was smoldering had been under a pile of ash and when that was removed the wind rekindled the hot embers. Three months out and hot spots still remain!

And here are Kris's notes from just two days ago. Samaritan's Purse, which she mentions, is a group of Christian aid-workers that has given them more tangible help than any other organized group, including the government or the Red Cross (or insurance).

As we've been sifting up there, even after Samaritan's Purse, and all the rains, we'd be standing on a pile of soot and have to move, because the underlying soot was still giving off heat. Thankfully, the work boots the kids sent us are heavy enough that we didn't toast our toes. Will be interesting to go up today, see if there was snow there, and where there might still be hot spots—or were. The cleanup crew is amazing. Have already taken over 4K pounds of metal to the recycler. . . .

Toward the end of July, Samaritan's Purse sent a large crew that spent days helping our friends sift through the ashes for anything that might have survived the inferno. Our friends have no connection to this group. Someone who knew about Samaritan's Purse just asked if help was needed, were told "yes" (the timing was perfect: our friends had been estimating it would take many months to even assess the damage), and a large crew was assigned to work "as long as they're needed" to go through the ashes and retrieve any personal belongings that could be salvaged.

Those are only some of the workers on the team. That's Kris and Earl in front, in the (appropriately named) fatigues.

So first there came the "do we have anything left?" part. The next photo comes from early July, when our friends were (1) allowed to go look, because the fire was sufficiently controlled, and (2) able to face seeing what had happened to their home (not easy).

The so-called shabin (the small shed with no utilities that was on the property when they bought it) survived untouched, as did the tractor.

The barn didn't.

That's a steel beam from the barn, along with its roof and a stock gate. Wildfires are both unpredictable and fierce. Note the damage here, and see the building at the upper right in that photo, which is their only neighbor's house, untouched.

Their own house did not survive any better than the barn. Our friends had built it recently, over several years, using all the best fire-resistant techniques and materials. It wasn't quite finished inside. Firefighters who checked their property during the Hewlett Fire (which was nearby not long before the High Park Fire) assured them that their ranch would be easy to defend. The fire took its final run to the north with a speed and intensity that nothing could withstand, and against which defense was impossible.

That's the metal roof of the house, along with melted glass from the windows. Not even the foundation can be salvaged because it was too extensively damaged. Concrete, well-known to be a fire-resistant building material, is not immune to failure when exposed to excessive heat.

Then there's the scraping away and disposal of the debris—very costly, in work, equipment, and dumping fees. Here's some debris that needs to be hauled away and disposed of:

Yes, there's a car in there. The vehicles that our friends saved were the livestock trailer and the truck that hauls it, as well as the small SUV (with a lot of miles on it) which they used to evacuate the small animals and the few personal belongings they could grab. The SUV's removable seat was in the fire, and they've been unable to find a replacement for it, so they now have no method of transportation that can carry more than two people at a time. They have to rent a car when they need to take elderly family members to or from the airport.

Note: Corning ware made it through—just needs cleaning.

The rest of the cookware didn't.

Ditto the washer and dryer.

Yet a pot I had made and given Kris did, albeit re-fired and so not the same colors it used to be. It looks more like raku now.

The Samaritan's Purse folks also retrieved Earl's wedding ring, which he'd taken off while working in the barn. (That's a press release. I'd link to the original news story, except that our paper doesn't make "older" news readily available.)

Our friends are now at the debris-removal stage of the process. They are still living in another set of friends' spare bedroom, with the few things they've gathered to begin replacing their lives stored at our house and in a storage unit. They are still wondering whether, where, and how they might rebuild. (At the end of September, for 259 homes lost in this fire only 20 owners had gotten to the stage of having a permit to rebuild.)

Returning to dogs, Lady has decided that we are okay company, and her safety and well-being is one thing our friends don't have to worry about at all.

Which returns us to the garden. We got some plants in the ground about June 20, which is three weeks after our frost date, but we were busy with all sorts of things.

While both Bear and Lady were with us, it became apparent that it didn't make sense to plant much in our raised beds. (We also didn't waste water on the lawn.) This is what the garden looked like on June 30.

Once Bear moved to a place where he could guard ducks (they're not llamas, but it's a job), we dared to get more plants into one of the beds. (The small bed has a couple of perennial herbs in it. The plan was to plant more. It didn't happen.) The second four-foot bed still was appealing to the remaining visitor. The biggest problem was that the nesting instinct tended to transfer our carefully prepared soil (not the local clay) outside the frame.

We tried putting in an impediment to sleeping in the bed (it's a BED, but still), or at least something to slow down the removal of the dirt. That worked for a few weeks, but I removed it when I discovered it had been knocked over and was posing a risk to the canine members of the household. 

Here's 5:50 a.m. two mornings ago, just after the smoke alarm started chirping to tell me that its battery was low and two of the dogs decided they'd like to be outside, thank you (perhaps to see whether the squirrels were awake yet):

And the same morning at 7:20:

Just before the recent frost warning (we iced up last night), we gathered our final harvest of the year. The ripe tomatoes about double our take (from the entire gardening push) for the whole season.

We have a good recipe for a green-tomato curry.

I think most of what we grew in the garden this year, other than a few marigolds that did reasonably well, was a big white dog. Fortunately, she's very nice.

Gardening, such as it is, 2011 version

Ah, gardening. I still haven't adjusted to making it work in clay-soil, semi-arid conditions. We do keep trying.

This year we ended up with LOTS of tomato plants and we managed to keep them from being shredded by hail, which is a major accomplishment. The plants are happy in the raised beds. (They get water; the grass hasn't gotten much, and the summer has set records for heat.)

Both of the square beds are full of tomatoes. This was just a few days ago. I've planted a few herbs in the small bed, including some perennials, in the hope that we will have some continuity from one year to the next. The abundance of tomato plants, though, was unexpected, and I know we're not supposed to plant tomatoes in the same place two years in a row. So next year may be a puzzle.

Here is our tomato crop so far, picked and photographed on Monday the 5th:

That's my daughter's handwriting. We did share it. Even our tiny bites had more flavor than several pounds of store-bought tomatoes.

We do have some bounty this year, though. We are participating in a new CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm. We have a mini-share, which means that we don't get a lot of produce, but because of the way this CSA is organized we get to choose from a "menu" of options each week. Because of work and other commitments, for several weeks I arrived very late in the pick-up hours, and the number of the menu items still available was limited. However, each time there has been basil, and it's been abundant and gorgeous. So for a several weeks I have taken our whole allotment in basil. We are also growing a bit of basil.

Here's what happened after last week's pickup:

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?

Then came this:

And then this:

I ran out of pesto-sized (half-cup) containers, so we had to eat the leftover amount in the big bowl in the middle. Somebody needed to be responsible for taking care of the extra. It was a tough assignment, but we managed. ("HEY! How come there's only a tablespoon left? I haven't had my share yet!" - ("(oops) um, i guess i ate it . . . "))

Shortly after the packaged bits went into the freezer (alongside two previous batches), I asked the rest of the family, "Do you think we have enough pesto?" . . . wondering if I was nuts to be considering a whole mini-share of basil again the following week. Their response? "I think we need more."

These are the sorts of relatives it makes sense to live with.

They also are the sort who tend to say, "I hope you doubled the garlic."

Yesterday was the pickup. I got more pesto-size containers, more almonds, more asiago. We already have the garlic and the olive oil. This winter we may not need to ration the pesto supply. Last year's total pesto stash consisted of 8 containers. The photo above includes 10, and that was the third batch, with another about to be made.

We do love pesto.

So despite the garden's less-than-stellar performance, I'm feeling really happy about our harvest.

Plus we might still get a few tomatoes.

__

P.S. I riff off Susan Tweit's recipe. We read the garlic quantities as "at least this much." We minimize the olive oil (using half to two-thirds the amount called for), figuring that if we want a more fluid pesto we can add oil later, and the way we prepare the stuff reduces our need for both containers and freezer space.

Garden update, plus a bit on fiber (more to come)

Wow, it's been busy around here.

Book progress

The art director did a few days' worth of photos before I arrived to share the work. She did the pictures of the items made with various types of fibers. They're standard shots that don't include really technical fiber stuff.

Then I was there for five days of photography that turned into seven (I delayed my return home) and we finished all the wool shots.

I'll be going back for either four or five days, which should let us complete the photography for the other critters' fibers and the chapter openers and maybe the cover. Hopefully the cover. We did some preliminary cover photography at the very end of the wool days, but the final stuff is yet to come.

When I have a minute, I want to get some snapshots of the fiber-shoot posted.

Today, however, I spent arranging travel. Two more trips.

This just in

A few days after we get done with the next photo shoot, I'm flying to Cleveland for a little over 24 hours to tape two segments for next season's Knitting Daily TV. It'll be part of series 600 (series 500 is now airing and series 400 is available on the web, and there are DVDs of the other series).

That's a lot more travel to coordinate. I thought I was home for a bit. . . .

Meanwhile, the garden

Between bouts of booking flights and rental cars and arranging places to stay, I have been enjoying our garden.

Here's what it looked like in mid-May (on my mother's birthday, in fact):

By July 11, this is what we had:

Note the new squirrel-proofing on that one bed. The other beds seem to have been far less attractive to the critters this year. We did protect the plants vigilantly until they got reasonably large.

By July 27, just before I left for the LOOOOOOONG trip, here's what we had:

I arrived home to find this, on August 31:

What's not evident from the photos is how much we've actually been eating from that greenery. We were having lettuce before I left, and that was it. Now we have delicious tomatoes (thank you, Susan and Richard!), HUGE squash, and basil (thank you again, S&R!).

Lots of basil:

So I spent part of today (between travel-agent tasks) making pesto.

That's eight half-cup containers (four full cups) of pesto.

Yum.

Upcoming book on Dorothy Reade's original knitted lace ideas

Was it just a year ago that I was knitting that lovely, rich red afghan from bulky yarn? I had hoped to have the afghan back from the publisher for use this winter, but it's not here yet. I've heard that a number of the items knitted for the book it will appear in are going to be displayed at the big needlework trade show in June, sponsored by TNNA. Then maybe it can come home!

The book the afghan was made for is called Successful Lace Knitting: Celebrating the Work of Dorothy Reade, and it's by Donna Druchunas. That subtitle is really important. Dorothy Reade was really important, and most knitters haven't heard of her. Among other things, she was instrumental in helping get Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers Co-operative going in Alaska. You can read some about that in Donna Druchunas' earlier book, Arctic Lace.

While Donna was working on Arctic Lace, she got intrigued by Dorothy Reade's story. First she did more research. Then she got a group of contemporary knitters to make projects based on a couple of dozen of Reade's original lace patterns. The resulting projects—by a bunch of amazing designers, and one by me—are wonderfully inspiring.

Here are my previous posts related to the project:

• First post, on beginning it.
• Second post, on the inspiration and the peculiarity (for me) of knitting with bulky yarn.
• Third post, with blocking photos.
• Fourth post, completely blocked and about to disappear from my life for quite a while.

I have just caught sight of the afghan again, for the first time since the end of February 2009! I got to see this photo that was shot for the book, which will be released in a few weeks:

 

I hope that young woman has some nice tea or cocoa, and that it was a cool day when they held the photoshoot, so she could enjoy the experience of being warmed by the afghan.

If you pre-order the book before its publication date through Donna's website, she's making a contribution for every sale to the Musk Ox Farm, which needs some fundraising. They're all closely related—Dorothy Reade's knitting adventures, Oomingmak, the Musk Ox Farm—and this is a great idea that Donna has had, and you'll get your money's worth both in the book and in the form of deferred benefits by supporting research into how to help maintain musk oxen, and supplies of their lovely underdown fiber, qiviut. The official pub date is May 11, 2010.

Meanwhile, a few thoughts on the afghan, somewhat scattered because I'm still reviewing the edited manuscript for The Project. . . .

The inspiration for my afghan came from a bulky-yarn afghan a friend made for me forty years ago. It shows almost no wear, despite regular use as a central part of our family life:

That's my daughter, doing homework (grad student) with the help of Tussah. They're both pretty cozy.

The only problem is that when they are wrapped up in the afghan, I can't use it. Therefore I decided to seize the opportunity of the Dorothy Reade lace project to make another afghan that would meet the same sorts of needs.

It will.

Before next winter.

I think.

If anyone who reads this is at TNNA (it's a trade show, so only open to people like yarn shop owners) and the afghan is there, please give it a pat and tell it I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Here's more info on the book, with more photos of the projects.

____

Meanwhile, The Project has been intense enough that I haven't been able to plant any seeds (we were going to start our own plants this year, and we got the supplies). It wouldn't have taken much time. I just haven't had any moments to spare.

We will have a garden. Last year we built the raised beds, and this year they're already in place.

Last year we also discovered that our biggest challenges in gardening are hail and squirrels. We'll have to see what this year's hail situation will be like. This photo, taken today, indicates that the plans we've been making to keep the squirrels out will all be put to good use.

I missed the really good photo opportunity, where this character was digging so far into the bed that his (or her) whole front half was in a hole. We didn't even plant much in that bed last year—several squash plants (all but one of which were eaten by squirrels) and a few herbs. Three of which were perennials and should have come back up. Except I think they were eaten by squirrels.

Note the wire covering on the small bed in back. We're getting more official this year. We've already got a wire-covered frame to fit over the larger bed. We need to create similar protective caps for the other two.

Green tomatoes

We've had a hard enough frost to blacken the vines of the tomatoes and squash. Because of the repeated, late starts, most of our crop hadn't ripened yet. This is about four times as many tomatoes as we've had ripen on the vine this year.

As is evident in the raised bed that can be seen in the yard, the beets and carrots are still trucking. The tomatoes used to be within the squirrel-impeding wire enclosures directly behind them.

Next things to figure out:

1. What to do with green tomatoes. I did read about hanging them upside down while still on the vines, but I walked around the house carrying the vines for about five minutes and couldn't find a good place to accomplish that task, so they went on the windowsill instead.
2. Whether or not something I remember having read about not putting tomato vines into the compost should be a factor here, and if it should, what to do with the poor, wilted former-greenery, currently sitting on the deck awaiting a decision.

At least it feels like we are clearing space for next year's go at having a garden.

Garden harvest, just a bit

We've been on the edge of first hard frost for over a week. It's predicted yet again for within the next forty=eight hours or so. Sooner or later. . . .

Meanwhile, the raised beds offer promise for next year. We got some teasers out of them this year (well, out of the two we planted; we never got around to the third because it took so much to get the other two going).

Enough basil for a double batch of pesto (three quarters frozen, one quarter eaten).

Plus parsley, sage, and thyme:

And that lovely summer squash that the packet said could be used like zucchini, although its skin is a very light green and it was so sweet and tender it made the whole garden worthwhile. All that from ONE squashlet. We might get a couple more if the frost holds off for another few days.

The parsley turned into something pesto-like (only no nuts in it) and the sage and thyme are hanging in the office, drying.

We've already got a squirrel-deterrent cover in the works to be used on one of the beds next year.

I spent last weekend enjoying locally grown foods at the Artposium in Delta County, Colorado. Yum. More on that coming up.

Gardening: summary of a year of hail and squirrels

Predictions call for a hard frost tonight. If we don't get one, we may have a few more tomatoes and the tiny zucchinis may have time to get big enough to contribute to part of a meal.

However, we're close to closing out our gardening experiment for the year. It has not been a blazing success, but we do have this, which my daughter gathered in a few moments ago:

Parsley, sage, thyme, (no rosemary), and one home-grown zucchini. We also got a few tomatoes, and I have enough basil, clipped two days ago, for two batches of pesto.

Perhaps not remarkably abundant, but very pretty shades of green.

I know how to preserve basil in several different ways. I'm deciding what to do with the other herbs: freeze, dry, ? My daughter will probably saute the zucchini with a bit of garlic. We just had some (purchased) kale that way. She does a lovely job cooking simple, fresh vegetables.

We left the carrots and beets in the ground. They should be fine even if the temperatures drop. We haven't eaten any of our crop of root vegetables yet, so we're looking forward to seeing what happened underground. We think there's something down there under the leaves.

The garden: starting pretty much over at the end of July

After we built and filled the new raised beds for a kitchen garden, we got pummeled with hail. Repeatedly. We even had another hailstorm last week that knocked out one of the largest providers to our farmers' markets. The Community Supported Agriculture farms have been hard hit, and have been helping each other out, depending on who just got bombarded and who didn't.

This makes our miniscule backyard efforts look both insignificant and more important than ever.

Here is what our new garden looks like at the end of July, nearly eight weeks after the final frost:

It only looks this good because last night my daughter planted the replacement herbs we bought.

Inside the mesh walls at the back of the tallest bed are the tomatoes, doing their best to put out leaves and fruit despite the weather and the squirrels. In front of them are basil plants, one of which has made it through from the earlier planting and three of which are new. The marigolds have been trucking along fine since the start. It's been nice to have their cheerful color survive day to day. In front of the marigolds are some beets (you can actually see their green tops) and, nearly invisible, starts of carrots.

In the other four-foot bed, my daughter just added sage and parsley, and she is hoping her zucchini will make it before winter . . . and that the squirrels haven't dug up the seeds. There's chicken wire over the bed because the squirrels do love to dig around and kick the dirt out into the lawn.

We haven't planted the small bed at the back yet—too busy reworking and protecting the others.

Slow progress on building the garden's raised beds

One of my favorite phrases is the I Ching's "perseverance furthers." Around here, it's the only thing that does. Almost everything takes much longer to accomplish than I think it should.

Last week, an author I've been working with and I sent a book manuscript to its editor-at-the-publisher (I've been its developmental and line editor, working on a freelance basis). I looked into my files and discovered a document outlining our thoughts for this book that was dated April 2004. Just over five years. Well worth the time and effort. But not an "immediate gratification" sort of project.

Same with the garden's raised beds, on a smaller scale.

Here they are as of May 28:

Yup, nothing there but good intentions.

Here's June 5, a week later:

In between, we got the wood, and got it cut, got screws and nails, drilled holes, and fastened things together.

Here's June 7:

My daughter agreed to dig the sod out from inside the frames. When she finished, she covered the area with old newspapers. Her devoted helpers hung in there while she worked; it took two days' worth of spare time, and she caught up a little on some of the newspaper articles she hadn't had time to read when they first appeared. She's done with all this now. I was inside working on the book that just got sent off.

It's a week later and we still don't have any soil or plants in the beds. They'll get there. The afternoon thunderstorms have coincided with the times we might have had available to work on these next steps, and the hail would have pummeled the plants if we'd had them in the ground, so for the moment all is okay.

Meanwhile, things we planted in previous years in the front yard are rewarding us with carefree blossoms:

We're grateful (again) that the garden isn't in yet

We've been working on the raised beds between deadlines, but a few minutes ago had reason (again) to be very happy we haven't gotten the plants installed:

That's hail (again). It's our neighbor's trailer, right next to our driveway. Those clumps of ice are ricocheting off our roof.

Here's some of what accumulated in a couple of minutes. Most of those ice balls are about a half-inch (1.25cm) across.