Thanksgiving 2024

My first Thanksgiving as a retired person! This year I can really focus on preparing our home and garden for Thanksgiving guests and for the holidays to come (with time left over). In fact, the gift of time is the thing for which I am most grateful in retirement. After decades of squeezing projects, deadlines, and a full life into a constrained time box, it is a pleasure to have time to squander. 

Wild turkey in the neighborhood (photo by Rick Quisenberry)

Some of my favorite gifts of time in this season of life:

• Time to focus on the current project on which I'm working. I can go deep experimenting, learning, and researching (and even go down a rabbit hole or two in the process)!

• Time to pitch in when needed, such as being able to spend extra time in Alaska with family to face the challenges of life together.

• Time and mental bandwidth to assess priorities, projects, and possessions, and to identify what no longer serves me in this new season of life (and what I want instead).

• Time to squander. Yes, there are always activities and chores that have priority and must be done. But there is now more flexible time for life's small pleasures, like reading in the afternoon, trying a new recipe, working in the garden, writing an article, and learning a new skill. 

Hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving celebration, with whatever time is available in this season of your life. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Field Notes for November

 Welcome back to Field Notes!

November 1, 2024

November is Native American Heritage Month, and the Friday following Thanksgiving Day is "Native American Heritage Day." According to the U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs website, National Native American Heritage Month is a time to celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and affiliated Island communities; and to ensure that their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive with each passing generation. Each year the Department of the Interior selects a theme for the year. The theme for 2024 is "Weaving Together Our Past, Present and Future."  

November 3, 2024

We've had a drop in temperature here in the Bay Area, and a few nights of rain - has the rainy season started? To combat the chill, we're pulling out our favorite fall recipes and filling the house with wonderful smells of good, hearty food. Sometimes (but not often enough, I'm told) a batch of home-made cookies also contributes to the delicious fragrance.

Roasted vegetables - destined for a delicious soup

Cottage pie - full of tasty ingredients

November 5, 2024

Aunt Char is heading back to Alaska! I dropped off my jet-setting aunt at the airport today. She is heading to Alaska to spend time with her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew (my mom, dad, and brother). November may seem like an usual time to visit Juneau Alaska, but it is a great time to be warm and cozy inside—catching up on the latest news, reading good books, watching movies and shows, and starting a little online holiday shopping. For its small size, Juneau has a lot going on during the fall, such as musical programs, cultural events, plays, and lectures at University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). Plus, the scenery is beautiful, with or without a dusting of snow. 

 

Alaska Airlines on the tarmac in Juneau, Alaska

November 8, 2024

The wind has been blowing hard for the last couple of days, and the garden is a mess! Leaves, dried stems and seed pods, and small tree limbs are everywhere. Time for some clean up, but it seems fruitless to start until the wind has blown itself out! We're chipping away at clean up anyway, one section of the garden at a time, but may need professional help! Despite the windy mess, the days are beautiful, with blue sky and radiant sunshine. The temperature is warmish during the day and much cooler at night.

The side yard - what a mess!

November 11, 2024

A California Buckeye that grows up by the reservoir is laden with large seeds (click on the photo for a better look). California Buckeye is indigenous to California and has important ethnobotanic uses as a medicine, food, and fishing tool for California tribes. The USDA California Buckeye Plant Guide provides interesting information about the tree, including how to plant from seed. All parts of the plants are poisonous, including the seeds, so they should be planted with caution. Still, the plant provides seasonal interest, and the seeds are eaten by the California ground squirrel.

California Buckeye (Aesculus californica)

November 14, 2024

Our landscape maintenance crew is coming tomorrow for an end-of-season clean up of the new landscape. My husband and I have pulled out some of the most obvious weeds, but want professional help for other end-of-season tasks. Today I harvested some grasses and seedheads that might make interesting fall or Thanksgiving arrangements.

Plant material foraged from the landscape

November 17, 2024

Thank goodness for professionals! We hired our landscape company's maintenance team to clean up the yard, and perform end-of-season tasks. I took notes to see what they removed and what they left in the garden to overwinter. The weeds and annuals are gone, and plants and shrubs are groomed and trimmed up. 

End-of-season clean up!

November 20, 2024

Turns out, the Bearded Flatsedge mentioned in Field Notes for October is an invasive species in our area. We've never had one in our garden before, so it was a surprise to find it. We pulled the plants so they won't get a foothold in the garden (but enjoyed having the chance to observe them while it grew)! 

Invasive Species - Bearded Flatsedge

November 23, 2024

The Snow Village is assembled - this is one of our favorite Christmas traditions. Part of that tradition is to set up the village before Thanksgiving and to take it down well into January. We went nuts collecting many of the ceramic pieces while we were young and working. The charming scenes and warm lights cut through the gloom of short days, pouring rain, and chill of fall and early winter!

Snow Village scene - Center for the Arts

Dye Project: Chokecherry

I recently tried a solar dyeing project using drupes collected from the chokecherry (Prunus ilicifolia) in the lower yard. The deep purple drupes ripen in the fall, and are eaten by local and migrating birds, such as robins, chickadees, warblers, and a host of little brown birds (LBBs). Over the years, I've witnessed swarms of migrating birds descend on the tree and strip it of its drupes in less than an hour!

Solar dyeing with Chokecherry drupes - day 1

Because these drupes are an important food source for local and visiting wildlife, I only harvested what I needed for the project (660 grams or 23.28 ounces, about 4 cups). I rinsed the drupes in water to remove dust and small insects.

Chokecherry drupes

I used two dish towels (WOF is 154 grams/5.4 ounces) that had been scoured, mordanted with oak gallnut extract, and brightened with alum and soda ash. The WOF% is 428% for the 660 grams of drupes. Dyers typically recommend equal weights of fabric and plant material for solar dyeing (or double the weight for berries), so we're well over that. I added three teaspoons of alum and boiling water to the jar, and then layered drupes and dishtowels and topped off the jar with more boiling water. 

Solar dyeing with chokecherry drupes - day 14

I steeped the dishtowels in the chokecherry dye bath for two weeks, making sure to rock and rotate the jar daily to distribute dye and drupes evenly.

Hang to dry

As with previous solar dyeing projects, I squeezed out excess dye, rinsed the fabric, and then ran it through the washing machine without detergent and hung to dry. After waiting two weeks to help set the dye, I washed the fabric with a mild textile soap (like Synthropol or Professional Textile Detergent) and hung it to to dry. 

The result is a lovely shade of purple. One drawback with using this solar method, is that the fabric ended up with a number of dark spots. Possibly the drupes clung to the fabric during the whole process, rather than moving around with the daily rotation. The spots add interest, but may not be desirable for some dye projects. It will be interesting to see how colorfast the dye is, since berry-based dyes are known to fade quickly with time.

Landscaping: Even More Favorite Plants

I've been back from Alaska for a month now, and have been getting reacquainted with our newly landscaped yard in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm continuing my Favorite Plants series so I can get to know the plants and how to care for them (see Some Favorite Plants and More Favorite Plants for previous postings). The garden flourished while I was away. The plants benefited from light irrigation to help them get established, and from the temperate Bay Area climate. Following are a few more plants that caught my eye.

The Bush Monkey Flower (Mimulus aurantiacus, a.k.a, Diplacus aurantiacus) has orange-yellow blossoms and is thriving in one of the front planting areas. In the same planting area is a Cherry Monkey Flower (Mimulus aurantiacus 'Cherry') with lovely red blossoms. Both are still producing flowers in November! Monkey flower is a perennial subshrub that grows 4-5 feet high with multiple stems. The stems grow from overwintering buds at the base of the plant, and blossoms develop on the new growth during the growing season. The plants are sometimes called "Sticky Monkey Flower" because the leaves produce a sticky resin that helps protect the shrub. The flowers resemble a monkey's face, attract hummingbirds and bees, but are deer resistant. The plant thrives in a variety of well-drained soils, and prefers full sun near the coast and partial shade inland.

Sticky Monkey Flower (Mimulus aurantiacus)

The Oregon Grape or Holly-leaved Barberry (Mahonia aquifolium, a.k.a., Berberis aquifolium) is a flowering plant that requires shade or partial shade, and thrives under oak trees. This one is well situated in the shade of the oak in the main part of the yard. Oregon Grape is native to Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. It is an evergreen shrub with a compact, rounded growth habit (2-3 feet high and 3-5 feet wide in maturity). The leaves are glossy with spiny edges like holly. Clusters of yellow flowers present in spring, followed by edible, blue-black berries in fall. (Could they possibly produce a dye in the future?) The plant attracts birds and bees.

Mahonia (Mahonia aquifolium)

The California Aster (Aster chilensis 'Purple Haze', a.k.a., Symphyotrichum chilense) is perennial plant that is native to coastal California and blooms from summer to fall. It thrives in loamy clay soil with full or partial sun, is drought tolerant but performs best with some water. California Aster blooms from summer to fall with daisy-like flowers (blue and lavender petals and a yellow center). Butterflies and moths are attracted to the nectar, and birds eat the seeds. For maintenance, cut the plant back to the ground in late fall or early winter. New growth appears in late winter and spreads by rhizomes.

California Aster (Aster chilensis 'Purple Haze')

What beautiful and interesting plants! Note that plant names change continually due to new scientific discoveries and reclassification of plants. Where possible, I like to use both old and new names to help with the transition.