Gardening

One thing I miss is not having a vegetable garden. I’ve often had one. During the 1970s in Southern CA, my family and several of the neighbors each had gardens. We all grew tomatoes and zucchini, and other vegetables. I love zucchini cooked in several ways: steamed with light Italian seasoning, fried, boiled, and in omelets. If you’ve ever grown zucchini, you know it grows fast. One day you see the small yellow blossom, and before you know it, it’s ready to pick. I think you can hear them growing in the dark of night! A couple of summers in that neighborhood, we all had such big crops of zucchini and tomatoes we should have opened a farmers market on the street corner. LOL. Instead, we made loaves of zucchini bread, canned many jars of pickled zucchini, and all swore that we would take turns each summer planting crops. But by the time the next spring came, we were all planting our own gardens again.

"One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth."
Dorothy Gurney (1858-1932).

I believe Nancy and I had an appreciation for flower and vegetable gardens from an early age. Loved working the rich soil with hands, and loved the results of our planting. This early picture of us shows how we loved getting dirty and eating our fresh grown carrots. :-)

This picture of me tending the garden was a little later. I was digging among the corn.

How’s this for a zucchini? This was from Don’s and my garden in Southern CA. Normally we picked zucchini when much smaller, but you know how it is: they can hide under the big leaves!

Two additional quotes I like are:

"I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets...." ~George Washington Carver (1864-1943).

and as our distant cousin Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) said:

"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

So maybe Nancy and I have an appreciation for gardens in our genes....

~Linda

P.S. Update: Apparently Delta and Dawn swam under the Golden Gate Bridge out into the Pacific, during the night hours Tuesday.

Update On Whales, Delta and Dawn

It appears Delta and Dawn are now determined to return to the Pacific Ocean. After undergoing shooting streams of water from fire hoses, tissue sample extractions, and injected antibiotics, Friday and Saturday, on Sunday afternoon the pair began to move rather determinedly downstream. By Sunday evening they were spotted just east of the Benicia-Martinez Bridge area, and today they are continuing their travel and as long as they don’t veer off the proper path they should find their way into San Francisco Bay and then out to sea soon. The Coast Guard are keeping a close watch on them and I assume ready with the shooting water streams if they change direction.

It has been two weeks since they were spotted inland. I read an estimate on Delta’s size as being about 45 feet long, 60,000 to 70,000 lbs, and the calf likely to be a large one year old or a small two year old.

I’m still curious, as many are, including scientist, as to what made them swim inland and into fresh water, and then to suddenly decide to now retrace their path from the ocean. Fascinating.

Let’s hope they are able to make their way through San Francisco Bay and dodge any ships that may be there.

~ Linda

Humpback Whales, Delta and Dawn in Sacramento

I’ve been wondering if Delta and Dawn are related to Humphrey?

If you haven’t been catching the news this past week, you may not have any idea what the heck I’m writing about. Delta and Dawn are names given to two wayward humpback whales, a mother and her calf, who have wandered inland more than ninety miles to the port of Sacramento, CA. Humphrey is the 40 foot, 40 ton, humpback whale who made nearly the same excursion in 1985. He went as far as Rio Vista, twenty miles or so south of the port of Sacramento. He wondered around the deep channel for nearly a month before swimming back to the Golden Gate area and out to sea. Then in 1990 he was spotted again inland at the Bodega Bay area. His adventure nearly ended when he beached himself in the mud in San Francisco. He was last seen in 1991. There is a plaque at Rio Vista honoring Humphrey’s Sacramento River journey. Many of the people out observing Delta and Dawn are children and grandchildren of those who saw Humphrey on his travels.

Delta and Dawn, names picked by choice of local television viewers, were spotted in the Sacramento River up stream of Rio Vista, May 14. Take a look at a map and see how amazing their journey has been from the Pacific Ocean to Sacramento. The deep channel is not very wide at all. When they arrived at the port area the other day, they swam in circles, unable to go further north because of locks. On Friday, the coast guard and marine mammal people used whale sounds in the hopes of tempting them to start a swim south but that did not work. They decided to leave them alone for the weekend and then on Sunday they started to move south and went as far as the Rio Vista bridge, but then turned around and headed north again. The Coast Guard, Fish and Game, and County Sheriff’s put a floatilla of about 25 boats in action today to discourage their movement north but by late Monday afternoon they were about five miles north of the Rio Vista bridge heading toward the port again. The experts believe the bridge may have stressed them, with the vibrations of traffic crossing, etc., causing them to reverse their course again.

Monday they had hoped to insert a tag tracking device in Delta but put that off until Tuesday. They did take a tissue sample for genetic study from her to check her health and identify what pod they may be from. They also began banging on pipes underwater from the boats to encourage their movement away, and plan to use that device again Tuesday morning.

Another question I have is what would make whales leave their migration route and stray so far from the ocean? I don’t think the scientist can answer that unless a reason is that the mammal is ill. So that leaves another possibility: maybe some time back, Humphrey mentioned his adventures and this mother had nothing else to do but do some inland exploration. Let’s hope she hasn’t got herself and her young calf into a situation she cannot get out of.

Oh, one more question comes to mind. How do the experts know that Delta and Dawn are female. They said that from the beginning of the sighting. I assume the calf swims with the mother but they have stated the calf is female. Does it have to do with coloration? Or?
For some great video of the adventures of Delta and Dawn check out the Sacramento Television station web site. They’ve had great coverage.
http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=28080

The natural migration of birds, butterflies, and mammals has always fascinated me. The swallows returning every March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, to San Juan Capistrano Mission; the Monarch butterflies to Pacific Grove in Northern CA; the whales; the birds. And I believe they communicate with each other. You know how it is: put out bird seed when not a single bird is in sight, and soon you have one bird, and within minutes a whole flock arrives to scatter seed!

~ Linda