Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Punkin' Heads


Sunday night, our buddies Kate and Paul came over, and the four of us carved jack-o-lanterns. We scooped out the goo, we toasted pumpkin seeds, and we ate pumpkin cake Kate brought--all while kinda-sorta watching Bram Stoker's Dracula. Anyhow, we were proud of the results. Paul used a creative sideways design so that his pumpkin's stem became the jack-o-lantern's nose. I used the Pumpkin Master's pattern "zombie", though in the end, we agreed the face looked more like Che Guevara. Kate used the "skeleton" pattern, though finished the image more closely resembled Bender from Futurama. (Even better.) And Tommy used a skull motif of his own design (you're not surprised, are you?) Anyhow, the pumpkins are blazing away right now. Happy Halloween!

Saturday, October 28, 2006

A Day's Work



Behold, I have planted the iris bed! After culling together several different gardeners' on-line how-tos, I settled on a technique (clumping the rhizomes in threes) and then adapted their instructions for what I thought might be appropriate for a high-desert climate. (For example, I don't think there's any way over-watering will be an issue for us.) And I wanted them to be in a round mound, dammit. So I did that, too.

It was a gorgeous fall day today, and I managed to get us some pumpkins to carve this weekend when I was out picking up the gardening supplies I needed. There's still quite a bit going on in the garden considering it's late October, but my sunflower-sowing plans are foiled. You see, I had planned on saving my own seeds and scattering them around the property for a Van Gogh-like effect (sunflowers and iris--geddit?) but the birds beat me to it. All the sunflower seeds have been claimed as bird chow. Nevertheless, here's what a sunflower looks like stripped of its seeds. It's strangely beautiful, really.



Oh, and while I was digging around outside anyway, I decided it wouldn't be much more effort to water all 16 of the fruit trees. Yeah, right. Now I'm totally pooped--but happy in that job-well-done kinda way.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Holiday at Home

Mom and Corey visited me last week, and I barely took any photos the whole time! Oh well, there's a time to document stuff and a time to just participate in your own life. We had a fun time. Here's a picture of my three favorite people at Tommy's store, Peruvian Connection:

Purple Haze

Our yard is awash in hardy, albeit very old, purple iris plants. The leaves are perennial enough, but each year, we're thrilled if we see one or two blooms. Iris are supposed to be thinned every year, and my guess is these haven't been thinned in at least 12--when our house was added to the compound. Anyhow, my grandma Majorie planted many purple (and yellow) iris around the home place when she was a young woman raising a family there, and they continued to bloom once my Dad was grown raising his own family there. Purple iris always remind me of Grandma, home, and our family. So I want to do the plants justice, and I feel fairly confident that with some thinning and fertilizing, I can get these suckers to thrive. If you care to visualize along with me, come May we'll see about a dozen white-bloomed apple trees in the yard, scattered among them, a handful and peach and apricot trees with their pink blossoms, and on the ground, round beds of purple iris.

The first step was to simply dig up most of the rhizomes so they can be relocated to new beds where black soil and bone meal await them. ("Yummy, yummy" say the starved plants.)


Here I am last Sunday just beginning the task, feeling confidence and enthusiasm.


The work seems easy enough as I start to fill my bucket.


By this time, my shoulders are hurting a lot more than I thought they would.


Now, I have to trim the excess leaves off the rhizomes and prepare them for re-planting.

After the weekend was over, this turned out to be my weekly horoscope:

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "What is Great Purple?" asks Japanese poet Nanao Sakaki in his book *Let's Eat Stars.* Is it "a piece of purple sky floating in my lover's eyes?" he speculates. "A cloud made of purple wine passing over Mt. Fuji? The color of a full-blooming magnolia's root? The shadow of a star visible only to birds? The light of the last water you drink?" I invite you, Aquarius, to brainstorm your own answers to the question "What is Great Purple?" According to my reading of the astrological omens, you now have a special relationship not only with plain old everyday purple, but with sublime, magnificent, life-changing PURPLE. It's a perfect moment to develop a closer relationship with whatever Great Purple means to you.

Well I certainly know what the Great Purple means to me. Stay tuned. This weekend, I'll plant the rhizomes in their new homes.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

A Walk Through Tent Rocks



Yesterday, I drove out to Cochiti Pueblo with my friends Paul and Cassin, and we hiked Tent Rocks. It's at times like this that I wish I had paid more attention to the eighth grade geology teacher we christened Stale Dale. (You Maryvillians know what I'm talking about.) But I was 14, and how could I think about crap like rock formations when there was important stuff on my mind like Simon Le Bon? Anyway, I wish I could bestow some sophisticated knowledge upon you and explain how these Dr. Seuss-like hills were formed, but I can't.

There's also a slot canyon there, and it's cool and intriguing to wind around the bottom of it. This summer's generous rains meant there was more vegetation than other times I'd been there, and this odd bush with a delicate yellow flower created the scent of honeysuckle mixed with vanilla in the early evening air.

My photos don't really do it justice, but enjoy!



Paul walks ahead while Cassin and I look at these funky tree roots.



Paul notes that perhaps a fourth Indiana Jones movie should be filmed here.



Cassin meanders through the slot canyon.



View from the end of the trail.

Deep Cleaning in Hell


Ever wonder, if there is a hell, who's there? Nixon? Naw, not quite bad enough. Hitler? Yeah. Idi Amin? Probably. The inventors of white carpeting? Definitely.

Much as we love our house, it has 12-year-old white carpeting in the bedrooms. This was not a smart choice. We have a gravel driveway and a "lawn" that incorporates large patches of light brown dust. So it isn't surprising the carpet doesn't stay clean. What's more, the carpet has stains. Stains that aren't ours. Stains that are probably cocoa cola, but when my imagination runs wild are actually the fermented blood stains of an innocent high-school girl who was murdered here on a dark and stormy night. Or worse--dog poo.

So yesterday, the carpet cleaner guy came. Kindly, our landlords pay for this. We are grateful, but we still have to empty the bedroom and Tommy's music room of their contents. Then, we shove all that stuff in the living room, where we stumble around piles of crap that look like a garage sale gone bad as we try to go about our lives normally and wait for the carpets to dry.

Needless to say--lots of gruntwork yesterday. And then I went on a hike with my friends Paul and Cassin. Then this morning, I taught my Body Pump class. And I wonder why I'm tired.


Anyhow, the bedroom is as clean as a room at Motel 6 now, and we are very, very happy.