The O-Zone

Last night we had a really beautiful sunset. Thunderstorms were predicted but failed to materialize. The clouds did yield a dramatic sky as the sun went down.

The sun was behind a narrow cloud and the effect was spectacular. I really like the soft colors on the hillsides below the horizon.

This didn't last long, just a few minutes.

Today we still have a chance at thunderstorms and rain, but less of a chance than yesterday.

This morning we went down to the garden to open the greenhouse, replant zucchini seeds which failed to germinate (soil was too cool); and plant some herb seeds in the greenhouse.

All in a row. The Gooseberry plant is weighed down by fruit; the baby Rhubarb plant is getting some size, and the baby Josta Berry plant next to it is also putting on good growth.

All three of these big fruit plants are going to duke it out for space in the years to come.  We are placing bets on who is going to win that fight (I think it will be the Josta Berry plant).

The trees against the fence are a pie cherry which has probably 100 cherries that set, and in the corner is an apple tree that has several apples starting to grow.  Behind the large fruit plants is a row of blueberry plants which are setting fruit, and some flowers for bees and hummingbirds to enjoy.   In the big pot is a Chocolate Mint which we’ll dry this winter for an herb tea.

Dan pulled the largest radishes from the first planting. We have another row of radish plants which are starting to grow, and will plant another batch in a couple of weeks.

Behind Dan’s hand are the two beds with potato plants growing, and a row of Walla Walla sweet onions.  The onions are starting to put on some new leaves – hurray, will be nice to have onions and I am starting to be hopeful.

The three remaining Blackberry plants from last year are getting green; the three new canes we planted are just barely leafing out.

Today I pulled the grass and weeds growing against the fence behind and around the Blackberries, and put down a few bags of bark mulch.  That will hold moisture in and keep the weeds more under control, or at least make them easier to yank out when they come back.  We’re going to have to make wire cages for these plants as the mice appear to relish them as a winter snack food.

The Yellow Snap beans are all popping up, and next to them the beets are also growing well. At the end of the bed is the second planting of peas. In the bed behind are strawberries. They are loaded with flowers and baby strawberries.

We need to replant some beets to fill in the row where it appears the first seeds aren’t going to come up.  We’ll do that this afternoon.

The first ripening strawberry. Need to get a floating row cover down there very soon, before the birds come and check out the progress.

If enough berries ripen at once I could make some strawberry jam.  That would be a very fun thing to do!

A row of Swiss Chard is starting to grow well. At the end of the bed, the pea plants are starting to bloom.

We planted a different kind of pea this year, not an edible pod variety.  These should all be ripe at once and I’ll have peas to freeze for winter eating.  The Chinese Cabbage plants are really growing fast, and Spinach will be ready to eat in a week or two at the most.  Lettuce and carrots are being slow.   One row of radishes has been mostly picked, and another row is growing well.

All along the fence the raspberry plants are just going crazy putting up new canes and flowering.  Both red raspberry and black raspberry plants are doing well this year.

Dan tried to restrain these three Josta Berry plants. They were threatening to take over the entire back of the garden.

There are only a few berries on these plants; next year they should produce a normal crop.

The red currant bushes are just completely loaded with fruit, and that’s exciting.  We love currant jam a lot.  I didn’t take any pictures of them because they look like they did the last time I took pictures.  The berries are all still green.  I don’t think they start turning red until late July.

And we have two tomatoes already growing on one plant, and two other plants have blossoms.  All in all this is just fun.

A doe and fawn walked through the front yard today, first one we’ve seen this year. Not any bigger than Mishkin, so cute. Speaking of Mish, he was being tough in the doe and fawn’s general direction.

This fawn can't be older than a day, or two, at the very most. So small. Dutifully following it's mom, who was walking slowly so her baby could keep up.

Let the babysitting begin. Our yard will become a nursery again.

The picture is so fuzzy because I took it through a window, not wanting to scare these two.  I’ll wait until later to do that, when they are in the bird feeders and we’re trying to chase them away.  Of course, that won’t work because they aren’t going to be afraid of us or pay us any more than token attention.

The cycle of life, White Mountain style.

In mid May we made a birding trip to our favorite place for birdwatching, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.  It was a really great trip, as always, even though we did get skunked on Snowy Plovers (again!), and no Bitterns.  That’s just wrong.

We did see lots of great birds, had great weather, and almost no skeeters!  And we got to drive around the Alvord Desert side of the Steens Mountains.  We always go too early to be able to drive up the loop road on the Malheur side of the Steens Mountains.  The road doesn’t open until early July, after the snow has melted.

Malheur has a nesting population of Sandhill Cranes. Here are two of them, noticing their field has another occupant.

Paying close attention to the pair to his left.

Closing the gap, and everybody was talking about it.

Evidently the topic of discussion was who can get too close to whom, and looking at his girlfriend wasn't allowed. Yikes! I'm moving already!

The pair claims the patch of grass the individual Crane had been standing on previously, and peace was restored for the moment.

We stayed in one of the cabins at the Steens Mountain Resort, on a hillside between Frenchglen and Page Springs campground, overlooking the fields to the north.  Going out on the covered deck in the morning and listening to the cranes calling is really almost an indescribable peaceful thing to experience.  Their voices are almost prehistoric in sound quality, echoing eerily over the misty fields.

This banded crane was almost certainly born on the refuge.

Another crane feeding in one of the flooded fields.

Besides cranes, which are a highlight of any trip to Malheur, here are some fuzzy bird pictures for other species.

Avocet wading in shallow water, looking for something to eat. This is the northern edge of their range, though some do go a bit farther north into Washington.

This bird is admiring his reflection. Gorgeous birds. So delicate looking.

Cinnamon Teal are common on the refuge; you can see them in pairs or single males in almost every shallow pond or stream.

Black-necked Stilts are another simply beautiful wader. They always look like they are wearing a tuxedo, to me. I could spend hours watching them stalking about in the grass with their long red legs.

Far away from the road, several Stilts were surrounded by a couple hundred Dowitchers. Little fat ruddy colored birds, all poking into the mud looking for something yummy to eat.

Several species of Egrets live on the refuge. One of the most spectacular is a Great Egret, all decked out in their summer finery. These birds were hunted almost to extinction in a lot of areas, to decorate ladies' hats. What a waste.

Graceful and noble looking, these birds are now easily found on the refuge in grassy fields when the water is high.

This male Hooded Merganser was showing off for his mate, acting quite silly.

Standing in a row, a few Black-crowned Night-Herons were enjoying the early morning sunlight.

Too early to get up and moving, a small group of White Pelicans were sharing a rock formation above the waterline, in the shallow water in the Narrows which connects Malheur Lake and Harney Lake. Late in the morning, flocks of the pelicans can be seen floating in formation in the sky, wheeling around and beginning their hunt for fish in the deeper waters.

A Wilson's Phalarope along the edge of the grass. These little guys stir up the shallow water by swimming in small circles and waving their feet around madly.

Several species of grebe make their homes on the refuge, including this small Pied-billed Grebe.

A Willet hunting in the long grass.

We were too late for the Godwits, who move through the refuge earlier in the spring.  I didn’t get any good pictures of the numerous White-faced Ibis, nor Curlews.  But be that as it may, we liked watching both of those species doing their thing in the grass and in the air.  Snipe winnowing in the early morning was another sound that we dearly love to listen to from the deck on the cabin.

Here is a Sage Thrasher perched on a fence wire above a Sage bush.

Dan has called these birds peasants for so long that I have trouble remembering they are called Ring-necked Pheasant. This male is all decked out in his spring finery, standing on the bank above one of the numerous canals in the refuge. Farther down the road we spied a female and told her to keep heading a bit south to meet up with this fellow.

Refuge headquarters has always got an owl or two sleeping in the trees overhead. This Great-horned Owl was ignoring the people walking around under his branch.

The headquarters grassy lawns is home to a large population of Ground Squirrels, and they had babies which were emerging from their burrows.  I stood on the sidewalk and watched one hole to see who might emerge.  I was not disappointed.  One small squirrel head peeped out.  Then underneath him, another baby popped up.  They both scrambled out onto the ground, inches from my feet.  Then another, and another.  The four babies all clustered around the hole.  And then it was time to play and munch grass.  Two scampered away, one to the left and the other two the right.  Two babies remained.  They faced each other and sat up straight and began boxing each other with their small front feet, and then they rolled around wrestling and playing like kittens or puppies, for a few seconds.  They popped up, chased each other a couple of feet, and began their boxing match and wrestling match again, and then more chasing.  It was hilarious.  They carried on like that until more people approached where I was standing on the sidewalk.  All the babies popped back into the closest burrow, and when the people passed by, they emerged again to continue their games.

Dan was watching a man with a massive camera lense laying on the ground, attempting to take a picture of a tiny hare, no more than five inches long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his fluffy bunny tail.  The bunny had no trouble outwitting the man with the camera.

There’s always something very neat to see at the refuge headquarters, and we stopped back in several times a day the whole time we were at the refuge.

All in all, it was a great little vacation, and we plan to go back again next spring to see who all is hanging around the refuge.  And maybe we’ll get to meet up with some friends there.

Over the weekend we put up the greenhouse we’ve been planning since last summer. It wasn’t all that difficult to do. The hard part was getting the pieces here that we needed in order to build it.

The metal framework under the plastic is wire fencing called "cattle panel."

Each section of fencing is four feet wide and sixteen feet long.   Set side by side and wired together along the touching and overlapping edges, and then stapled into the inside edge of the two raised beds, it creates a stable and sturdy framework.  Our friend Thad was telling us how these panels could be used to do this project, and we didn’t quite get what he was talking about.  So he bought one, carried it down to the garden, stuck it in the raised beds and said, “See?”  And we did.

Draping the plastic over the top without tearing it was a challenge, but once it was in place, we stapled it down on the sides and cut a slit in both ends for a doorway. It is overlapped and held in place with a piece of paving stone.

The resulting greenhouse dome shape is about seven feet high in the middle and pretty straight up on the sides.  Very roomy.  Each raised bed is over sixteen long and four feet wide.  A lot of growing space!

On Tuesday we got plants to put into the greenhouse, and got them planted.  Tomato plants, peppers of various kinds, and a honeydew melon plant were installed in their new homes.  Plus we planted the other greenhouse-resident seeds – cucumbers, and some hot pepper seeds which may or may not germinate.

I also filled the planters surrounding the bird bath. A lavender, pansy, fushia, peony, and lobelia, all will give some color to the middle of the walkway in front of the arbor.

Really do need to sweep off the bark that gets dragged around by the hose, but that’s not too pressing.

No, that's not out of focus. that's the camera lense immediately fogging up when we walk into the greenhouse just like our glasses do. It is a good 30 degrees warmer inside the greenhouse than it was outside (55F was the temperature outside today).

The five tomato plants are all in their cages, and everybody looked perky and took the transplanting well in stride.  Good news!

Ah, much better. Fog has lifted. The Rainbow Swiss Chard in the middle of the tomato plants over wintered and is starting to put on some new growth. With the help of the higher temperatures and humidity in the greenhouse, it will take off.

The roof was dripping and the soil around the plants is still wet, so no watering was needed today.

Today we did a soil test to see what changes or improvements need to be made to the soil in the raised beds.

We finished the planting in all the raised beds yesterday.  We planted the first group of Yellow Snap Beans and filled in one raised bed.  And I planted a row of Dill next to potato plants, and on the other side I planted a row of Walla Walla onion sets.

Then today we looked at pH requirements for various plants.  I didn’t know but potatoes and onions like wildly different pH in their preferred growing environment.  Oh well 🙂  It seemed like since they go together well in cooking, they would grow in the same place.  Learn something new every day.

Today we also planted two replacement climbing roses for the two that died over the winter.

So all is planted now and we just have water everything, pull weeds, and talk to the plants on a daily basis.  Gardening is fun!

Forecast is for a chance of snow overnight once again.  At least it goes away during the day.

April 15th Mish was five years old.  He celebrated as only a cat can.

Being 'roadkill' while napping in the middle of the floor.

Yesterday we picked up our new car.  We traded in our two other Subaru vehicles for various reasons, and purchased a new Subaru.  It’s the perfect blend of performance and off-road capabilities, and it is going to be the best birdwatching car we’ve ever owned.

Happy birthdays to us for 2013. Now we just need some actual warm weather in which to go birding.

No hummingbirds here yet, which is fortunate for the little fellows.  It’s too cold for them overnight, and since we keep getting rain or snow as the sun goes down, it is the absolute worst weather for hummingbirds.

We did go to a local lake to see if there are any spring migrants back, and saw Hooded Mergansers, American Coots, Redheads, Lesser Scaup, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Marsh Wren, and this little guy, a Song Sparrow.

The sparrow as the only one who got close enough to have a decent picture.  We also saw a Great Blue Heron, standing in a little creek.

Back home again, playing with critters. Terry showing off her style.

She was on my knee getting some pets when Mish awoke from his afternoon siesta, and he’s just intensely jealous.  He jumped in my lap and I had my hands full keeping the macaw from crunching his  tail.  It can get exciting putting my hand in front of her beak when she’s intent on grabbing, so she doesn’t actually connect with any cat body parts.  He settled down out of beak range, purring like crazy about being allowed in my lap for the first time, when Terry was there first.  He’s spoiled.

Fortunately it melts during the day (mostly all melted from yesterday), but we woke up to a white world again, and it’s still coming down.

Brand new snow from this morning. It isn't going to pile up, evidently, just make everything soggy. In the higher elevations it will be a different story.

Snowflakes fill the air between the porch and a pine tree across the yard.

I think I’ll do some baking today.  Another good day to hibernate.

Waiting for snow to melt is about as exciting as waiting for aspen leaves to turn gold.  When it happens, THAT’S exciting.  But getting there is tedious.  This explains the lack of posts recently.  Doing nothing new isn’t very interesting to read about.

So… gradually the snows melted, and everything looks brown, grass, hillsides, trees, bushes, deer, but not rabbits.  They’re still white and oh so visible.  A few first spring flowers are up, Buttercups and Spring Beauties.  But overall it’s still early days and still brown.

Several days ago four grape plants we ordered, to replace four that died when munched by rabbits a couple of winters ago, arrived in the mail and we planted them, since the instructions said we could do so immediately.  And we’ve been enjoying watching the still white rabbits running around in the yard, chasing each other and munching on the short green grass that is starting to grow under the brown remnants of grass from last fall.  We have also been enjoying sitting in the grape arbor in the garden, looking at buds on the plants, and planning what to do with the garden later this month and early next month.

Buds are appearing on all the plants, and fattening up ready to pop into spring green.  Cherry trees have lots of flowers planned for this year, and even the apple tree looks like we might see some blossoms.   The world is poised for color.  And the hummingbirds should be here next week.

Overnight Mother Nature had a bit of a surprise in store for us.

Yes, we woke up this morning to a world transformed into winter once again.  A good fat four inches of heavy wet snow blankets everything.  The white Snowshoe Hares are now invisible once again.  I hope the hummingbirds saw this weather heading their direction, like a freight train, and are hanging back to the south.  This sort of weather is deadly for those little guys.

The storm has blown out of here, mostly, and to the west the lighter sky promises some sunshine. But, as I write this it is snowing quite a bit.

And we have plans today to do some chores, buy gasoline for the generator, haul some trash possibly.  You know, exciting stuff like that.

Somewhere under the snow are a lot of buds on the Service Berry bush next to the house.

Of course, with this sort of weather there’s only one thing to do first thing this morning.  Make banana pancakes on the cookstove.

Yesterday this small Daphne bush had purple flowers covering the stems. The flowers are still there, and still purple, but couldn't really prove it by this picture.

I hope the Daffodil blossoms have a sense of humor. They were showing signs of opening up in the next day or two. There they are, bending down into the snow.

This same weather pattern is forecast into the middle of next week.  Patience is a virtue, but really, we’re so ready for spring.

Waves of clouds sweeping across from the west have been delivering snows.  This time of year it’s always so hard to remember what green looks like.

Shoveled paths to and from the bird feeders. We have a constant riot of birds in the yard at all times.

Yesterday we had clear skies and bright sunshine, sharply defined shadows from the trees and buildings.  It was just a gorgeous day outside.

Fog banks crawl along the mountain ridges and peaks.

Pine tree right in front of our sun room windows holds so much snow in the long needles, it provides perfect cover for the flock of chickadees to hammer on their prized sunflower seeds. The birds snatch a seed and fly to a tree, hold the seed between their feet, and start hammering on it with their beak. They look industrious and very happy.

Even though it isn't above freezing, the sun has strength to melt the snow off the solar panel array. It goes quickly, and the cleared panels produce their maximum capacity on days like this. A free ride for our power needs. This always makes us smile.

Even on a glorious late-mid winter day like this, we’re thinking about spring.  Gardening is upper most in our thoughts these days, and seed catalogs are very entertaining reading.

Tracks in the snow around the garden fence on the outside, but no tracks inside. Looks like the bunny fence was successful.

Every day we look down at the garden and see the snow pillows on the raised beds, bird bath, and chairs in the arbor.  Nary a speck of bare ground to be seen.

Nope, snow hasn't melted yet.... Under those snow capped beds and along the edges, fruit plants are dreaming of sunshine and honey bees.

Today I made Banana Beignet, which really turned out more like donut holes.

Ready to eat!

Theoretically these were supposed to be dusted with powdered sugar, but I had visions of a cloud of powdered sugar coating every surface in the kitchen, besides me and I always get attacked by flour monsters, so I opted to simply roll the donut holes in a cake pan with the powdered sugar, and contained the mess.

Verdict – delicious, and I have all sorts of ideas about how to play around with this recipe and different fruits.  We’re taking the rest of these up the hill to our friends with a bunch of children.  They won’t last two minutes.  Saving me from myself!

Tried a new recipe this morning for breakfast – vegan frittata.

Just out of the oven.

Supposed to let it sit for a bit before cutting it, to let it firm up a bit. But we were hungry....

Totally delicious!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 medium baked potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/3 cup chopped broccoli, lightly steamed
1/2 cup lightly steamed Swiss Chard (I had some frozen from our garden)
1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
1 12 oz package firm tofu
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 tbsp nutritional yeast
cheese (optional) – I skipped this

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large frying pan, sautee the onions
and garlic powder in olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Add potatoes, salt and
pepper, and sautee for a few minutes, stirring occasionally until
potatoes are golden brown.  Since they are already cooked you’re just
giving them a bit of color and heating them up.  Once this is all
heated, add salt/pepper and any other vegetables.  If you want
mushrooms, slice them and add them to the onions at the beginning.

Other ideas:   add sliced mushrooms, squash, green onions, sliced olives, fresh tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, pretty much anything.  Just reduce the amount of potatoes a bit if you want to add a lot more vegetables.   If you like more garlic, you can use up to 4 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed.

Blend tofu, soy sauce, and nutritional yeast in a food processor or
blender until well mixed. Mixture will be somewhat thick. Add to the
potatoes and vegetables mixture, stir to combine and pour into a greased
pie pan.

Cook 45-50 minutes, until top is firm and cooked all the way through.

While your frittata is still hot, sprinkle the top with cheese if
desired. Allow the frittata to cool slightly before slicing and
serving, as this will help it set and firm up a bit more.

Mish just looked very comfortable and pleased with things, so I took his picture.

We had three inches of snow fall yesterday, and the prediction is  for several more days of snow.  Nice winter weather.