Surviving Mid-july ....

What an irritating week! No matter what little or large thing I did it seemed fraught with small irritating obstacles to whatever m y goal was! And it’s too hot and humid to get pissed off about things …. So I growled a lot this week at various things which all came out right with just a little more effort on my part and patience. Mostly this was the last part of closing my mother’s estate.

Anyway, I’m swimming in squashes and tomatoes from last week and this weeks’ CSA shares. Also, great tasting cantalope and watermelons from them the past two weeks! YUMMY! I somehow never bought watermelons for myself but I had no trouble eating up the one I had last week. 

There are two new people running the CSA pickup where I go. The previous lady has moved out of state to be nearer her family, I’m told. These kind people had our veggies waiting for us in very good sturdy tote bags, with our names tagged on the bags.

They can hold our veggies for us afor a couple of days if we miss the pickup day, which is very nice of them. We have a small group that uses this pickup point; there are several others in the metro area.

Re: Herb garden. The cilantro and parlsey are gone, my friend S. told me hers always die in the summer, and the basil doesn’t seem to want to do well. But the thymes, chives and oregano are still doing pretty well. I’m not getting a lot out of the thyme and oregano but there’s enough of it to use for what I want about once or twice a week. The CSA has been providing fresh basil leaves the past month so I’m using that or drying it.

One catnip plant is still doing okay the other has died. I grew these for the two cats that like them so much.

Re: Moonsoon possibilities and summer: Our dew points are up in the 40s and it feels like it.

The last 2 weeks the whole rest of the country has had truly horrid hot temps for the east coast and the midwest, but so far here we haven’t had unusual heat for us. We’ve had seasonal temperatures since May.

But we have two months to go yet and we could get some records temps.
Re water: I don’t think Phoenix has ever had water rationing but I’ll bet it’s coming sometime in the next few years.

Utilities and city government encourage water conservation but the more we conserve the more the water rates go up.

Our water shed got good rain this year so we’re in good shape. All our reservoirs in that watershed are full, that doesn’t include the big Lake Mead or Lake Powell up near Nevada.

Hoping for a good monsoon the next 2 months,
shamba

for Sunday dinner, July 4th!-
-corn on the cob roasted in solar oven ...
--tomatoes and squash sliced served and eaten raw ... or better with some vinagrette (SP?
--chicken breast and potatoes roasted in solar oven ...
-corn bread baked after main dishes in solar oven.

Peace, shamba

Tax Day 2010 already!

Notes from this past week or so:

Quake news on April 5 or 6: On local news yesterday evening: Calexico, California has a water plant off line for at least 60 days as a result of the quake a day or so ago. So they have to conserve water.

Channel 12 talked about what happens here, Phoenix metro, if the big One hits southern California. Well, they’d be coming here, we ‘vet always known that. Such an event in California would interrupt 60% of our fuel supply and 90% (!) of our food supply. That’s what they said. I knew the fuel supply would be affected, I guessed by about half, but I didn’t know the food supply percentage was so high.

Spent a really lovely afternoon at S.’s house and met many of her cats! I took two rolls of film of the cats. Most of them were quite obliging to have their pics taken.  I got a couple of ceramic pots for her. I needed some more to choose from to translplant some things in this week.

S. also has lavender and a an interesting looking catctus/succulent that she said I could have some of.

Busy week, I ran a lot of errands today, some to look at things, some to acquire supplies—really materials for the herb container garden in the patio area.
I picked up a card reader for the digital camera cards, previous one was broken; picked up a roll of shadecloth or sun screen fabric; a small solar stake light and some masonry nails. The fabric isn’t needed right away but in a few weeks—2-4-weeks, I’ll probably need it.

Moved all the herbs into the back patio. I moved some of the aloes to the front porch and the plant stand there. They’ll do better in that sunlight for the next 6 months than the herbs will. And if, probably really “when” not if, the herbs need to be covered with the shade/sun screen fabric they’ll all be in one place I can do it easily.

Also, added a sage plant to the herb group.

Picked up my 2009 taxes today and my mom’s estate taxes and made my weekly vegetable run for CSA veggies. I signed up for another round of CSA foods. I'm actually catching up with the overflow of veggies I've had in the past few weeks--passing some on to S. and a neighbor, dehydrating all the dill, and just eating more.

the DJA has gone up to 11,1??? this week.

cheers,
shamba

It’s getting warm in the car when I’m out—lots warmer. We’ll come close to 90 degrees this week.

What a beautiful day!

Cool breeze but our usual sunny skies with some white clouds! the citrus buds are about to pop open but haven't yet. The pomegrante tree is all leafed out. It only take 3 weeks once it gets a very few leaves open.

I put rice out in the Tulsi oven for cooking in the back patio. It's the first solar cooking dish of the year. :)

March 4th Veggies Are –

Carrots Sweet Potatoes
Citrus Mustard Green
Swiss Chard Lettuce Heads
Dill Turnips

Oranges! And the Chard is gorgeous and lettuce heads HOORAY! Things look very familiar to eat this week. That means just the reading of the names makes me want to eat them. :)

All, i mean ALL of my grains were gone after 2 months of using what I had on hand, I've very fond of cooked cereal for breakfast and that's where most of the grains go. So, I trundled off to Sprouts to fill out my grains list. Picked up some bell peppers for very inexpensive eac. I'm going to dehydrate them in the next few days.

Feeling better than I have for about a week.

cheers,
shamba

2 Storms Report

Out of Monday nights storm Phoenix got about ½ inch. Out of Tuesday night’s storm we got almost 1 inch; this are based on the figures from local TV on what the official rain gage at Sky Harbor airport registered. The cities located around Phoenix mostly got significantly more rain. Some parts town did lose power for a couple of hours, APS houses. [Arizona Public Service. Mine is Salt River Project.]

Tuesday afternoon there were what seemed like zillions of all sized cloud coming into the area and they all melded together into a very darkened sky about late afternoon. The rain sprinkled a little about 6 p.m. but started in earnest at 7 p.m. and from there it was a steady medium rain until about 11 p.m. here where I live. During the following hours it cleared out completely and we had a bright, very fresh clean feeling morning. Oh, boy, do the plants all like this moisture.

There is no sign of the next storm yet, but it’s likely to come in and start raining during the night. This one is predicted to give Phoenix 1-2 inches of rain.

Northern part of the state got lots of snow and this next storm is expected to give even more snow than the last two together but that does depend on the part of the state.

Also, picked up my first share of the CSA stuff. Boy, they are in a not so easy to find location. It’s temporary until new offices are renovated by this summer. It was: turnips, 3 oranges, carrots, a pick of 3 herbs (cilantro was my choice) wheatberries, bok choy, spring mix and one more I can’t remember at the moment. There’s a lot of the bok choy in one of those bunches.

peace, shamba