SLO Time

We just got back a few days ago from our spring break visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Arroyo Grande. The first thing we did was hit the farmer's market behind the village along the creek on Saturday afternoon. So much to choose from-- strawberries, artichokes, greens, onions, apples, honey, oranges, tomatoes, beans, asparagus, eggs, brussel's sprouts, and broccoli. We bought lots and managed to eat most of it.

Our week included all the ritual visits -- Avila Beach, Doc Bernstien's Ice Cream, the park on the hill, and several trips to San Luis Obispo to visit our favorite bakery, the toy store, the children's museum, the mission, Moondoggies, Mo's BBQ, and the yarn shop.

To top it all, we took a trip to the Monterey Aquarium, which was very cool-- huge impressive tanks and ocean views.

We also explored picturesque Carmel and a little bit of the Pebble Beach golf course. After driving through the Salinas Valley and seeing Cannery Row, Jack and I will be reading more Steinbeck. We were also lucky enough to have perfect weather too.

On our last day in Arroyo Grande Jack and I took a scenic drive through the rural landscape further inland.



Saturday morning we left in fog and mist while taking our leave of the vineyards, the grazing cattle on the rolling green hills, the gnarled oaks, and blue ocean. We had a great time!

Contractor Man

It's official. Jack now has a spray foam insulation business. Licensed, bonded and insured. Says so on the cool signage on his truck. He has a website (www.ZeroEnergySystemsLLC.com) and a tricked out trailer too. Pretty cool.

He sprayed foam in our attic a few months ago and we hardly needed to use the heat this winter. Anxious to see what the impact will be on our summer a/c bill.

Fly Slayer or Hidden Talents II

Jack has the rather impressive ability to kill flies in mid-flight. Once the offending fly lands on a convenient spot, he slowly sneaks up on it, claps his hands just as the fly senses his movement and takes off, and bingo, they are swiftly dispatched. Today was a red letter day because he killed two simultaneously. The camera wasn't handy at the crucial moment, but I was so thoroughly impressed I had to take a picture of the aftermath and share.

Genevieve it seems, may develop her own abilities in this area as I witnessed her deftly pick up a fly that was crawling on her by its wings the other day. Weird, I know. I'll stick with the worms.

Goodyear, AZ-- Where Women Garden and Worms are Nervous

Wife, mother, school volunteer, short order cook, sometime cleaner of toilets, gardening enthusiast and now add to the list the title of worm wrangler. It all began when I spied the can-o-worms composting system in my latest gardening catalog. Worm castings as you may know do all this great stuff for your soil, and with you very own personal composting system you can have all the castings you could ever want. You put your food scraps in and the worms munch away and poop while migrating through the stacking trays of your garbage. In a month or two you have the world's greatest fertilizer, and best of all it's odorless.

But there was a problem. I couldn't bring myself to pay $100 for a bunch of plastic trays. After some research, I found you can make your very own vermicomposting system. Basically all you need is a plastic tub with some wholes in it to let the air in. You can get clever and complicated, but that's about all you need-- and of course worms. They were $40 a pound plus shipping. Somehow it didn't seem right to have to pay for worms, at least not that much. So I sat on this next step in the process hoping another idea would come to mind. It finally did when I was loosening a patch of soil for a planting of cukes. Right there under my nose, wriggling in my trowel were these red, fat little worms. I'd planted worm cocoons last spring throughout the garden, but hadn't really seen any sign of life when I did my earlier plantings. But just in that square foot patch I must have turned up about a dozen redworms.

I decided then and there I could raise my own worm herd. I transferred as many as I could find (all the while praying I wouldn't slice too many in half as I dug down) to a cozy little bucket (with holes) lined with shredded newspaper, delicious banana peels and various other fruit and veggie scraps. Their own little worm paradise. I'm hoping I can get a decent sized population going and move them into a larger bin later. Maybe then we'll be in business.