Living in California

A quick pic of yesterday's and today's harvests, at about 38°, 37", with a helping hand:

Thank those thrifty Italians!

"Thrifty Italians make a second, less potent liqueur by adding 2 cups of alcohol, a cup of sugar, and a bottle of cheap sparkling wine to the solids you filter out of the nocino. Let the mixture stand another couple of months, shaking occasionally. Drink unceremoniously."

This, from a Chowhound forum, was first emailed to me by my friend Kari, in response to my question about green walnut ketchup and nocino. After gathering green walnuts from our gigantic, squirrel-ridden tree, I set about making nocino, and after filtering out the solids, I made this second drink. Here it is:

Ain't it pretty? It tastes good, too. Tonight, we tried it for the first time. If we are still alive tomorrow, I'll consider it a roaring success, and proceed to make more next year. I believe I can turn this into a duck season opener tradition.

I also followed the directions pretty carefully for this one. Cheap sparkling wine? Target has a twist-off "champagne" (yes, I'm well aware of the controversy surrounding the name).

What a night... mapaches.

Never underestimate the power of a plate of pork chop hash and the thought of two raccoons sitting in the walnut tree directly above your duck house to keep you awake and thoughtful all night. About 2:30 in the morning Alka-Seltzer felt pretty good in reigning in the former, but the latter... let's just say, me and my great dog Irma took turns peering into the tree at four flashing eyes, and barking.

Update, a picture... don't let the cuteness fool you.

Happy as ducks in a storm!

© 2009 Joshua Stark

California is currently being hit with the leftovers from a tropical storm from East Asia. As of this writing, I've heard that our old home in the Santa Cruz mountains has received one foot of rain in less than 24 hours. We've had a few inches, plus some winds gusting over 50 mph.

This is my ducks' first storm, and I was worried (yeah, now I know). I storm-proofed their house as best I could, and this morning, about 7, I expected to see three wet, miserable, and maybe sickly ducks.

What I found were three wet, active, excited ducks anxiously wanting to be set free into the wonderful weather! They were home at last!

Over the course of the day, I watched them, and never saw them leave the weather. They swam, they preened and washed and oiled, but mostly they ate worm after worm after worm, and when they were done with that, they picked other bugs hiding out from the weather under the wood on the fence. They are in duck heaven.

Ponding?

As you might have seen from my last post, my ducks do some serious dirt-movin' in the yard. Now, with a few inches of rain predicted over the next couple of days, I'm just hoping they didn't do anything to our foundation (kidding).

So, pretty soon I will be building them a real pond, hopefully with enough gravel and river rocks around it to both lessen their desire to spit mud in the water, and also to keep down the type and severity of erosion seen below. It should be about 4 or 5 feet wide and 7 or 8 feet long, in a more aesthetically pleasing shape, and I hope to have a nice overflow section with some duck-resistant water plants (probably horsetail and tules). I won't buy a circulating pump, but will continue to suction out the pond every couple of days with the Pumps-A-Lot I wrote about a couple of months ago.

But, I would like to hear ideas for a duck-friendly pond that will also provide water for our garden, trees, and boysenberry. Let's hear 'em!

Fauna-induced Geomorphology of Contrived Riparian and Wetlands Habitats

© 2009 Joshua Stark

Or, what my ducks do when their kiddie pool overflows.

My First attempt at cordial

Upon tasting, the judge (my wife) declared, "Wow! You've discovered the secret recipe for Robitussin!"