Monday, November 26, 2012

The Fall (failed) Vegetable Garden

     We have not been to the veggie garden since May or so, at least that is my recollection. After a good summer there was some harvest of the usual stuff; tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, hot little peppers, radishes galore, and other things that slip my mind right now. In other words, the garden did fairly well with the amount of rain we had this year, so much better than last year.
     In mid August, for the third time in the past nine years, I had good soil with plenty of compost added to the garden. Each time I have ordered 3 cubic yards (27 cubic feet per cubic yard = 81 cft3). For those of you that work in the metric measurements this is 2.3 m3. In other words, it fills up a small truck and is quite heavy. Some of this soil has always been used to build up the flower beds and the balance, usually about 2/3 (or about 54 cubic feet) for the garden. Now in order to move it to the garden it has be moved by wheel barrow about 33 meters, not much if it is done in one or two wheel barrow fulls, but quite a bit when one had to move it in multiple loads. I have noticed that over the years, this soil, which is identical to the soil ordered previously, has gotten considerably heavier each time or is that a result of the mover of the soil having gotten older, each time about 3 years older, so by a factor of 3 times x 3 years interval x 13 wheelbarrow loads (117 times older???????? or is this what is called faulty math or self-serving math????).
      Anyway, after the soil was put in and tilled in with the existing soil, it was allowed to rest for a couple of weeks and then a fall garden was planted with winter squash, carrots, beets, red cabbage, cilantro, Italian parsley, fennel, spinach, onions, garlic and cauliflower.
      It appears that the soil is way too acidic, in other words, too much compost, because many of the plant began to develop nice leaves that then just withered and turned brown. Much of the rest of the stuff that survived is not really growing, it seems to have been arrested in development and is just sitting there waiting for something to "kick" it off.
      A few of the carrots seem to be growing, at a snails pace, as do some of the beets. Out of the 8 winter squash plants that survived 4 are developing fruit, one of which should be ready to harvest the end of this week. The rest of it just sitting there waiting for something.
      Here are photos of this sad tale of home grown veggies.

A view of the mostly empty garden plot with the surviving carrots in the foreground.
The beets, only half of the seeds developed to this point.
One of the four surviving Winter Squash plants with blooms and fruit as seen below.

This particular squash should be ready to harvest in a few days.
Out of six fenned seeds only three survived and they look kind of anemic.
The Italian parsley, which just sits there at this size, not doing anything, except looking like it really needs something,
perhaps it needs to be transplanted to Italy so it will feel at home. Other  years the parsley has grown almost to bush like proportions.
     As seen in the parsley above, the Cilantro is just as anemic. We have not had a tremendous amount of rain this fall, but have had some rather warm days and adequate water. It may be that I will pull everything there when ripe / ready, then till in a lot of fallen leaves and then let the soil rest for one year. We shall see as I have not yet made up my mind.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Go West .... (12) Loretto Chapel


     After our excursion to the Salinas Trail Missions we needed a day or two to unwind which was done in Santa Fe. If I have mentioned this before I apologize for repeating myself but ---- our trusted 2004 Subaru Forester must have felt like it was at a family reunion, it seems that every 4th or 5th car in Santa Fe was a Subaru of some sort, either Outback or Forester plus a few others.
    I may also have mentioned that we have switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 (Win 7 and I do not get along very well), meaning that our trip notes, which were saved on Win XP, suddenly have turned into "machine language" and they are no longer readable by ordinary human beings. As a result I have to rely on memory, which is a most dangerous thing at my age, as I have a number of fairly regular "senior moments" but can't remember why they occur.
     Our first stop of the day was at "Santuario de Guadalupe", which is the oldest sanctuary in the United States dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The church itself is typical Southwest and not very imposing. There were some helpful people inside and a rather small gift shop.
     One should note the various links to additional information about this particular church;
http://www.yelp.com/biz/santuario-de-guadalupe-santa-fe
http://www.bing.com/attractions/search?q=Santuario+de+Guadalupe%2c+Santa+Fe&qzattrid=w294718&qpvt=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&FORM=DTPATA
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&qpvt=santuario+de+guadalupe+santa+fe&FORM=IGRE



         Then we went on to that absolutely must see place in  important place in Santa Fe, the place with the miracle staircase that has been the main "actor" in a movie or two; the place everyone knows about - Loretto Chapel.
        Rather than giving you, the reader, a lot of details about this chapel I will add links to the various websites dedicated to the chapel and its history, however, in the context of American (US) history it is important to note that Santa Fe was established as a city 10 to 11  years before the Pilgrims, those of our nations founding myth, even left Europe. The links will follow after the photographs however I need to recommend that you see the 1998 movie "The Staircase" with Barbara Hershey and Diana Ladd. I seem to also remember a much older B/W movie from years ago on the same subject but can't find it by "googling".

The Altar area of Loretto Chapel
 


A view of the famous staircase as it looks now.

The choir loft which necessitated the staircase as previously
 the good sisters had been using a simple ladder to get  up and down.

Another look at the staircase.

 

Loretto Chapel from the outside (that should be obvious).

Another view of Loretto Chapel.
And the promised links which offer much information.

http://www.lorettochapel.com/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel
http://www.philipcoppens.com/santafe.html
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/loretto.asp
http://www.lorettochapel.com/

     It is rather difficult to put into words the images and impressions one gets from a location like Loretto Chapel, it has to be experiences, preferably not as a "tourist" having to see this and that, and then checking off a list of "I have been there and there and done this and that. Rather it should be a spiritual journey walked with those early sisters as they struggled to build this place and to make it function.
     When you go to Santa Fe, make this a stop.