We Made It

Holiday Inn where Wally, Beto and I stay every year.

Another Holiday season nears its end. It seems I began to write 2014 on checks without thought when I'll need to go through a few checks until 2015 formulates in my brain. Wally will be eighty-three in January, I'll be sixty-nine in July.

The hen house was cleaned by Mexican Monkey. He trimmed the grape arbor too, and today I cut up the vines for smoking meats this summer. Grape vines, I think, make the best smoke for barbecuing. Way better than hickory or mesquit. Better even than apple. Especially with chicken, pork or fish, it has a wonderful mild smoke flavor that is not overbearing but enhances the flavor of the meat.

A friend of ours house caught on fire today. The heater in his adjacent tenants rental was the cause. He has no heat, electricity, phone, gas or water. And the fire department batter-rammed his front door so he has to stay there until he can secure the building. We are expected to get rain in a day with the temperature near freezing.

But he'll get a better building, if the insurance works in his favor, and next year, if he lives through this, may be a better year for him.  It doesn't look good right now, but it could change.

Wally had another urinary problem where we spent Christmas Eve and day with nurses and doctors but it looks like there will be a solution to this too, and it may make Wally's life better and ours trying to care for him. 

So here is to a better year. With all the hope and goodwill to make it so, we might have a better year than the last.

Burn Out And What To Do Aout it

"Shit happens," and, "Adapt or die," another truth of the universe, explains, in very simple terms, what life is all about. That's it folks, the secret of life described in two or three words without the disorder of religion to warp what is true.

Every once in a while, it hits me that Wally's days are numbered. The doc said, one maybe two years. Then I think of my own death, and with a slight calculation of years lived and years I may have left, the tally seems mighty slim. And what the fuck am I doing? Do I like doing what I'm doing? And if I don't, then why aren't I changing my choices?

Winter's Crop

It is burn out. It's when you feel like the deer in the headlights. You see what's coming but you can't do anything about it. You fizzle, feel helpless and that makes it hard to look for a life line.

I'm doing okay. I'm adapting to the shit that's happening. I take a step back, a deep breath, pick myself up and get back in the game.

My solace is our garden. It's fussing in the garden that gives me a chance to step back, breath and feel okay once more. Writing is another and that's the cure for burn out, my opinion. What's yours? 

Their's A Change In The Weather And A Change In Me

I've been waiting for this day, rain in L.A. We are expected to get three days of rain. Thanksgiving was so warm we had it outside and sat in the patio until after dark. Wally is doing better after the latest incident, that started the day before the holiday, with his bladder. We got him through Thanksgiving and in time for the nurse to get here on that Friday.

It was a bit frightening. On Thursday, Wally was dead weight, no lift and it took all of me and Beto's strength to lift him, dress and care for his needs on top of all the holiday cooking. I was pretty stressed and while asking friends for help, cried. I felt so helpless right then. So overwhelmed with Wally's care and cooking for nine. It came off fine. I was tired, no sleep the night before tending to my mate through the night. Wally was a tad better though during our Thanksgiving meal, which cheered me up.

Wally's resting well right now, the bladder issue might be solved. It's a host of things that he is faced with but he's a fighter and keeps coming back. Today, he can walk again with our help and that's good.

And now the rain, a change bringing much needed water. It's been hard here, letting the front lawn go so that we had enough water for the back where we grow food and enjoy our garden. The one place that hasn't been taken from Wally and I by his disease.

I have time to write. A window of opportunity, because a change in the weather gives me a change too. I'm one of those that loves rainy days. So few of them occur when you grew up in Southern California climate. But when rainy days occur, I'm as happy and content as Millie sunning herself in the patio. Wally is doing better and for this brief interlude of Cosmos balance, we're together, alive and doing the best we can.

What more can you ask for?

Our Dacha In The Middle Of The City

L.A is a great city. So large that you could move around the city until you found the weather right for you on any day. But it is still a city with all its good and bad. We have turned our home into a getaway for our friends living here in L.A. People, say its peaceful at our home. I'm glad they feel that way because it is the way I feel as well.

Now that the craziness is over with Stan, and his ghetto L.A. drug culture gone, I'm beginning to calm down and feel safe. Not only safe, but at peace. It is peaceful here, for me too, once again. And I think Beto, our new caregiver is a keeper. He is older, quiet and personable. Doesn't drink much, doesn't smoke and is interesting to talk to. It's like having our house back. There are only three of us here and we have some distance between us. There is enough space now for everyone.

The garden is looking good. We have our winter crop in and the flower beds are waiting for spring. If only Wally would be getting better as well, everything would be perfect but this is not a perfect world. I'm fully aware of that, even our Dacha won't keep reality hitting us square on. And though there is a kind of prison to Wally's care, I can accept it. It's hard but I'm use to it now. The idea that with Wally, our days together are numbered, and for now, I'm as housebound as Wally because of the day round care he needs.

Learning Curve

It's been a whirlwind around here--that's for sure. Wally can go about three weeks before he begins to have catheter problems. The last was Sunday, Nov. 2.  He was fine that morning and by the afternoon we had to take him to emergency with a clogged catheter. We spent hours in emergency, until by the time they saw Wally, his belly became distended and he had a fever with high blood pressure. We didn't get home until three in the morning. It's hard on Wally as well as us, me and Beto, our new caregiver.

Stan, the last one, reached my tolerance level when he began to verbally abuse Wally, blaming him for the cause of his back pain. He began to jerk Wally up, rather than gradually get him up gently, the way I want him to get Wally up. He said he jerked him because Wally hurt his back but Stan told me he hurt his back helping a friend move cabinets.  Who knows, the fat fuck stayed stoned from morning to midnight. The girlfriend thought I ran a hotel with room service. She woke around eleven in the morning to take her first shower of several for the day, before looking for food, then hop back in bed. The woman went through a role of toilet paper a day. A day, and there would be this rolled up, in toilet paper, tampons in the waste basket as if someone spent time mummifying mice.   I had my fill of Mexican low-life and their L.A. marijuana drug culture and fired his lying, marijuana filled ass. 
Get this, he said he got a job at twenty-five an hour. There is this minor problem, however, about the job wanting a drug test. Good luck with that.

I feel bad for the guy, in some ways. Always trying to find an angle to fuck you out of something, he never was happy with all the things I provided him, always wanting more. Before here, he lived in the living room of a cousin with two autistic boys. He had no privacy, having to rent a motel room, now and then, to fuck his girlfriend.  I gave him a room with wi-fi, multichannel TV, air condition, but once settled in he wanted more and more. Smoked all three gallon bags of my grass from last year's crop. Fed him, his lazy-ass girlfriend, and assorted other friends he invited weekly.

That's all gone now. We are at peace here with Beto, who is older, and quiet, so that it is like having the house back. The bathroom is accessible most of the time.  I'm hoping this is the last caregiver because Wally isn't getting better. He is now in the later stages of dementia and it is getting harder to care for him. If I fucked up on hiring Beto, I'm pretty screwed because finding a replacement now, with Wally's deteriorating condition could be very difficult. 

Russian River The Microcosm Of Acceptance

The Dahlias are spectacular

Well, we came back. Wally and I sat on the porch at our cabin. It was lovely but it didn't start out that way. No sooner had we arrived than the next day Wally developed a bladder infection. Fortunately, there is in Santa Rosa, and very close to where we stayed, an excellent Kaiser hospital. Once we got to the 101 the hospital was off the next exit, no more than twenty minuets. Wally had to spend a day there, being released that Wednesday, so we still enjoyed ourselves.  

Beautiful days, two days at ninety the rest low to mid-eighties, and every night cools to the low fifties. Our cabin stays remarkably comfortable even with a fire in the hearth in the morning and night. It sits beneath tall redwoods, shaded save for dappled light in the morning and early noon. It is very nice.

Our cabin at Ferngrove

I was hoping to launch our inflatable boat and perhaps fish but that didn't happen. They removed the dams at this time of the year so the water in the river has receded quite a bit. The dams are pretty funky, as if built by kids having fun making pools in a stream. If we had the opportunity earlier in the week it would have been great but Wally's care came first. That's okay, because Wally and I sat outside  where I read to him and wrote, enjoying the day the best we can.

Ferngrove is a perfect place to stay. On the edge of town, you can walk to all the cafes and bars easily, even to the river if you like. There is a market open twenty-four hours nearby and yet the lodge is nestled among tall redwoods, and beautiful well maintained gardens filled with ferns, dahlias and fuchsias as big as bushes. My fuchsias are spindly and hanging on to what life they have. These, however, are grand, growing in a climate perfectly suited to them.

In fact, Guerenville is suited for all life forms. It is a place that respects others and their differences. Rednecks, gays, hippies and intellectuals all mingle in the bars, cafe's and on the streets. Even the panhandlers are respective, not the kind that get in your face type.

Guereville gives you the feeling of being in a village rather than a town.  There are only a few streets off the main highway and everything is within walking distance. The bars are fun. Most have some kind of live entertainment going on. Bands, piano with song and eye candy for all manners of taste.

Wally and I have some happy--happy memories of the Russian river, especially Guerneville. I'm not sure, in fact real doubtful if Wally can do another trip, unless a short one but I do have Wally, and he has me. Like his doctor said when he visited today. It's so peaceful here and you're a family.

What more could want?
 

Russian River Adventure Or Nightmare?

On Sunday we're leaving for the Russian River. It's in Sonoma county at Guerneville.  Beautiful place near the coast, forested with coastal redwoods, oak and bay. Wally and I have gone there a number of times cycling with our club. This year it will be Wally, me of course, Juan, the caregiver and his girlfriend. Not exactly the way we did it years ago but we are together and on vacation--of sorts.

I'm trying to whip up some enthusiasm. It's hard to do this year. The caregiver is a heavy pot smoker, his girlfriend the same. The only thing the two of them are interested in is a place to smoke weed. He does take care of Wally, and the price is affordable, you get what you can afford and try to make it work but the man is stoned from morning to night. The two of them about as interesting as Freddy the Freeloader. They talk nothing but of marijuana, it is their entire world. It drives me up the wall and when left alone with the two of them I want to scream but don't, at least not out loud. They'll have a small cabin of their own and Wally, myself and Juan will have another one with two bedrooms, fireplace and a full kitchen.

I want to read and write but I can see what is going to happen already. Juan needs to be entertained. He won't leave you alone until you pay attention to him. I don't think I'll be able to do much writing, as much as I am hoping to because he'll bug the living shit out of me until I do whatever it is he wants to do. Forget what I want to do.

I know this about him. But if Juan doesn't come, I'll have to drive the rental car myself for the entire trip there and back. The caregiver can't pass the driving test, I'm serious, failed. And if he could drive, I sure as hell don't want to be in the car with him. It's a long, long drive.

I bought an inflatable boat. It's pretty cool, I think, for a hundred bucks  to help keep Juan entertained, I'm hoping. It seats four and can hold over a thousand pounds. That's pretty cool, I think. Comes with two oars and can, if you want, have a motor attached which I'm thinking of doing when we get back to do some fishing at a local lake. That's the other thing, Juan and Beto both expressed an interest in fishing. I like to fish too, use to do a lot of it. You would think the two of them would be thrilled to have a boat to fish in.

When the boat came today, I followed the directions and blew it up, assembled the oars and readied the boat. It's about eleven feet long and  about five feet across. The material is very thick and durable, also heavy, about sixty pounds. I was pretty excited about it and in the reviews on Amazon other fishermen who bought this and mounted electric trolling motors also put in a plywood bottom. There is a bottom, of course, to the boat but it is inflatable and kind of difficult to walk or stand up on. Then they added folding camp chairs and it said it worked great for fishing.

I brought the idea up to Beto, but he was excited as a clam about the idea. He didn't really look at the boat either. Of course he just came home from work and tired but his lack of enthusiasm drained mine. And that's where I'm at right now, kind of drained.

We're going to the river, I use to be so excited about it, Fall in Northern California wine country is about the prettiest place to be, especially with a slow moving, easy river coursing its way through a valley filled with redwoods. Yet now I'm worried, is this going to be a nightmare or an adventure?  

Dealing With Dementia

It's a disease that progresses very slowly, at least that is our case. One comment that's common is, "I don't know how you do it." They mean: they find it overwhelming when you begin to talk about what you're going through. Not that the subject comes up often, but when it does, and I tell them what's going on when they ask, "How is Wally," and my answers seem to startle them, I wonder why they feel that way until I realize it didn't happen last month or last year but several years ago.

At first you believe it is a misdiagnosis because there are changes but they are not real big changes. In fact, at first, I thought, Wally isn't that bad, we can still enjoy life, go places, see movies, go out to dinner, have friends over, all the things you enjoy in life. Bridge playing, I think, was the first thing noticeable because bridge playing requires a great deal of memory, and Wally was a very good bridge player, a game he loved to play the most. So, we played Gin instead and Wally loved playing the game. We took walks, rode our bikes, gardened, went to movies, the theater, concerts and dinner, it lasted for quite a while, then card playing, any card playing began to go. The same with everything else. And when I say everything, that is exactly what I mean.

I found out today why Wally has this interest in spicy food. The food censors have began to shut down, leaving a desire for spicy foods he can taste. You're happy he enjoys the fresh hot chilies from the garden but it also means the disease is progressing to its inevitable conclusion. That's the hard part.

Facing the end, that now draws nearer, and the more things he won't be able to do is where we are at.  I'm having a hard time holding on at times. It comes and goes, like a tide, in and out, in and out, this feeling of fear and dread hits hard then leaves. It makes the rest of life, the life you have to keep doing to survive in the world, much harder. To plan anything is fraught with peril. It all can change in a blink of an eye with Wally's care. Needs that can and will come up immediately must be dealt with immediately.

 To give you an idea of what that's like, today I spent an hour and a half this morning going fifteen miles on the freeway for a root canal. I was a half an hour late but so was the dentist. Once home, I couldn't rest because bills needed paid since it was Friday, shopping for the house because now it is not just me and Wally, but the caregiver and his girlfriend who visits him on the weekend, otherwise the caregiver goes into town to visit the girlfriend. Another helper for the household who is in and out and invaluable in assisting the full time caregiver when I no longer have the strength, plus he helps maintain the house. It all costs money and time and it is all on my shoulders. So after the root canal, the traffic and paying bills it's time to get Wally up for his geriatric appointment and to stop at the feed store afterwards for a hundred pounds of chicken feed, more traffic, then dinner to fix while the caregiver does his job and I feed the animals and us. I'm tired, my tooth aches in spite of the second pain pill, and with it now getting beyond 9 P.M, I'm ready for bed. But sleep is not something I can afford. Taking a sleeping tablet is a very bad idea. If an emergency, and there has been these emergencies that happen at 3 A.M. on a Sunday morning or holiday that has occurred and I've had to deal with them, you can't be drugged or drunk or anything but awake.

 It's waking up when he is in discomfort to see why. Is the catheter plugged? His breathing normal? It goes on from there. You wake up so much that it stops bothering you no matter how tired you are. And maybe, you can take a nap now and then. They become a treasure, the naps. If lucky I can take a shower before laying down for an hour unless I'm so tired I don't care and that's, unfortunately, what usually happens.

But it didn't start this way, it took years, and you find you can do it because time smoothed the road to get there. It's why the answer always come out to: "I don't know how you do it," as, "I don't either." You don't know because you haven't thought how it got that way, you've been kept busy while all that happened. 

Water Wars In Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

Lake Oroville California

 To have enough water for the vegetable garden the front yard is in dire straits. The gardeners have nothing to cut but to rake up debris that collects out front, mainly from the neighbors next door who think our place is their place for trash. It's not enough for them to have left Israel as their personal umping ground, now they want to trash America, specifically our property. Anyway,  as much as I try to conserve water there is only so much you can do with four people in the house plus guests and all the laundry it entails.

 We are fortunate, for this August has been cooler, as a whole, than most Augusts in the past where temperatures have soared over a hundred--day after day. Most of August, to date and for the rest of the predicted month are in the eighties to low nineties. That's great for us, especially with everyone watching the water use. Everyone that is but the Iranian Muslims next door. They have the greenest lawn on the block, a water sucking green both front and back.

I don't know what it is with them, they fly an Iranian flag on days, I'm guessing, are special for Iranians but not the American flag on our important flag flying days. In fact that don't fly Old Glory period.  I don't care if you fly a flag or not, but to fly one of a country that hates us, well that's a bit much. It's all a bit strange. There here in America with a newborn and act like its Tehran. 

And the price of water, gad, don't ask. It's on a tier level. You suck up so much water and then it goes to another price range. Once you hit the end of that tier, it goes into the stratosphere in price.  We've hit the second tier now and then because it ain't hard to do. The problem is there is no feasible way of seeing how much water you've used. The meter is in a hole in the ground and even after lifting the slab of cement covering it, what exactly is the reading?  I have no clue, except to be careful with the water.

So while we watch the drops, our Muslim Brotherhood next door lets it fly through the air cast by sprinklers that run all night. There lawn is lush and green as a Japanese golf course while ours looks more like dirt than grass. There is one thing though, unless Muslims eat grass they ain't eating near as well as we are from our Organic Garden In The Middle of the City. And we fly Old Glory, not some goddamn rag-head mop on a stick.

We've Got A Jew Problem On One Side & A Muslim Problem On The Other

Us in the Middle

Jews to left of us

Muslims to the right of us.

It's a weird kind of set up. Jews from Israel bought the house on one side of us. The next thing that happens is our neighbor on the other side of us for fifty years up and died. In moved a Muslim family from Iran. They both speak their native tongue.

The Jews like to argue in their backyard in Hebrew. Loud and clear so that no one has a problem knowing their at it again. They don't worry, they're the only Jews around for four houses at best on either side. Hispanics live next to them on the other side that you only hear the sound of children playing and birthday parties. Really wonderful to hear in the neighborhood--I think, families having fun with kids doing what kids do is music in the night.

But even with the laughter of children, the Jews go outside to smoke cigarettes and scream at each other in a language that is guttural. Like chewing rocks, the words come out in a crushing avalanche of hate. Their rage  ascends like a holocaust to a long lost god. It's a daily affair with the Jews that when they come home from work to pleasure themselves they hurl angry screams at each other.

The Muslims are another story. They don't scream at each other very much. Once in a great while, but what family doesn't at some point when shit hits the fan. They do though have other quirks. At first we were both friendly with each other. I introduced myself, they did as well, but though I invited them into our home, they haven't. Worse, they left me to stand at the front door without opening it. I had brought them produce from our garden. When they came knocking on our door, I let them in showed them our house, took them outside where they fell in love with the garden, commented on it quite a bit. So, when I saw them go into their house one day shortly after, and knew they were home, I knocked on their door just as they did on ours. They left me standing there with organic grapes freshly picked, and choice clusters at that. I could hear activity inside and so knocked again a bit louder. Nothing. It was loud enough to let them know someone was at the door. After some time, and feeling embarrassed, I left to walk across the street to really wonderful neighbors, the wife Czechoslovakian, her husband Filipino and knocked. They opened with smiles and gratitude for the wonderful grapes locally grown and pleasantries passed about what was going on with their kids and the hood. Wonderful people.

Then one day I saw the Muslim husband when I was watering the front and said, hello. He did as well, asking how we were. I told him fine and that I had grapes for him if he liked, that I had knocked at his door a few days ago but apparently to busy to answer.

"If I want something from you, I will let you know," he answered.

I got the picture. He found out we are gay with the tour of our home. Muslims from Iran, even the college educated, are profoundly homophobic. And it works for me, we smile, nod our heads if pressed to acknowledge one another and that's it.

"No grapes for you Jihad warrior."

Here's another thing. The Muslim mother, they had a child after this, complained to me about the chickens making noise disturbed her Jihad terrorist brat from his nap. I have five hens in the very back of the property next to the alley. Much further from their house than what the law allows. They are well maintained and do make a clucking sound in the morning but they are hens and don't crow. They make a call many times, not all times, after laying an egg or startled for some reason. I told her there wasn't much I could do, but I would try. They complained to our gardener that he made too much noise. Not their gardener, our gardener and he asked if he could come on another day, I said not if he wanted to keep the job, he gardens the front on Fridays and both theirs and our gardener show up just hours apart on the same day.

Okay, two can play the game. I complained about the brat when he went into screaming fits in their backyard. I complained loud, over the fence so everyone could hear it. No fucking knocking because they don't answer, I do but they don't. And that's another thing. The next time their Jihad ass show up at the door, I'm not answering either. They don't complain to me anymore and they don't knock on the door.

Mike, across the street and two houses up hates them. They fly an Iranian flag, not an American flag. In fact, they turn out all the lights on Halloween even though they are home. Cheap fuckers too apparently.

And the Jews? Lazy is one term that comes to mind. Anytime an ad paper falls on their driveway, they toss it on our property. And now they are putting their trash barrels in front of our garage in the alley so they don't have to pick up the fucking trash that falls after the trucks come and empty them. They are in for a surprise. One more time of that shit and I'm hauling their fucking trash containers down the alley to some distant house. Let's see if that shit happens again.

If it is war these fucking Middle Easterners want then so be it. The rainbow colors don't run anymore.
 

E.R. Eye Opener

Wally's supra-pubic catheter had clogged last night. He was breathing fast and was in a cold sweat that soaked the bed sheets, it was about three in the morning and when I checked him, noticed the urinary bag had blood in it with little else. It should be about half way full or more with urine at that time in the morning. I did the procedure they showed me to do at the urologist office but the catheter still wouldn't drain. We needed to take him to emergency since Urgent Care wasn't open.
 
Getting in was a snap, there were only a few people and this was a Saturday night during a full moon. A special full moon at that since it is called a Super Moon being it is the closest it will get to earth for a while. That was good fortune, if you can call going to the E.R. fortunate.

The nurse we had was Asian with a thick accent. It's okay by me but she had difficulty with English. Like the word soiled. She wanted a rectal temperature of Wally and his weight. Okay but Wally has dementia and there was no scale for people in wheelchairs. I said, "Wally has soiled himself as they began to put him on a gurney.
"What?" she asked.
"When we were getting him in the car, Wally soiled himself, you need to clean him if you're taking a rectal."
"What do you mean soiled himself."
"You know, he's messed his Depends."
"What?"
"He took a shit in his pants. You know, shit? He's crapped in his underwear."
"Please sit down, we will take care of this. What is your relationship to the patient?"
"We're married."
"Your his brother?"
"No, we are married to each other."

Now she has discovered Wally's poop and of course it is dropping out because she had his nappy pulled down and some of his shit is now on the floor. "We need towels," she announces.

"We have to clean him before we can take his temperature."

"No kidding," I'm saying under my breath. 

"Get the gurney with the scale," she says.

Wally is stood up again and they have to clean the old gurney and the floor, meanwhile Wally is in pain and having difficulty standing. One of the assistance tells him to stand up, another Asian.
I say, "Wally has dementia, he's doing the best he can."
"Stand. Mr. Wallace, do you understand me? Stand up."
"Wally has dementia and is doing the best he can. He's in pain."
 "We'll handle this. What's your relationship to the patient?"
"We're married."
"Your his son?"
I gave up. "Look you have to hold him, he can't do it by himself. He has dementia."
The idiot turns to the Asian nurse and says, "He won't respond."
I go over and hold up Wally while Stan, our caregiver cleans him and the medical staff watch. It's easier that way and fortunately they stayed out of the way until we're done with their job.

Put him on the gurney. That takes a while because they don't know how to put up the sides and once they're up find out it can't weigh Wally because the batteries for that are dead.

Here we are in an E.R. dealing with people with poor English skills and equipment not maintained. Finally they ask me his weight, which I told them at the beginning.
"You are a good son," the Asian nurse told me.
So much for the hard fought battle for equality in marriage. We aren't husband and husband, we are son and father.

The E.R. doctor was from India. He was good too, competent and very versed at English. Wally came home after a catheter was inserted in his penis. He has antibiotics to take and we need to make an appointment on Monday to have the supra-pubic catheter replaced and have him checked. 

It's a bit frightening though when you think what could happen if you're having a heart attack or can't respond and your spouse is a sister,  mother, son or father and the staff wants to weigh you first.

We Will Rock You At the Ahmanson

For old rockers, as ourselves, this was a walk down memory lane. The playful choice of words that came from old songs and lyrics to fill in the dialog of the characters was well done. The story line, to correlate along with the music, was your simple boy meets girl which, I thought, since Freddie Murphy was tres-gay--not right. Why didn't they have, boy meets boy? Or boy meets trucker since he liked truckers so much. When I looked up some info on Freddy,  I found we were born two months apart in the same year. Of course a lot of people were born that same year, the start of the baby boom generation. 

We went by way of the underground, The Metro red-line boarded at the North Hollywood station. After taking the elevator to the lower level, we came to a strange scene of television monitors and flashing strobe lights saying to evacuate immediately, yet no one seemed concerned. Maybe it was a teaser for the performance later that afternoon, and we disembarked at the Civic Center where the signs of a rainstorm in the form of puddles everywhere made a nice cleansing of the whole area. Little did we know that later in the day another rain storm at Venice beach would bring lightening that killed one person and injured others. Such strange weather we have.

After the performance we took the red-line to Hollywood and found a dive on Hollywood Blvd. Huge margaritas, big enough to call a bird bath but not really that good. But after diving into one, the food came, which made the food that was so-so, okay.

It was a good day and though I feared a hang over the next day, it never came, making it a real good day.  

Young Girls Coming To Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

From Rhode Island yet, sweet young things with plump breasts and very, very fertile. I only hope the older girls won't pick on them too much because of their youth and inexperience, after all they're here to lay eggs and not be just another pretty face.

We lost two hens, I think to poison. A squirrel, at the time of two hens sudden death, was acting funny as well. Lethargic squirrels aren't usual and he didn't want to leave the pond near the hens where water was available, a sign of a toxic blood poisoning used on rats. I think it was the asshole that lives across the alley that did it but I'm not sure since the hen house is located next to the alley anybody could have done the evil deed.

That's the price you pay when living in a city of many different types. You have your share of assholes that's for sure. But you have good people too, somewhere I think, although they seem to be in hiding at the moment. The young hens arrived, and they are real young, I think about five weeks old from the way their feathers have developed. Too young to be with the older hens as yet. I'm a bit miffed about it. Led to to believe they will be fine with the older hens, when right off, I could see my money going into dead chicks from being pecked to death if I left them in the coop with the other girls. They are in a wash tub at the moment with a piece of chicken wire over the top to keep Millie from finding them.

It's going to take a couple of more weeks before they're big enough to fend for themselves. Lucky we have the warm weather for them and I'll have the time to watch them. It's won't be until they are about seventeen weeks old that they will be able to lay eggs though. That means a few more months.

One thing for sure, I feel more like a farmer than I did when I bought pullets matured enough that they laid eggs right out of the box. In fact, my first hens had two eggs in their shipping box when I got them. Live and learn, or is it, adapt or die. I forget, but either one is a good lesson on life.   

Delicious Cactus fruit In Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

We have a Peruvian cactus( the tallest of all cactus) next to the garage entry. It came as a potted plant years ago that flowered that year in its pot. Hardy and tolerant of many conditions(I think that because the above ground root ball, exposed, makes it tolerable to our watered clay soil). It quickly grew in its oak barrel and from there, rooted into the soil. The plant is easy to propagate, cut anywhere on its stock, plant the down side, and then wait. The wait isn't long before you get flowers and possibly fruit.

In the summer it flowers as in the photo, only at night, closing by mid morning, they will open and close for a few days before turning black and falling from the cactus.  Beautiful, even more so a day ago because of a fortunate alignment that occurred at the same time. The full moon was at its closest orbit to earth, clear skies with the cactus in full bloom. Incredible to see towering overhead that night in the garden with cream white blooms a foot long and almost as wide catching moonbeams on clear summer night. 

  I wished I could take photos like the pros. My night shot really didn't show how wonderful the blooms looked like. They glowed in a gold-tinged white. The color of butter dripping from pancakes. But this shot was on the morning after, with bees busy deep in the stamens. The pollination that occurs brings a football shaped bright red fruit. The birds love them and get most of the fruit. I get what I can reach and allow pods to ripen a nice red when I see them begin to turn from green to pink.

The rind is cut off easily, once one side is slit leaving a  flawless white flesh specked with black seeds similar to banana seeds. They are slightly sweet with a refreshing crisp when eaten. The way the birds go after them, they have to be good.

Nice addition to a breakfast meal, once the fruit appears, I'll show photos of the flesh inside.

Germany won the world cut. I have polka music going in the patio in celebration of their title. It was a good game.

Growing Marijuana In Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

 
Our crop of Mary Jane grows organically using our homemade compost and natural sunlight. Shit weed to some of my dope smoking friends because I'm not interested in high potency. This line of weed in the photo has been grown since the seventies by me. Each year I use seeds from the previous year to start a small patch of marijuana. For myself, I don't use much. What I do is make brownies using the homegrown. I take a brownie now and then when I have time to enjoy it. Every year I have left over weed.

Now, our caregiver, Stan smokes grass from the time he gets up until he goes to bed. The moment he wakes, he puts his pipe to his mouth and inhales high quality marijuana that he buys legally at one of the shops nearby. I don't have to worry about him smoking mine because he can smoke and smoke mine and still not get the high he needs from my homegrown. That's why constant smokers of grass call mine, shit-weed.

Stan takes very good care of Wally. He is gentle and observant to his needs, but he is stoned all day long and Wally only needs some basic care of fluids, walking, and using the bathroom, which Stan is very capable of, but for anything technical I doubt Stan could do the job. We gave him a computer for his birthday, a laptop. He loves it and has been trying to use it but he can't remember things, like passwords. A simple password has him baffled so that he needs to reenter new passwords over and over. And I'm talking about the simple passwords you make up. Stan isn't stupid either, but the constant grass smoking makes it appear he is. You have to tell him a number of times or explain things over and over to him. His girlfriend is the same.

The girlfriend, Maggie is looking for work. Good luck with that. She cleans the floor in Stan's room well but that's about it. I can't see her landing a job at anything that requires some sort of physical effort, she sleeps in until ten or eleven and eats while in bed. She is Stan's girlfriend, so if he can put up with it--fine. I don't care but she has no desires whatever other than to get stoned, watch cartoons, fuck and eat. Which works for Stan.

That's what I mean about being stoned all the time. There is no ambition in anyone I see that is. They are happy doing shit jobs for shit pay as long as they can stay stoned. And now that it is legal, they plan, (and by they, I mean everyone I know that gets high on a daily basis from morning to night) to stay that way.

Kind of sad really but hey, it's their life. I too like the feel of being stoned but for me it's for recreation. When there is a moment of opportunity to relax, listen to a concert and not worry about driving or what ifs that can come along. Life is good, live it to the fullest but live it, not stone it.

Soccer On The Fourth Of July, What's More American Than That In Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

We have put on a fourth of July Party since before we were married. We were also married on the forth. A kind of stick in you eye to the Right Wing nut jobs. You know, call one up and say thanks for celebrating our same sex marriage today with fireworks and a party.

A flame of color shot upward over thirty feet from a cracker Stan set off. It was pretty cool. We had a great salad from our garden made from fresh tender crookneck squash with the flower bud still attached. Pasta with Gorgonzola cheese, fresh basil and cream. Watermelon sweet and cold and New York steaks, thick and barbecued to perfection. Yep a pretty good American Forth of July. Our anniversary, we've been together now for twenty years. That's pretty special for me on a very special day. 

Our Organic Garden In The MIddle Of The City

Well, I learned something about when to spray for fungus on grapes. It's one of the things I love about gardening--a laboratory to play in. There isn't a year that goes by where I don't learn at least a thing or two.

I know to spray the copper/ sulfur solution early but I didn't do it often enough. I should have sprayed while fruit was continuing to form for it's the grape clusters that are the most effected this year.

Not all the grapes were effected by the fungus but some clusters had a sever amount of fungus, and I noticed that they were from later formed clusters. We had a very dry period when the grape clusters first appeared, it wasn't until later that our damp mornings of June Gloom appeared, May Grey never happened. The photo above shows a cloudy, somewhat weak red grape cluster, some of the grapes are withered, as if left on the vine until November.

I spayed them now in hope that the fungus won't infect other, healthy clusters. The Thompsons and Concords didn't have the problem and are right on target.

These are developing very well, a bit sour right now but that's to be expected. The reds are beginning to sweeten up and already have a much sweeter taste than the Concord and Thompson.

We are nearing the time of more dry heat unless the forming El Nino changes things. Well see what develops in our laboratory in the backyard. 

Republicans Demand A Christain Theocracy With Slavery Re-Installed

The GOP's intent on their constant negative views toward healthcare and global warming are based on extreme views of biblical text. The belief is based on a Christian god being all powerful. If the god wanted to change the climate, he would. It is therefore fitting and right to continue to rape the planet for profit. And the quest for more profit goes further, making slaves of others.

They have the Koch brothers with their plutocratic view of right and wrong pushing an agenda that only the wealthy are suited to govern all others. They are willing to force our country to war in order to make themselves even richer.

In the South, Christian beliefs are fueled with hatred of anything deemed liberal. They would rather go without medical coverage for the poor than to go against the Southern White GOP insistence they should die for the wealthy and their belief that riches belong only to them. The South is one great pit of poverty steeped in poor education and forced religious attendance to far right extremists. 

We are at war people. At war with the most diabolical, hate-filled extremist this planet has ever produced. They will stop at nothing, murder, coups, insurrection, to get what they want. I'm naming a few here that are part of this conspiracy and should be judged as traitors to all Freedom Loving Americans.
Republican  Greg Brannon of North Carolina----Traitor.
Republican Lee Bright of South Carolina-----Traitor.
White Supremest American Freedom Party Angelo John Gage of New Jersey-----Traitor
Constitution White Supremest  Party Phil Hudok of West Virginia----Traitor.
Independent White Racist Victoria Jackson of Tennessee------Traitor.
Independent White Racist Scott Lively of Massachusetts-----Traitor.
Republican Jason 'Molotov'  Mitchell of  North Carolina----Traitor.
Republican Bill Parks of Wisconsin---Traitor.
Republican Michael Peroutka of Maryland----Traitor.
White Supremest Libertine Party Karen Schoen of Florida----Traitor. 
Republican Tom Tancredo of Colorado-------Traitor.
Avowed Christain extremist David Whitney of Maryland----Traitor.

Look them up folks. All these people are dangerous and do carry weapons so be very careful before approaching them. Especially if you're of color, gay or a free woman.  

World Cup Soccer

The house is packed with soccer fans. We placed the television outside for the crowd and are watching every game with carne asada tacos and vegetables from the garden that we wash down with a lot of beer. It's been great too. Surprising amount of goals, picked favorites winning and today's victory of the U.S. It's been fun so far and amazing how many soccer fans are around.

Mom is watching in between caring for her sick cat and boyfriend, Mexican Monkey of course is watching and jumping around at each goal. Wally is too with a baseball game thrown in here and there on top of it. We are all glued to the TV for futball fever has struck with a vengeance.

For myself, Germany and the U.S. wins today were well fought that kept you right on the edge of your seat. We jumped and yelled with each goal they made, it was almost like being there except way less expensive.

I'm hoping to see all the games and wouldn't it be something if the U.S made it to the last round? Now that would be a game to watch. Of course we would switch to hot dogs at that point but the beer would still be here.

A World Apart

We had a Memorial Day party. Lots of different people came which makes for a great party. There was a fat guy with dreadlocks who worked only on occasion. But when he did, he made lots of money taking truckloads of illegals across the border. Another guy loaned money to illegals at very high interest rates. The loans were rarely paid back before he tripled or quadrupled his money. Beautiful women and men, housewives and drunks, dipping into the pasta salad and pizza from the barbie. The tiramisu, homemade by Umberto, was the best I've ever had and a big hit. The food and drinks softened the crowd so they could mingle, laugh and tell stories, some stories were quite interesting.

And everyone loved the garden. They liked the mystical state the vegetable garden gives at night with all the solar lights spilling radiance here and there along pathways and outcroppings. They liked the grapes that hung from the rafters of the arbor filling their sacs with juice for the summer harvest. The peppers fattening and the tomatoes plump and near ripe for the first BLT sandwiches of the year. The evening was warm and pleasant with a fire in our pit to keep the hint of an evening chill at bay. Its flames called for people to gather and talk with drink in hand to loosen their tongues. They spoke of hopes and their fears, for many, fear is an issue, fear fuels anxiety and gives it strength. It reminds me of the Catholic prayer at the time of the Eucharist, 'save us from needless anxiety.' Apparently, people have worried needlessly for a very long time.

John's worried about a proposed bike path planned across the street from him. He's afraid it will bring people on bikes and they'll be in danger because the path will bring people with dogs, kids will get hurt because the bikes will crash into dogs and the kids who come to look at a cemented-in river. The city will use ugly asphalt instead of the crushed granite he prefers. Even though ugly asphalt is cheaper and much easier to maintain, if you're a homeowner in a upper-end section of town, you want the best.

Some came to see Wally while he is still able to sit with them wearing a smile and a laugh playing on his lips before the inevitable happens. The doctors give us a year, maybe two at the most, before that happens. But we're not giving up hope until then. Our magic garden, friends, and life will not pass us by yet. And maybe, just maybe, if we keep the magic going will pass by that inevitable moment and keep going on forever with our garden parties and friends.

Our Organic Garden In The MIddle Of The City

 We had a hell of a heatwave in May. It felt like the middle of August and everyday required diligent care to keep Spring in the garden. Global warming has taken hold here in Southern California, we had no winter and no rain. Our usual May grey, brought on by early morning fog to cool and dampen the valley, never happened until just today, nineteen days into May.

Of course grapes love heat. In fact if anything is going to survive global warming it will be the grapes. But they also need water, especially table grapes, and that could pose a problem, but for now we are enjoying watching the grapes get bigger by the day. Another benefit of grapes is to sit under the arbor and feel a light rain falling from the grape leaves. You can actually see the small little drops desend when the sun catches them just so.

It's a lovely shade sitting here beneath the grapes and by the fountain, listening to the water gurgle up and spill over. Watching our vegetable garden grow, the tomatoes, garlic, peppers and cucumbers, to name a few. It's one of the few pleasures Wally and I have left. I need a caretaker to help me with Wally and to share your privacy with a complete stranger, day after day, is one of the most stressful things I have to endure. This is our third caretaker. He is much better than the other two,  but like all people, has flaws. One of the flaws is a girlfriend that comes for the weekend. He smokes marijuana like a California brush fire and so does she. From morning to night it is puff-puff on one gadget or another. He does care for Wally, but I have to make sure he does things right since he is stoned ALL the time. And the girlfriend? Lazy would be the best description. She sleeps in his room for most of the day and comes out to eat on occasion. She gave me a list of food she can tolerate. I took the list, walked to the trash can and put it in, saying, "If there is something served you can't eat, don't eat it." She needs to be reminded to pick up her plate after a meal. Her boyfriend, the caretaker, will pick up after her but I won't.
When you consider what we have had in the past as caretakers, a dope smoking heterosexual and his girlfriend are small potatoes. I never have to wake him from a drunk to help me with Wally in the morning. He is very tender with Wally and caring, and for that, I am grateful. It's just someone else here when it use to be me and Wally in our little world. Our little world to sit through the storms of life that swirled outside our home. But now it's us and people I would never associate with if it wasn't for Wally's dementia. It's hard to endure at times.

In the mornings, as early as I can rise, I have the garden to myself, without the reek of marijuana or tobacco. I have that sweet smell that comes from air filtered through a lush garden. The birds bathing, singing and foraging. Millie, our cat, to sit on my lap while I have a cup of coffee or tea and the morning paper. Without this little pleasure, I would go stark raving mad.

Our Oganic Garden In The Middle Of The City

Weeding the garden brings more satisfaction than a tidy look. It has a mystical quality, an introspection of your mind that's transcendental. You think, one more bucket of weeds and I'll quit, drink a beer and come back later to finish. But you don't. You go on, filling the bucket with errant foliage and fishing your head for answers to questions other than, how in hell did these weeds get here in the first place.

Before weeding, I fixed a pot of tea and read the paper while sitting in the patio. Ask Amy is read before the comics on the following page. It's like dessert, the advice column and the comics bring a sweet to the sour news of a world gone berserk. 

A concerned church-going sister wrote of her deliberate exclusion from a girls getaway that her, another sister and some cousins do every year. They go on a shopping spree, dinners and luncheons for the weekend. The younger sister, who is a single mom and not well off is not invited, but its for her own good that she doesn't invite her. She is not a regular church going woman and has no husband to support her in the fashion that she and the others have. She asked for advice on how to tell the younger sister that she should develop relationships more suited for her state in life. They're doing her a favor by not including her because it is so obvious that the wretch couldn't get away for a weekend much less afford the spree.

The younger sister confronted her at her home in tears. Feeling left out, she called her older sister a horrible person and the churchgoing husband threatened to call the police if she didn't leave. It scared the children to see all the distress and it upset the older sister enough to write, inquiring for an answer to the dysfunctional family.

Amy answered writing that she agreed with the younger sister, she is a horrible person and for all her church going, it didn't seem she learned much from it. 

Inclusion is the answer. When we shut people out, things go sour and as I dug and pulled weeds around the apple tree, and crook-neck squash, I remembered what exclusion feels like. A family who once accepted me but when they found I was queer, well, there's nothing left to do but exclude. Religion gave them the reason to exclude, not only a reason but a satisfaction they did the right thing. I would change that way, being excluded from the family would make me see my error and I would give up my deviant way and join them as a heterosexual Christian.

It's like asking someone to change the color of their skin if they wanted to be accepted. If you can't, well, exclusion is the only answer. You don't fit in and need to find others of your own kind.

I remembered the signs on front lawns of neighbors to vote yes for Prop 8. The Catholic/Mormon backed initiative to bar gays from equality of marriage in California. Wally and I would be excluded from all the laws that protect people who love each other until death parts them. We would be excluded from rights that other people take for granted.

It's hard to say hello to horrible people in your neighborhood that want to exclude you, even when you don't know them that well. I never did anything to them. Never allowed our dog to poop on their lawn, never woke them with loud music or trashed their yard or park in front of their house, but yet they want to treat me as a second class citizen and why? Religion.

Religion allows people to think that somehow a god wants them to exclude others for their own good. It's not you that's horrible, you don't hate the sinner, just the sin. You're doing them a favor by excluding them. It's divine justice of a god that they must follow, nothing personal in it.

It's why, as I pulled and tugged another bucket of weeds, that the belief in  gods make no sense at all. For all the gods that suppose to be governing earth, they're not doing much of a job. Confusion on which god is the right god. Ridiculous laws for people to follow, don't turn on the light switch, cut your hair, let a woman have an education, wear a veil, grow a beard, exclude others, even from your own family. How fucked up is that?  How could there be a god that gives disastrous, dysfunctional reasons to coexist with others?

WildFlowers, Beer, Margaritas And The Criminally Insane

First thing I had to do was lose some weight, about fifty pounds of it to even think of doing the Wildflower. Did that and a little bit more to boot. With some miles under me and my ass toughened for hours in the saddle, I felt ready for the seventy-five mile bicycle ride we signed up for. Still not sure though if I could do the ride due to Wally's condition, I opted for the insurance to get some money back in case I couldn't go.

All the time leading up to the ride we had an unusual mild winter and wouldn't you know the day of the ride the predictions were for cold, wind and rain. Still I went.

The weather predictions were spot on. A cold, thick clouded sky greeted us with rain on the morning of the ride. It wasn't much rain but enough to make the cold--colder. And it never warmed up. Once the clouds dissipated, the wind came, getting stronger throughout the day. Through all of this was the pastoral view of horse and wine country. Mixed in, here and there, the wildflowers bloomed as best they could. Hard to see though with your head tucked in fighting unrelenting gusts of chilled air.

But the hardest of all forces to deal with came not from the elements but the roads. Once out of the hills we came to a long valley with rutted roads hardly left with pavement of any kind. Deteriorated to the point that avoiding a pot hole only meant hitting another. It was last second decisions to decide which pothole, tortoise-back section, to ride over would be the best. It wore on you, made every joint in your body ache with pain from the constant jolts sent up the seat of your bike.  By the time I hit the lunch stop there wasn't a bone in my body that didn't hurt. Then the roads got worse if you can imagine that. After a long grueling hill climb with a fast descent that herald the  the end of the ride came potholes that could throw a bike rider over the handlebars. You had to be very careful and some of the worse lay hidden in the shade of the occasional tree.

So when we came to the end, to our car parked by the side of the road in line with all the other cars for the event, I grabbed my cane and walked to the cowboy bar in Creston. It is a real cowboy bar where patrons ride up on a horse and hitch to a post outside for a cold one inside. And the beer is cold but on that day the draft beer didn't flow, only bottle beer was being served. And served they did, I had the first two without tasting or swallowing, it sort of flowed from the bottle right to my gut in about three seconds. My bones said, "Thank you Jesus." My brain said the same and as fast as the barkeep could open the bottles, I drank them down. The Juanster sat amazed how fast the medicine worked. Soon I had a smile and as bad jokes poured from my mouth, I put the beer back in with more sordid jokes to follow.

The first customers to leave where the ones immediately around us. But the beer caused my voice to carry to the far reaches of the room and soon others joined those outside until the last paying customer left. I love pain killers, like beer and margaritas, trouble is they cause a side effect like the medicines advertized on TV. No anal leakage, at least so far, no nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fainting spells or sudden death. The only side effect noticed is bad jokes. I'll take bad jokes over anal leakage any day.

We left a good size tip, not to insure prompt service but to keep the barkeep from throwing glass on the road for driving all her customers out. We found the car and went to back to our motel. Motel 6 is the American equivalent of Russian design. Just the bare necessities.  WiFi is extra, charged by the day, depressing to stay for very long in especially after spending the night before the ride watching a TV channel dedicated to prisons and their occupants. Our luck was to have on the channel that night, Atascadero State Mental Hospital which means, no way out, hopelessly trapped, to watch. The prison is a stone throw away from where we slept. I'm not sure if the town was named because of the State's mental institution for the criminally insane, most of which are made up of violent sexual predators, or the area but either everybody you meet works at the prison(the inmates are referred to as patients, yet all of them got there from going through the justice system) or they know of someone that does. The institution houses and employs a lot of people. Most of the patients are there for the rest of their lives. And after viewing the television program I can see why.

We made friends at another bar close to the motel, of course buying a few rounds of drinks helps and they told us of a great little place to eat. We had ate there before when it was a run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurant but now had live entertainment and good food. After a night of drinking, (I'm surprised that in the morning I had no hangover) the pain of the day dissipated along with my fear of violent sexual rape being so close at hand, and in the morning we were well on our way back home. I think I can only deal with a Motel 6 once a year or off to the looney bin I would go.    

Our Organic Garden In The MIddle Of The City

We had a Spring party on Easter day.  So many of our friends have stopped believing in organized religion that it's hard to call it an Easter party but being Spring, that's a good enough reason for a party.

So many people said how enjoyable and beautiful our garden is with the grapes covering the harbor, their tiny clusters of fruit getting larger by the day as they drip dew from their leaves to touch your skin in a gentle cooling way. The fountain gurgles and spills over the sides coated with moss to the bottom tier where it stills itself. 

In the flower garden, the Columbine is in full bloom. Lilies are sprouting up, red and yellow with intense perfumes and snow white Orientals as big as dinner plates. It's very colorful  right now in the middle of Spring. And our party, dyeing eggs with the intention of winning a prize for the best decorated egg, turned out to be a lot of fun. It was the talk while decorating eggs that made it successful. Getting to know people through creating has a way of opening doors.

As the night wore on and the crowd thinned a fire was started to gaze into with the crackle of pine logs spitting sparks up the chimney. We drank wine and talked of days in the past and what our plans were for this year. Travel for some, to Ireland except for Wally and me, I'm hoping to go to the Russian river one last time. I'm hoping for that much. If not, we'll make our world travels from the garden we so carefully cared for all these years. We'll make the best of it no matter where we are, just as long as we're together.

Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

When I'm down and blue, feeling sorry for myself, I find comfort and solace in our garden. It's as important as the food we get from the earth and the eggs the chickens produce. And in some ways more important now with Wally in a more advanced state of dementia.

Our friends are gone now from the weekend. I went for a bike ride, played cards and we had a barbecue on Saturday. But now that everyone is gone, the caregiver taking his girlfriend back to the train station, it's just me, Wally, the dog, cat, and our garden. Wally and me, and our memories. I'm not sure what Wally can remember but I do for him. It's all we have.

Sometimes, I feel like tossing it all in. All the work and care to keep a house and garden up, to deal with caregivers and doctors, give it all up to hit the road in search of something better. But then I go outside and sit by the fountain remembering better days of laughter when Wally and I worked the land to make what we have today. How could I leave that behind?

Evening is approaching, my tears fall, the music of yesteryear plays, and I dream for Wally and me of better days. What more can I do?

Our Organic Garden In The MIddle Of The City

It's been awhile since I've posted because we had a defection from our ranks. The caretaker I had for Wally, who, as readers of this blog know, is my spouse and has vascular dementia was left by the caretaker without so much as a word that he was going, that and three hundred dollars. It's okay, the one before him took eight hundred, I got off cheap this time.  Prince Albert turned out to be a frog, or I think a more appropriate title, Toad. The weasel left in the dead of night back to his hole in Cleveland. I really feel sorry for Cleveland, the pollution goes much further than the Lake Erie or the Cuyahoga  river. It goes all the way to where this creep lives.

I've had to place an ad, (again) in Craigslist but this time, and I hope this time, things will turn out for the better. But instead of being cheap and not paying the twenty-five smackers for an ad in the job section, this time I did pay. We now have someone with knowledge from the jobs/healthcare section. He's straight too. We're as queer as three dollar bills but I'm not holding it against him. He is a trained technician in the field of home care. He actually helps, and rather than being told what to do, he knows what to do.

I'm not use to it yet, really, I actually got to eat a meal today without trying to feed Wally while doing it. He's a nice guy too, even if he is hetro. Now that we have someone here to care for Wally I can get back to writing, gardening and bicycling.

View of Budding grapes and when to use the copper solution

The grapes are budding out. When you see them about this size, five or six inches in growth, that's the time to use an organic copper fungicide. This will prevent mildew from ruining the tender ends until they grow bigger. Once they do grow more, you don't need to use the treatment. It protects the sprouts when they begin producing grapes. Just give them a good spritz once and that's it. Tomorrow, I will use the mineral oil to protect them from bugs and keep that up about once a month until the summer when they'll be ready for harvest near the end of summer.
Already I can see how they grapes will be hanging down beneath the trellis, enticing us until they're ready. Oh, goody.

And Oh, if you should go to Cleveland, and I don't know why anyone would,  don't pick up any toads, they are good for the garden but not the ones in Cleveland.

Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

It rained, and enough to wet the ground, yet a friend ten miles away didn't get a drop. The weather is cold but very wintery for us in So Cal. And there was time to trim the grapes this last weekend.

Grape pruning for an arbor that produces table grapes is different than wine grapes and for grapes trained in a vineyard for table grapes. The first thing is to train the base grape vine to reach the top of the arbor. The vines need to grow above on the trellis support. Once this accomplished, two years at least, you can train them to grow above with the bunches of grapes hanging down, giving a stunning visual effect for the summer when they begin to ripen.

An arbor for grapes that allows people to sit under is a real delight. To reach up and taste the sweet abundant treat from where you stand is a wonderful experience at our backyard barbecues. Because of our arbor, two friends decided on the same thing. And why not? Grapes are very easy to grow here and pretty much anywhere save for the extreme north.


 This is our sitting area beneath part of the arbor. It's winter and still a comfortable place to sit. On the edge beneath the arbor are assorted guavas. The grape vines shade the guavas from damaging sun of summer yet gives plenty of light when the weather cools and the sun's rays aren't as strong, perfect for guavas.

Pruning can be done at anytime even after the vines begin to leaf out, but I wouldn't wait much longer once you see the buds begin to turn green. I prefer to do it before that happens and yet keep the vines on through most of the winter. For us, February is a good time to prune.

First look at the vine's growth from last year and choose the best candidate for this year's crop. A vine that is sturdy and going in the right direction. You want a vine going right and another going left. Count ten to nine nodes from where the new vine comes out from the original old vine. That will give you double the new growth or twenty to eighteen new vines. Cut everything else off and tie it near the center of your trellis so that it can grow in both directions.

Before

After

  Notice in the after photo where last year's vine comes off the original older vine. All others are cut off and next year, we'll choose one vine from this last year's vine to continue. Grapes will only fruit from new growth. So every year you need to severely prune in this manner.

Finished product

Once you have completed the pruning it should look like the photo above. With one vine going right and one left for each grape plant. We have four different varieties.

At each node along the saved vine will sprout new growth and with it, the grapes you'll harvest in summer. Once you see growth begin at the nodes spray with a mineral oil solution. We use, All Seasons, Horticultural & Dormant Spray Oil. It comes with an adapter for your hose to dilute the mineral oil. This will keep the tender leaves safe from pests and you'll want to spray about once a month at least. When the new growth is about six inches long, spray with an organic liquid copper fungicide to keep leaf mold from hitting your grapes. It only needs to be done once when the growth is new and tender, unless you live an a wet climate.

Now take all the vines you cut off and cut them up to save for your summer barbecues to smoke meats and fish. It is wonderful to use and you won't go back to hickory chips or any other wood for smoking once you tried grape cuttings. 

Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

We actually got enough rain tonight that you could smell it. The leaves became wet with drops of rain but not enough to put any moisture in the ground. No rain for our entire winter so far and little last year. It doesn't look good. We're going to dig out some groups of day lilies in the backyard and remove some grass by the front side. I wouldn't call it grass, more like the remnant of a lawn long ago. Slowly replacing grass that requires a lot of water for plants that will give food for a lot of water.

In place of the day lilies will be blueberries. I like the look of blueberries anyway, a darkish green leafy shrub that has beautiful blue fruit. You have to fight the birds for them but it will be worth it. Before the blueberries go in the alkaline soil will have to be dug out some and replaced with redwood compost--forest-type compost. Blueberries require acidic soil to fruit well.

I'm going to post pictures and write on how to prune table grapes on our arbor. We have two red seedless, one a flame, a Thompson and Concord. The Concord has a few small seeds, but the flavor, it's like a dessert wine when you bite into one. And It's time now, due to our weather, to prune the grapes for this year's crop. It's done a bit differently than a wine grape and the results are not only fruitful but beautiful.

The canes we'll prune from the grapes will be used for our backyard barbecues this year. The old vines will be dried to smoke meats, fowl and fish. Grape cuttings, in my opinion, are far better for taste in smoking when compared with apple, mesquite, or hickory. Pork ribs get mighty tasty over a low heat and the smoke of grape cuttings.

Also, we'll have to start planting garlic soon to get large bulbs by the beginning of summer. There's enough left over from last year to plant for this year. Good garlic too. And the compost we started a couple of weeks ago, and posted about, is just about finished. I'll take some photos of the end result and begin another batch once the tub is empty. The grapes will need a heavy dose of compost around their roots before new buds appear.

It was amazing how well the lemon tree came back with our homemade compost. Two years ago, we had one scrawny lemon and a very sick Meyer lemon tree. After heavy pruning and then sprayed with a mineral oil/ water solution, once a month to fight pests, plus mulching in good rich compost, gave us seven large, beautifully sweet-sour large lemons and this year, I'm hoping for a lot more fruit to set.

Hope we get some rain real soon. Next post with pics will be on pruning table grapes.

Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

What to plant? It's a good question when you consider in all the factors: time of year, size of the garden, and conditions most beneficial to the crop being planted. Then there is what you like to eat and a lot of times what we like and what can grow are in conflict. And for us, with limited space, and a smaller winter garden due to the shade of a neighbor's tree in winter, the consideration of rotating crops with a very limited light source in winter makes planning somewhat difficult for an all year around organic garden. But we do it and always seem to have something for the table that night.

Here, we have found garlic grows very well started in January-Febuarary and can be planted close together for space saving and is ready to harvest in June or early July. If interested in this make sure you use only organic cloves of garlic otherwise you'll have a problem getting them to start. On commercial produce, they spray garlic and potatoes with something that retards them from sprouting. You don't get that with organic products. We have enough garlic left over from last year to start this year's crop.

We plant beets at the same time, which are ready for harvest by April when we put in the tomatoes. But the trick is to rotate our crops otherwise the plants grow poorly and that requires, at times, to grow something new to eat to see how it works with our conditions. A mutual garden friend of ours that lives in another area of the city can grow things we can't and the same for him.

And for us, broccoli doesn't do well but kohlrabi does, leeks were a disaster but onions, garlic and beets are plentiful, and due to the loamy soil after so many years of cultivating, carrots grow long and straight and are particularly sweet and carroty.  We also did well one year with okra, a beautiful plant related to hibiscus with delicate white flowers on a very nice bush-type plant.

Our grape vines will need to be cut back soon. Wonderful plant, if you want to smoke something, chicken, pork, fish--whatever, get a hold of some dried grape vines and use them instead of the usual hickory or mesquite. I think you'll find, as we did, that there is no better flavor imparted on smoked meats than grape vine cuttings. The entire grape plant can be used. the leaves, and of course the grape which we had hundreds of pounds of this year and then finally the precious trimmings of the vines. Nothing wasted. We also have guava, four different varieties growing under  the grape harbor which gives us assorted guavas during the year. They love the winter sun and once the grapes sprout again after the cutting, the shade of summer to protect them in our desert climate.

It's like having your very own laboratory in your backyard, experimenting with this or that, trying something new, there is always something to consider when working the soil for food. And we love it. Nothing is more satisfying than to sit in the backyard with drink in hand and wonder at all the growth that an organic vegetable garden has to offer through the year.   

Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

Even though Southern California is need of rain, and it can't rain soon enough for me, the weather has been extraordinarily beautiful. And though the sun's slant is still not the most beneficial for compost, the warmth we are experiencing this Winter makes up for it. I just started a fresh batch of compost in our compost maker, a large tub that can spin made out of recycled plastic. It's black exterior and paddles located on the inside help turn and get the compost cooking quickly. 

Composter

The lid is facing up and slides open for easy access. It spins on aluminum legs and has held up now with year round use for a number of years. It takes at least two weeks to make compost but in the summer it can cook in about a week. Where the slits are located on the outside are the depressions for the paddles on the inside, so that you can easily turn the tumbler by pulling on the slits and the paddles, the inside part of the slits helps turn the compost over. 

Ingredients for compost

Inside are layers of leaf matter of all kind from our gardens, kitchen scraps from vegetables, coffee and tea grinds, ash from the fire pit and barbecue, straw from the chicken coop and their poop. We layer it until the composter is filled to the brim, adding water to get it damp. I find that spinning it after adding water helps get the water soaked into the material without running off too much. The final product is pee. Just whip it out, if you have one to whip out, and piss right on top of everything, great if you do it more than once. That will get the reaction going really fast. You should be able to feel the heat coming off it that night. 

Once the material inside shrinks to fill only half of the barrel it is ready to use. The more chopped up the material you add the better. 

The Girls

The hens are the backbone to the whole garden. Without their waste you don't have all the ingredients for a good organic vegetable and flower garden. We have five Rhode Island Reds. And the plus are the eggs. I use only organic laying feed for them and they are very healthy. Inside the coop, which has plenty of space for them to roam, is straw I lay down to keep them clean and use in the the composter. Along with oyster shell for their shells and diatomaceous earth, which keeps pests like lice and such off the chickens when they take a dirt bath. It works great too. The coop is located at the back end of the property next to the alley with a sturdy chain link fence and Eugenia to give them shade and protection.

Morning facing the South Forty

We make enough compost from all the recycled material collected in our yard to cultivate our flower gardens and the vegetable garden. Once in a while, I still need to buy extra organic compost, a few bags a year at most with some years needing none. And though friends have requested compost, we really don't have any to spare. So it's almost a closed circuit with us using everything we grow to eat and recycle. Not bad!