Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The High Desert in a Drought Year




The dry bed of Cache creek meanders down from the mountains, through the canyon, where it passes 


under the public portion of our road through two large culverts, one of them now blocked by this gigantic tumble weed. Should we check with the neighbors and move it before the rains come, I wonder; it's on their land.


Yesterday morning, some clouds appeared, a good thing both for walking Samson, since his eyes are not supposed to be facing the sun, and also for taking some pictures. 

Working in my field.

As far as I'm concerned, this year's eternal sunshine is only good for taking pictures of my own shadow.


Cache creek continues on the other side of the road, where it looks pretty clogged up as well. I went to a lecture about the geology of the canyon the other evening and learned that although we are surrounded by three earthquake faults, including the San Andreas, and one of the largest earthquakes in California, a 7.2, hit Tehachapi in 1952 and pretty much wiped out the town; the greatest risk we face here in the canyon is from flooding. Now that I know, I will discuss the creek with my husband when he gets back home. 


The gray stuff you see here is grass. 


This is what grass looks like in our field right now.


Our front yard, cleared every spring to meet fire safety standard laws, looks like this. Usually, some grass would have popped up again by now. This year, nothing.


The same in our backyard. This may well be the reason I haven't felt like posting pictures from the canyon lately.

Sugar Pea flowers from our garden.

Other than suffering with blue skies and forever sunshine, we are doing better. While I'm still sad over losing Soldier, he truly was a great love of mine, I get to sleep through the night now that I no longer have to care for him. That makes a huge difference in how I feel. Hubby is away, helping a sick friend with an investment property. While he's away, I'm getting rid of stuff, purging, donating, putting in the trash, and loving it. 



Being alone here, but not being a cook, I simply HAD to pick, clean, chop, and cook the last of the vegetables from our garden. I couldn't let them go to waste, so one day, I just did it. And now, for the first time in my life, I have cooked a huge pot of collard greens! Of this I am proud, even though they tasted nothing like my husband's greens. But after sitting for a few days, they were OK. I baked the beets from a recipe in The Joy of Cooking, and they came out so good that I was sorry to be the only one eating them. Carrots, being carrots, got steamed and tasted OK, after some doctoring with various herbs and spices. And I now have a greater appreciation for all the work involved in his cooking ~ I was totally exhausted at the end of the day. 

As you can perhaps see, I'm a bit annoyed with mommy for not letting me blog.

Samson says: WOOF, WOOF, at the rate mommy is going (slow) I probably never will get to blog again. Love you my Gracie, miss you and all my blogger friends.

Me: Don't worry Samson, you'll be back, promise!













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