Apple Pie Day!

Actually, it's not so much a day as a week, and the week that is being celebrated is the first week in which you get enough apples from your apple tree to make an apple pie, or apple tarts, or apple turnovers.  And this past week has been that week for us.  So far, we've had four apple turnovers and then four apple tarts and next we'll have an actual apple pie but that will take a few more apples--by tomorrow or Wednesday for sure.

The first apples of the year, for us, are transparents.  According to some net source, they originated in Russia and were brought to the U.S. in 1870.  They are not much of an eating-from-the-hand apple, but they make wonderful applesauce and pies/tarts/turnovers.  Just a little sugar and cinnamon and a teaspoon of butter and there you are: food for kings and queens.

When I made the tarts, i ran out of apples for the fourth one, so i just filled it up with blueberries (also ripening now in our backyard) and made it a blueberry/apple tart. 

The thing is, this is the part of summer when we're getting fantastic peaches and nectarines and cherries (particularly from B.C.'s Okanagan Valley), so it's hard for the apples to push into that kind of glory.  But it's just fruit all day long.  Lucky us!

Do You Have a Foreign Broom?

You may have lived for many years here in Point Roberts and yet not be aware of the laws you might be breaking.  We have all recently been made aware of the decision to keep Canadian fresh tomatoes and green peppers from our tables, but you are probably unaware of the other kinds of things you're not supposed to have in your house if it came from, so to speak, "up there."

While poking about on the internet this weekend, I came upon a pretty exhaustive manual I had not previously seen which tells me much more about what I can't have that Canadians can have; i.e., what cannot be brought in to the U.S. from Canada, a matter of considerable interest to those of us who live in Point Roberts.  For example, you will be pleased to know that it is permissible for us to have a broom made in Canada.  I was impressed that I was being told that it was okay, because I would not ever have doubted it.  And a broom made in Alberta is also okay, I think, but broomstraw from Alberta?  Well that's an entirely different matter.

Those cut flowers?  It's okay if it's a tulip but not if it's a branch/stem of cherry blossoms, or apple blossoms, or a lot of other fruit tree blossoms.

Many wonders explained in these regulations, and you can find them right here.  (It's a pdf file.)

Hydrangea Care

I have a lot of hydrangeas in my yard, all but one of them coming from a single bush.  (The odd-bush out is, of course, the white one which grows in a big pot and doesn't seem to mind.)  I don't provide them with any special care and I'm a confused pruner when it comes to hydrangeas, so they tend toward odd shapes but always to abundant blooms. They're a plant I really have respect for.

Fortunately, and especially in August, hydrangeas are very easy to root from green cuttings, so next year I hope to have even more of them.  Point Roberts ought to be advertised as the Hydrangea Capital of the World, I think (like Petaluma being the Chicken Capital of the World, and Castroville being the Artichoke Capital of the World).  I've never seen such abundant hydrangeas.  Because the soil is so acidic here, they tend toward the blue kind, but some approach a gorgeous purple and there are occasional pink ones to be seen.  And obviously people could manipulate that more if they were so inclined to if they changed the soil acidity.  For information about changing color, try this site.

It does seem to me (in my ceaseless search for a nonexistent economic development plan for Point Roberts) that if there is any economic development to be found here, it will be in hydrangeas.  We have a lot of them, they are of superb quality, they don't exist grow easily or at all everywhere in the U.S.  They don't, however, always come with chartreuse frogs. The down side is that there aren't a lot of uses for them other than as flowers, live and dried.  What we need is research to discover that hydrangeas could be the source of an amazing medicinal product.  Then, we're talking full home-business development.

Now, the down side even of live flower hydrangea use is that, if you cut them and put them in water, they are very likely to be wilted within a few hours.  This, I am told, is because the plant puts out a sap to prevent water loss.  Thus, when you cut their stems, the sap immediately seals the stem and it can't get to the water you have obligingly put in its vase.  The answer to this is boiling water.  It seems like plant cruelty, but it works beautifully.  Cut the hydrangea stalk (in the green area, not the hardened brown/grey section) and put it in tap water.  Then put it in water you've just brought to a boil and let it sit in the hot water for about half an hour.  Then put it back in the tap/cool water/vase.  If, after 3 or 4 days it begins to wilt, you can repeat this (recut the stem) and it will likely liven back up.  However, you can't do it indefinitely.  So few solutions to anything work forever, of course.  Hydrangeas do not make us feel blue, but they certainly tell us what blue looks like
 Update:  For information on rooting hydrangeas.

Saturday Market, Act III

This past Saturday, the big B.C. day weekend, featured a market even thinner than the previous week.  I fret about this because it seems such a good idea, but it will clearly take some time for it to really work and I fear people will lose their interest.  Like so many good ideas that fail to come to fruition, it will wither and end with a whimper.  The thing is, there aren't, at the moment, enough farmers here to stock an every other Saturday market.  Although, giving credit, the two tables with edible stuff were well-stocked.  

And having arts and craft people and flea market folks add to the mix is great, but it may not be possible for the crafters to be putting together that much supply without a six month notice.  (I speak here with some experience with the quilting group and the Christmas Craft fair.)  Maybe the library ought to bring out a table with its excess books for sale (or just wheel some of the carts out?) to add to the mix?  How about selling/trading used CD's?
 

In any case, it would be better if the Saturday market didn't look like it ought to be (unsuccessfully) filling up the entire Community Center parking lot.  The first one had the Fire Department doing some kind of bicycle safety program and that took up a bunch of space and added a bunch of people to the environs.  Alas, the second two have not had anything to go with them other than the fact that the library is open on Saturday, which is a good combo feature, but not enough.


Unfortunately, the dog show is the day after the next Saturday market, although it's possible that the dog show needed to have access to the community center hallway (they used it last year when it was a little shower-y) and that might not work so well on the day that library is open.  Oh, it's frustrating!  At the first market, Ed sold his postcard/photos, but he felt he had to have something different to go back.  I've been thinking about how we could fill up a table with something!  I've been gathering seeds from spent flowers all week, so maybe little plastic bags with plantable seeds?  I've got about a cup of tiny columbine seeds, and that would go a long way, but it is just columbine seeds (although I also have lupine seeds).  Spend the day before the market gathering blackberries and then offer them to somebody else since I have more than enough of them?  But doesn't everybody have more than enough of them?

Marco, who was shepherding the initial steps of the market, ran into a deer this past week while riding his bicycle and with broken bones is probably not at the top of his game right now.  So, clap for Tinker Bell, is about all I have to offer.  Plus these pictures of the most recent market.

Can't Win for Losing Department

From New Mexico comes this story about Bellingham and farming:


http://rightofassembly.com/diary/206/organic-produce-grown-with-nonorganic-manure-fail

The Green Room Grows

The Green Room at the back of my house has now grown to about 20 feet by 30 feet.  And my exhaustion is considerable since I had to remove almost everything that was growing there before I could make any headway or even make a plan.

To my surprise, the tin can sculpture just took off, despite the fact that I've been ready to do it for several years but just never got around to drilling holes in all those cans.  It looks here a little like a small war memorial, I suspect, but it's actually more of a monument to canned tomatoes,.  Some of the cans are actually rusted, but some are still shiny and the contrast between the two is nice.  I had thought the 'stalks' might move slightly in a breeze, but they are way too heavy (the tallest 'stalk' is about 4 feet or so).

I've surrounded the sculpture with saltillo tiles (neither they nor the marble slabs are leveled or set in; they are just sitting on whatever uneven surface was there when I got them to the site).  I have no idea what the future of a saltillo tile is since they are now outdoors and they were made to be indoors.  But I guess we'll just see how that works.  There's a little sun in this area around noon, so the lettuce (on the right in the photo above) appreciates a little but not too much summer warmth.

Here is the view from the east.  A couple of years ago, I found a? some? bedsprings at the side of Gulf Road down by the Grange Hall.  It appeared to have been doubled back on itself and then run over repeatedly by a sizable truck.  I dragged it home because it was so interesting, and it has now found itself a spot on the fence (center).  The small hydrangea I transplanted has kept its blooms (it was a very quick transplant) and is now just to the left of the sculpture.

The white marble tiles provide a walkway somewhat to the left of center of the entire space.  Just at the left edge of the photo are a bunch of lunaria, evening primrose, and candytuft plants...just things i happened to have around that could be easily moved.  And feverfew in pots at the back.  When I sit in that chair, looking east, this is what I see to the south/to my right.

A bunch of alpine iris and some foxgloves on the left side of the metal wall and the rock, which needs some companion rocks, but that will take some more time to gather.  I started some needle-point ivy cuttings to root today and hope to train them on to the metal wall.  So far, I've spent about $8 on all this, which went for three 1/4"-rods for the sculpture.  Such a pleasant way to entertain one's self, "lazing on a Sunday [sunny] afternoon..In the summertime" as the Loving Spoonful said or sang, or at least I think it was them.  [Of course, it wasn't the Loving Spoonful: it was The Kinks.]

Worrying

The All Point Bulletin for August came to our mail box yesterday and we were unusually taken by the letters section.  Among the usual thanks for whatever happened recently, there was a long (and edited for length) letter which urged the end of anonymous complaints and particularly the unspecified ones against the writer; a letter from someone who thinks that yard waste burning should be conducted during the dry season (when its prohibited) when the yard waste is completely dry rather than in the other 10 months of the year when it rains and the yard waste is damp, at best; and a worrying letter (third letter from the top) from a sort of anonymous Californian (is Mary Beth a first and last name or just a first and thus anonymous name?) who, although loving Point Roberts, discovered worrisome aspects of life here when she and her husband went house shopping.

Like so many Californians, she came to visit, was enchanted by what she saw, went real estate shopping, and discovered that Point Roberts was not just like California!  Such a disappointment.  Of course, since she already lives in Santa Cruz County (Corallitos), she could just stay there and admire it.  But something about Point Roberts drew her to its heart.  What she hated, though, was the dampness that leads to mold in houses, and the failure to build to code, and, most worrisome, "we noticed that many of these homes had overflowing septic systems and could visibly see the runoff down the streets."  This 'many' was many of the twelve homes that a real estate agent showed them. (Good work, real estate agent!)  I've lived here for about 16 years and I think the last time I saw septic runoff in the streets, I was visiting Bangkok.  But, perhaps Mrs. Beth, whose husband is a building contractor who recognizes mold when he sees it and identifies it on the spot as 'toxic mold,' is more observant or sensitive than I am, given those sixteen years of living in such a slum.

Mrs. Beth finally comes to the conclusion that virtually the whole place needs to be condemned and torn down.  There are times when I think that I have some sense of what kind of world I am living in, what my fellow Americans are thinking and doing, but reading Mrs. Beth's letter just stunned me.  That she had the time to write and warn us and to urge us to destroy the Community Center and our houses!  To worry about us so, and not least when she could be worrying about global warming or about the reduced phytoplankton levels that could end in our having less oxygen to breathe. On the other hand, if we have to breathe less, would that reduce our need to worry about the toxic mold?

It's always a pleasure to welcome the summer tourists, no?