Where There's Smoke

Getting up before daylight, I thought I smelled smoke and went around the house looking out windows, as if it would do any good in the dark.  At least I couldn't see any flames and so went about the business of coffee, etc.  Barely light now, a plume of smoke is rising on the eastern horizon from a fire that has to be either up on Slug Gulch or over on Omo Ranch.  One brief burst of siren set off all the dogs and the donkey down the road.  I can hear big trucks going up Slug Gulch, so I'm thinking it's in that direction.  The last few years have been relatively fire free and it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security.  It's a danger we face every year.  All eyes in the area will be facing eastward today.

Walking in the dim hallway yesterday, I glanced down and thought, "Well, what is that?"  Oh, good grief.  It was a five-inch lizard that dashed into the bathroom when I moved toward it.  Together, we had a mad scramble until I grabbed a washcloth and trapped it to take outside and put in a flower pot.  These guys are carrying the totem thing too far!

Trucks are still on the move.  It's not light enough for the water-carrying helicopters or the spotter plane yet.  Man, it gets tense when there's smoke.

Everybody Out Of the Nest!

Wings akimbo and beak agape, the scrub jay sat on the wire in the barn, just looking around.  I thought it was the heat that caused him to sit so.  Another jay joined the first and assumed the same posture.  A third bird landed and it sent the two into a tizzy, both frantically fluttering their wings.  These fully grown lummoxes were still being fed by their parents!  Now really.  Old enough to fly on their own, albeit not too far past the learner's permit stage, these boys were big enough to get a job and fend for themselves.  They could not possibly fit in their hatchling nest, but were still being treated like babies by their folks.  I kept thinking of Baby Huey, the big duckling in diapers in a long-ago cartoon.  The overworked parent jays need to consider some tough love here.  Everybody out of the nest!

No Fireworks Here

It was a day to nap in the heat, pull out a marinated tri-tip for an early dinner, and watch old movies.  Fireworks are not allowed in our area due to the high fire danger, not even those Fourth of July staples like sparklers.  This year there weren't even so many guns going off after dark, the hill celebration in lieu of fireworks.

Bess was lying on the porch after we'd put the kids to bed, enjoying the cool of early evening, when the coyote pack came yipping and howling through the back yard; not the front meadow, the back yard!  I ran out on the deck, flipping on the lights and yelling, and Bess charged after them.  The coyotes took off, but my nutty dog evidently treed whatever they were chasing down in the woods and stayed there barking.  The burr-filled weeds are taller down there than Bessie, and when she finally came back to the house, she was a mass of stickers, twigs, and burrs.  The rest of the evening until bedtime was spent brushing and untangling Bess.  Having given her a haircut made the job a little easier, but still.  Dumb dog, but she meant well.

By Dawn's Early Light

Fourth of July.  Independence Day.  I'm old enough to be old fashioned, and raising the Stars and Stripes still gives me a thrill.  Happy birthday, America!

The kids have always been encouraged to bring their friends home.  Going out to the kitchen to make coffee this morning, I found that Frank had invited a little friend in to play.  Apologizing to both of them, I had to tell Frank that frogs are better outside playmates as I ushered the little one out the door.

Seasons come marching up from the valley.  Deb sent me this photo (and others), rightfully proud of the garden she and Craig started.  Just the thought of a BLT with this beauty makes me drool.  There are seven green nubbins on the cherry tomato plants I have on the deck.  I am so jealous.

Seventh Heaven

Bliss.  Pure bliss.  Kellan brought the promised squash blossoms, as well as just-picked fingerling potatoes and cherry tomatoes (and three kinds of squash, but those will be for another day).  I darned near started salivating when I saw the blossoms and at three-thirty decided that, yes, it was time for dinner (one of the advantages of living alone).  Rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt, the potatoes and tomatoes went into a 350-degree oven on a baking sheet for thirty-five minutes while I prepared the blossoms.  The beer batter I use calls for one-third cup of flour, half-teaspoon of salt, half-teaspoon of corn starch, dash of cayenne (optional), one-third cup of beer, and one egg.  Beat the egg white separately to soft peaks.  Mix the dry ingredients with the beer and egg yolk.  Gently fold in the beaten white.  This recipe can be tripled, not increasing salt or corn starch.  It is good for vegetables and shrimp.  Dipped in the batter, the blossoms were sauteed until golden on all sides in olive oil and butter, and were ready by the time the potatoes came out of the oven.  Topping the bite-size potatoes like crostini with tart-sweet tomatoes made a mouthful of summer.  The squash blossoms were every bit as delicious as I'd anticipated, delicate yet rich.  I was in gustatory heaven.

It was a good day.

Going Batty

Again watching the bats at dusk last night, I thought of the line I should have used when Clay was here:  He brings out the bats in me.  (Oh well, it makes me laugh.)  I was standing by the goat pen enjoying the last rays of the sun competing with the glow of the newly risen moon when a really large bird silently swooped past to land on the power pole at the corner of the pen.  Still light enough to see the silhouette, I could tell it was an owl, a very big owl.  During the day, that pole is the hunting perch for redtail hawks.  It evidently does double duty for owls at night.

For days now, two mother turkey hens have brought their babies grazing through the property in the morning.  They cluck softly to the little ones; a pleasant sound.  Not quite so nice is the raucous cawing of the flock of crows that has returned in large numbers.  Twenty-plus were in the side oak in the afternoon as I watered deck plants.  I wish I understood them better.  They would all sit mute in the tree for moments at a time and then would all take off together, yelling at the top of their lungs, only to quickly return and start over again.  To what purpose, I wonder.

Cleaning out the closet in the spare bedroom was like an archeological dig.  I gave away the crossbow years ago, but unearthed the arrows that should have gone too.  Long unused clothing went into bags for charity, except for the red-lined black satin cloak for the Count Dracula costume that Taylor likes to wear when she's here.  Why a box of .22 shells was in that closet is anyone's guess.  Cleaning the closet was the easy precursor to approaching the Black Hole, the "work room" where everything gets shoved.  I'm going to have to gird my loins before going in there.  Another job for another day.

Make My Day

Hearing Clay's Harley rumbling up the road was enough to make my day.  Bessie's tail started thumping before he rounded the drive.  He came up to share his last day of vacation and to watch the NASCAR race.  We did watch the race, but mostly we talked.  He laughed at my pool, saying it looked a lot bigger in the photo.  Bess is an outrageous flirt with men, batting her big brown eyes and wiggling like a teenage girl, and Clay is one of her favorites.  She really gave him the business, and he couldn't resist.  Dinner was simple but filling, and food always tastes better in good company.  It's such fun to introduce others to the delicious sunflower shoots that Kellan adds to the salad bag.  They have texture and rich flavor unlike anything else.  It would be worth growing sunflowers for the tiny plants alone.  After dinner and the finish of the race, we went out at sundown to put the critters to bed.  Bats swooped and flitted in the dusk.  A nearly full moon was out, bright enough to make shadows as soon as the sun dropped.  It would make for a beautiful nighttime motorcycle ride.

It was a good day.