gardens – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Memorial Day

Ahh well, the flag is a bit fuzzy in this photo, do you think when I get that new DSLR I will have no more fuzzy photos??

It felt good to put up the American Flag this weekend, for many reasons, not the least of which is to show support for our troops and especially for my two grandson’s who have both served in Iraq. Patriotism means many things to many people, and each of us has our own definition. Looking at this flag flying in the spring winds reminds me of being twelve years old in the school playground, crying with emotion when they played the Star Spangled Banner and I saw that flag waving against the blue sky. Unencumbered by political discussions and partisan arguments, I loved my country, and was proud to be living in the United States of America. I still love my country, with full knowledge that it isn’t perfect, I would not choose any other. If you want to read an excellent story about the origins of Memorial Day, go to E-Squared and Mui’s blog here. You will also get to see an amazing photo of the American Flag to help remember the reason for this holiday.

(Most of you blog readers know that you can click on the photo to zoom in and see more detail)

The Alaska planning is moving forward in earnest. My daughter and her husband have done the highway in their big rig several times in the last year, and her one bit of advice was, “Take extra headlights”. Mo is attempting to offset the broken headlight thing with a bit of ingenuity, and hopefully it will help a bit. This morning she was looking through her photos of her last trip on the highway and found a shot of her last attempt and they never had a broken headlight. I think there was a lot more gravel on the road in 1974 than we will encounter this summer, but all it takes is one good hit.

We also have ordered the Protect-a-Tow recommended by Linda to try to offset some of the damage from flying gravel between the rig and the Tracker. There are several options out there, but this seems to be the favorite of many folks doing the highway with a toad. Rain, of course, is a given, even if we have some good weather, it is just about certain that we will have rain. Living in the northwest mountains, we already have plenty of fleece, boots, rain gear and flannel, so the trip should feel just about like the past few months of cold, wet springtime at home. I am especially grateful that we will be in the cozy MoHo, unlike Mo’s first trip in the Scout, hiding out inside with mosquito coils burning while it rained.

We do plan to have campfires whenever possible, but will not be taking any firewood. The “Burn It Where You Buy It” rule is in effect in most places in the western forests, and while I haven’t read the full rules yet, I would bet we couldn’t take firewood into Canada anyway. Instead we are packing plenty of firestarter and Mo is taking her baby chain saw to take advantage of whatever may be found locally en route.

And yes. Rather than borrowing my daughter’s very expensive professional Nikon equipment, I ordered my own camera, the Nikon D5100 with a metal mount 55 to 300 lens, which Al says will probably pull my arms out of their sockets. The 18-55 will hopefully get those great wide angle views that I will need in the vast expanses of the north country. I read everything I could find comparing Nikon DSLR’s and appreciated Al’s link to Ken Rockwell’s site, a truly amazing resource.

Of course, the biggest job seems to be thinking about and planning our route. I have played and adjusted and researched and am still fiddling with the thing a bit, trying to get an idea of the time we will need to really do all that we want to do and yet still leave some loose, unscheduled time to take advantage of whatever amazing moments choose to present themselves to us. According to the “Streets and Trips” plan, we are now up to 39 days and approximately 6500 miles for the MoHo, with some possible side trips in the Tracker that aren’t included. Since I am still working part time, I can’t have a completely open-ended trip, and besides, Rocky Point in summer is one of the best places in the world and we don’t want to miss all of it.

I have been sitting with the hard copy maps, Mo’s favorite, the laptop, and the 2011 Milepost, trying to get an idea of where we might stay along the way, how many miles a day we can expect to drive, and what we don’t want to miss. I really do love the planning part, and hope that all the planning won’t interfere with the spontaneous, wild moments I hope to experience as well. I’m following along right now as several RV’rs travel through Alaska, and it’s really interesting to see the different perspective of people who are even traveling together on the same route. I’m sure our trip will have it’s own flavor as well.

In the midst of working my regular job and planning for the upcoming trip, I have been gardening, planting goodies in the greenhouse, and watching tiny seeds sprout. The days are still about 20 degrees below normal, and when I open the door to the greenhouse, my glasses fog up immediately with warmth and humidity. At night it stays above freezing, even though we have had frosts in the more open areas of the property. I planted a row of new roses along the driveway to replace the sad twigs that couldn’t handle the hard winter. The new roses are a hardy shrub variety that are grown on their own root stock and are reputed to bloom with as little as 4 hours of daily sunlight. With our big forest, sunlight is always an issue for blooming plants. I also bought a killer 4 gallon backpack sprayer so that I can saturate the property with nasty smelling “Liquid Fence” to thwart the deer and rabbits. I’ll let you know how it works when the summer is over and the dry fall brings in those ravenous critters to eat everything in sight.

With snow in the mountains, 4-wheelers in the forest, and traffic everywhere, I am grateful to be spending this holiday quietly at home after an overnight visit from my daughter and granddaughter. For a couple of girls often plugged in to electronic stuff, a game of dominoes last night on the dining table was a bit different, and I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe with some of their antics. A bacon and waffle breakfast was just the send off for them to return home and enjoy a much deserved day off.

The sun does come out now and then, the grass is getting much greener, and I even spent most of the day outside yesterday enjoying the colors of spring.

Building the Greenhouse and Spring Comes to Rocky Point

I am still learning how to embed a SmugMug slideshow, without much luck. Yeah, I know I can do it with Picasa, but I am stubborn. So you can try out this link if you want to see the process greenhouse slideshow on SmugMug

Spring has finally come to Rocky Point. Even though we have fits of snow and hail predicted for tonight and tomorrow, the fact that the daffodils are blooming is a sure sign that spring is winning. Maybe. Mo actually started up the big mower this week and mowed all the lawns, so that is another good sign. It has been a long, cold spring most everywhere in the west, I think, with temperatures averaging 10 to 20 degrees lower than normal, and most flowering plants running 2 to 3 weeks behind their normal schedule.

One more sure sign of true spring is the bursting of the aspen leaves, and there are huge drifts of aspen along the lowlands bordering Upper Klamath Lake. I saw a faint hint of green yesterday, just a breath of a cloud of green on the tips of the aspen branches. Ahhh. Finally.

I am truly excited about the greenhouse. The raised beds are 12 inches deep, and I have a good amount of square footage to attempt some close cropped, raised bed gardening. Because the soil is thick and rich, you can plant veggies much closer together, and that also keeps the weeds down a lot. I just discovered another lovely little treat, I can sit on a 2×12 bench and have access to just about everything without having to be on my knees all the time. I’m tickled.

On another note, a recent commenter thought the greenhouse was a great idea since produce was going to get more and more expensive with the huge increases in fuel costs. Hmmm. Wondering just how much my tomatoes will cost this year. We didn’t build the greenhouse to save money, but so that we could have any kind of veggie garden at all in our cool, forested, animal infested environment. Did I say infested? Oops. Wildlife in the forest is supposed to be one of the benefits, but as a lover of gardens, I am not quite sure about that.

Back to the cost of the tomato. The greenhouse cost 699 on sale at Harbor Freight. (Do I count the gas to drive twice over to Medford to buy it and then pick it up?) The 2×12 untreated fir we used cost 71. (We couldn’t find a local supplier for cedar or redwood and didn’t want to use treated lumber). The gravel was part of the load Mo purchased for our road, so I guess I won’t count that part. The soil cost a total of 130 for composted dairy waste and topsoil. Labor? well, we won’t count that at all, but safe to say it was more than going to the store to buy a tomato. I spent about 23 bucks on some heritage seeds and about ten bucks on starts, and who knows how much more I will spend. I’m an impulsive crazy spender when it comes to plants and gardens. But for now, lets just say we are into the greenhouse to the tune of $935.00. Since I have six tomato plants, and can expect maybe a max of 5 pounds per plant, I am paying about $31.00 per pound for tomatoes, with some lettuce, spinach, herbs and other stuff thrown in. I really don’t expect to get 30 pounds of tomatoes, but who knows.

All I know for sure, is that it is a deal at any price and worth every single penny. I will have all the stuff for fresh salsa, and basil to my hearts content, one of my most fragrant favorite herbs. I won’t waste a bunch of lettuce because I buy too much because it is too far to town, and that will certainly make Mo happier. I’m awful about buying too much produce. I haven’t had a real vegetable garden in years, and have no desire to return to the Toro Tiller days when I gardened in a 2 acre plot. This is just perfect. Perfect. Well, at least hopefully it is perfect. I guess I’ll find out after a summer of trying it out.

While we worked on the beds yesterday, I also decided it was time to move the bird feeders away from any and all lawn and hung a wire from two big firs out in the National Forest just beyond our property. I now have about 6 feeders, with different kinds of food to hopefully attract a few more songbirds. The blackbirds and squirrels were making quick work of my bird food stash and they loved throwing seed everywhere for the chipmunks and rabbits to find. Too much scratching going on out there, for sure, and the flowers were suffering. I keep trying for bird photos, and am embarrassed to put anything up at all, but just so you have an idea, here is the bird feeding station. Gotta get that camera soon! So far we have lots of grosbeaks, chickadees, finches, blackbirds, jays, and some other little ones that I haven’t identified yet. Time to get out the binoculars and the Sibley bird book! After all, we are in the Klamath Basin, one of the birding capitals of the country.

The daffodils are blooming, the birds are singing, and the veggies are growing. What more could I ask for? No snow?? hah, not a chance.

Cameras, computers and other such stuff

It’s been a busy week for me, working a bit more than 40 hours like real folks, although I still managed to do more than half of that time from home. Working with the current project leader for a soil survey project I managed a few years ago is actually a lot of fun. Chris is a great guy, a smart and savvy soil scientist with good ideas. We spent two full days this week putting our heads together to refine the detailed descriptions of the geomorphology of the area.

Understanding the landscape and how it was formed is crucial to understanding the soils that form on those landscapes. Part of the data associated with a published soil survey is detailed information about the landscape for each soil that occurs in the area. After our review, my job this week is to get all that information in NASIS, the big database in the sky. It keeps my brain running at full speed and makes it a bit hard for me to sleep at night.

But now it is the weekend, and I promised myself I would refrain from firing up NASIS and trying to keep looking at all that data. Yeah, probably boring as heck to anyone but the few of us involved in the process, but it explains why I speed read blogs and sometimes don’t take the time to comment. Sorry folks, really, I love your blogs. I am praying that I never need a knee replacement after reading Laurie’s detailed account of what she and Odel have been doing after his operation. They are doing a great job, both of them, I just hope I never have to do it. I have been enjoying the migration of the Canadians back to their home territory and the folks still wandering across Texas trying to avoid the fires. There are several women RV’rs who are departing on their big full-time journeys, and several buying new rigs. I love reading about their adventures. I can’t possibly link to all my favorites without missing someone, so I won’t even try.

It is wonderful to have the MoHo safely at home again.

I love Rick’s detailed instructions and comments about the state of the current computer/internet world. I searched his blog to find all his posts about Windows 7. One of the comments that he often makes has to do with all the new software that will only run with 7 and won’t run on XP. I had to pay big bucks to take my old computer from Vista back to XP so I could run the government software that will ONLY run on XP, so I have been missing out on some of the newer bells and whistles that Rick discussed, specifically the new Live Writer and Internet Explorer.

While we were traveling last month my Dell Inspiron kept feeling really hot, and I worried that if that computer goes (it’s five years old) I would be in big trouble. Ahhh. Solution. Buy a new laptop with Windows 7. I have a great friend here in town who is an IT dude and he put me on to a business machine, a lightweight Dell Vostro, with all the bells and whistles and a shiny cherry red exterior to boot. Also, when I got home from our trip I discovered that the government has updated NASIS to a new version that will run on the XP that is hidden inside the Professional Windows 7.

Bingo! I ordered the new machine and decided to keep the old one just for NASIS, but if it dies, I’ll have a backup. Whew! Of course, a new machine always means more computer time, and I have been moving programs and photos and documents and re-installing programs and trying to find old disks for programs that I forgot I had. I do love Picasa, and immediately downloaded the newest version to my new Windows 7 computer, only to discover that all the “people” tags did not migrate to the new Picasa with the 60 gig of photos that I have been tagging diligently. Big sigh on that one. I wonder if anyone knows anything about that? Rick?

Lots of lawn to rake

I am working as much as I am allowed as a retiree, and saving up the bucks for our big trip to Alaska this summer. It’s only two months away now, with a departure date of July 6th, after the Fourth of July holiday.

Klamath Falls is having a huge celebration this year, with some changes to the parade and a big family bbq in Veteran’s Park before the fireworks. I am so glad to be here for that to share with my kids and grandkids. I love that holiday, and always insisted on family day picnics where I made the teenagers do three legged races. They always rolled their eyes and thought I was nuts, but it was a holdover from the church picnics of my childhood. Melody called me up all excited. She is on the town committee planning the picnic and said, “Mom, we are having three legged races, you HAVE to come!”. I’ll be there and will race with my daughter and probably laugh till my sides hurt.

Lots of trees makes for very few sunny sites to locate the greenhouse

Sitting here at my desk this morning, I see dirty patches of snow on the shady part of the road, but bright sunshine on the grass. I raked a lot last weekend, and Mo finished up all the lawns during the week. It’s beautiful except for the vole damage. Those dang little critters just make a total mess of the grass when the snow load is heavy, deep, and long lasting.

One area they tore up especially is the 10 by 12 space where the greenhouse will be. We are going to stake that area off today, and my job will be to get what is left of the sod up and leveled. The chickadees are here in force, and the squirrels are already raiding the feeders. Big sigh again. One more year of squirrel battles, rabbit battles, and deer battles are ahead of us. Hopefully we can keep all those critters out of the greenhouse!

Like many of us out there, I read Al’s (The Bayfield Bunch) often, gleaning information about all sorts of things, not the least of which is photography. If you search his blog for the word “camera” you will get 8 pages of posts about this topic! I once was a “photographer”, darkroom and all, but now I just “take pictures”. My old fabulous film camera Canon A-1 lies buried in a case in a cabinet. I haven’t had it out for years now. Al’s photos inspire me, though, along with lots of other great blog photographers, and I decided that I can no longer be satisfied with my little Nikon point and shoot. It takes nice photos, but the fine detail and perfect focus isn’t there, the telephoto isn’t enough, and the lens bends ocean horizons on the edges. No amount of Picasa fiddling will fix that. My choice of camera was the same as Al, I decided on the Nikon D90, and have been searching for the best price, hoping to manage a purchase before we travel the wide open landscapes of Canada and Alaska, hopefully filled with wildlife that will require a telephoto and vistas that will need a wide angle lens.

I fertilized the rhodies a lot last year, looks like we have flower buds

Talking with my other daughter yesterday, the one now driving airplane engines all over the country with her husband, yielded a surprise. In one of her other lives she was a professional portrait and wedding photographer and she offered her high end Nikon equipment to me for the Alaska trip. Whew! I can’t even remember what the models are, but it’s top notch, one with a metal body that will be heavier than the D90 but will give me the chance to see if I really want to lug a DSLR around while traveling.

She also made very clear that her telephoto lens is an auto focus anti vibration thingy that is about $2,000 worth of fancy. Whew again! I just hope I don’t get mugged while traveling. She laughed and said, “Now Mom, the only bad part is that you have to drop it off on your way back from Alaska.” Well, Duh! But at least I don’t have to come up with plus or minus $1,000 bucks for the D90 before we leave. Yay!

It’s snowing and we are leaving tomorrow!!

Today winter returned to Rocky Point with a vengeance. Just a few days ago, while doing our bi-weekly wood haul to the back porch, I noticed stiff little green spikes poking up through the old leaf litter in my flower beds: rows and rows of miniature daffodils along a stone wall, and several large groups of naturalized bigger daffodils under the aspens down by Mo’s handmade water wheel.

Yesterday Mo drove over the mountain to Medford to pick up a nice little greenhouse for us from Harbor Freight. Super sale price for a 10×12 structure made with sturdy aluminum framing and some kind of semi-rigid plexiglass walls. I am sooo tickled about this. Last year we spent most of the summer trying to outsmart the deer and guess what, the deer won! We also live in the mountains, where nights just don’t warm up enough to ripen things much. Even the lavender that I planted at my old house back in Klamath Falls (where my daughter lives now) grew five times as big as what I can grow here.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………… Isn’t this just the picture of optimism?

This year we will put up the greenhouse in late spring and I will use it as the main garden, safe behind walls that will keep the deer out, and warmer at night so I might actually get some tomatoes and peppers, and yum! some fresh basil, and… and…and… Since we plan to be traveling in Alaska during June and July, I am curious to see just what kind of garden will greet me on my arrival back home August 1st. I will optimistically plant goodies in raised beds filled with rich soil, make sure everything is ventilated well, and Mo will hook up an automatic watering system. We will have someone caretaking the big house and mowing lawns, but I certainly wouldn’t expect them to handle the greenhouse garden. Even if it all goes to seed, or gets too hot, or if the rabbits and voles find their way inside, it will still be a great experiment, and I’ll know better what to do next time.

Ah well, for now the snow is coming down in thick huge heavy flakes, piling up on the trees until the blustery winds dump big solid white cascades of cold wet stuff. Better make sure you aren’t standing under any trees out there right now. Mo brought up the bins for loading up clothes and food and all the other “stuff” we need for our 2 1/2 weeks on the road and I am making lists and checking off items as we load them up. I think I do need to make a “real” list, something permanent somewhere, and then I can just check everything off as we load up, whether it is in the baby car or in the MoHo directly. This time will be the last for awhile that we have to haul things back and forth, because after this trip we are bringing the MoHo home again. Let’s pray that early April doesn’t send another snowstorm like this one. If so, we might have to come up with another plan as we travel toward home on 395.

Tonight we will brush the snow off the hot tub for one more soothing soak before getting a good night’s rest in anticipation of an early morning departure. Tomorrow should be great fun, in spite of the predicted rain. After picking up the MoHo in Redding, 160 miles south, we will continue south on I-5 to Sacramento, where we plan to stop in for a visit with Laurie and Odel at Cal Expo before we settle in for the night a bit farther on down the road toward the desert and sunshine!!

A quiet day in Fort Bragg

It rained hard all night, pounding on the MoHo roof and making me really happy that I wasn’t in a tent! Someone said that there are two kinds of slides, ones that leak and ones that will. So far, there are no signs of any leaking anywhere in the MoHo, even in the hardest rains and wind. I guess the Dynamax reputation for solid coaches is holding up for us.

I took my time cooking breakfast this morning while we watched the Sunday news shows. Mo and I both love Fareed Zakaria, he brings such a different perspective to the world view. Then Mo balances all that out with a good hit of Fox News while I retreat into the computer. Ha! Guess you can tell who is ex-military and who used to be a tree hugger! The rain let up after breakfast and we took Abby for a walk around the park. On the way we met a couple from Victoria, just out on the beginning of a five month journey through the western US. Wayne and Lynn were very conversational, and we had a great time comparing notes on campgrounds, RV’s, and destinations. It’s amazing how easy it is to talk with strangers in this RVing world, no such thing as a stranger, really.

I love my new kayak, but there were a couple of little problems with it when it finally arrived. Somehow the bubble wrap used to protect it caused the paint to discolor on the side exposed to the sunlight and it has a small area of bubble wrap design along one side. In addition, the rim around the cockpit has a small split that shouldn’t be there. I called the company as soon as I unwrapped the boat and they called me back to make sure everything is taken care of properly. Bill Swift is the owner of Swift Canoe and Kayak in Ontario, Canada, and I am so impressed with his customer service. He is building a new boat for me and paying for the shipping to my home in Oregon. My boat was a sale boat, with a few minor flaws, so he asked if I wanted to pay a bit more to get a new boat, or if I wanted to send this one back for repairs. Either way he would pay the shipping, so I decided to opt for the new boat and the chance to pick my own colors. In the mean time, he said I should use the boat I have now as much as I want to until the new one arrives some time next January. Great customer service, great product, and great company! I highly recommend them.

We spent the morning walking through the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, senior discount fee was 7.50 each, and well worth it. The gardens have several areas, with more formal perennial gardens close to the entrance, and then about a half mile of wilder gardens that lead to a great ocean bluff overlook. At this time of year, the flowers weren’t that exciting, but the plants and foliage were lovely. The trails were nice too, and we took our time enjoying them even more than the gardens.

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After our walk, we drove to the main part of town, but it didn’t seem to have much to offer, not enough to actually get out of the car to explore. Nothing caught my eye and Mo isn’t a shopper anyway. I think we got our fill of browsing back in Ferndale, anyway. At the northern edge of town is Elm Street, leading down to the hidden Glass Beach. Once the town dump, it is now covered with beautiful tiny smooth pieces of sea glass. Somewhere we read that you aren’t supposed to pick up the glass, but once at the beach, it was filled with beachcombers looking for that perfect piece of glass and filling hands and pockets with the tiny treasures. We took a few as well. My favorite is the pale light turquoise pieces. We didn’t find anything particularly fabulous, but had fun looking and enjoying the beach and the surf.

We traveled up the Noyo River to check out Liquid Fusion Kayak Company, only to find an open lot with some kayaks and a sign that said to call them if you wanted to rent one. I had hoped for an actual shop with information, so we later stopped at the dive shop along the highway. The young man there was really helpful and told us that Big River ten miles south at Mendocino was the best paddle around, with easy access and fewer people. Big River is listed in the Sea Kayaking Northern California book I bought recently, so after looking it up and reading we decided that for sure this will be tomorrow’s destination.

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It was just a napping kind of day, so instead of doing anything else we went back to camp, had a late lunch snack and I took a great nap, snuggled back in the comforters watching the trees outside the window as I fell asleep. I love the chance that we have had on this trip to actually slow down and relax. An afternoon nap is just about as decadent as I can imagine! When I woke up a bit later, it was starting to darken and we took Abby for a walk around the nearly empty park before coming back home to make supper. I’m really looking forward to getting out in the kayaks tomorrow, it should be a sunny day, and again the tides are with us perfectly.

Photos for our day at the ocean are linked here.

We are staying at a park in Fort Bragg that had many reviews: Pomo RV Park and Campground. It seems it is the best place to stay around here, since most others are merely parking lots. Some of the reviews complained about the rules and policies, but we had no problem with anything. It is a cash only park, and doesn’t honor anything but Good Sam ten percent discount, so at 40 bucks a night it’s not a cheap place to stay. The sites are huge, however, and as private as a good state park. We wonder if maybe at one time it was a state park. I haven’t seen a private RV park anywhere laid out with this kind of luxury of space. CeiPui asked for some photos of the park, so I linked a separate album here.