The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Four Goats in a Lexus

My son with Billy

I was recovering from yet another illness.
I had not had a single workout for two weeks. I finally bribed my eleven-year-old into walking up my hill with me—with the promise of a movie later in the evening. He agreed reluctantly, and we set off.
My son really didn’t want to go with me, so after the first 100 yards it started. “How much further are we going to walk?” “Let’s just walk to the first hairpin.” “My legs are tired.” “I have a cramp.” “I think there’s a thorn in my shoe.” “I don’t know if I can make it to the first hairpin.”
Thank goodness for the appearance—deus ex machina—in the form of my neighbors in their very cool Lexus SUV hybrid. The SUV pulled up to us. My neighbors were all smiles. They told us to peek in the back of their truck and see what they had. There, in two large cardboard boxes, were four goats—two adults and two babies.


Rocky

They were heading home to put the goats in their brand new Tuff Shed barn.
There it was, the impetus my son needed to walk another mile and a half up to our neighbor’s new baby goats.


My son with Billy, Rocky and Jasmine

Divinity and Bucky

Tanks and Tables

Today we’re getting our septic tanks pumped—yeah!

Those of you who don’t live in the mountains don’t get to experience the joy of the backed up septic system. That’s right folks, it backs right up into our house. What an adventure.

We had ten inches of rain in two weekends, two weeks apart, and our poor little septic system just couldn’t handle it—even with the two 1500 gallon tanks and the hundreds of feet of leach lines. Oh, nay, nay, it just backed right up. I don’t really know why, after all our water system isn’t working correctly either, and neither are our phone lines for that matter. Oh yah, our heater is broken too.

When it rains it pours, so to speak.

Thank Goodness It Only Happens Every Fifty Years—Part Two

I dragged my kids back into the mall. They didn’t want to go to any more stores (remember, they're boys), so we sat on extremely uncomfortable benches, and I watched as my children slowly tortured each other. They didn’t really fight. It was sort of whine fest. “Mom, he was staring at me.” “Was not, and besides, he stuck his tongue out at me.” “Did not, besides, he pinched me.” “I did not pinch you. You kicked me.” “I did not.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stood up and said; ”I’m going to try to start the car again. Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

I instructed my boys to watch outside one of the mall entrances for me if indeed I did get the car started.


Flooding at the back of our property.

I’m not a praying person, but I did plead out loud with my car. I begged it, I willed it to start. I put the key into the ignition and turned it. Miraculously the sluggish engine started to catch and I revved it so hard that I scared the begeesus out of the woman getting into the car next to me.

I threw it into reverse, and with a squeak of tires I was off to pick up the whiner children. For a moment, the boys, who were chasing each other around the mall directory, didn’t see me. Then together they looked my direction, like a couple of meerkats, and came running. Out through the rain and into my steamy—but running—car.

We were happily on our way towards home. The boys looked over their Lego box plunder, while I sang show tunes and my tires cut a wake through the pouring rain. I think I sang something from Grease.

We were just outside of town and about four miles from our house when I saw it, the Megan’s Law sign. A sign that during a severe storm would say something like “gusty winds ahead, drive carefully” or “heavy rains and dangerous conditions ahead.”
or, “Hwy 17 closed at Hwy 9 to all traffic.”

Huh? But, but, but that’s my highway. That means I can’t get home? That means I’m trapped in the car with my children. Nooooooooooooooo.

I turn on the radio to my trusty AM station that gives traffic reports every 5 minutes. Sure enough, an update tells me that there is no way I can drive home right now. There are two mudslides on the highway. Wait. I have two boys who have been together for 14 days straight. Don’t they know that? I have four-wheel drive. Can’t I just drive over the mudslide? The update also tells me that the back way to our home—that normally takes an extra 45 minutes, but that I would be willing to do—it also closed because of downed trees.

I’m in hell.

Now my boys and I are zigzagging through every single back alley and neighborhood street that I know, avoiding the traffic back-up in town that’s due to two closed highways. We are hoping against hope that they are letting local residents up to their houses.

What was I thinking? Now my boys and I are sitting in traffic with all the other local residents with the same hopes. We have been waiting for 45 minutes.

The number of times my boys have asked, “Why are we sitting here?” 15.
The number of times they have asked: “How much longer?”: 23. The number of times they have asked: “When are we going to get home?” 39.
The number of times I have said: “Please, stop asking that question.” 51.

I finally decide to park the car. There is a parking spot just ahead. No one seems to be interested in parking because they are still holding onto the faint hope that the road will open and they will be at the front of the line to get home. But I spoke to a guy that spoke to this other guy, who talked to one of the Caltrans guys who said that the road wasn’t going to be open for at least three more hours.
So I’m going to take the parking spot two cars ahead of me, park, and then take my kids somewhere fun to pass the time.

The road to the top of our hill.

Thank Goodness It Only Happens Every Fifty Years

My friend Paree told me today that if she had to listen to me retell the story of how I didn’t have power for 3 days, she’d slit her wrists. So I decided, much to her horror, to write it down in detail and make it a three-part series. Then I think I’ll just keep emailing it to her over and over under different headings. I might even send it to her disguised as a New Years card, since I haven’t sent mine out yet.

I knew I was in trouble when the radio weather person while talking about the impending 50-year storm said that “people in the mountains should be prepared” because we would suffer the brunt of the storm.

She went on to say that we should take down our Christmas decorations. Wow, This is one harsh storm, I thought, if it was going to knock down my Christmas decorations. How did they know that I hadn’t taken them down yet? Then I realized that she was talking about outdoor decorations like lights, plastic snowmen, blow-up Santas, things like that. The wind could lift up your twiggy reindeer and chuck it though your living room window or create some equally hideous disaster.

There was a series of three storms coming. Thursday the first storm blew in. It wasn’t bad. My older son and I even went running during the first part of the storm. It was a little windy and a little rainy. It was a medium, as far as California storms go.

At around 4A.M. Friday morning, the biggest of the three storms hit. I lay awake in the dark, feeling warm and cozy, listening to the wind and the rain—one of my favorite things to do. Little did I know how much lying in the dark I would be doing in the next four days.

I was excited. We needed the rain. 2006 had been a dry winter and it had been a dry year to date.

I woke up the next morning to a first-class storm.

I dressed for yoga and took off down the road to my yoga class.

When I returned home through the driving wind and heavy rain, I found the power out and my husband and two children at each other’s throats.

This was day fourteen of my kid’s winter vacation. They had been together every day and they had been fighting every day. In my Zen state I was not prepared to spend another day with them in the house with no power without taking a large amount of prescription medication.

I told the kids to get into my car with their Christmas gift certificates. No argument, they jumped into the car and off we went through the crazy rain and wind. There are some that may think this was a dangerous thing to do. Those people have never been in the same room with my two sons on day fourteen of their winter vacation with no power.

My kids the day before the storm, during happier times, with electricity.

The Fifty-Year Storm

I was going to write about my one-year blog anniversary but then the 50-year storm happened and no-computer-for-three-days happened.

105-mile-per-hour winds.

7¬-10 inches of rain.

Mudslides.

Thousands of downed trees.

650 power poles knocked over.

The road to my house was closed for five hours because of two mudslides.

No power for three days.

No heat for three days

No blow dryer.

When I think of the last item, I still become very emotional.

My family and I survived thanks to a 50-year-old propane stove, candles, a woodstove, and several packages of brand-new Legos.

We all came through unscathed, except my hair.

Stumble It!

Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me.

You know there are a lot of important decisions that we humans have to make every day.

Well, I guess non-humans have to make important decisions also. Like cats, cats have to decide between rodents or birds. Dogs have to decide between dog food or the pot roast on the counter. Snails have to decide petunias or foxgloves.

But I’m talking about humans here. We have to decide how to invest our money so we have a big enough retirement. What about charities? What charity will really make a difference? What schools should we send our kids to? How can we as individuals make a difference in slowing global warming?

And as for me, the subject that has been on my mind for over a week is whom I should tag for the Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me meme. Sarah from Gardener's Gazette tagged me. I’ve never been tagged before so bear with me.

As I said I was tagged over a week ago and I have been going back and forth about what to do. I know it sounds pathetic. And I’m spending way too much time on this but I don’t want to bother any one and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling. And I know a lot of fellow bloggers have already been tagged with memes, some multiple times. I know I’m supposed to tag 8 other people but I’m only going to tag one.

I am tagging Amber at Blueberry Basil. Amber is relatively new in the blogosphere. She is a very talented writer and I enjoy reading her blog so I thought I would share her with you.

Getting Roasted at the Coffee Roasting Company

Sometimes I work on my blog at the local coffee house.

They have free Internet access and the best coffee in town.

This is not your Starbucks or your Peets—this is one of the first coffee houses in California. It is the best place to peoplewatch, and now they’ve opened an adjacent cheese and wine café. What more could you ask for?

How about free spine-chilling entertainment—Sort of a performance art thing with you as one of the players?

This is how I like to look at what happened today while I was diligently working on my blog. Well O.K. I was also having coffee with a couple of my favorite friends. But at the moment the “entertainment” happened, I was busily writing, writing, writing.

I looked toward the doorway into the room that holds the actual coffee roaster and I saw a panicked looking coffee barista standing in the threshold. She mouthed something to the head barista behind the counter on the other side of the wall from the roaster. He ran into the roaster room and than sprinted out and past me. I was sitting near the front door to the coffee house and the doorway into the cheese and wine café. He ran into the café.

I looked into the roaster room and noticed a thick layer of smoke blanketing the ceiling. Then the head barista and another gentleman sprinted back past me and back into the roaster room again. I saw flames and then I heard the sound of a fire extinguisher. White vapor from the extinguishers billowed out from the roaster room. I still had my hands on my keyboard and I was still typing. Sort of like I do when I watch bad TV. The TV is just sort of background noise. It doesn’t interfere with my work; it’s just something to look up at every few minutes. I looked around the coffee house and everybody was doing the same thing. They were all typing on their keyboards. Some of them didn’t even notice there was a fire in the next room.

Fear, Loathing and the Potato Bug

It all started with a big, ugly, slimy bug that my kids found in their bathroom cabinet. How did it get into their bathroom cabinet? I don’t know and I don’t want to think about it or I may start screaming and I wont be able to stop.
Yes three days ago my two boys came running out of their bathroom screaming “Mom, There’s a potato bug in the bathroom.” My eight year old looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said “Mommy, with you please get that bug out of my bathroom.” I looked down at him reassuringly and said “No.”
Ick, are you kidding? I was raised with snakes. I’ve had rats and ferrets, lizards and Opossums. I’ve held alligators and hissing cockroaches, Giant millipedes and walking sticks. But I wont touch a potato bug, otherwise known as a Jerusalem cricket
They are creepy.

Mermaids Just Want to Have Fun. The Mermaid Triathlon

There are some days that stand out as some of the best in your life. Sunday was one of those days for me. I ran the Santa Cruz Mermaid Triathlon as a team member of a relay team with two of my friends.


My team

The weather was stellar. It was a bit cold in the morning but as the sun rose, the air warmed up to the mid-seventies, the sky was blue and there was no wind.

Running the Mermaid Triathlon is like running with 500 of your closest friends. I passed a woman on the way to the finish line and she said. “You’re doing great.” If I had any air in my lungs I would have said, “Thanks, so are you.” As it was, I just sort of grunted and then splashed sweat on her as I passed. She was so gracious I almost slowed down and got behind her again. I said almost.

The swimmers swam a quarter mile around the sunken cement ship before running up the stairs to the transition area on top of the bluff above the ocean.

Swimmers coming up the steep stairs from the beach

The Jungle Run

These are my friends/neighbors Lisa and Jodi, with whom I ran the Jungle Half Marathon yesterday.

Yes, they are younger. Yes, they are more beautiful. And yes, they sweat less than I do. I figure if I’m going to embarrass myself trying to run 13 miles, I might as well run next to them and look really old and sweaty in the process.

Our other neighbor, the famous Mike Willie, author of the Dona Tomas cookbook also ran. Here is the humiliating part. He ran this course, which is part off-road, with a few little hills scattered about, in 1 hour 41 minutes.

Now some of you are thinking that’s not great time—I know lots of runners who can do better than that—and the truth is Mike himself could have done much better than that if he wasn’t pushing his two children in a double-baby-stroller the entire way.

As it was, Mike came in almost a whole hour ahead of us.

Mike’s wife was out of town, so super dad that he is he decided to pack his two boys up, get them dressed and fed, bring snacks and juice and all that kid stuff. He hauled himself and his kids down to the start line around 6:30 in the morning and ran 13 miles, yawn, oh just another lazy day for Mike.

His kids fell asleep and stayed that way for almost the entire race. My kids would have bailed out somewhere around mile .07 looking for some electronic device to keep them pacified.

At the start of the race Lisa, Jodi and I had big plans. We were going to run a marathon, marathon in Italy. Yah, that’s it, we were going to fly somewhere exotic every year and run a marathon there.

At the end of the race, as we passed mile 12 and headed for the finish, I turned to Jodi and Lisa and said, “Just think, if we were running a marathon now we’d almost be half way.”

Our marathon plans have been put on hold.

We are still thinking about going to someplace exotic to run a race—but right now it ain’t going to be a marathon.