A Day of the Dead Altar

...good to have them at the table. I have a small silver pitcher holding rain water. It is traditional to have refreshment for visiting spirits. It also represents the element of water. And along the lines of refreshments, I also have a bottle of good Scotch up there, of which most of my ancestors would highly approve. It also brings a bit of the Celtic into the mix. A small felt Doberman, a toy portrait of our late, much beloved dog, Spike. Ofrendas...

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Preparing For El Niño Storms

...pletely clogged with loose asphalt roofing material. Channeled some of the water from our gutters to the backyard garden. Since our house is on the hill I have to send the rest of the water down to the street, unfortunately. Made sure to have working flashlights with fully charged batteries. Our electricity has gotten increasingly unreliable over recent years. Charged the 2 meter ham radio (it’s also a scanner). Got a supply of dry goods that can...

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Dry Climate Vegetables

...the seeds we buy for our vegetable gardens are adapted to require lots of water. One solution is to find veggies that have reseeded accidentally without supplemental irrigation. Here’s a short list of reseeding rogue veggies from our garden that have thrived with just the small burst of rain we got last month. New Zealand Spinach The one I’m most excited about is New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides). It’s reappeared for at lest three y...

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Growing Pink Oyster Mushrooms

...d, you use it to inoculate bags of straw that have been pasteurized in hot water. I think we ended up with something like 16 small bags of straw divided between our group. Keep the bags inoculated in step 3 in a humid environment with some indirect light and wait for them to fruit. This all sounds a lot harder than it actually was. Oyster mushrooms have a reputation for easily out-competing molds that can tank other mushrooms. The culture we used...

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