Photo workshop in Grand Teton National Park, October 2012

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

I came back from a Nikonian wildlife photography workshop with Jim Stamates with over 2,000 pics. Wow, going through and separating the wheat from the chaff has taken some time.

I’m new to Aperture on my iMac, so I have had a real learning curve. I am still figuring out how to”paint” specific areas of the photos by dodging, burning, and adjusting the saturation, vibrancy, contrast, sharpness, etc., as well as bulk processing of the entire image for various colors individually. And as a beginner to Aperture, I got really creative. Consequently, some of my images got over-processed in my attempts to turn a scene into a work of art that pleased me. I love messing with my histograms!

I now need to pare down the 170 images that I processed to a mere few for this post. I know you don’t want to waste your entire day looking at my pics. Suffice it to say that I had a great time, learned a lot, and highly recommend any Nikonian photo workshop with Jim Stamates. Visit his site at http://www.Stamates.com/.

DAY 1

Dawn on the sagebrush flats by Gros Ventre campground with two bison and a buckrail fence in the foreground.

Cow moose

Cow moose on the left and her boyfriend lying down on the right. Look closely for his antlers.

Bull moose, fall foliage near Gros Ventre campground.

Iconic barn along Mormon Row. Was this the Olmstead barn? It is one of my favorite shots from the trip.

One member of the 800 bison herd in the Tetons.

This bison looks cold. Or maybe it was me that was cold, what with that strong breeze blowing off the mountains.

The Tetons in autumn are spectacular.

I believe that this was String Lake.

I like to mix in closeups with long shots, and intermix shots of scenery with wildlife. This is lichen on a granite boulder.

Autumn leaf floating on String Lake.

Bull elk way off in the distance after the sun had gone down, a near impossible shot, especially since this was handheld. This is what I got with my Nikon P510, which has a telephoto capacity of about 625 mm. Amazingly versatile camera.

The sun drops behind the mountains on our first day, but we still weren’t done. We set off in pursuit of beaver, which come out as dusk.

We were not disappointed. The pair of beavers in this pond had seven youngsters this year. Even though there was precious little light, my trusty Nikon P510 captured this shot.

This shot captured an adult, a juvenile, and their lodge in the background.

Bull moose next to the beaver pond.

DAY 2

We started our day at the Snake River in time to see fog rising over the water. The river was really low, a consequence of this summer’s drought. This is an example of an over-processed photo but I had fun altering specific sections of the picture.

The fall foliage probably peaked on this day. Leaves were falling rapidly all around us. The group went off hiking in search of moose, but I stayed near the parking lot since my knees and lungs are too bad for me to hike much.

There must be moose around here somewhere. Look at this track in the frozen mud of the Snake River.

Yep, there is a bull moose. I hope the group that went hiking got to see it too. 🙂

Frost covered all of the plants.

Trumpeter swans and this bald eagle soared overhead.

Oxbow Bend in the Snake River is a “must stop” for photographers. You could stay here all day and not get the same picture twice due to the changing light.

Jim Stamates told us that the best time to take a vertical shot is right after we take a horizontal one.

We saw Dusky Grouse atop Signal Mountain. This one really posed for me. Dusky Grouse were formerly known as Blue Grouse, but became duskies when the Sooty Grouse of the Sierras in California was split from the Dusky Grouse of the Rockies.

A storm moved in late that afternoon, but we managed to stay fairly dry. I don’t remember rain on anything other than the car. We lucked out with weather.

Here is another view of those amazing clouds, and a different treatment of the image to make the foreground show up.

Sunset that night was spectacular.

DAY 3

The low the next morning was 9 degrees. Mark bundled up in seven layers of clothing. The group went for a pre-dawn hike to catch elk crossing the Snake River at dawn in the fog. I stayed in the car with the heater on. What a wuss I am.

Dawn at Schwabacher Road by some beaver ponds along the Snake River. This is my other most favorite shot from the trip.

The best time to take a vertical shot is right after a horizontal one. These were taken with my Canon 30D.

An early morning shot of the beaver dam at Schwabacher Road.

I really had fun playing with the colors in this shot of the Tetons reflected in the Snake River.

Our next stop was this abandoned homestead on Mormon Row. I thought about a large family living in this small house a hundred years ago, probably with ten kids, and all of them traipsing to the outhouse in the back no matter how cold the weather or how dark the night.

Don’t forget to isolate elements of the larger scene for more abstract compositions.

Wildlife comes in all sizes. This Least Chipmunk was busily eating seeds from sage.

Even common birds like this Black-billed Magpie can make good subjects.

Look for unusual angles. Jim said to “See the obvious, photograph the unique.”

Mark is looking for his own unique angle from which to photograph the barn.

I was shooting with my Nikon P510 and Canon 30D on this day. This is the barn and homestead as photographed with the Canon.

Look for opportunities to frame your images with elements of the photo. Can’t you just see the cattle being loaded from this ramp into a truck to go to market?

We saw bison everywhere.

This shot was taken with my Nikon P510 from where we had lunch, either Dornan’s or Jenny Lake Lodge.

This is pretty much the same scene, photographed with the Canon 30D and processed differently.

Chapel of the Transfiguration

Chapel of the Transfiguration with the church bell.

Chapel window. Who says a photo has to be straight? Tip it if it pleases you.

Chapel interior

Chapel interior

View out the front window of the chapel.

General store at Meanor’s Ferry on the Snake River.

Front door of the general store at Meanor’s Ferry. I love to photograph doorknobs and latches. Don’t know why, I just do.

The ferry at Meanor’s Ferry.

The best way to see a bear is to look for a bear jam like this one.

This two-year-old black bear cub is now on his own, preparing for his first winter hibernation without his/her mother. I don’t know what he was finding to eat atop this tree.

I caught a quick glimpse of the bear as he came down to the creek to get a drink. The picture wasn’t all that good to start with, and then I over-processed the greens. Oh well.

Mark and I had dinner at the Wort Hotel, beautiful historic building with great food.

I took this photo of the interior of the Wort Hotel with my iPad.

DAY 4

By the last day, I was pretty worn out from those early mornings. We all were getting up at 4:30 in order to meet Jim before dawn. I confess to sleeping in the car until nearly 10 am this last morning while Mark went hiking with the group.

When the sunlight hit that fall foliage, it just brought tears to my eyes it was so beautiful.

If you run out of other things to photograph, take a picture of your own foot. These are my new Merrell hiking boots that I bought for the trip. I am really pleased with them.

More great scenery, but the fall foliage was fading fast.

I loved the sight of this palomino grazing in the field with the Tetons in the background. When I zoomed in on it and then cropped to the horse, the scene turned into an oil-painting-like image. I liked the effect.

Snake River overlook

Bull bison sniffing a cow to see if she is ready to breed.

Another bull got too close, and the first bull mounted the second one in an act of dominance.

The second bull didn’t seem to mind too much.

Two young male bison staged a mock battle in a wallow, stirring up dust.

I liked this mother and calf bison photo.

Another “mother and child” bison photo.

Newborn bison are red for a short time before turning brown. These little guys born late in the season may have trouble making it through winter because they aren’t very big by the time winter sets in.

Water drips from this bison’s muzzle after she’s had a drink.

We knocked off early on the last day to get cleaned up for dinner together at a nice restaurant in Jackson, WY. This was my last shot of the trip.

What a fabulous trip and workshop this was. I am hoping to go with Jim Stamates again someday on another workshop.

On our last day, Mark and I drove to Salt Lake City to fly home. Unfortunately, I had packed my cameras and thus missed some great shots of elk, moose, and pronghorns. But my iPad is always with me, ready for emergencies.

In retrospect, I should have taken out my good camera at the first sign of a decent photograph. All I have is this subpar shot taken with my iPad. Oh well, live and learn.

Hope you enjoyed this vicarious journey to Grand Teton National Park in October.

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Bummer, I got laid off!

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

I was on my very expensive and unreimbursed photo trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons to improve my photography skills and gather material for my newspaper  columns when I got laid off. Twelve years with the Huntington Beach Independent had come to an end. My husband got the news at home and let me know on the first full day of my trip.  What a blow.

It wasn’t personal. The Los Angeles Times directed community newspapers to lay off all of their columnists except for the one on the front page. And as an environmental and gardening columnist, I certainly wasn’t on the front page. I was relegated to near dead last, right before sports.

Worse, I was scheduled to go to a garden writers conference in Tucson last week. I was able to get my conference fee and hotel refunded, but had to eat the airfare.

I am now busy redefining myself. Now that I’m no longer a newspaper columnist, who am I? Am I still a writer/photographer for pay? Well, yes, I still produce power point presentations for the natural history class that I co-teach with my husband. He does all of the teaching and I provide material for lectures and collect the pay. Pretty sweet deal. And I still work at the Orange County Conservation Corps, teaching young at-risk adults, mainly male Hispanic gang members ages 18-22. So even though I will be 70 in a few months, I’m not retired. Nor do I want to be.

I’m sad to lose my newspaper job. The pay wasn’t much, but I really enjoyed it. Oh well, now on to whatever is next in life. Now that I no longer have a Monday newspaper deadline, perhaps I will have time to participate in Harvest Mondays. There was a harvest this week, but I didn’t bother to photograph it. So much for having more time.

Oops, wrong, I found a couple of photos.

Eggs, green onion, and bell peppers. The conical ones are Giant Szegedi, only they’re not so giant. Looks like breakfast.

Chope the veggies and saute in butter, margarine or bacon fat. Set aside.

Beat the eggs with a bit of half and half and some salt. I used Himalayan Pink salt.

Cook the egg mixture in a covered skillet until almost set. Add a few chunks of cream cheese and the sauteed vegetables. Fold the omelette in half and cook covered until completely set.

The result will be a gorgeous and tasty omelette. I cut them in half with one half for each of us.

Serve with the bread product and fruit of your choice. I used watermelon because that’s what we had from our garden this week. That’s homemade jam on the bread.

On to the harvest for the week.

FRUIT

15 oz Avocados

3 oz Lime

5 lb 3 oz Watermelon (the last one–the others were stolen from my community garden plot while I was on vacation)

6 lbs 5 oz Fruit

VEGETABLES

18 oz Bell Peppers

10 oz Eggplant

1 oz Green Onion

SUBTOTAL 1 lb 12 oz oz Vegetables

TOTAL 8 lbs 1 oz PRODUCE plus 3 eggs (only one hen is laying and she’s beginning to molt)

If you had a harvest, or to see what others are harvesting, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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Scenic Yellowstone National Park, October 2012

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

My garden took a back seat earlier this month to travel. This is the first of two parts, with the second part being a photography workshop in Grand Teton National Park. But first, Yellowstone.

My hubby, Vic, had to teach college. I was accompanying my photography buddy, Mark Singer. He wanted company on a photo workshop in the Tetons. We wanted to see Yellowstone as well, so took a few extra days before the workshop. We flew from Long Beach, CA to Salt Lake City, UT and rented a car there, driving to West Yellowstone for the first night.

Day 2 began at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center for some photo ops of captive grizzlies and wolves.

Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone is well worth the $10 admission.

Captive grizzly at Grizzly and Discovery Center, West Yellowstone

The keepers hide food throughout the pens so the bears have to hunt for it. They turned over rocks and logs to get to their food.

Captive wolf

The pen had good backgrounds for viewing the wolves. This photo was taken with a Nikon P510.

I was using two different cameras. This photo was taken with a Nikon D90 with 200 mm telephoto zoom lens.

Wolf behavior. One is snarling with ears back and tail down, the other with tail out straight.

Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park

Closeup of Gibbon Falls

Black bear

This bison herd just kept coming and coming over the ridge. I got goosebumps because I had never seen this many bison before, and never on the move like this.

Bison herd near Lamar Valley

Young bison calves are red when they are born. This little guy was born late in the season and may not have the size and strength to make it through winter.

Autumn in Lamar Valley

Autumn along whatever the heck this creek is named. Sorry, the places kind of blended together for me. Near Lamar Valley, if not in it.

Bison were everywhere. In places, the road provided the easiest place for them to travel, so we just snaked along behind them, moving at a bison’s pace.

Bison grooming herself.

We stayed in cabins at Mammoth Hot Springs. I was thrilled to see elk grazing around our cabins in the morning. But there was no time to enjoy them. We had hired a guide for the day to increase our chances of seeing wolves.

Day 3, we met our guide from Yellowstone Safari at dawn at the Roosevelt Gate near Gardiner.

Immature golden eagle soaring overhead. We saw bald eagles as well.

Our guide found wolves for us. There is one resting out of sight under the aspen. We saw two black wolves and a gray from the New Pack, but I was too excited looking at them to remember my camera. We got a good look as they trotted up the game trail at the lower right, and crossed over to the left behind the aspen and out of sight. They had a fresh elk kill beyond the trees and out of sight to the left.

Bison were everywhere. So exciting to see so many of them, especially since the Yellowstone herd used to be culled to keep the population at 300. Now it numbers about 5,000.

Fall along the Gardner River. The river and town are spelled differently. Don’t know why.

Dipper in the Gardner River. This little bird hunts for invertebrates under water.

Female pronghorn. The males were still busy keeping herd on their harems. They marked their territories by pawing the ground, urinating and then defecating on the pawed spot.

Dozens of robins were migrating along the Gardner River, feeding on juniper berries.

While we were in the park, I renewed my membership in the Yellowstone Association. They lead great tours of the park, and do a lot of good work there. Their headquarters is here in Gardiner.

After Mark and I dropped off our guide in Gardiner, we went back into the park to look for elk and other things to photograph.

A large number of elk hang out at Mammoth Hot Springs, so it was no trick finding them.

This bull elk was surrounded by photographers. It was difficult to get a photo without tourists with little point and shoots right in his face. It’s a wonder more people aren’t killed or maimed. People have no sense around wildlife.

Black-billed magpie. After the sun went down, we had dinner at the Mammoth Hot Springs dining room. I think I ate elk or bison nearly every day on this trip.

Day 4 was a travel day from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Grand Tetons. Because we stopped at nearly every photo opportunity, the short trip took us all day. This is Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace.

Roaring Mountain hissed with steam. Pretty awesome.

We stopped at a few geothermal features, but not all of them having seen them on previous trips.

Raven

Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley

We stopped to watch this coyote hunting for mice. It’s called mousing.

He/she was really intent on finding a mouse or vole, but we didn’t see any success in its hunt.

We traveled pretty slowly along Yellowstone River, finding Canada geese, mallards, scaup, and Barrow’s Goldeneyes along the way.

Male Barrow’s Goldeneye on a windy day.

We stopped for a picnic along Yellowstone Lake. This Clark’s Nutcracker was very interested in our lunch.

Gray jays wanted their share of our lunch too.

I’m going to stop here most of the way through Day 4 because the next photos were taken in Grand Teton National Park. That will be another post. Hope you enjoyed this brief tour of Yellowstone. Great trip.

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Harvest to date, end of Sept 2012

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

Our summer garden season is winding down, but it is still too hot to plant the winter garden. It’s supposed to be safe to plant cool season veggies by mid-September, but not this year. Not with global climate change. We have temps predicted for the mid 80s on the coast next week. Too hot for here for this time of year.

The conical pepper at the left is a Giant Szegedi, a Hungarian sweet bell pepper. First time I’ve grown that variety. These are the ingredients for a breakfast, all from our yard, even the eggs.

The Hale cantaloupe is from my community garden plot, and the bread is pumpkin bread made with one of my own pumpkins, along with a red bell pepper frittata.

I added up my harvests to date, and am up to 270 lbs. I know you Midwesterners and New Englanders with your big yards are going to scoff at that, but for my tiny southern California yard, that ain’t bad. But that is also counting my 14 ft x 20 ft at the community garden. Well, I didn’t get it planted until mid July, so I missed half a year. I really couldn’t have handled more produce than what I got anyway. I  will not likely hit my goal of 350 lbs of produce for the year. Maybe I should have set a goal of 300 lbs. That seems more achievable. Next year.

This basket contains two Granny Smith apples from my tree in back, two Buttercup squash, a Sugar Baby watermelon, three Ping-tung long eggplants, a Crimson Sweet watermelon and the last patty pan of the season.

All five butternut squash and the same two Buttercup squash.

I removed the seeds from this butternut, peeled it and sliced it into 1/3 inch slices, fried them in half butter, half olive oil, and marinated them in 1/2 C cider vinegar, 1/4 C basalmic vinegar, 1T brown sugar, (Boil down this marinade by half, then add:) 2 T olive oil, 2 T slivered basil and 1/2 C walnuts. Served chilled. Yummy.

My entire harvest of pumpkins, three little Rouge VIF d’Tampes. Also, my entire harvest of blue potatoes.

The blue potatoes and some wax beans went into this dish: 1 lb potatoes cut into pieces and simmered in water until done, 1 C pasta such as penne cooked in water until done, a few handfuls of green beans (I used wax beans because that’s what I had), steamed until done. Mix these three ingredients and add a pesto sauce. I used 1/2 C olive oil, 1/4 C pine nuts, 1/3 C grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 C fresh basil leaves. Serve either hot or cold. The watermelon is one of my Crimson Sweets.

I haven’t been very good at keeping up with Harvest Monday at Daphne’s Dandelions or Kitchen Cupboard Thursday’s at Robin’s. Too busy with work, grandkids, trips, photography, gardening and canning. It’s a great life. Next week, I’m off to Yellowstone and the Tetons for a photo workshop, leaving my hubby behind to care for the chicks, hens, and garden.

Our Barred Rock chicks are two months old. I guess they are pullets at this stage. I just put them in the coop with the big hens yesterday, with nooks for them to hide if they’re chased. So far, all is well. They should feed together nicely without fighting within a week or two.

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Vacationing in Los Cabos, Baja Mexico

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

Vic and I just returned from nearly a week in Los Cabos, specifically Cabo San Jose. We stayed at the Hilton Los Cabos with our son Scott and his family. Great trip!

We flew over some of the calving lagoons where gray whales breed and have their babies along the Pacific Coast of Baja. I’d really like to see those lagoons at water level some day.

The pool at the Hilton Los Cabos.

The breakfast buffet was fabulous with all kinds of fresh fruit, pastries, and multiple hot dishes that changed each day.

Sliced meats and Spanish and Mexican cheeses.

Fresh fruits

Breads and pastries

We had a room with two queen beds and a rollaway. The three little grandgirls slept in our room while baby Mike slept in Scott and Nicole’s adjoining room. The bathroom had a huge walk-in shower and a jacuzzi tub with shutters that opened onto the bedroom if one so desired.

The rooms were beautifully decorated.

Our room was on the ground floor. We could relax on our chaise lounges and watch the ocean if we wanted. But given the heat and humidity, we preferred the pool.

This was the life, lounging around by the pool while cabana boys brought watermelon mojitas and pomegranite margueritas. I didn’t want to leave.

Scott, Nicole, and the four grandkids.

Chef Alvaro showed me how to make flour tortillas.

He mixed and kneaded the dough, then pinched off a small piece and rolled it really flat.

He put the tortilla into the oven using his bare hand, and flipped it over and retrieved it bare handed as well.

There were concrete bar stools in the water so people could order drinks and lunch and stay in the pool.

There were horses and skidoos for rent down on the beach.

A storm moved through one morning. Vic is pointing out something on the beach to Megan, maybe the big waves.

Some nights there was a bonfire on the beach with marshmallows to roast.

The Kids’ Club had lots of toys, games and videos for kids of various ages. Here Megan is operating a “store” and selling Vic some of the toys, and making change with the cash register.

The twins enjoyed this game, air hockey?

The girls enjoyed this jaguar sculpture in the hallway.

We visited a mission in Cabo San Jose. This was a reconstruction of the one that burned in the early 1700s.

We went shopping at a Mega, which was like a Target or Walmart. We also shopped at a Costco just for fun.

Mostly we stayed by the pool.

Every morning, the maids left a new animal folded out of towels. The little girls loved that.

I loved the colors of Mexico and could have spent a lot more time taking pictures. Maybe if it had been cooler….

Magnificent Frigatebirds soared overhead. They were on the lookout for hatching baby sea turtles.

The hotel operated a sea turtle sanctuary on the beach. They relocated eggs laid elsewhere to this enclosed area, which was monitored by a biologist. Alejandro sorted turtles ready to release, those that needed another day or two to resorb their yolk sacs, and eggs that had spoiled and needed to be removed.

The girls couldn’t see through the fence very well, so I asked if we could hold a turtle. The answer was YES!

Closeup of a baby Olive Ridley sea turtle.

The baby turtles that are ready to release are taken to the surf line at night. Scott, Nicole and family went down to watch, and actually got to release the turtles.

The girls named each little turtle before releasing it. Then the strong little turtles scampered for the waves as fast as they could. We wish them luck. The females won’t be back for another 15 years, when they are old enough to lay eggs in the sand themselves.

The next day, the three little girls got to interact with a dolphin, giving it various commands. They held its flippers, petted it, got a kiss from it and even got to ride it around the pool for one short lap. As an environmentalist, i suppose I should be appalled at keeping dolphins in captivity, but the facility seemed clean and well run and it helps educate the public about dolphins. People won’t protect what they don’t love, and they won’t love what they don’t know. If a facility like this helps people protect dolphins in the wild, it is doing a good service.

Finally our last day arrived. I had one last watermelon mojito and the kids had one last swim in the pool.

Goodbye Hilton Los Cabos. We’re going to miss you and all your
wonderful staff.

What a great trip. I’d love to go back some day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Harvest update for 2012

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

It’s too late for last Harvest Monday, and too early for next Harvest Monday. What is a garden blogger to do? The answer is…catch up with the Excel spreadsheet of my harvest to date.

The grand total for 2012 so far is, ta-da, 260 eggs, 59.1 lbs of fruit and 125.7 lbs of vegetables for a produce total of 184.8 lbs.

I don’t think I’m going to meet my harvest goal of 350 lbs this year, but I should beat my past harvest totals of 224 and 225 lbs. I hope, I hope, I hope.

I will need another 170 lbs of produce by December 31 if I’m going to reach that 350 lb goal. I don’t think it’s possible. My home summer garden is about shot, but the community garden plot is just now coming into production. I have watermelon, corn, cantaloupe, cucumbers, tomatoes and both winter and summer squash at the community garden, which are heavy crops. I also have some relatively lightweight crops there like lettuce, green beans, wax beans, dried black beans, bell peppers, and eggplant. Still coming at home are the last few avocados, my apple crop (which is going to be small with about 10 Granny Smith apples, 5 Fuji, and 3 Gala), yams, pumpkins, and lemons.

Cukes and summer squash are helping bring up my total poundage of harvest.

Some of my plants don’t seem to be on board with my harvest goals. My Fuyu Persimmon tree dropped the five fruit that it set. No persimmons this year. My grape vines bloomed for the first time this year and grapes started to grow, but they shriveled on the vine when still the size of currants. No grapes this year.

The good news is that my 21st Century Asian Pear bloomed for the first time this year, and set one pear. I may get my first Asian pear from that tree. My other tree, the Shinseiki Asian pear, didn’t set any fruit this year. Win some, lose some.

Green onions and squash blossoms go into scrambled eggs, using eggs from our own hens. The strawberries were the fruit for this breakfast. Beautiful and tasty, but this harvest didn’t weigh much.

But gardening isn’t just about how many pounds of produce are harvested. It’s also about winning prizes at the county fair!

Our 4-year-old granddaughter Megan grew these radishes herself. I entered them in the fair for her. Not bad for radishes in August.

Megan’s radishes won first place! She was so happy. She said that she wants to be a farmer when she grows up. “But I don’t know how to grow animals,” she said. I asked her what kind of animals she would “grow” on her farm. “All of them. Mostly ducks,” she replied. So cute.

My giant beet entry at the fair two weeks ago won second place in Most Unusually Shaped Vegetable. I entered my smaller giant beet pictured here last week and won first place for Largest Beet. It weighed five lbs.

My community garden plot is looking good. It is just now starting to produce, but I planted it only a month ago. Not bad for a one-month-old garden, huh?

I have three Crimson Sweet watermelons set, a Sugar Baby watermelon, and a Hale cantaloupe. I’m hoping that more will set in the next few weeks. They should be good and heavy.

My corn went in really late, but this is a short season variety. I hope I will get at least a few ears of sweet corn before fall. Or maybe the cornworms or raccoons or rats will get them all, like last year. We’ll see.

I’ll close with one last view of my community garden plot. It is looking so much greener and fresher than my nearly spent home garden.

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Harvest Monday July 30, 2012

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

Man, is this ever a busy time in the garden. Make that gardenS. With three raised beds in back, three in front, a driveway full of grow pots, AND my community garden plot, I’m feeling overwhelmed this time of year. My home garden is winding down, but my community garden plot is just ramping up. I really like being able to spread the harvest out.

One day’s harvest of tomatoes, and yet another yellow squash.

I have piles of tomatoes everywhere on the kitchen counter, waiting for me to find time to make spaghetti sauce. I think if I see one more tomato, I’m going to scream. And yet when I looked out there this morning, there were even more tomatoes ready to harvest. Do you think that 15 tomato plants might have been a bit overly ambitious? And the additional six at the community garden aren’t producing yet. This is going to be a long summer, tomato-wise.

One day’s harvest of cucumbers, and yet more yellow squash.

After I get the spaghetti sauce started, I need to turn those cucumbers into pickles. This is a very busy time in the kitchen as well as the garden.

Skipper on a marigold. An organic garden produces beauty in addition to food for humans, and benefits nature.

Look at how my plot at the community garden is doing. I’m really pleased with it.

My community garden plot, looking NW.

 

Meanwhile, those weeds keep growing and the garden needs water. It doesn’t rain here in southern California from April to November, so my vegetable gardens are totally dependent on me for water. Sadly for my garden, I have a busy life and don’t get to hand watering as often as I would like. We have no automatic sprinklers.

My community garden plot, looking NE

Male flower on my watermelon vine. So far, I haven’t seen any female flowers on the watermelons, but a Hale cantaloupe appears to have set fruit.

 

It is looking like bell peppers will be the first crop to be harvested from the community garden.

Add four eggs from our hens, and this made a nice breakfast for us. Squash blossom scramble with green onions, with strawberries from the garden on the side.

Harvest for week ending July 29, 2012

FRUIT

4 oz Strawberries

VEGETABLES

2 lbs 2 oz Cucumbers

1 oz Green Onions

1.5 oz Edible Flowers (squash blossoms)

2 lbs 8 oz Summer Squash, yellow

TOTAL PRODUCE 12 lbs 3.5 oz plus 5 eggs

7 lbs 3 oz Tomatoes

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Catching up on the harvest, July 19, 2012

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

Seems like the farther we get into summer, the behinder I get. I finally got my community garden plot mostly planted. About time. It’s mid July already. I have been struggling to learn my new iMac and new Nikon P510 camera. Too much new stuff at once for this old brain. And so my blog posts fall behind.

I just finished adding up my harvest totals to date. I don’t think I’m going to make my goal of 350 lbs of produce this year, which would be a hundred pounds more than I produced either of the last two years (the only ones where I bothered to weigh my harvests.)

I think these are mostly Panamint nectarines, but there could be some peaches in there too.

At mid July, I’m up to 58 lbs of fruit and 89 lbs of vegetables for a total of 147 lbs. I thought I had 119 lbs of vegetables for 2012 a month ago, so I don’t know what’s going on with my Excel spreadsheet. I’m going to quit banging my head on my office wall and accept that 30 lbs disappeared off my spreadsheet in the past month. I suspect a math error on my part rather than a real loss of produce. Oh, who cares? I’m not likely to get another 200 lbs of produce out of my garden this year, so maybe 250 lbs is all I’m capable of growing. After all, there is only so much time and space. I just don’t understand how people can be growing 1,000 lbs of produce in a summer in their home gardens.

Some early tomatoes from June and some eggs from our hens

My stone fruit crops are all harvested, so the only fruit I’m expecting for the rest of the year are apples, avocados, a few strawberries, lemons, and limes. I might get some watermelon and cantaloupe, but that remains to be seen as there are no female flowers on the vines as of yet. I’ve already equaled my previous two years’ fruit harvest totals, so at least this will be a record fruit harvest year for me. Vegetables are another matter. I guess it will depend on whether or not I get a good harvest of heavy crops like tomatoes, summer squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and yams over the next couple of months.

This is my revamped plot at the community garden. I had to take out my raised beds and make the beds and paths level with each other. Since my pathways were hard-packed gravel and my beds had been raised, I filled in the pathways with concrete pavers. I think it looks nice.

Another view of my plot, looking northeast

My community garden plot, looking southeast

Looking southwest

It’s probably too late in the season to get any winter squash out of my community garden plot, but I may try anyway. I’m hoping that the green and wax beans, peppers, tomatoes , cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and summer squash that I planted will produce something. We should have a good two months of warm/hot weather remaining.

My home garden isn’t very photogenic right now, but the tomatoes are producing and the pumpkin vines are sprawling. No female flowers yet on my pumpkins, but I have three nice butternut squash in the home garden that promise to be a good size. I may try some photographs tomorrow of my home garden, but the community garden is looking much perkier at present. My home garden has been baking under 90 degree skies, and since it doesn’t rain here during the summer, it is totally dependent upon me for hand watering. Too bad I don’t get to it as often as I should. Hey, I do what I can.

My blue potato crop is all harvested. I got a bit over three pounds out of one fabric Gro Pot.

 

At least I got several pounds of tomatoes processed into spaghetti sauce today, and canned my first batch of bread and butter pickles last week. Little bit by little bit.

 

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Thar be DRAGONS!

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

A red dragonfly in my garden.

And a blue damselfly on a squash leaf.

Well, I’m learning my camera and computer. I managed to rename my photo file as I uploaded it from camera to computer, managed to find the file and process the photos in iPhoto, and even managed to find the photos from WordPress, but I can’t find the processed photo files. Oh well, more to learn. We’ll just go with what we have because I’m pressed for time today.

Blue damselfly after processing

There. I managed to find my processed files. I’ll probably never be able to duplicate this feat.

It’s Kitchen Cupboard Thursday, and my husband finished off the last of a jar of lemon-ginger marmalade. There is plenty more of that on the shelf though. However, we’re down to our last jar of bread and butter pickles, and I’m wondering if the inch-long cucumbers will be ripe in time to make more pickles before the jar is empty. I planted a LOT of cucumbers this year, so I hope they bear fruit.

I have a lot of yellow squash these days, and the green onions are growing as fast as I pick them.

The squash and green onion went into a really easy side dish. Saute the squash and green onion and some garlic in olive oil until lightly browned, splash on some good vinegar like basaltic, and top with Parmesan cheese. Serve with pasta. This marinara sauce is from our home-canned stores.

These are the ingredients for squash blossom scramble. Pick male squash blossoms (no tiny green squash at the base of the blossom). Wash off the bugs, and there will be bugs! Chop the blossoms including the base, and the green onions. Saute the blossom and green onions until the blossoms are wilted and the onions turn bright green (I use bacon grease in the skillet). Add the eggs and stir quickly until eggs are nearly done. Add some diced cubes of cream cheese, about 2 T and stir in. Heavenly!

This is squash blossom scramble. Serve with toast and whatever fruit is in your garden.

I’ve begun to harvest my blue potatoes.

This is one of the squash that grew on my “mystery pumpkins” that sprouted from the compost pile. It’s just a zuke.

I made lunch with the blue potatoes, a yellow squash, the zucchini, an onion, and some garlic. Sauteed them in bacon grease until done, then added some grated Mexican cheese at the end and let it melt. Still not done, see next photo.

I sliced a ripe avocado onto each plate and squeezed lemon juice on top. It was a strange dish, but filling and delicious. The avocado and lemon were both from my garden.

I’m not going to have any photos to show on harvest Monday. Here is one day’s fruit harvest, with the last August Pride peach and some of the Babcock peaches, the first Santa Rosa plum at the bottom, one strawberry and 7 blueberries. Don’t laugh.

Most of the fruit goes onto cereal for breakfast or ice cream for dessert. The Babcock peaches are translucent with a greenish tint with an unbelievable floral scent that is out of this world.

I am out of time. Gotta run. If you want to see how others are using their harvests, visit Robin at the Gardener of Eden.

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Going Buggy with my Nikon 510 and iPhoto

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Lou Murray, Ph.D.

Hubby took me out blacklighting last night. No, not to a rock concert. We went hunting for night insects with a group of photographers. My Nikon Coolpix 510 is my brand new camera, and I’m still learning to use it, so I accepted lots of help from the others there.

They set my camera on manual, and I learned to dial in the shutter speed that I wanted. I still don’t have the hang of shooting on macro with the telephoto extended, but some of the shots came out by chance.

We birded until dark, then switched over to photographing insects.

I still need to learn how to dial down the flash, because it was pretty intense and washed out a lot of the shots. So much to learn. And then there was the downloading of the photos to my new iMac, and processing the photos with iPhoto. ARG. My old brain is swimming. Or drowning, I’m not sure which. I have Aperture, but I’m trying to take this one step at a time and learn iPhoto first.

After the end of the mile of so of cabins and houses along the creek, Silverado Canyon winds up into the wilds of Cleveland National Forest. The one lane road crosses the creek via fords, no bridges. Although the road was paved as far as we went, it turns to gravel farther up and one needs 4WD to make it up to Santiago Peak. At a mile high, it is the highest point in Orange County.

We went up Silverado Canyon in Orange County, CA, in the Cleveland National Forest. Although we live in the midst of 18 million people, there are still some really wild places left in the county. This is one of them.

The buckwheat is in bloom, but southern California turns from green to brown in June. We don’t get any rain from April through November here.

I have to confess that I shoot mostly on Auto. Never again. The guys set my camera on manual and I fumbled around trying to take shots that way. I had no idea what I was doing, but managed to get a few shots in focus among the many that weren’t. I even managed to use my Nikon software to download them and erase the photos from the camera. The “erase” part was new.

Amazingly, I found the pics in iPhoto and processed a few of the best ones after deleting the masses of out-of-focus shots, or the ones with perfectly focused backgrounds from which the moth had fled seconds earlier. And even more incredibly, I was able to find and email a few. Now lets see if I can find them again to post in this blog.

This is the setup for backlighting insects. They are drawn to the white surface on which a backlight shines.

As it gets dark, the insects swarm to the light.

I couldn’t identity a single thing, but I was told that this is a Tussock Moth.

I forgot the names of most of what I was seeing. What the heck was this one?

This is a leatherwing beetle. Check out those antennae! Cool.

Tussock Moth and friend. The little guy is about the size of a pinkie thumbnail.

White on white, a hard shot.

The moths swarmed everywhere. They flew in our faces, and even landed on us.

This is an Elegant Sphinx Moth. Yes, it was indeed elegant.

And here it is again, with a little friend.

No clue what this one is, but it was different.

This was the last one I photographed. Should have taken a few more pics, because neither of the two I took were spot on. I figured that I couldn’t top this green guy, and it was late, so we went back home.

The upshot of this is that I’m hooked on photographing insects at night. What fun! Hubby and I signed up as Forest Service volunteers so we can help them collect data on the unseen and unsung night critters of the forest.

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