The coyotes at our place have been unusually bold lately, coming within meters of the house in the middle of the day. We always ‘haze’ them to discourage their presence, yelling and chasing them. Bodie puts on a good show, but she’s getting old, and the coyotes seem to know she’s not much of a threat anymore.
I’m preparing for a trip to the Western Sierra Nevada Mountains; this book is coming with me. Quote by John Muir from the intro: “The coniferous forests of the Sierra are the grandest and most beautiful in the world, and grow in a delightful climate on the most interesting and accessible of mountain-ranges, yet strange to say they are not well known.” At minimum, I hope to learn to identify a handful of new-to-me trees while I’m there.
Our nature journal club met at Charmlee Wilderness Park last Sunday; a good time was had by all. The rattlesnake in the bathroom was a highlight!
For my tiny dancer friend.
A family of young deer walked through our garden the other morning. That’s not a rare sight in these parts, but a friend of ours only a few miles away had a black bear in his front yard, which is extremely unusual for Malibu.
On Draw with Me this week, we tackled a classic art school subject. John Singer Sargent, I am not.
High, med or low? Cass is the best SIL ever. Happy birthday, beautiful.
The gardening calendar tells me that August is the time to plant sweet potatoes, and this specimen in the veggie basket agrees. It’s going in the ground today!
Domesticated sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) have been around for a long time; they were present In Central America at least 5,000 years ago. The tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose colour can be yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, or beige. Its flesh ranges from beige through white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, and purple. Sweet potato cultivars with white or pale yellow flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink or orange flesh.
Although darker sweet potatoes are often referred to as “yams” in parts of North America, the species is very distant from true yams. I love the name “kumara” (emphasis on the first syllable) which I learned from my Kiwi friends.
While I love to cook meals, I’m not much of a baker, probably because I don’t usually eat baked goods. But I can rise to the occasion if requested.
hashiworks 