charlie-walker

Though I have never met Anita Endrezze in person, she has been one of those women in my life that brings something special for just knowing her. She is a published Writer, and has one of those spirits that you just want to get to know. I accidently met her on the internet while I was trying to get some informations from a site we both had visited. I guess after the third attempt of trying to post she wrote me to tell me that she had never really been successful at this site. We have been communicating ever since. She is like my muse, she’ll tell me about a project and I get interested and then all of a sudden I’m painting something. She lately has been meeting with a group of women and they did Altered Books.

Then this weekend she took a Mandala class and did this incredible drawing. I love this idea.

You might check out her books and website

While out on my route today, I saw one of my gardeners pulling the shoots off the end of her pumpkins, so just before I left her garden plot I asked what she did with them. She said in her culture they take the tips of the pumpkin shoots and blanch them and strip the membrane and then when they have enough to make soup. They don’t do anything with the pumpkin itself they just use the shoots. She uses coconut milk, chicken, and pumpkin shoots. She says it’s simple but good. She also gave me a jar of kimchee base and rice seasoning for California rolls it. I really enjoy all the different people I meet.
It’s funny just before I started this job I drew a pencil sketch of a women that reminds me of Priscilla - here it is below. Also, if you try the pumpkin soup let me know what you think?

Well I’m getting ready to go to OFF (the Oregon Flock and Fiber Show). It’s September 22,23,24 and I can’t wait. To get ready for the event I have been trying to keep my fleece as clean as possible, but it’s hard to keep all the vegetable matter out of their coats. This is especially difficult with them desperately trying to get to the feed while you try to miss them as you hit the feeder like your a quarter back from fifteen yards away. If you have ever dealt with goats you’d understand. I usually throw a pile of alfalfa some where to distract them but sometimes they know all my tricks and they don’t fall for it.

Sara my youngest niece was helping me today she loves the ranch and she likes to help. It was her birthday so we went to a movie (Scarey House) and then came home to work with the goats. I was going to try and bathe them but it was a little cool and didn’t want them to get sick. These babies have excellent coverage and I’m pleased with their size. This goat here, Duncan, seems to bringing something new to my herd.

This is the time of the year that the County has to do a idodine bath with the Granny Smith Apples to see if they are ready; the County releases them when the starch content is at 2.5 or better. Chris (the new biologist on the team) and Patty work on this project together. They went out to the field and took random sampling from different areas. The apples are not ready yet as you can tell they need more white to be ready. The the center of the fruit should be white and the pattern in the center of the apple should resemble a white pansy similar to the one Patty is pointing at.

Here is Patty showing off her starch chart.

Last year the records showed that the apples at the same time were at 3.5. One other interesting fact is that at 2.5 or higher the apples will continue to ripen when they are picked but if you pick them before that they will not.

This was a pretty eventful week, I talked to a farmer on a new property for me. He had a great story about how the swallows every year around this time start lining up on the telephone wires. It begins with one or two and then as the weeks go on he gets more and more. He says they glean the fields and eat. I wonder if the birds all show up for the food and then make there way back home to San Juan Capistrano for the winter. I wonder if it’s like our Portuguese festas where we all show up, eat, and migrate to the next one.
Well like I told you everyday as a bug trapper I am looking for a needle in a haystack. The scavanger hunt today was like the day you go to the house and the lady at the door has everything you need. I walked over to my gypsie moth trap which is in the middle of Gursky Ranches walnut orchard. I walked up to the trap and looked in to see a Gypsy moth in the trap. At first I thought, wow! It was much bigger then I expected. It was easy to identify with it brush like atennas. You can’t mistake it for anything else. So I took the trap down and called our office to report the find. Then I was back on my way. I got to this site that is new - it’s an area that I had set a new trap in. I looked in the melon trap and sure enough there was a Melon Fruit Fly. In my Med Fly trap there were pieces of a Med fly, it had been twenty days since my last rotation so a spider had been feeding on it. If I hadn’t seen parts of the wings I might not have brought it in to be identified. I also found a Oriental Fruit fly in my OF trap. It is really fun to find the bugs that the State puts out for you. I was really afraid that I would miss them but I got lucky and didn’t miss any. I will be taking pictures so you can see them soon.

I am working on a painting for Don and Gail. It’s the first time I have used a full sheet of water colored paper. The paper is 22 inches by 32 inches. I think it’s taken me about seven hours. I have really enjoyed it.

I was a little hyped by my bug find. Only to find out that my partner not only found his Mexican Fruit Fly but he also found a Gypsy Moth, Oriental, and Med fly. Well so much for my skills, so today I was sure I would find another - but no …nothing. I am little worried, but I just have to be careful and go through those traps with a discerning eye.

Here is a picture of my partner, George.

That’s what makes my job fun. I don’t know if I’m going to find a bug or if the state is going to plant a bug so every day I go to work looking desparately into a pan of flies making sure that no bug escapes.

Today I was driving a borrowed truck. I’ve had a little bit of a truck issue since I started. The first truck was in the shop about 3 times. Then my second truck which I really like had a week of weird things happen. I had the mirror in the 118 degree heat fall off in my lap, and the emergency brake handle come off in my hand and my water tank sprung leaks from all the seams. I got a 2001 truck and was so grateful but then the battery went dead in it. I got it jump started from one of the biologist in the office and was driving it down to where they work on our trucks in Martinez when it stalled in the intersection.

Well with Matt on redial (see picture above) and me scared to death I jumped out of the truck and pushed it across Hwy 4 onto laurel; some men came running but I was so scared that I must have been running cause I was able to get it to the curb before they even got to me.

So with all the truck issues I’ve been having, I have felt pretty distracted. Today, I was trying to work with confidence and I was doing okay but still you want to work as efficently as possible and as fast as you can and not make paper mistakes or miss a bug. I was using a siph to sort the bugs from the yeast water, when I spotted what looked like a Mexican fruitfly. You use a clean pan with water to float your bugs and sure enough it was one.

I called Roxanne at our main office and told her that I had found the plant. The plants have a section of wing snipped so you can tell it’s a plant.

I was thinking you always need to paint something you love. I have this Cooke’s Wisteria that blooms three times a year in our backyard. For wisteria, this is pretty unusual as they typically only bloom once. So I think it’s one of my favorites plants. I have only been water coloring for a short time but I love to do it.