hollygee Goes West

Sunday cats

Elaine Viets is writing about pets on The Lipstick Chronicles in honor of her new release, The Fashion Hound Murders. I thought that I would add to the petdom.

Diego has taken to sneaking up to what is normally Chips place above my head on the bed while Chips is eating or downstairs. But this morning there was a bird perched on the roof that distracted Diego and Chips wanted to see too.

I didn't have time to turn the flash off, but just after I got this shot and they looked safely frozen in these positions, I fiddled with the flash. That was the cue for Chips to leave the scene.

Diego, you can see, is still a little huffy that his space was invaded.

Chips went to the opposite corner of the bed and looks as if he was amazed that he had the… hmmm, shall I say chutzpah to challenge the bigger, younger, stronger cat who is usually the challenger.

 

Let's look at that jaded Diego stare once more:

Oh so disappointed with everyone.

Early in November

Before I go and mow down my celery hedge, I thought I would show you some other color around the yard.

The last of the plum leaves. Lest you think that this is a cold clear sky, I should tell you that I have on shorts, the fan going and all the doors and windows open.

Remember the Cape Honeysuckle I planted. It has liked the neighborhood and taken to it's space really well. These are the only blooms that we got this year, but considering how late I planted it, I'm very satisfied. Of course it wouldn't bloom while my BFF Denise was here from Alaska, but she at least saw it in situ.

As for the celery hedge, OMG. Mind you this is only six plants.

Last Sunday

Suisun Valley is a beautiful pocket Valley just south of Napa and north of I-80. I didn't know about it until I heard their segment on our local KQED Forum program proclaim the last of their Harvest Fairs for 2009. I emailed Steve's sister, Esther, to ask if she would be interested. Esther replied that she'd like it if I'd be interested in pushing her wheelchair (she has a torn Achilles tendon).

We had a gorgeous, good day. The temp was in the upper 70's, clear skies. First we hit a big farm stand where I saw these:

Aren't those colors beautiful? These aren't little acorn squash-sized squashes, but big jack-o-lantern-sized.

We got a great deal on onions, yellow and red. I bought some Bosc pears and we got a single stalk of Brussels sprouts to divide between us.

We had lunch at a cafe. It was okay, but it wasn't making use of the grand produce around the area.

After driving around just looking from the car, we went to the SePay Olive Oil tasting room. Manned by a somewhat garrulous salesman, we still learned a lot about olive oils and how the good oil promotes good health [it's all in the polyphenols, apparently]. It tastes pretty damn good.

They suggested visiting a farm not far from them for the next stop on our tour (SePay is in an industrial park, they buy from many California orchards and only blend and bottle on those premises). This was definitely a working farm. The smell of fallen apples and pears next to the U-Pick pepper fields added a vinegary odor to the day. The farm stand was down past the autumn leaf-garlanded farm house, but first was this:

Isn't she beautiful? She lives at the Suisun Wildlife Refuge.

We missed the eagle that had been there all morning but we enjoyed meeting this red tail.

All around this part of the farm were:

Persimmon trees. So pretty against that Indian summer sky. Here is a detail: