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HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our family and friends.

All things considered, 2010 was not a bad year.  But I am hopeful that 2011 will be better.  I have some plans (as I always do on January first) but they are still somewhat nebulous, so I won’t list them at this time.  However, one definite plan is to blog more often.

A lot has happened since the last time I posted but most of it is lost because it wasn’t written down.  Like all the big winter storms (how much rain did we get?) and the date of the first frost (early but I’m not sure just when).

The one thing I do remember vividly is the date of Mr. B’s “big break” – December 11 at 4:30 pm.  He fell in the front yard and broke his left hip.  After surgery and a couple of days in the local hospital, he is home and progressing well. He was healthy going into this and his doctor predicts a complete recovery.  But this year our Christmas rush revolved around Mr. B with his walker and Mom with her Hugo (a rolling walker) competing for first rights to the front bathroom.  We also have two wheelchairs at the dining room table.

Mom has been with us since just before Thanksgiving.  She is doing well and, to her credit, she hasn’t started lecturing Mr. B about the importance of exercising.  He was relentless with her when she broke her hip in 2001 and again in 2008 when she broke the other one.  Some good news is that Smokey Joe has finally accepted Mom and spends quite a lot of time in her lap.

Before the BB, I started Bonnie Hunter’s new mystery quilt, Roll Roll Cotton Boll.  I was able to keep up with steps one and two but got behind with step three. 

Then came the BB and no sewing has been done since then.  I haven’t even been able to find the time to make a caddy for Mr. B’s walker.  Mom goes home on Monday, so I should have a little more time after that.  Meanwhile, step seven was posted yesterday, so I’m way behind now.

How About Those Giants!

After an on-again, off-again season, the SF Giants finally made it to the playoffs.  The post-game festivities went on and on.  The fans just didn’t want to go home.

Usually we don’t care much about baseball, especially after football season starts, but Mom, aka Ms Baseball fan,  was here with us the entire month of August.  That meant the TV was tuned to all the Giants’ games and that part of the season was so exciting we couldn’t help but get interested.

That’s My Boy!

Even 46 years ago he had a consuming interest in produce.  Here he had crawled into the pantry and found my potato bin while I was fixing dinner.
Now he is gardening in his own backyard and is doing very well.  His house is on an average-sized suburban lot which, in California, is not that big.  Plus his backyard is mostly downhill.  But our boy is persistent and has been terracing the ground to get level areas for planting vegetables.  This year all that work is finally bearing fruit, so to speak.  They are making salads with their own lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes.  And yesterday he arrived at our house with this:

13 ears freshly picked.

Tender and sweet

Two of the ears weren’t developed properly, but the rest made a very good dinner last night.  Mr. B managed four ears, I had two and Mom ate one.  I stripped the kernels from the remaining four and added some of them to today’s zucchini.  Yum-yum.  Son suggested using the leftovers in a salad, so that’s what we’ll have tomorrow.

Speaking of Zucchini, this year we planted two squash plants from Wegman’s Nursery in Redwood City.  The reason we drove that far to buy squash plants is that we were hoping to reproduce last year’s zucchini experience.  We planted a Romanesco that, while it didn’t look like the images I found of that variety, was so prolific that we ended up with over a hundred squash from one plant.  And it was the most delicious zucchini we had ever grown.

This spring we bought one Romanesco and one Ronde de Nice.  The Romanesco looks like its images and is just as prolific and tasty as last year.  The Ronde de Nice is also very tasty and even more of a producer than the Romanesco.  We are eating squash several times a week but still haven’t grown tired of it.

Tally as of August 1: 

Romanesco = 43 

Ronde de Nice = 69

Our tomatoes are singing a sad song this year.  We planted them in May and they grew well, producing lots of tomatoes.  However, they just sit there looking green.  So far, out of 7 plants, we have only had three red tomatoes.  In addition to that, at least two of the plants that we bought from Costco have what looks like verticillium wilt.  So their days are probably numbered.  The four tomato plants that we bought at the Santa Clara Master Gardeners sale seem to be okay.  We also have a few volunteers coming up here and there from last year’s seed.  One, in the squash bed, is a yellow pear so I’m looking forward to that, if any of them ever ripen.

The exception is the little currant tomato that we planted in Mom’s waist-high planter on the patio.  That didn’t go in until early July and is rather sparse as to foliage.  But it has several clusters of ripening fruit.  Of course, being currant-size, if I picked them we probably wouldn’t even have enough for one person.  But this variety is supposed to keep its fruit until all tomatoes in the cluster have ripened.  We’ll see.

The peppers are all doing well.  We planted mostly sweet peppers this year, although I did throw in some Fresno and Jalapeno at the last minute. 

Happy Mother’s Day

 

 

 

 

 

To my mother, one of the stars of the Greatest Generation, who is still sharing her love and guidance with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To my mother-in-law who is no longer with us but who remains fondly in our memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To our daughter, who has given us the gift of two wonderful granddaughters and a fine      son-in-law.

 

To our lovely daughter-in-law who has given us two beautiful grandchildren and who brings joy to our son’s life every day.

 

And to all the other mothers out there.

Keep up the good work!

Catching Up Part 1

Not much blogging going on around here, but lots of other stuff happening:

FAMILY

Mom has come to stay with us again, so life is a lot more structured – 3 proper meals a day, no peanut butter sandwiches with hot chocolate for dinner. But we are settling in just fine (and definitely eating better).

It has taken about a month but we are now into a workable schedule as to baths and laundry. We replaced the bathtub in the family bathroom with a new shower. Big improvement in looks and comfort. The shower in the master bath is quite small so The Husband prefers to use the front bathroom. I didn’t get a before photo but here is the new shower.

GD2 made her First Communion in early May. She was able to wear her sister’s dress with just a few alterations to the underslip. We thought the crowded church would be too much for Mom, so she and I stayed at the house. That worked out well as I was able to help with the meal preparation.

I did not make the cake but forgot to get any photos of the other food. The purple roses were very much in demand among the children present.

GARDENING

The summer vegetable garden is partially planted. Our son came down the day before Mother’s Day with a box full of plants.

There were 3 different kinds of tomatoes, a summer squash, 3 six-packs of lettuce and a variety of peppers, including one habanero.

We had already planted 4 tomatoes, 6 eggplants, 12 cucumbers and 6 Anaheim peppers. There are some volunteer beans in with the Costco tomatoes, Santa Maria pinquito I think. Still need to plant more beans, onions and some more squash. Also mesclun and arugula for summer salads.

Mom wanted to give me a pomegranate tree/bush for my birthday, so we caravanned out to the nursery on Southside Road. They had two very small plants, each in a 5 gallon can. We bought the taller one and it is now planted out by my greenhouse. Probably no fruit this year, but we are hoping for some next year. When I was a child, I remember visiting my step-grandfather’s sister Marie Trescony. She lived in the old adobe house on their ranch near San Lucas and the walled garden was very old California. The big attraction for me was the pomegranate. As a city girl, I was really impressed about being able to pick something off a tree and eat it. In those days it seems I was always hungry, no matter how often I was fed. Actually, I guess I haven’t changed that much…

For Mother’s Day 2008 we gave Mom a self-watering planter box with a rolling stand to raise it so that she wouldn’t have to bend. She grew tomatoes, peppers, onion and basil that year with pretty good results. This year we did the planting for her: a cherry tomato and a mild green pepper. We’ll probably add some basil seeds and maybe a few green onions.

The sunflower seeds we planted in April are growing up nicely. They need to be thinned but I just can’t make myself pull up a healthy plant. I know it needs to be done for the health of the remaining plants, but it’s so hard.

We also planted over a dozen dahlia tubers on the other side of the front walk. They are almost all up and growing fast. We should have a good supply of cut blossoms for the house this summer.

GENEALOGY

Nothing has been done in this department but I really need to get my Spencer Stout info together because I hope to visit Montague Co, TX and Cedar Co, MO on our vacation this year.

I cancelled my Ancestry World Deluxe membership and went back to the US Deluxe. There is just so much information still to find in this country, that I don’t see myself using it enough to warrant the price difference. I need to check with the Gilroy library to see if they have World in case I need it on down the line.

Knitting, Quilting and Sewing catch-up will follow soon.

Mom's 101st Party

The big day actually isn't until next Thursday but this was the weekend we could get everybody together. All five of her great grandchildren were there as well as two of her great-nephews and a great-great-nephew.

It was a surprise until the guests started arriving; then she caught on right away.





Mom had a lot of help opening her gifts. She doesn't see too well, so EAS read all her cards to her.
TCB borrowed a little video camera from my nephew and flitted around recording all the activity, with a running commentary. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that the camera needs to be moved slowly, so most of the video is just a blur. But we all really enjoyed watching her in action.









Amongst all the activity, there was time for some deep thought; or else there was something really interesting going on out in the street.












This is the end of Clue 5 on MS4. There are about 50 rows to knit in Clue 6 and then the first half will be complete.

The weather in SF was cool but very clear, no fog even at sundown. This is Fleet Week in the City and the Blue Angels were performing. We actually heard them flying at one point. I don't think they went over the house but they are so loud that you can hear them even when they're not very close.


Last night the low temp was in the upper thirties. Very unusual for early October.

Gma and the Blue Jay

My Mom, who has been staying with us since March, enjoys sitting on the patio on sunny mornings. A blue jay, I believe it's a Western Jay, spends a lot of time in our backyard; he used to chase our elderly cats (both gone now) and even occasionally attacks the dog!

Mom keeps a jar of unsalted peanuts stashed in her walker bag and, when Jay appears, she puts a few on a towel in her lap. She doesn't want to give him very many at a time but, if he doesn't think it's enough, he perches on the chair and screeches at her.