The Good, Bad, & The Ugly

Mantis religiosa

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

This big beautiful girl is one of many Praying Mantids (Mantis religiosa) we've encountered while doing yard clean-up around mom's place during the past 12 days. They are in the process of depositing their foam-like egg cases right now (see photo below) after which they will die. Each egg case or sac can contain up to 300 eggs. Praying Mantids are an insect species beneficial to humans because they are voracious predators of other insects, many of which are damaging to flowers, vegetables, and fruit.

If you're not convinced of the predatory skills of this amazing insect you can see photos of one that actually captured and ate a hummingbird (click here). Yes, she may be a lovely long-legged green-thinking biocentric female but I wouldn't want to get too close to her if we were any where near the same size.

Mantis religiosa Egg Sac

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

What's Scary About This Picture?
Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom

Many people think insects are ugly or scary looking, especially big insects like Praying Mantids, but to me they're elegantly beautiful in design and fascinating to behold. What's creepy looking to me in this picture is my hairy old arm...


Melanoplus sanguinipes
Click on photo to enlarge - © 2010 jim otterstrom


Another handsome colorful bug in abundance here is the large Migratory or Spur-throated Grasshopper (Melanoplus sanguinipes), but this insect is a pest to humans, notorious because of it's appetite for agricultural crops, grasses, leafy vegetables, fruits, flowers, buds, and even tree bark. My guess is that these critters are a challenge to control with organic methods when you're surrounded by miles of cornfields, but, not surprisingly, these grasshoppers are a favorite food of the Praying Mantids above, which, I'm sure, is why the mantids are also here in such great numbers.

Yesterday's Tomatoes...

Home Grown & Vine-Ripened

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

We got a late start on our tomatoes this year but they're coming on strong now. These were all started from seed by Peggy, and the varieties shown are Super Sweet 100, Yellow Pear, and Early Girl. We have several other varieties too including a couple of heirlooms, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple, which should be ripening very soon.

It's starting to cool off here now but the tomatoes are all in the greenhouse and should be fine, at least through September.

The beautiful weaving under the bowl of tomatoes is one of a pair of chenille placemats woven for us by our friend Judyl (see Santa Barbara trip here) on her loom.

Afternoon Pickin's

Very Fresh Organic Food

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

Some of this fresh-picked organically home-grown food will be on our dinner plates in a matter of minutes. We're having broiled tuna (our friends Mark & Deb caught it) with salad tonight, poached eggs on toast for breakfast tomorrow, and something with eggplant for either lunch or dinner tomorrow.

Unfortunately, you can't see the abundant variety of salad greens in that basket because I kind of buried them under the other stuff.

The Greenhouse Today...

Eggplant, Tomatoes, & Yellow Crookneck

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

In the greenhouse today we have several dozen Japanese Eggplant ripening on the vine, a bunch of Yellow Crookneck Squash, and hundreds of Tomatoes just beginning to ripen.

Our Saturday Lunch

~Veggie Sandwich~ Click on photo to enlarge - © 2009 jim otterstrom

Lunch yesterday was a veggie sandwich consisting of healthy-sauteéd' (in vegetable broth) Portobello Mushrooms with Japanese Eggplant & onions, on a bed of Romaine Lettuce & fresh cucumber slabs, under sliced tomato & Mung Bean sprouts, all stacked between two slices of Food For Life 100% Whole Grain Ezekiel 4:9 Flourless Bread, lathered on one side with home-made hummus, and on the other, with Follow Your Heart Grapeseed Oil Vegenaise.

We create variations on this theme several days a week, sometimes with avocado and a slice of cheddar, but always making a superb tasting sandwich!

By my best reckoning, this absolutely cholesterol free sandwich, including the hummus and Vegenaise, provides about 290 calories, maybe 75 of them from fat (derived mostly from healthful essential fatty acids). But that's not the reason to eat this thing, the reason is because it tastes so danged good!!!

While I'm on the subject of food, I should, once again, recommend our bible on healthy eating, 'The World's Healthiest Foods', by George Mateljan.

880 pages of comprehensive and invaluable information on the world's hundred most healthful (commonly available) foods, including nutrient richness charts (based on nutrient density per calorie), exhaustive nutritional analysis charts, detailed explanations of why each of the foods is good for you, and, the most healthful ways to store, prepare, and cook them.

~Includes 500 delicious recipes~

(Incidently, the sandwich above is not one of the recipes, but the ingredients are among the Hundred Healthiest Foods, and the method of healthy sauteéing the eggplant, mushrooms, and onions is right out of the book.)

This huge book is the product of 10 years of research by Mateljan and a team of nutritional scientists, and it's a virtual steal at around $25.

If you're interested in this book you can order it directly from http://www.whfoods.com/ or buy new & used copies through our Amazon.com book link in the sidebar to the right.

A Nice Drizzly Day At Earth Home Garden...

Click on photo to enlarge - ©2009 jim otterstrom

We're enjoying intermittent showers, hail, wind gusts, and thunder here in Big Bear today so I thought I'd come indoors for a spell and share some photos I took between the raindrops.

Dallas is sporting his summer cut in front of the nearly completed workshop/studio/beer garden, and you can see the recently added 'Earthquake Memorial' rock garden in the background, with the pond-pump solar panel now mounted there.

Inside the workshop/studio I have built a sturdy workbench, a toolbox bench, and re-painted & installed steel shelving (salvaged somewhere-in-time from an old auto parts store). This week I'm staining, painting, and getting ready to do an artsy-fartsy collage on the interior back & side walls (pictures to come).

The beer tap equipment isn't completely installed yet so the christening of the beer gardens is a ways off yet, but early this summer for sure!

The rock garden was built of recycled junk and masonry debris from our highly destructive '92 Big Bear quake. There's a dump-site closeby where mountains of old broken chimneys are still piled-up, so a friend, with a truck, and I, dragged a bunch of the stuff home for garden art.

Three sides of the rock garden were built-up with broken concrete from a neighbors old driveway which was then filled with dirt from another neighbors foundation excavation. Remember my Close Encounters/Matterhorn posts? This is where the dirt went, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow. The face of the rock garden was terraced, as I filled it, using chimney pieces, old wood, and even a staircase from the dumpsite. An old twisted wall-heater vent from a demolished house became the garden mascot when I gooped a leering plaster skull to it.

Reclining Skeleton - The Rock Garden Mascot

Click on image to enlarge - ©2009 jim otterstrom

A close-up (Photoshopped) of the ruins rock garden featuring our cheery Lost Civilization mascot.

Big Bear native plants now established on the rock garden include Firecracker Penstemon (Penstemon eatonii), Prickly Poppy (Argemone munita), Bumble-Bee Penstemon (Penstemon grinnellii), Narrow-Leaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), California Fuschia (Zauschneria californica mexicana), Sulfur Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum), Wright's Buckwheat (Eriogonum wrightii), California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica), Showy Penstemon (Penstemon Spectabilis), Hedgehog Cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus), Beaver-Tail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris), Prickly-Pear Cactus (Opuntia phaeacantha), California Evening Primrose (Oenothera californica).

California natives include Banana Yucca (Yucca baccata), Soapweed Yucca (Yucca glauca) and Sky-Blue Penstemon (Penstemon azureus).

~The Greenhouse Today~

Click on photo to enlarge - ©2009 jim otterstrom

We're growing potted vegetables in the greenhouse this year because of a gopher problem which we're, hopefully, going to solve in the fall by digging out a couple of feet of dirt and lining the bottom of the greenhouse with wire mesh, to keep the critters out, before we replace the soil.

The plants in here now include tomatoes, japanese eggplant, yellow crookneck squash, and basil.

The plants are starters from the nursery except for most of the tomatoes which were started by Peggy from a variety of seeds.

~The Raised-Bed Garden Today~

Click on photo to enlarge - ©2009 jim otterstrom

The wintered-over greens we planted last October are almost gone now (you can see spinach in the background which is beginning to bolt). The lettuce mix in the foreground was planted in early spring and is in dire need of thinning. there are young green onion seedlings behind that, and some chives in flower on the left. We have pea and snow pea seedlings which are going in the empty or declining boxes here in the next few days. We also have raised boxes with beets (for greens) and swiss chard.


Salad Hill!

Click on photo to enlarge - ©2009 jim otterstrom

We tried an experiment this year which has greatly exceeded our expectations.

While going through our seeds in early spring we discovered that we had partial packets of what we assumed where mostly expired seeds dating back to 1997. Instead of throwing them away, I suggested that maybe we should mix up one of our compost piles with the soil beneath it and cast all the seeds randomly there to see what might germinate.

This salad garden was planted when night-time temperatures were still in the teens and low twenties so we kept the hill covered with clear plastic for a few weeks, removing it only to water about once a week.

To our surprise it appears that most of the seeds were still viable and we now have a very productive salad garden right outside the back door. Growing here are an assortment of lettuces, spinach, chard, kale, radishes, carrots, cilantro, green onions, basil, mustard greens, rocket, and several other salad vegetables & herbs.

So far, the gophers and squirrels are leaving Salad Hill alone! It's already so productive that we're having a hard time keeping up with it so we invited our next door neighbors to consider it their own kitchen garden as well, and help themselves to salad stuff whenever they want.

The large-leafed plants around the perimeter are previously established Hollyhocks.

See, we have been busy!

A Day In The Life...

Yesterday's Sunrise

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

At 7:08 yesterday morning Dallas and I were walking westward along the north shore of Big Bear Lake into an icy wind as the sun rose from the east to reveal the front of a storm moving over the ridges into the valley.

I was bundled up in several layers, with two pairs of mittens on, and still had to guzzle my dandelion/licorice root/ginger/turmeric tea down so I could put my insulated mug in my backpack, thus enabling me to keep my hands warmer in my pockets.

Furry ol' Dallas was unfazed though, alternating between wading in the ice water, and curiously sniffing through the brush along the shore.

I should've worn Thinsulate gloves and a parka instead of the mittens and thermal vest, but the storm was moving in earlier than predicted so I didn't really expect it to be that cold and windy on the lake yet.

Throughout our 2+ hour walk I was on the edge of discomfort but it was such a beautiful morning I didn't want to turn around, and besides, Dallas was having a blast.

So, I just occupied my mind with other things than the bitter cold and we made it all the way over to Juniper Point and back, about 5 miles round trip, with many stops to take photos and enjoy the scenery.

When we got home Peggy scrambled up some home grown eggs, with baked garlic, onions, tomato, green chili pepper & turmeric, and we juiced up a blend of beets, carrots, kale, parsley, cucumber, apple and ginger.

Once breakfast was over we bundled up again and went outside to prune the pear tree and clean up some winter debris in the yard & gardens.

We let our hens, and Boris the banty rooster, out of the chicken yard to roam the native plant garden in search of chicken delicacies.

We then uncovered our beds of winter greens, which were getting too warm this past week or so, with the spring like daytime temps, and decided to leave them uncovered to reap the benefits of the coming snowfall.

The greens (several types of lettuce, spinach, kale & green onions), have survived the frozen winter in their covered raised beds and are certainly hardy enough to withstand a March snowstorm or two. Very cold temps may slow them down a bit but the greens will spring back with the slightest warming daytime temperatures, especially after a healthful natural drenching.

We had some cord wood that was too long for our woodstove and I had cut that down to under 18" on Friday, so I cleaned up the scrap and sawdust from that project before snow started falling in the early afternoon.

The rest of the day was spent indoors by the warmth of a fire while Peggy put together a delicious Mushroom Tofu Stroganoff for dinner (see recipe at bottom of post).

By late afternoon snow was falling heavy, but intermittently, with patches of blue sky in between. We woke up this morning to enjoy our green tea with a view of 4 1/2 inches of fresh, light, white powder.

For breakfast today it's cooked buckwheat, quinoa flakes & oats with hemp hearts, banana, raspberries, blueberries and almond soymilk.

The appetizer was another juice blend of beet, carrot, kale, apple & ginger.

MMMMMmmmmmmmm!

Today, at 8:30 A.M.

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2008 jim otterstrom

~

MUSHROOM TOFU STROGANOFF

Adapted to our own particular tastes from

The Tassajara Recipe Book

Note-

Prepare yogurt cheese* and marinate tofu** at least 24 hours before you plan to prepare the meal.


1 16-ounce block of tofu, pressed, drained, and marinated**(see marinade recipe below)
3 tablespoons avocado (or sunflower seed) oil
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon Bragg’s liquid amino’s (or substitute with more tamari or soy sauce)
1 large yellow onion, diced medium-small
1 pound Crimini or Shiitake mushrooms
5 cloves minced garlic
½ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon dried thyme (or ½ teaspoon fresh thyme, minced)
½ cup of dry sherry or red wine
1 cup of vegetable broth
1 ½ cups of yogurt cheese* (drain 32 oz. of plain yogurt through cheesecloth overnight in refrigerator)
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste.

Drain the marinated tofu (see recipe below)** on a slanted board while you gather and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Cut the tofu into strips or cubes and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so.
Remove and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of avocado oil in a 12-inch sauté pan.
When the oil is hot, add the onions. Sauté them on a high heat until they begin to brown, then turn down the heat and cook the onions carefully until they begin to caramelize, stirring frequently. This will take about 15 minutes. They should be soft. While they are cooking, slice the mushrooms about ¼ inch thick, chop the garlic, and warm the vegetable broth.

Mix the garlic, paprika, and thyme into the cooked onions. Add the remaining tablespoon of avocado (or sunflower seed) oil, the tamari and the Bragg’s liquid amino’s. Add the mushrooms, sprinkle on the turmeric, and salt & pepper to taste while carefully stirring.

Once the mushrooms begin to cook, add the marinated tofu** (see below), the sherry or wine, and let bubble & simmer for 8-10 minutes.

Add the heated broth to the yogurt cheese. Once the mushrooms are sufficiently cooked, add the yogurt cheese & broth mix to the mushroom pan.

Cook until the sauce is hot (just a few minutes) and reduced to the thickness you want. Try not to boil the sauce for too long or the yogurt cheese will curdle.

Check the seasonings and serve over brown rice.



Tofu Marinade**
Also adapted to our tastes from The Tassajara Recipe Book

2 blocks of firm tofu (the stroganoff recipe only calls for one block of tufo but you can marinade the second one and save it for another meal)
½ ounce Crimini or Shiitake mushrooms
1 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 gloves garlic, pressed or finely grated.
½ cup avocado (or sunflower seed) oil
½ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup sherry
½ cup Bragg’s liquid aminos (or tamari soy sauce)
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
pinch ground cloves
black pepper to taste

Drain & press the tofu to remove excess water.
Simmer the mushrooms in vegetable broth for 15 minutes
Toast the oregano in a small frying pan over a medium flame until it becomes aromatic (without burning).

Combine the remaining ingredients, including the oregano, to the simmering mushrooms.

Bring to a slow boil and simmer a couple of minutes longer.

Cut the tofu into four slabs.

Pour the hot marinade over the tofu slabs & marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

The tofu can marinate several days.

If the tofu was reasonably fresh and fairly dry when it was marinated, the marinade can be boiled, strained, and kept refrigerated for reuse.

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of this delicious meal, which included steamed brussel's sprouts, and a green salad with avocado & tomato, but the wonderful aromas permeating the house all afternoon had me so distracted that the only thing on my mind was, is it time to eat yet?

Peggy said she'd been wanting to try out this recipe for quite some time, and as far as I'm concerned, this one is a keeper!

Beneath The Snow...

~A WINTER GARDEN~

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

As you saw in the previous post, winter has unofficially arrived here, about 13 days early. The temperature at 6 A.M. this morning was minus 2° F, while yesterday it was a bit warmer, 9° at 6 A.M.

However, snuggled beneath an insulating blanket of snow, a winter garden is alive and well.

This is one of two beds of cold-hardy greens we are growing this winter and we just covered them with 6 mil plastic about 10 days ago, at which time we also harvested a good amount of baby spinach and lettuce, and a bit of kale too.

Homey In The 'Hood On Sunday Morn....... Four Pictures Of Today

~LONG OVERDUE PROJECT~ Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

We've been sporadically working on this 'TOP SECRET' project for months so I've decided to de-classify it, making it available through our own sort of Public Information Act!

This is a gift for family members, and their baby boy, who was born back on January 11th!

I'm off to visit them by train next week and their gift still won't be finished! That's why I'm posting this now, so at least they know we really are working on something for them, and maybe as a bit of motivation for us too.

The project is a crib-sized quilt (if the baby grows up before we finish it maybe they can use it as a wall hanging) made in the same design & colors as a stained glass window I made for my parents almost 30 years ago (click here to see a photo of the window).

The above photo shows my part of the project, cutting out the paper patterns for the applique parts, and then tracing them onto the cloth and cutting the fabric pieces out.

For the pattern I printed out a full-size image of the design from our computer onto 28 sheets of heavy 8 1/2 X 11 paper stock and taped them all together.

~PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER~Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Here's who does the real work!

The rectangular background panels have already been stitched together with charcoal bias tape added to define the seams, as the lead came would in an old window.

That was the easy part!

Now Peggy is assembling the 121 elements (plus batting & bias tape) for the applique portion of the quilt.

The vine, leaf, and floral parts will be applied over the background with extra layers of cotton batting to give dimensional relief. The white flower parts, and the green leaves, will have two extra layers of batting, and the stems one. All the applique pieces must also be bordered with charcoal bias tape.

Peggy is well-skilled with a sewing machine, but we aren't quilters, and this is a challenging experiment for us, making things up as we go along.

I'm hoping a little home-made treasure from one branch of the family can be extended to another part of the tree. So let's hope this thing comes out OK, because we're on the spot now.

It looks good so far...

WINTER GREENS UNDER RABBIT WIRE

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Our winter beds of greens (spinach, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, beets-for greens, and some green onions) are well-established now, but, for the first time ever, we had to replant the original seedbeds because European Starlings descended upon the place and devoured the first planting as soon as they sprouted. We haven't had Starlings here until the past couple of years but now they're over-running the joint. So I fabricated these cages from rabbit wire, solving that problem, and they keep out the ground squirrels too, who have also moved into the neighborhood in the past two years.

We've already been using some of the baby spinach!

The plants will go dormant when the weather gets extremely cold, but we'll have early greens peaking up through the snow (let's hope we get snow) as early as January or February. A heartwarming sight!

~HAZY SUNDAY SUNRISE~ Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

For those of you wondering about the fire situation, here's a picture from about 7 A.M. today looking west toward the fire. Beyond that little peak to the far left, fires are still burning, with some containment reported on a few fronts. We are still not in any immediate danger, and, as you can see, today we only have some light smoky haze hanging over the alley.

Mother's Day Harvest

MOTHER EARTH'S BOUNTY

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Peggy, the loving Mother of my kids, holds a basket full of gifts from Mother Earth, freshly harvested from the garden and the chicken coop. Today's bounty was lots of spinach, chard, kale, rhubarb, several types of lettuce, and, of course, eggs. We had superb "melt in your mouth" steamed spinach with hard-boiled eggs for lunch, followed by Peggy's home-made Rhubarb Cobbler.

We shared about half of today's harvest with our friends Bill and Kathy yet still had plenty for today's lunch, tonight's salad, and greens for tomorrow's meals too.

And, we've called our Mothers, and our kids have called Peggy.

Most of our day was spent working in the garden but I've also been assembling photos I took at our niece Sara's wedding to send off to the family.

We attended Sara and Luca's simply beautiful wedding and reception in Santa Barbara over Earth Day week-end. But that's a whole nuther post which I hope to get to soon.

I'm way, way behind...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

And wouldn't it be a better world if we thought of very day is Mother's Day and Earth Day?

Nine Days Later...

A NEWBORN RHUBARB LEAF

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

Our last post, 9 days ago, found us with 4 inches of new snow but this week has been spring-like and new life bursts forth once again, ever-ready to reclaim its place in the sun.

WINTER LETTUCE

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

This is the lettuce mix we planted last October which has thrived outdoors at our elevation of 6,750', under fiberglass panels, through the worst of a rather mild winter, but still surviving temperatures as low as minus 10° F.

We'll leave these hardy greens uncovered at night from here on out, even though our night-time temps are still in the low 20's, unless we get another extreme cold snap. We will get more snow but these plants are established enough to survive, and even thrive, under an insulating layer of snow now.

WINTER GROWN ORGANIC BABY SPINACH

Click on photo to enlarge - © 2007 jim otterstrom

This spinach was also planted from seed in October, directly in our raised beds, and covered with corrugated fiberglass panels.

I kept the seedbeds wet until the spinach sprouted and then watered once or twice more afterwards.

Otherwise, the only water they received until today was the condensation dripping from inside the fiberglass covers.

This morning , after uncovering the plants, I soaked them with the watering can using snowmelt from our rainbarrels.

November Gardening

Click on photo to enlarge

A row of young lettuce plants thrive in their fiberglass-covered raised-bed today, in mid-November, at 6,750' elevation. We currently have 2 beds of lettuce and 4 beds of spinach, a bed of chard, and a bed of kale in various stages. This is the largest of the lettuce from our fall planting and, in just a few weeks, could be providing us with fresh winter salad greens.

Garden Girl Gets Gooseberry Giggles!

Click on photo to enlarge

Peggy comes down with a case of the giggles while she shows off our morning harvest of Gooseberries.

"Hurry up and take the picture" she squealed, "there's a bug crawling up my arm", but when I informed her it was the hops tickling her, she just started giggling until her eyes welled up with tears of laughter.

Ahhhh, sweet lovely Peggy Sue.

Greens, Eggplant, & Onions...

Click on photo to enlarge

Today, in this corner of the garden, we have Swiss Chard, Japanese Eggplant (with the purple flowers), Kale, Collard Greens, Red Lettuce, Onion, and more lettuce.
The tall lettuce in the left background was really delicious so we're letting that last plant go to seed for saving.
The big leaves in the lower right foreground mark the edge of the Rhubarb patch.

Planting Greens

Click on photo to enlarge

Actual gardening took place today, compost was turned, greens were planted and weeds were pulled. More weather on the way tomorrow evening though.

Green Fried Tomatoes

Click on photo to enlarge

Sub-freezing temperatures have descended upon Big Bear about a month early this year and last night we lost our cold tender tomatoes & yellow squash.
The onions, beets, kale, collard greens, red lettuce, chard and snow peas are still producing but we will need to hustle now to get our winter greens seeded and sprouted before the first really hard freeze.
Once established the hardiest of greens will survive the winter if they're covered and protected from wind & snow.
It's commonly understood in these parts that only a fool would try and predict weather here but I have a feeling that it may be a long cold winter.

Nourishment!!!

Click on photo to enlarge

There is an update on our son Jimmy's condition below but, for the moment here, I'd like to give thanks for the abundance of Nature, and the nourishment provided for body, mind and spirit through even the worst of times, if we'll simply respond to these gifts with thoughtfulness, care and a small measure of rewarding effort.

Above is a photo of this morning's harvest from our garden and I was really in need of the calmness that descended upon me as I harvested this healthful home-grown food today.

All of us at Earth Home Garden (Jimmy & Lindsay will be staying with Peggy & I during his recovery) will need much nourishment in the days, weeks and months to come, and the importance of a garden in our lives is today freshly illuminated.

UPDATE ON JIMMY:

Dear friends & family-

Jimmy had surgery to repair his broken jaw last Tuesday afternoon and the surgeons said the jaw is now in perfect alignment again.

Yesterday they replaced his trachea tube with a smaller one that has a valve on it so Jimmy was able to speak for the first time since the accident, and he had quite a bit to say.

Two physical therapists also came in yesterday and got him up on his feet for a few minutes, but it was all he could do to get to the door of his room and back to bed again.

Jimmy also has been able to start drinking some liquids through a straw which he says is a great improvement over being fed solely through the tube in his nose.

His vision hasn't improved so he still can't see anything but vague shapes.

The doctors say that his CAT Scans and MRIs show no evidence of brain injury that would cause blindness and they are still hopeful that his vision will improve, but they don't know how much, or how long it might take.

His trachea tube may be completely removed in a few days and it's possible he will be released from the hospital some time next week.

He is making good progress now and we are just so thankful that he's alive.

Peggy and I want to thank all of you for your support & concern, and kind offers of help, during this very difficult time and we apologize for not being able to respond to each of your messages personally.

Love,

Jim & Peggy

Flowering Cascade Hops

Click on photo to enlarge

Hops are flowering right now on our Temple Of The Lost Civilization pagoda.

The idea was for my friend Bill to brew some of his great beer using these hops, but so far their quality hasn't been quite up to snuff for brewing.

One of these days maybe...

Green Onions

Click on photo to enlarge

Green onions in their raised bed at sunrise today in Earth Home Garden.

Fresh Snow Peas

Click on photo to enlarge

Fresh Snow Peas from the garden today for a cool afternoon salad.

The Xeriscape Garden Tour was quite a success this past Saturday with 250 to 300 visitors despite the threat of thunderstorms (we were so busy I forgot to take pictures).

Our friend, Orchid Black of The Theodore Payne Foundation, sold about 50 Big Bear Native Plants on our deck bringing in $425 for Hunter's Nursery which sells native plants grown out from seed collected locally the previous season.

My leg is much improved at this point so I'm planning on resuming my 4/5 mile morning walks very soon.

Maybe things are getting back on track for me to post regularly again, I certainly hope so!