Camping in the Tahoe National Forest

We went spur of the moment camping this past weekend with our new friends Jed & Ayla and had a super great time. Having lots of things to still get done at home, we only went for one day & night, but now knowing what's there, we'll stay longer next time! Only an hour away, and right by the Yuba river. Jed has his own secret place which he discovered years ago, and it's perfect. Lots of woods, right be the river and just nice. Here's a shot of the camp spot:


Before that, we went to a jeep crawl, and it was pretty interesting. Lots of red-necks and whooping it up, testosterone was everywhere. And tattoos! Keystone didn't really seem to like the noise and climbed right up in the chair, his sanctuary I guess.


Picture of one of the crawl areas:


Oops.


Heave HO!


This is steps away from our camp. The river opens up to an Olympic size pool, that's T on the right, Ayla on the left.


Certainly no delay in getting in!



Jed and Sydney.



Another angle:



Abbytail:


Amber-Boo:



The Stone man:



Stones likes getting up on things, especially with Daddy:



In ya go!!



I love this Close up:


Cruise missiles:


No doubt you've heard of the fires in California, it was very smoky:


All of the pictures can be seen here: CLICK HERE

Can't wait to go again!

Growing slowly

1st part of it is being impatient, 2nd part is putting them in the ground late, 3rd is the dirt here, 4th is the weather. Seems like my toms should be three times as tall as they are, but as I look at my blog, it has ONLY been a month, and maybe I expect too much. But then again, it's been a whole MONTH! My tallest plant is maybe a foot tall, I'm thinking it should be three. Sigh. We water every day, and they are mostly planted in a combination of Home Depot bagged stuff, so I don't get why they aren't moving. Certainly plenty of sunshine!!

Looks about the same, don't it?

Is that a bunny? The peppers seem to be happy, much happier than toms really:

An "Ace" and a coupla Early Girls already turning:

Volunteers from the compost, makes me smile!

Today I'll dig through the cabinets and find some fertilizer. I know I've got plenty of STUFF, why not use it? Today isn't windy thank God, so it's a good time.

How many plants does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Uh-One, Uh-Two, Uh-Three! Three HUNDRED I guess. Jiminy Christmas have we gone a bit nuts with plants? This is pretty much last week's haul from Costco, a local nursery and the Garden Club's fund raising sale, about 25 plants there alone. We've got about 50 others planted (including mostly the toms and peppers, but a dozen plus on the hill too) with all these left to go. Plenty on my plate, tons of holes to drill. Drilling holes sucks, rocks and boulders. More fun when it's windy too, which is most often. I think I can do tops 10 holes a day before I'm worn out. Dig, chip, pry, repeat. My hands are sore, my back is taking it fine.

Sleep Mr. Stone man... Sleeeeep.....

To disclose, I think my pups spend 90% of their day sleeping, and of course we try to make them as COMFY as possible, with at least 6 dog pillows scattered throughout the house (among 27 thousand dog toys). But ain't he CUTE! Don't it make you want to say something like fuzzy-wuzzy? Yeah, it's just Keystone on a dog pillow, but he's ma' boy and I'm proud!

Let the garden grow!!!

I like the look of my gardens so far. They ain't fancy, but I like 'em. The eventual plan for the back wall is to totally cover the cement blocks. Today, things in the big garden are a week old. Once again I probably crammed too many too close, but it's always worked, hopefully here too!!

Things are growing (OK, so three peppers have bit the dust), already got some Early Girls, and scattered other tomato buds. Basil is still teeny in the garage (planted a bit late from seed), but it grows fast. Hoping to put it in the ground in a few weeks.

I still got work to do. Cages, drip line, more rocks, and I have to figure out how I'm going to plant the bunch of onions I have, wasn't thinking of them in my design.

We've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 tomato plants and 20 peppers, which is a lot higher pepper percentage than past years, but last year the peppers were poor and I'm trying something different with them. Lots of herbs around too! Basil, thyme, rosemary, sage. Ah, I love this time of year!