Love it when I can spot Mt. Lassen and Brokeoff Mountain from the valley.
Sweet mandarins reflecting a whole lot of red showing just how ripe they are. Picked last Saturday to share at work. They were gone shortly after lunch.
No sight distance through the evergreen toyon. It’s very happy. So is our manzanita — getting ready to flower. 🐝🌳
Planted more asparagus today. They came with white asparagus sprouts. Looks like freaky white worms in this photo.
My attempt at an open vase pruned apricot tree 🌳 📷
Backyard Relaxation
Relaxing can mean accomplishing things. The backyard always offers things to accomplish! Accomplishing things makes me feel good.
Today I:
- braved a ladder and pruned the apricot
- cut up pieces of bug ridden wood for disposal (remnant of last occupant of the property that used untreated non-cedar wood for planters)
- weeded to avoid herbicide
- found a Chorus frog!
- turned the entire compost pile
Here’s the Chorus frog (Pseudacris) I discovered:
I would very much love it if MacOS Catalina stopped logging me out of some anonymous Apple ID service. Every week, if not more. And the process to log back in is mayhem. Maybe 10.15.3 will fix it?
Tree Chilling Hours and a Bad Bug
We’re around 770 chilling hours this season — almost 100 more than last year at this time. We hope this means we get a good crop off our ~800 chilll hour apricot (it was our first fruit tree and we had no concept of chill hours; with the usual climate and especially with climate change we’re now focusing on <500 chill hour trees). I put compost around the new nectarine, the new asparagus bed, and on the edible garden in advance of last night's rain; the clay loam soil needs some organic matter. We got 0.5 inches of rain last night. Meanwhile, here is a photo of the larval form of a beetle eating our poor cherry tree’s sap wood. It was a few centimeters long. Reminds me of Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.
Asparagus is weird. Finally moved the crowns to a place we can regularly irrigate.
Previous home owners did not ground the ceiling fan! Such an easy fix for a bit more safety. Did they not read the installation manual? At least the electrical box is not plastic (but metal) and seems very secure. Can’t tell if fan rated though.
Upgraded from (down/up) 175/6 Mbps to 300/11 Mbps soon as I hit the “order” button. $1 less, too. No contract. Worth checking Xfinity internet-only plans periodically! Unreasonably excited at double up speeds.
When a ceiling fan announces that it absolutely wants to be replaced, this happens.
The beetles really tore up our Lapins cherry tree this last year. It is almost girdled. If we’re lucky maybe one more season of fruit.
Yesterday’s planted nectarine began life here in a rather peculiar way:
Going to punt this fan replacement job to another weekend. This nest of wires needs a day I can be relaxed and patient.
Our 2-year old plum died so now we’re trying a “Fantasia” nectarine. 400-500 chill hours is doable here.
Left to right: Moon and Orion (partial; got the belt!)
Frosty morning in the yarden 🐝
Our Elderberries coming back after they scorched in the summer heat last year. Resilient native plants! The birds loved the berries late summer.
