I MARRIED ADVENTURE

Posted on April 25, 2011 by snowbirdredux

I MARRIED ADVENTURE

You can see from my falling-apart copy of Osa Johnson’s book that it was a special favorite in my youth.  What a life she led with Martin Johnson,  traversing the world at a time when Africa was still the “dark continent” and Borneo a near unknown, taking photographs of tribal chiefs and primeval beasts in the jungle.  I dreamed to be her.  I fantasized about the life she led and thought it the pinnacle of marvelous-ness. In the forward to this 1942 book, the president of the American Museum of Natural History says “Home was to be a schooner in the South Seas, a raft in Borneo, a tent on safari, a hut in the black Congo, sometimes a dash of Paris, interludes of an apartment on Fifth Avenue – but always a place to be going from.”  What a blockbuster film it would have made. Especially because of the irony that after all the years traveling by safari and small boats and jungle aeroplanes, it ended suddenly on a lecture tour in the United States, in a small plane crash which killed Martin and injured Osa.  And just after they had agreed to buy a little country place and have children and their own animals. Oh how I cried every time I got to the ending.  But she was my heroine and I wanted to be just like her.

We have lived in many places and in a “past life” I even lived in Mexico City for a year, and if we did not actually explore in far-off places, we did traverse the entire west coast pretty much from top to bottom. And although we never went “global” we certainly did pull up stakes and move on to new horizons over the years, and while we have lived in some very nice houses here and there, we have also done time in miniscule Big Sur cabins without “amenities”.

This is not to suggest that we were merely itinerant wastrels, gypsying through life on a wish and a whim.  There WAS the proverbial method to the sometimes seeming madness. When for instance, Robert announced one day that he had bought a deserted tattoo parlor on the last piece of the old Pike Amusement park, few would have thought that it would transform into the Mirage Café.  And provide “Meat Salad” and Chicken Won Ton and Ploughman’s Lunch and even Aunt Verna’s Norwegian Cabbage Salad for grateful downtown lawyers and World Trade Center business people and other fans. Or that a trip to charming Ferndale would translate into a remodel of a deserted 1882 farmhouse, or that the local repertory theatre happened to need a small café which became The Stage Door.  It was usually about finding the worst house in the best neighborhood and making it shine.  Or building from the ground up in an awesome location.  So yes, we moved about – buying, redesigning, building, gardening and selling.  That was the “work” and the fun. On a bigger scale perhaps,  Martin and Osa made their life’s work and their passion, traveling about capturing the wonders of the world.

Yet I must admit that these days I long for a home base far more than I would like to traipse about the globe. Just like Osa at a certain point. We felt we had that final home base at Castenada Lane for the first time in our own traipsing, but we now look forward to transposing all that that entails to Mt. Faith, and that’s a good thing – going back to familial roots.

But this time seems the most poignant. And difficult.  And certainly that has much to do with being “of an age”.  We’ve had the children and the grandchildren and now there’s only Cosmo. And he has made eight moves already in his advanced cat lifetime, so it seems reasonable that the ninth would encompass his ninth life, as in cat lore.

We haven’t accumulated as many possessions as many people I know, but still there are the special treasures.  A few years ago we agreed to donate all our books to the library with the exception of “reference books” (this could be for instance, gardening, cooking, or in my case, mythology or what Robert calls “Arcania”) and volumes that we KNEW we would reread.  (Osa qualifies as one of those.)  This has primarily been my book packing day however, and I am amazed at the voluminous numbers of “reference” boxes we have accumulated.  And they are HEAVY.

Beyond that, every box I pack seems to contain fragments of our past and that of course requires a bit of extra time for exclamations of surprise and the poignancy of remembrance, not to mention serious decisions regarding relevance and keep-ability. We ARE trying to hone down.

And when I just now packed the well-worn and beloved copy of “I Married Adventure”, I realized that I too, if on a smaller scale, got my girlhood wish when I married another Johnson.

Posted in Family, introspection, MOVING | 1 Comment

HAPPY EASTER

Posted on April 24, 2011 by snowbirdredux

This is the first year I can remember in my adult life that I didn’t go to See’s Candy and buy Bordeaux and Scotch Mallows and Pecan Buds  and chocolate marshmallow eggs and bunnies  and nestle them in baskets we have used since my children were little.  Mom would have reminded me weeks ago.  I have been so busy packing that I actually forgot that Easter was upon us.  And if we were “back home” at the Good Shepard of the Prairie Lutheran Parish, that would not have been possible.

Lutheran Church, Hickson, North Dakota

After the Service

And if Aunt Verna was around she would have insisted that we could NOT have her Scandanavian pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream until we had gone to Easter services.

Mom loved Easter more than any other holiday.  Even more than Christmas, which brought out her inner Santa and her inner Angel to the max.  But Easter became entwined with the Spring, and for a girl who grew up in frosty Minnesota it was the time of flowering and new beginnings, of daffodils and promise, of all the embodiment that her own personal  seratonin had already most likely delivered.  This is the first Easter without her and I’m feeling quite sentimental.

She would have been sure to have unearthed the ancient sugar panorama egg that I surreptitiously bit into some 70 years ago.

And the foam bunnies that Kevin and Noelle decorated when they were little.  She kept all that  and I have it now in the box marked – EASTER.  I’m packing and weeding out and trying to discard.  What to do?  I had set it aside and now I’m not sure.

Robert’s talking about doing a lovely roast chicken – his best and my favorite. But I’ve packed all the cloth napkins and the house is strewn with debris and packing material.

But it’s not about “stuff”.  It’s about a time of renewal. Of rebirth and promise and moving on and beyond.    And that is exactly what we are doing here and now.  I think I just got my Easter message.

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MEMENTO

Posted on April 23, 2011 by snowbirdredux

DIANA SCROGGIN

“…and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Posted in Family | 2 Comments

MR. LONGEVITY’S ADVISE

Posted on April 22, 2011 by snowbirdredux

Morning sky from the Deck

While talking to my cousin Curt who lives in Minnesota and is our go-to guy for the practical nuts-and-bolts info that we California rubes need to know  (things like what car will handle the ice on the driveway, and how much heating oil to fill the tank) I may have been whining a bit about the stress of it all and he said – “Here’s what I just read today – Embrace change.”

EMBRACE CHANGE.  That  brought me up short and slapped my spinning mind into reality.  “It’s in the paper, just a minute”, he said.  And read to me about the passing of the world’s oldest man who, of course, had been previously asked about the secret of his longevity and listed four pieces of advice.  I didn’t hear just what the derivation or where the old man resided before the end, but his homilies seemed meant for my ears at just this time and most particularly the first which I’m now making my personal mantra.

The second admonition was to EAT TWO MEALS A DAY, and here we just might part company a bit and not because I am an overeater, just the opposite, but when you have a “personal chef” you take advantage of it.  But I see his point in general and it certainly addresses the problem that so many face which is simply – eating “badly”.  One could say – Eat less and eat healthy.  And that we do.  In spite of the whipped cream and other “treats” in moderation, my mother was the original health food queen long before it was popular.  And we carefully control our trans-fats and assiduously read labels and shop organic at the farmer’s market.  So, Mr. Longevity, I get your point.

The third piece of advice was to WORK AS LONG AS YOU CAN, and that I have certainly done somewhat beyond my “retirement years” and would still be doing until the last packing day if the road had not fallen into the sea.

In Minnesota – we’ll see.  There will be work in the new garden and baking in the kitchen and spinning my thoughts into cyberspace, but then that might not qualify as “work”.  But this too, is good advice and he was right on this account as well.

So the second and the third stand as good, practical advice.  The first is deeply felt and will require constant care and diligence and I suspect I will fall and falter here a bit, but I am taking it personally and gratefully to heart.

Finally this wise old man said – HELP OTHERS.  And that I believe is the simple secret for us all.  Taken to heart it’s the world changer.  It’s the key.

It’s the esoteric truth clothed in a simple homily.  It’s like dropping a pebble in a pond and watching the concentric rings spread out. It’s just the opposite of the man-kicks-dog, dog-bites-man scenario.

I was struck by the “random acts of kindness” movement that circulated a few years ago.  The story as I read it, began when someone crossing the Golden Gate Bridge told the toll taker that he was paying for the car behind him.  One could imagine that the recipient might just react with paranoia about the motivation of the “nut” in front of him, but he also might be awed by the spirit of the intent and  moved to simple acts of kindness himself.  Like the circles from the stone, it can multiply.  There is a teacher, Catherine Ryan Hyde at Cuesta, our local community college in San Luis Obispo, who wrote the book “Pay it Forward” which was subsequently made into a movie with Haley Joel Osment and Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt.  The conception is brilliant and heartening and embraces perfectly Mr. Longevity’s advice. It involves a young boy whose social studies teacher gives an assignment to construct a scheme not only for changing the world, but putting it into action.  The boy, motivated by troubling issues in his own life, creates the Pay it Forward Plan which suggests that every good turn which happens to befall a person be repaid to three other people.  Do the math. The spread throughout society is no longer in a pond but “oceanic”!

In the meantime, I’ve written down the four guidelines, and I’m doing my very best to follow through.

Sunset

Posted in introspection | 1 Comment

GIVE US A FEW MORE DAYS!

Posted on April 22, 2011 by snowbirdredux

When my cousin Maryanne called to “thank me” for tattle-taling on her, she  reminded me that it was a TILT-A-WHIRL and not a lowly ferris wheel that signaled her own “tilt” moment.  And she had had to beg and beg Uncle Lawrence in the first place, so it was a humbling moment at best.

The Pedersons, Maryanne to the right

She also reminded me of how Mom would have every day and minute planned with fun excursions when they came to California.  I had forgotten  (besides the ones I already noted) we ALWAYS went to Forest Lawn, that primo tourist “garden” and, I don’t know, strolled among the fallen stars and enjoyed the landscaped beauty In the Court of Remembrance and Columbarium of Radiant Dawn, the Sanctuary of Light and Sheltering Hills. Seems strange now, but it was just something folks did then.

A better fun day was Laguna Beach and I believe that Aunt Verna bought tons of California pottery there.  We kids especially liked to see their official greeter, Eiler Larsen, a long haired brilliant but eccentric man of the world who emigrated originally from Denmark and for 33 years stood on one street corner of that lovely beachfront town – waving and calling out hello to all the tourists driving by.  “They all respond” he said before he died in 1975. “I reach out and give the message of good will and they pass it on.”  I guess he instinctively understood random acts of kindness and pay it forward-ness before it had a name.

When we were a little older we had an excursion to impersonate some of those personalities who would eventually end up in the Court of Remembrance and we had lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  We were just unsophisticated enough that we must have surreptitiously glanced around the dining room to see if we could spot the stars. It reminds me of the time in junior high school when a friend and I ditched school and took the Red Car to Hollywood and had lunch at the Brown Derby where we ordered phones at our table and pretended to be talking to our agent!  But this day it was Mom  who pretended and went to the ladies room just ahead of us and when we entered she was stretched out on the sumptuous chaise, knowing it would make us laugh.  After lunch we headed over to Rodeo Drive and while browsing in a corner boutique, overheard Zsa Zsa Gabor ordering dresses to be sent to her house to try on so she didn’t have to use the dressing room with the rest of us.  We giggled.

But the best and most diverse trip of all  began in Long Beach where we lived,  and took the route over a ferry boat to Terminal Island and then on to San Pedro where we would first visit the big Norwegian grocery store where I know we would buy pickled herring, and gjetost (goat cheese) and lingonberries and probably rusks (I forgot the Norwegian name) for Mom.

Then on above the harbor and north along the ocean to Portuguese Bend, home of the Wayfarer’s Chapel, a truly fabulous all glass structure designed by Lloyd Wright the son of Frank , so magical among the trees, a Swedenborgian  angel palace.  I vowed to be married there some day, although it was not to be.

We saved the best til last.  The Magnetic Hill. And this is a forgotten wonder, I think, because I have rarely come across another Californian from the 40’s, 50’s that seemed to know of it’s existence.  I can’t imagine that it was our own special secret and without Mom’s input I have no way to verify how we knew and why.  But it was our spooky, stranger-than-fiction, magical sojourn which we delighted in showing off to out of town guests.  Here’s what I know.  There was a hill in Palos Verdes above San Pedro which was called the Magnetic Hill because you could park your car at the bottom, turn off your engine, and feel it slowly, slowly move back up the hill.  I am serious.  At the expense of being labeled an airy-fairy kook, I have to say it was a phenomenon that we all experienced.  You can ask Marianne!

I seem to remember that as the legend went, Indian tribes once lived on that hill in Palos Verdes and signaled to another tribe on Signal Hill (hence the name) in Long Beach.  Later of course, oil was discovered on Signal Hill and made a lot of early settlers very rich (but not the Indians).  In my youth the lovely view from that side was compromised by derricks. But that’s another story.  But is it possible that some magnetic property could actually cause movement of large vehicles?  I have no idea.  There are stranger things in the world.  Is there some scientific explanation?  Please write to me if you know.

In the meantime, we’ll fondly remember the fun excursions of our past.

Ah to be a Californian. Those were the days.

Posted in Family | 4 Comments

GID OS IDAG

Posted on April 21, 2011 by snowbirdredux

Grandma Ingebretson was actually the grandma to my cousins Maryanne, Marlene and Margaret Jean.  But I also called her Grandma.  I guess  because we shared Grandma Marie, I thought we must share her too.  We were the California part of the family and the Pedersons and the Johnsons and all the extended relatives liked to be real snowbirds and come to visit us in the winter.  We would go to Knott’s Berry Farm ( Disneyland was only a twinkle in Uncle Walt’s eye at the time I was a child ) and visit ghost town and eat fried chicken and berry pie.  Another big attraction was the San Juan Capistrano Mission where we would feed the pigeons and tiptoe reverently through the adobe walled chapel and pretend we were not Lutherans.  Or The Pike amusement park in Long Beach with its Cyclone Racer and Bumper Cars and House of Mirrors and Cotton Candy.  Maryanne had to have a whole ride stopped just for her once (I think it was the Ferris Wheel) because she was determined to get off!!!  Who knew she would chicken out then, because I thought she was much more daring then I.  When we were little she would clomp up and down the stairs in her mother’s high heels and I could hardly keep up.  At a ladies luncheon in Fargo she convinced me to help her pour out all the contents of the  purses on the spare bed.  And as to Grandma Ingebretson,  having been reprimanded for who knows what shenanigans (could be the purses?),  she once shook her finger at her grandmother saying “You doo, doo”-  and getting a LOOK, suddenly amended that to (in musical rhyme)  – “doo, doo, diddley dum, dum!” That takes guts.  But this from the lady who made her husband cut up 30 pounds of alfalfa pellets with scissors!

So that was all fun.  But the most exotic and exciting side trip we took with the relatives was always the one to Tijuana, south of the border.  How I loved it.  The sights and sounds were foreign and thrilling.  The shops were full of colorful piñatas and Day of the Dead candelabras.  The airwaves were ringing with Ranchero melodies.

The tourista photo is dark and fuzzy, but it captures the moment when (in the front row, left to right ) Aunt Verna “Honeymoon” and her mother, Grandma Ingebretson “Adios Amigos”,  pose with (back row) Maryanne, Mom “Just Married”,  Me, Marlene, Margaret Jean on the zebra/donkey, and Uncle Lawrence leading the happy band.  Good times were had by all.

It is one of the few photos I have of Grandma Ingebretson, but I thought of her today when we got down to the last of the loaves of her Molasses Bread that I recently baked.   Dense and pungent, bread of the earth, old world taste.

Mix together – 2 tsp. Sugar, ½ Cup warm water, and 2 T. yeast.

Let stand 15 minutes.

Add and Mix:  3 ½ Cups water, ¾ Cup dry milk, ¼ Cup brown sugar, 51/2 Cups unbleached white flour; ½ Cup Molasses:  Beat Hard.

Then add: 2 Tbsp. Salt, ¼ Cup shortening, 5 ½ Cups whole wheat flour.

Mix into dough, add more flour if necessary.

Let rest 15 minutes, then knead until smooth.  Let rise in oiled bowl until double. Punch down and let rise again.  Put in greased tins and let rise.

Bake in 350 oven.  Makes 3 or 4 large loafs.

And – as the painted plate in my Mom’s kitchen said – “Gid os idag vert daglige brod.”    And I may have mis-spelled the quote, but I’m sure I’ll hear from some of the relatives.  And I hope so.

Posted in Family, food | 1 Comment

BAD MANNERS

Posted on April 20, 2011 by snowbirdredux

I am such a sucker for living among our wild life and respecting that it was their home before it was ours, that I once had to call the animal control people over a skunk who was doing a stand-off at night when we got out of the car, and had actually charged down the hill towards Robert one afternoon, and when I asked what he would do with the skunk when he caught it in his trap, and he said “kill it, of course” –   I called the whole thing off. And this is merely to put things into perspective and ward off the criticism that might come my way because of recent events.

Everyone knows we feed the birds.  And like so many avian aficionados we are forced to put up with unwelcome visitors.  And we do try to work around everyone’s preferences but there is a limit.  It isn’t just the expense of the seed and I am happy to feed other creatures within bounds, but it has come down to outright war and sabotage.  This happened once before, nearly eight years ago when we captured in a have-a-heart trap about 25 of the culprits in one season alone.  And I suspect and hope that all 25 are now happily carousing and reproducing way down the road next to a lovely pond and scrumptious oak trees.

We seem to have wiped out the neighborhood population in the interim. Until now.

"Sunflower seeds are not all that bad".

"Think I will have some more."

"What a score!"

You may be thinking they look cute on the deck.  You may even be saying “Aah!” But trust me it was not fun eight years ago when they took up residence in the attic and amused themselves by rolling acorns back and forth above my head at night.  And gnawed their way into the twenty gallon plastic garbage can holding the bird seed.  And intimidated the feathered friends it was intended for.

I was amused, I admit, when a customer at the Mercantile introduced me this past year to her web-cam “Bad Manners Squirrel Diner” which is hilarious and includes various scenarios and tableaus depending on her mood of the moment, so you can tune in and watch a squirrel interacting with “Nurse Barbie” or seeming to take orders from G.I. Joe, or having tea with Raggedy Ann.  All this on her urban deck in Santa Monica.  Pretty funny stuff.

But not so funny on Castenada Lane these days when we discovered that the little devils (or tree rats as they are sometimes called) were RIPPING UP AND THROWING OFF THE ROOF TILES!  I started to find pieces all over the ground.  And  Robert, much to my horror, had to get up on the roof and repair the damage. I made him wear a rope. And I didn’t breathe easy until he finished.  After all, it’s three stories down on one side!

One day I was momentarily amused when I witnessed a squirrel clinging to the side of the pine tree then leaping into my hammock, swinging back and forth, then  back again upon the tree and jumping and swinging, again and again.  I even succumbed to an “Aah” or two, until I discovered just what he proceeded to do after all those funhouse antics.

I can’t pin the mess in the garden shed upon Mr. Squirrel, but somebody likes bone meal.

And save your “Aahs” because we know he likes peanut butter.

Posted in wild animals | 1 Comment

CHUTNEY

Posted on April 19, 2011 by snowbirdredux

The oldest friend I have is Peggy Peebles.  And I’m not talking about her age, which is the same as mine, but the fact that we met in the third grade, bonded and have been friends ever since.  I can’t recall anyone who is not a relative who goes back that far.  We both lost our fathers around that time and were raised by single parent teacher moms.  We went to church camp together, giggled over whoopee cushions and boys, made a habit of walking all along Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, California and around Rainbow Pier and back (which really shows our age as Rainbow Pier has been gone a LONG time), pledged a high school sorority in much fear and trepidation together, double-dated at the Circle Drive-in Movie, married, had children, lost first husbands to divorce or cancer, remarried, and are STILL HERE.

Getting so much older and getting so close to moving far, far away – I have been really thinking about friendship.  I have some friends who just slipped through the cracks – they’re lost somewhere in time and space and I regret that.  Margot Tillotson, Mary Park, Olivia de la Rocha, Sandra White – if you happen to chance upon this posting – I miss you.   I have Melanie who shares unbelievable personal history.  I have my employer/best friend Alice who has been my home-away-from-home base and we “have each other’s backs” and share our deepest joys and frustrations.  I have my friend Susan who worked in Big Sur with me 30 years ago and continues to “be there” over the miles from Michigan and has been my personal guide and rooting team for the big move. There is Mara who has guided and pushed me into believing that I didn’t just have to have “lesser” angels. There are relatives who qualify first and foremost as best friends, like my cousin Debbie who has been my best e-mail pal and I suspect my future family support system,  and above all, my cousin/sister Maryanne.

The thing about my friends is that I don’t see us forming a cohesive unit. We are not a “social group”.  We are individuals who connect on various and disparate levels.  We are CHUTNEY.  And if that sounds like a mental aberration and a lunatic stretch, bear with me here.  I need to segue into something I’m going to share and it has to do with Peggy and a recipe.  And when I realized that Wikipedia describes chutney as “an idiosyncratic but complementary mix” I thought “AHA!”  How perfect is that.  FRIENDSHIP!

When last we visited with Peggy and her husband Dick, they were camping at Lake Lopez in the southern part of San Luis Obispo County. We brought lunch and among the fare was the following which relies on a good chutney and is so easy to make it’s almost embarrassing and yet looks so impressive you will be blushing from the compliments.  And that’s the point of the picture above which daughter Sheila took that nice day by the lake.

BAKED BRIE

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 wheel of brie, 4-6 inches (I used Costco Double Cream)

5-6 T. mango chutney

5 T. toasted slivered almonds

1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 T, water

Spread chutney on top of cheese, sprinkle with nuts, place pastry sheet over cheese and wrap edges underneath, first cutting off excess corners. Cut leaves or decorations from the pastry scraps.  Afix to top of  pastry with egg wash, and brush all over with wash.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

It’s really easy, even though it looks complicated, and will bring great kudos and rewards.  Just like friendship.

Posted in food, introspection | 1 Comment

NEVERMORE

Posted on April 17, 2011 by snowbirdredux

It seems so strange not to be going to work each Friday morning. The three days away from home has been my pattern ever since we bought Castenada Lane.  I would start up the coast and stay over with my friend Alice for two nights and start home on Sunday evening.  The slide on the north coast  of Big Sur near Bixby Creek  and the slide near Gorda on the south coast have virtually rendered the 50 plus miles of coastland off limits.  You can imagine what it is doing to local businesses, not to mention employees.  I am one of the later.

Post Ranch Inn - Big Sur California

I miss my job.  Let’s face it. Post Ranch is a very tasty place. And having to spend one’s time in Big Sur is not at all hard to take to say the least.  And in spite of the fact that one might assume that the upper fraction who can afford to spend $2,000 or more per night for a room might behave less than cordially to the “help”, I am pleased to announce that that is a fallacy.  In the fourteen years of employment, I can only recall one stinker.  And she was a book in itself.  Most everyone, whether “privileged” or honeymooning, are just so darn happy to be there that they are radiant with good fortune and exuding good will.  And I will even admit, that over the years I have  become girl-friend chummy with names (which I will never reveal) that would be of tabloid interest.

And I will miss the creativity, being my friend Alice’s “boots on the ground”, getting to play-with and display and co-ordinate the really terrific things we sell (sold).

But what I will miss most of all is my raven.

Four years ago he started visiting me as I ate my lunch in our storage/shipping container.   Before he ventured so close, I would hear him high up in the redwood tree making that distinctive, almost electronically resonant – “krwaank, krwaank”.  He also caws, somewhat like a crow but deeper.  And “clicks”!

Redwood trees - Post Ranch

“Hello” I would say as he ventured closer. And since I usually had an apple on the menu – “do you want an aaapule?” I said in a “babyvoice” before I realized just how smart he was.  He would strut closer, waddling right and left, dipping his head from side to side as he (I suppose) looked full on, one eye at a time.  We continued on with apple cores for a time until I realized that he just might fancy the peanuts that we fed to the jays at home.  By now he was showing up every day at lunchtime and even waddling just inside the  front door to the Mercantile shop, peeking to see if I was there.  Since I was only at work three days a week, I asked if others were apprehended by my new friend.  But no.  He only came when I was there.

The peanuts were a hit.  And so we developed a routine.  If he came early I would say “You’re an early bird.  It isn’t lunchtime.”  And he would perch in the small oak tree across from the front door until it was time. And how exactly our routine began I’m now not sure.  I didn’t deliberately intend to “train” him to respond in a certain manner.  But we began and it was always the same.  I had decided to feed him the peanuts on the top of a fence post across the parking lot.  I would signal that it was time by making a clicking noise with my tongue and that was the sign that he could now fly to the high gate post while I deposited the peanuts on the lower one.   Later on he occasionally brought the mate (ravens mate for life) and she would hang back until the peanuts were placed and ready to share.  He even brought the kids sometimes, but they just stayed in the upper branches and croaked and hollered until the coast was clear and they felt okay about swooping down to share the treat.

The raven (corvus corax) it seems, is one of the smartest birds of all. My friend Nancy used to live in the San Simeon hills next to Hearst Castle. She  had taken in and cared for an injured raven from a bird rescue society which became of course, a pet. When Nancy took a job as a garden docent at Hearst Castle, the raven would fly along side the car, down to the highway and up the road to the monument and accompany Nancy on the tour. It was an added bonus for the tourists.

I have read that ravens can be taught to talk just like parrots.  For four years I have been saying “peanut” over and over, and not in baby talk, but in what I imagine is closest to the low pitched “krwaank”.  Try that one out. It’s not an easy juxtaposition.  Then I tried “Nevermore”, thinking perhaps that Edgar Allen Poe knew something I didn’t about the sounds ravens are able to best intone.  I even considered withholding the peanuts until he spoke, but that didn’t seem fair considering our friendship.

There was one time when he was missing for three weeks and I felt worried and bereft. I thought of all the possibilities.  Marauding Great Horned Owls? Hunters?  A bad peanut? Old age? When he finally showed up one day I cried out “Oh there you are! Where have you been?  I was so worried!” to the  perplexity of the customers I abandoned in order to run quick to my car and get the peanuts.  However, I think they “got it” when they heard my “clicking” and saw the resulting happy lunch.

Now it has been more than three weeks.  I wonder if he’s worrying about me?

Posted in Birds, introspection | 1 Comment

ROSE COCKTAIL

Posted on April 16, 2011 by snowbirdredux

Quatre Saisons now showing her pink blush

ROSE COCKTAIL

It was when we lived in Ferndale in northern California that I REALLY fell in love with old fashioned roses.  They seemed just the ticket in that National Monument of a Victorian village. And it was there, in fact, that my Inner Gardener came full bloom.   I attribute it in part to the genetic and personal influence of Grandma Marie who was the personification of the best of what gardening is all about. I’ve written about our sweet cottage setting in Long Beach, California and how  I grew up in the prettiest yard in town.  It was further cemented in a trip to Minnesota in the 70’s when we visited the niece of my Grandpa Johan – Alida Olson.  I was staggered. Alida’s garden was the epitome of the English (call it Norwegian here) Country Garden, with it’s deep, undulating beds all sumptuously exploding with a horticulturist’s dream.  So when my cousin Marlene told me about her inclusion so many years later in a book called “Growing Home – Stories of Ethnic Gardening” by University of Minnesota Press, I ordered it immediately. Alida has a whole chapter called “A Fairy Cottage” dedicated to her expertise, and featuring a picture of her unbelievable Polygonum orientale – or as it’s racily called “love-lies-a-bleeding” or sometimes “kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate”. Hard acts to follow, those two.

So in Ferndale when the mania began to overtake me, I immediately joined the local garden club and spent some time sitting at the feet of the no-nonsense, backed by years of digging and planting, ladies of the northern coast.  Then still hungry for more, I entered the Master Gardener Program,    and finally hooked up with a handful of local old rose enthusiasts and we started the first Humboldt County branch of the Heritage Rose Society. It was there that I met Cindy Graebner, who owned a small nursery on Fickle Hill in Arcata where she propagated and sold old roses.

It is to Cindy that I owe the following and I’m passing it on.

ROSE COCKTAIL  – Spring and Fall

As a boost before the first full blooms and as a tonic after they have delivered:  Feed each rose a mixture of one gallon good compost (organic is best), one gallon of alfalfa meal, 1/3 cup Epson salts, handful of rose food.

I order alfalfa meal from the local feed store as they don’t ordinarily stock it, however alfalfa pellets will do just fine. Pellets are a bit unsightly and don’t break down as fast and if you are meticulous like my cousin Maryanne, you just might have your husband cut them all up with scissors!  I’m not kidding.  She did!

When I first used the Cocktail I dutifully mixed up each rose’s batch individually, but now I realize it is just as effective and easier to go through the garden and sprinkle the rose food on each, then the Epson salts, then the alfalfa (leaving them conveniently UNDER the compost if you have pellets) and ending with a cover of compost.

After the early explosion of the Lady Dorothea Banks, my garden is just beginning to show multitudes of buds and a few first flowerings.

Cottage Rose is a David Austin English shrub.  This is a modern and not a true heirloom, but the Austin Roses are usually included with the “old roses” because they were created to reflect the best of the old and the new and definitely have the blowsy in some cases or the tight full petals of heirlooms.

Cottage Rose - David Austin English shrub

Cornelia sits under the bird’s peach tree next to her smaller Hybrid Musk sister, Belinda.

Cornelia - Hybrid Musk

The Bourbon rose, Louise Odier grows flowers all along her arching canes and because she keeps flinging them over the fence, the deer come into some munching. But she’s a real trooper and keeps going into autumn.

Louise Odier - Bourbon

These are the first.  More to come!

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