Stubborn Irish People From Chicago

This post, "Stubborn Irish People From Chicago", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.
As some of you may have guessed, we were away from Austin for a few weeks and I'm having trouble returning to everyday life. It will take a long time to get reordered and catch up with all your posts, but that's not the reason why my Christmas tree is still up and the outside lights are still lit... the reason is that my maternal ancestors were a bunch of stubborn Chicago Irish people who always kept their trees up until Epiphany, the 6th of January. And at this time of year, I'm proud to be one of them.

My brothers and sisters and I were raised in this tradition, calling the day "Little Christmas", a time for visiting with aunts, uncles and cousins. Sometimes we stayed at one location - other times finger food was served at one house and desserts at another, with mixed drinks for the adults and 'Kiddie cocktails' for the youngsters - would anyone dare serve them today? Most houses had a piano or one of the electric organs that were so popular in the fifties and sixties - a couple of the aunts could play and everyone could sing. The party may have been stressful for the hosts and hostesses but we kids thought it was all wonderful.

Although I'm far away from my family and many of those people are no longer around to celebrate Little Christmas, the lights will shine here for a few more nights, to puzzle the neighbors and add a little sparkle to the January darkness.

There were a couple of hard freezes while we were gone and we came back to a garden that had changed greatly from the one we left - MSS from Zanthan Gardens referred to her rosebuds as 'freeze-dried'... I like that phrase enough to swipe it to describe the iris buds as they look now. A .. birthday gift from my mother and sisters was a miniature rose bush... I divided it into 3 plants last spring and one of them was still blooming yesterday near the shelter of a brick wall.

The Sasanqua camellia 'Shishi Gashira' seems untroubled by the colder weather - with just a few more buds not yet opened.

Inside the house the barely budded Thanksgiving cactus from the previous Blooms Day post had opened in the hoped for peachy-apricot color, which I like very much in the breakfast room.

Peachy-apricot must be the in color this January - back in November I decided to bring the Mother-of Thousands inside rather than let it freeze - my reward was a few delicate flowers in that shade... but they didn't appear on the usual 3-foot stalk. The plant was already taller than usual when I brought it in and it kept elongating all of December. Now the flowers hang almost at eye level, 58 inches above the surface of the potting soil.

Happy New Year to all of you who have made the world of garden blogging such a warm and interesting place!
This post, "Stubborn Irish People From Chicago", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

The Fruit Loop

Peaches, pears, and apples - oh my! With white and gray, non-threatening clouds leading us through the Columbia River Gorge, we eventually shed the rocky gray walls and low-hanging clouds to find a stunning, sun-shiny day in Hood River County. For years, I wanted to travel the Fruit Loop Route around Hood River during the peak season. Today we finally did it.

First stop, Visitor Info Center to pick up a Fruit Loop map. Then we were on our way into Hood River Valley. First stop: photo op of dramatic Mt. Hood peeking out from behind the clouds, but keeping its top firmly planted in a cloud cap.

Mt. Hood showing off fresh snow.

The rental SUV - a Ford Escape.

Pearl's orchard was our first stop where we took a look at all the apples hanging on the trees. We found Elberta freestone peaches and bought a box of 16. Samples of different types of pears were on the cutting board and we tasted our way through those. Bartletts had the sweetest flavor. We bought peaches, Honey Crisp apples, and honey.

Pearl's store.

Apples ready for harvest.

About two miles down the road, our next stop was The Gorge White House with fields of flowers in bloom. They not only had a flower patch, but we also saw ever-bearing strawberries almost ready to pick. We were told they would have strawberries for sale until the first frost. In the house proper a local artist had his works on display. We thought he was superb. Next to the house was a farm store selling apples, pears, peaches, pear syrup, Pinot Noir Chocolate Truffle Sauce (oh yummy) and various preserves.

The Gorge White House

Beautiful signage.

Dahlia photo courtesy of my son, Mike.

Echinacea purpurea Ruby Giant

Mike amongst the dahlias.

Jan (sister) enjoying the pretty flowers.

Wow - Mike captured this beautifully.

Me dallying in the dahlias.

Mike spotted this frog trying to get out of our way and snapped a photo. Looks like a tree frog.

Massive sunflower (photo by Mike G.)

A field of sunflowers.

Hood River Valley at midday.

Guess I won't park here!

Sauces, syrups, preserves and honey.

Off we went for cider at Fox Tail Cider. I had cold, fresh apple cider, Jan had hot apple cider and Mike ordered an apple/peach hard cider. We stopped briefly in an apple harvesting museum. The most interesting find was an antique Fageol tractor. Other than that, this stop was a bust.





At the alpaca farm, cuteness ruled. Alpaca food was 25 cents for a small cup. Our popularity soared as soon as the alpacas heard the food coming out of the machines.

This was all the rage at Paris Fashion Week.

Lunch time.

This alpaca didn't want just what was in my hand, it wanted the cup too!

Sweet baby alpaca (photo by Mike G.)

Mike with an alpaca.

Love this photo!

Alpaca kids.

The alpaca kids above just finished chasing a squirrel out of their pasture. In unison, they all turned to look up at us. What were they thinking?

For Karen Pfundtner, check out the loom below and the skeins of alpaca wool.



Packer Orchards & Bakery, our next stop was a true find and a gem. If you are ever doing the Fruit Loop Tour don't miss a stop here! When you walk into their showroom, you see bins filled with cookies and on top of the bins are free samples of the cookies in the bins. My, oh my. I'll tell you what, that is the best marketing ever. People were falling all over themselves snapping up cookies. The cookie samples move those cookies right up to the cash register.

Packer Orchard & Bakery.

Convenient bags for purchase are on top
of the bins along with cookie samples.

Mike chooses pumpkin chocolate chip.

When we finished buying our bounty of cookies, we headed back to Pearl's for more fruit: Bartlett pears and another box of peaches.

All that cookie tasting was making us hungry so we went into historic downtown Hood River and found a cafe where we had a delicious lunch. Mike had a meat loaf sandwich, I opted for a turkey Reuben with side salad, my sister had a French dip sandwich, and Mom had a half turkey deli sandwich with side salad. All of us enjoyed our meals

Today's blog will be continued in Part 2 - The Columbia River Gorge.

Better late than never

Santa brought 1/4 inch (.6 cm) on Christmas, but waited until yesterday to deliver the main gift: a whole inch (2.5 cm) of rain!
You know you're deep into drought when just an inch of rain makes you so happy. Of course, when you're this far gone, one inch doesn't help that much, but we'll take every little bit we can get.
We still need something like 12 - 15 inches (30 - 38 cm) 24 inches (76 cm) to catch up. I don't think it's going to happen. Weather experts are predicting more dry, dry, dry, at least through spring.
But I can't think about that now... it may rain again tomorrow.
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Updated:
I was wrong about the rain deficit -- it was worse than I'd thought.

Zygodactyl Coccyzus & the cut direct

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus).

Giving me...

The cut direct.
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Cuckoos are zygodactyl, like woodpeckers. Click that link for further bird-foot edification.
Friday Ark.

A Day in the Life

Here's Darcie this morning doing a little encyclopedia research all decked out in her nightgown, unbrushed hair, and my plaid wellies.  Actually this isn't typical of her. She's usually dressed by now.
But since her room has been confiscated by her oldest brother, Garrett, just home from Army training, she has to wait until he's up and about before using her room. 
School must go on though!  I'm glad homeschool gives us the freedom and flexibility to let a weary soldier sleep in when needed.  Actually, he was probably playing video games too late last night and was making up for lost time this morning. Or perhaps he was dreaming of his ladylove, Mallory? 
He's gone to spend some time with her this weekend.  I hope they set the date, and the sooner the better!

MMMushrooms

I had a feeling that the rain last week would make a few fungi shout for joy. I think these are oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus).

But I'm not sure enough to try to eat them.

Even though there are so many.

And they look so tasty.
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Everything I know about mushrooms is from books. The only one I'd be confident enough to eat would be a morel. And I never seem to find more than one of those at a time, so I just leave them and hope they'll make more.
People in Europe gather wild mushrooms all the time, but I've never had anyone here (in the south) tell me that they do.