Anna's Warm Place In The Sun

My girl friend Anna understands the concept of radiant heat transfer, conduction, passive solar heating, and that our cats are indoor felines who won't be attempting to "hunt" her outside.  This window's upper framing ledge, visible from our living room, is directly over the South facing Master Bedroom window.  6 feet below, and about 2 feet behind Anna, one of our cats is slumbering in the sun as well, getting a healthy dose of vitamin D. 

In the summer time, the radiant heat that pours off this stucco/concrete wall (common throughout the Phoenix valley in residential construction) can be felt about 3 feet away, akin to an oven.  In a 40F ambient (as was the case when this photo was taken) the radiant heating was detectable to about a foot away.  I am glad to be able to provide warm sanctuary to my tiny, avian, lovely little girl friend.

Bang On The Drum

Third day back to work after a 3 and a 1/2 week vacation... motivation is hard to find.

Thank you Mr Rundgren.
At least my boss is not a jerk...  Outside of compensation, 90% of job satisfaction is WHO you work FOR and WHO you work WITH, and just 10% is WHAT you do.

Playlist Gadget Addition

I was sick and tired of hearing the Orange Man on NPR today, so I turned off the radio, and booted up my playlist.  After tinkering for a little while, I figured out how to add it to my blog as a gadget.  I've DISABLED the AUTOPLAY, for those of you who do not want to hear X'a "New World" everytime you log in.

Let me know if you like having it there, in the left hand side bar.

Futile Attempts to Thwart Mother Nature, AZ

I THOUGHT I was well prepared for the cold snap last week here in Arizona.  I had

December 30th Afternoon

- boxes to cover plants
- rocks to hold the boxes down (against the wind)
- old bed sheets
- 32 oz stryofoam cups
- rolls of blue "painters tape" to secure the cups on less stout plants
- light permeable "frost cloths" from Elgin Nursery
- a garage with room enough to store potted plants and utility lights to warm the area around the plants
...and I was on vacation, so I had ample time to apply all of these devices and techniques.  I foolishly thought I could overcome Mother Nature with my human ingenuity, energy, cognition, and persistence.  Silly me.

Dec 30th Afternoon

Now, after the cold spell, the following observations can be made:
- boxes to cover plants work, use big enough rocks to secure the boxes

The incorrect way to apply a "frost cloth", as it does not extend all the way to the ground around the palm.

- "frost cloths" need to cover not just the leaves of the plant, but go from the top of the plant down to the ground, to "lock in" the ground's latent heat, or the cold air will just swirl under the cloth and attack the plant.
- styrofoam cups on mexican fence post cacti arms are fine, but
- styrofoam cups over aloe, honeysuckle, or hibiscus blossoms are a FAILURE
- bed sheets, when weighted down sufficiently by rocks, can be a temporarily effective means of resisting frost
- the garage stayed in the 50s, adjacent to the house, and the plants in the garage did just fine.
The concept, is to
a) retain latent plant heat
b) retain latent ground heat around the plant
c) prevent cold & moist air from settling on the leaves and stems of the sensitive plants
The nice thing about the "frost cloth" is that you can leave it in place over multiple nights, as the sunlight can "filter through" it to help the plant.  The bad thing about it, is it is $15 a sheet (15 foot x 10 foot).

The concept is not as easy to apply as one would think.  Wrestling a 250 square foot cloth over a 6 foot tall palm single-handedly is very frustrating.  Trying to secure 32 oz cups to delicate flowering plants only damages.  Securing 32 oz cups to a structure - like a pool fence - is possible using painter's tape, but it is not entirely practical or effective.

So now I must practice Ksanti (kṣānti'  or  patience) and not prune my damaged garden until the weather is appreciably warmer.  Let Nature take her course, slowly but surely.  

32 oz styrofoam cups can effectively insulate the tips of the arms of cactus. For larger arms, I used cardboard boxes.  Unfortunately, the smallest box of cups I could buy at Costco was Qty 500.

Put Down those Clippers!

Pruned Basil that is now wiped out from recent low temps.

Ok, so the 3 nights of "below 32F" temperatures have passed here in Arizona (Dec 30th, 31st, and January 1st nights), and maybe your plants are as damaged as mine despite your best efforts to preserve them, but DO NOT prune back the damaged plants yet! 

Wait until
- all the danger of another frost is past (Spring)
- the damage to each plant is clearly 'sealed off' by the remaining living plant, and new growth is visible beneath or adjacent to the existing damage
Yes, the damage may be ugly, and it might bother you (as it does me), but every reliable bit of horticultural advice I've read (here, here, here, and here) clearly says to wait to prune.  Pruning re-opens wounds and makes plants more vulnerable to further damage.  Pruning also stimulates growth hormone in plants, and drives them to put out new shoots which can be severely damaged if the weather gets cold again.

Previously glorious Honeysuckle

Also, I noticed, the plant damage in my backyard was relatively minor on the mornings of the 31st and 1st, when the dew points were down in the teens. But on the morning of the 2nd, when the night time temperatures were HIGHER than they were on the previous 2 nights, the damage was MORE severe.  My theory on this, is that it is NOT the temperature variable alone that matters, but rather the temperature combined with the relative humidity (the dew point).
--------- min Temp --- Dew Point
Dec 30th     38                27  
Dec 31st     32                17
Jan 1st        30                16
Jan 2nd       32                22 (minor frost seen on walls and leaves)
Jan 5th        37                34 (actual frost seen on street parked car wind shields)

As the Dew Point increased, and the ambient temperature decreased (see the graphs at each link above, on the green and red lines) the propensity for FROST increased.  Dec 30th and 31st were colder, but there was no actual deadly-to-plants ice crystals visible on the foliage.  January 1st, you could see small amounts of white frost on the cinder block border walls, and tiny flecks of white on some leaves, prior to the sun melting them.  January 2nd morning, the plant damage was not just decimation (one out of ten) but much more widespread.  So it ain't the dry bulb temperature, it's the wet bulb temperature, the dew point, that really matters here in the desert in the winter, combined with a cold ambient.  Take the moisture out of the air, and the plant won't be attacked from the outside.  Lower the temperature enough to crystallize the water internal to the plant's structure, and you can rupture the rigid cell walls from the inside-out, but this takes longer to do than external ice formation..

Some aloe froze, others adjacent did not.

Hibiscus is 90% lost.

New Lemon shoots, burnt by frost

Protecting the aloe flowers didn't matter.

Lantana is 95% lost

Kill The Reasonable Moderates?

Steve Inskeep interviews (link here) Rashid Rahman, editor of Pakistan's Daily Times after the funeral and burial of Punjab province Governor Salman Taseer who was killed by a cowardly fundamentalist assassin - shot repeatedly in the back with an AK-47.  The proud, deranged, grossly misguided - and perhaps insane -  assassin failed miserably in his sworn duty as a body guard to protect the governor, and decided instead to narrowly interpret the Koran as he saw fit, murdering a respected, elected official, who he judged as being a defender of "blasphemers against Islam."

This is akin to a "Christian [TM]" sniper shooting a gynecologist who gives abortions, an IRA bomber murdering a policeman, a Nazi SS member killing a Jew, or a Sunni killing a Shia (whom the most radically fundamentalist Wahhabi Sunnis consider heretics).  It's madness.  Pure, evil, visceral human hatred, fueled by misguided fundamentalist religion.  Except this time, instead of just an individual, this inept, disloyal, cowardly, pathetic, sad little boy who thought he was a man killed a vocal, moderate leader.  Maybe the moderate majority of main stream Pakistanis who can no longer stomach their vocal fundamentalist minority country-men will start to stand up against such violent extremism.  Or maybe, the assassin will be let go with a slap on the wrist, with friends in the ISI.

Papaya? Papay-no.

Before Christmas, I was shopping for Mexican Mangoes at Costco, and found none - Northern Hemisphere growing season was over, only South American growers offered Mangoes and others fresh produce.  Not wanting to encourage high carbon foot print transcontinental fruit consumption, I did not purchase the Peruvian Mangoes Costco had.

Costco DID have Papaya from Belize.  They were HUGE.  That's an 8 inch (203 mm) blade shown in the photo to the left, on my largest Schnitzelbank (cutting board).  I'd never brought or prepared a papaya before, so I contacted my friend Dr.Claudia, who used to summer in Columbia as a child for suggestions.  To my surprise, Dr.C didn't like papaya either - though she does share my love of mango - but she contacted her mother who is a strong papaya advocate.


Her advice:
- Don't eat the bitter skin, though it Does have significant health benefits.
- Don't eat the bitter seeds
- Cut up the pink-orange meaty pulp into bite sized pieces
- Serve with other fruit (which initially confused me... since mango is great all by itself).  Honey or other sweet toppings are optional.
- Enjoy the health benefits of eating papaya

The proteolytic enzymes which are rich in papaya assist in digestion.  My reasonable acupuncturist, who is a vegetarian but understands not everyone wants to be one or can be one also recommends eating papaya or taking papaya enzyme tablets after eating meat.  Many Thai restaurants shred the skins of papaya to make "salad" which has a nearly instantaneous and powerful effect of sometimes sending non-Thai diners like myself directly to the rest room, it works so well in "aiding digestion", so I was careful to skin off all the fibrous skin.

So I got the massive fruit all chopped up while Dr Desert Flower was at work and our son was visiting / recuperating with us in our home, and prepared several bowls of fruit salad using some canned Trader Joe's mandarin oranges (from Spain, not from China) I had in the back of the pantry, and a bag of frozen cubed mango which I'd nearly forgotten we had in the bottom of the freezer, bought over a year ago.  Having no whipped cream, I opted for a dollop of Cool Whip on each bowl.

How well did it work?  Eh.  Dr Desert Flower wouldn't finish hers, and picked out the pink papaya pieces.  Our son said succinctly "It tastes like medicine".  Honestly, I had to agree with him.

The sweetest part of the fruit, immediately adjacent to the seed pocket cavity, were "slightly sweet" and palatable.  Once you moved a 1/2 inch away from the center, the meat was bitter, and unpleasant.  yes, it's very possible this was not the world's most ripe papaya, but I'd let it sit for 3 weeks, immediately beside the bananas to share the ethylene oxide out-gassing in a futile attempt to hasten the ripening.  Somewhere between harvest and kitchen, my papaya was dropped, as evidenced by a dark bruised area that began to locally "rot" in a one inch oval, so waiting to cut it up was not an option.

I scooped out the remaining papaya pieces, and put them on a plate under the hummingbird feeders, hoping to entice the Gila Woodpecker who frequents our feeders to enjoy the tropical fruit.  He showed no interest in the plate of pink pulp, and after 3 weeks of 'drying in the Arizona air', defeated, I tossed the mummified papaya-turned-desiccant into the trash heap.

Mangoes? Yes.  Papaya? Papay-No.  I won't be attempting another papaya culinary creation again.

Monarchs at the DBG

On this chilly Tuesday morning here in the desert, thought it would be nice to share some warmth and beauty.

No, I Must Not Read This

I am sorry, but when I hear "You Must Read This" on NPR, I cringe, steel myself, and rail against most of which the author who is speaking says.  Sure, some of the books they mention are good books if you like fiction (primarily, what they talk about it fiction), but "must read" ?  Who is NPR, or any author, to tell me what I Must and Must Not read?  I'll read whatever I would like to read, or care to read, but rarely will I ever read what I am told I "must read". 

The concept of promoting good books and interesting authors is fine, but do not tell me I "must read" something.  MAYBE someone originally meant this to be "tongue in cheek", but I've heard dozens of authors inthe afternoon promote their favorite "must reads" and they seem so myopically focused as to actually believe the imperative, "you must!" - a myopic author?  Yeah, who'd have thought there were any of those.

Blue Sky Mining

While I was doing Yoga in the back yard poolside just after Christmas, I snapped this photo as I reflected back at how during the three years I visited China ('99-01) I never once saw a clear blue sky in that country.  Here in Phoenix, where we have abundant sunshine - as well as abundant desert wind blown dust and 4 or so million cars driving around - we still have beautiful blue skies over-head.  Some days, sure, there's temperature inversions and the snog near the horizon is pretty thick, but over head, one can still see BLUE, not gray, or haze, or overwhelming pollution.

When I am in a transcontinental flight, up around 35K or 39K feet, I always try and spot "the horizon" to see if it is distinguishable.  So far, in the US and in Europe, I've been able to "find it" most of the time.  In China, if you were below the clouds of smog, you could never tell where the ground was, much less the horizon, and if you were above the clouds (like on a Hong Kong to Chengdu flight), the amount of sunlight being reflected back up was blinding, causing air travelers to reflexively wince and immediately close their window shades. 

I hope the new Republican Congress majority doesn't roll back the hard fought environmental legislation that helps to keep the skies in America blue, and "relatively" free of smog - compared to our Chinese counterparts.

Perhaps By The 7th Washing?

Recently, I tried to "support the little guy" and go with Seventh Generation's automatic dishwasher gel instead of the usual Palmolive we typically use. Target carries it, and Colgate-Palmolive is a huge multi-national that is not hurting for profits (15 Billion in revenue and 3.73 Billion in profits)m and I've always had a "soft spot" for the under-dog (like The Cubs, and usually Da Bears), so I thought "Why Not?"

Well, in our GE dishwasher, using Arizona water treated by our water softener, washing our normal dirty dishes, Seventh Generation Does Not Work.  Avocados, left over egg residue, cheese residue, microwaved or not, anything that has not been pre-washed by hand in the sink goes through a full dishwasher cycle - perhaps even 2 cycles - and comes out nearly as dirty as it went in.   I have no love of "pre-washing" dishes, that's why I have an automatic dishwasher.  And besides, pre-washing them uses up more water and more energy (to heat the water) and time.  So I declare Seventh Generation dishwashing gel, in our home, with out dishwasher, a failure.

If you'd like the 9/10ths full container, and it works well for you, let us know.  We'll be more than happy to give it to you.  I picked up a new low phosphorous Palmolive container last week at Target, and it once again works great.

Unsupervised Children Will Be Eaten

At the "Welcome Center" on I-10 as you cross over from California into Arizona, there's this lovely little sign:

We found this to be "scary" the first time we ever drove into Arizona in the summer of 2007.  Now, we see it as amusing and perhaps practical.  Though we've never seen a scorpion or poisonous snake in our yard, we have seen 4 and 6 foot diamond back rattle snakes in the Mayo Clinic parking lot, trying to get warm on the black top on a cool Fall evening, and one of our neighbors did find a dead scorpion in one of their planters.  Though I hiked all over the Gila Mountain range in South Mountain Park, just north of the Gila River, I never once saw a Gila Monster.  I Have been bitten by a black widow here in Arizona, but heck, we had black widows back in South Carolina too!

...and if you want to walk your dog, off a leash, at a Interstate Rest Stop, make sure you've got a wide array of anti-venom, for various snakes, lizards, spiders, and scorpions for your precious little pup. 

Green Eyed Obese Geriatric Lady

Dr Desert Flower's 16 pound geriatric paranoid cat - afraid of her own shadow, door bells, children, foot steps, etc - was lounging at the foot of the bed last weekend, when the setting sun hit her eyes "just right". 

She's almost a Russian Blue, but her eyes are green - and she has no pedigree papers being a shelter rescue.  If she wasn't so paranoid, and obsessed with suckling her own nipples LOUDLY (usually while we are trying to sleep) due to being taken from her mother before she was fully weaned (our Bloomington IN Vet Sherri once guessed) won, she'd be an awesome cat.  Luckily DDF doesn't hear the feline slurping suckling... lol!

The cat's eye color inspired me to look up Sugar Loaf's "Green Eyed Lady" for future reference here.  Sweet base line, but the drums are lacking and the guitar, anemic. Gotta love the jammin' 1970s electric organ!

Palm Springs Gayborhood Sunday Brunch

The day after Christmas, Dr Desert Flower and I drove from La Quinta to Palm Springs, to seek out a delicious brunch.  We had our radar set for Cheeky's (as in Cheeky Monkey) due to the positive Yelp reviews, but they were closed on December 26th.  Luckily, Jake's was open, just 2 doors down, and we were early enough to Just Preempt the Sunday Brunch lunch.
 
Now keep in mind, this was our first time to Palm Springs ever, and while we are familiar with Phoenix's Central Gayborhood, we'd never knew that Palm Springs had such a vibrant Gayborhood as well.  the weather was a lil chilly - in the upper 50s and lower 60s, but not unpleasantly so.  Jake's was busy, but Bruce Bloch (proprietor) was doing a wonderful job of keeping his guests' beverages refilled, complimentary cookies and treats flowing, and bills arriving promptly.  The service was customer centric, the food delicious with generous portions (and relatively low carb, when choosing the '3 eggs any way you want them') and not expensive at all for a Sunday Brunch. The Mighty Lead tea was organic and sustainable. - we were sort of glad that Cheeky's was closed in retrospect.  Only complaint was the one stall unisex bathroom, which did not afford enough capacity for the coffee and tea filled customers - though the rest room was artfully decorated! =)

After a leisurely brunch, we sauntered down the street (California 111 Business) and crossed to visit Café Chocolate Palm Springs - an amazing chocolate shop where the fine chocolates were little pieces of art.  This chocolate shop sits beside a place called "Corridor", which is a breezeway leading to a hidden courtyard.  As we walked into the sunny courtyard, Dr Desert Flower and I became immediately aware of our obvious heterosexuality.  We were not bears, or in leather, or walking our little fru-fru-doggies, or lounging happily with our life partner having a pleasant picnic on the grass - add a head dressed Indian and a Construction Worker and all the Village People would have been there.  It was a nice little microcosm, and we did not feel "out of place" or "ostracized" in any way, but as we walked into just fabulous "fabulous gifts for fabulous people" and I saw a copy of the Penis Pokey Activity Book prominently displayed, I could not contain my laughter.  Yes, they had all the ripped washboard abs fire-fighter calendars, and artys posters, hip music, hilarious cards full of innuendo and such, but we did not purchase any items as we browsed, it was a very amusing shop.

So while La Quinta appears to be populated with many older, conservative, golfing type of people, Palm Springs has a healthy population of Sunday Brunch goers who are less elderly, more fashionable, much more eclectic, friendly, and apparently much more tolerant...and way so fabulous.

Nostalgic Idiocracy

Yesterday, NPR had a severe case of nauseating nostalgic retrospective, "looking back at the year 2010".  Everything from "who should be remembered who died this year" to "the most influential politician" (THAT roused some real nut cases to call in and voice whatever was inside their numb-teabag-skulls) to "Rhianna had 4 #1 hits, more than any one else".  As I drove to Ace Hardware (they're so nice, and much more helpful than Lowes or Home Depot), Target, and the gas station running errands, I could NOT take the Idiocractic Focus pouring from KJZZ, and turned my dial.

On X 103.9 they introduced the Weezer song "Pork and Beans", that Rivers Cuomo wrote after a meeting with his record label's executives where they told him he needs to write more approachable, more pop-appealing songs, 'you know, like Justin Timberlake'.  I did not know the back-story behind this song, but now that I do, I like it even more - which is a good thing because Dr Desert Flower seems to play Weezer nearly incessantly on her Ipod in the car and on the stereo here, chez nous.  =)

First Frost For Phoenix this Winter

Alliteration - heh heh.  It's going to get cold tomorrow night, and have a hard frost here for the first time this winter.  All of the blossoms on my lemon tree will be wiped out, as there is no way to cover a 15 foot tall thorny tree (oh ya, lemon trees are the only citrus that have Christ-Crown-Of-Thorns-Like spikes on the branches, go figure).  I spotted by the helpful Elgin Nursery yesterday to get some frost cloth and discuss plant hardiness.  They staff there is VERY knowledgeable, friendly, and customer centric.  The lavender we have was purchased there as well.  We discussed strategies for protecting desert plants against a hard frost, here in zone 9 & 10. (Also see links here and here and here [9B] and here [AZ] for more zone information, and here for surprisingly balmy Euro zones, thanks to the Gulf Stream).


I was very focused on "hardy down to ____ temperature" and the fine people at Elgin were nice to say "Yes, But....".  As in, "Yes, they will survive, they will live, down to such and such a temperature, but your plants WILL Burn and be damaged by the cold temperatures."  Elgin was also clear to point out that even though the Glendale or Goodyear or Sky Harbor airports might report one temperature, locally on your property the temperature might be 5 or 10 degrees colder, depending on sun exposure, wind speeds and directions, residual latent heat, etc.  So to be proactive (or perhaps slightly over-reactive) I purchased a box of 32 ounce insulated cups - sadly Costco was the only place to get them, and I had to get 500.  The cups will go on the tops of each cactus arm, as well as groups of aloe blossoms and lantana blossoms.  I may try to cover the honeysuckle as well, but with it now taller than the 6 foot fence, seeking the sun, I doubt the cups will really work.  I have several rolls of blue painter's tape to secure groups of cups together as well.  The 2 frost cloths will cover 2 of my dwarf palms, and many old queen sized & twin sized bed sheets, as well as landscaping tarps to cover other plants.  Of course, all of this will have to be put on in a 40-to-50F rain storm with 20 mph gusts (NOAA link here), so that'll be alot of fun!

My girl friend Anna will be very confused by all the cups and tarps - AND I will have to take the hummingbird feeders down so they don't freeze - but on Saturday everything will come back off, and hopefully most of the blossoms will have survived.

I was saving up links in a notepad file, but to make them more available and useful for others, here's a list of what I dug up on the interwebs yesterday.  If you have only one of these in your yard, you might want to take precautions.  I'm going to go all out, and try everything possible to preserve the growth I've worked so hard to nurture.  It helps me to forget how far underwater my home mortgage is, when I see all the green and blossoms around the yard. 

Sago Palm -15 to 110 (here) and 10F (here) [Many thanks to Dave's Garden, The DBG, and the City of Scottsdale for the helpful links!]

Dwarf (Pigmy) Date Palm Phoenix Roebelenii, hardy to 25F (link here and here) for short periods

Milkweed, down to 25F (here)

Aloe Vera, 21-30F (here)

Hildmann's Cereus (Botanical Name: Cereus hildmannianus) 21-30F (here)
AKA - Mexican Fence Post Cactus

Lantana, 21-30F (here)

Honeysuckle, 10F (here)

Jasmine, 20F (here)

Rosemary, 20F (here)

Winter Vacation Breakfast Chez Moi

1/4 organic, local, red onion, chopped
1/4 organic, local, red pepper, chopped
1/4 organic, local, green pepper, chopped
2 crimini (stuffable) Trader Joe's mushrooms, chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 large local, humanely raised, organically fed chicken eggs
Sautee veggies and butter, until onions change color, on medium heat.  Scramble the 4 eggs.  Add eggs to sauteed veggies.  Cook to your preference of runny-or-not-runny.
Enjoy, and don't eat again until dinner.  Yum.

Knee Knockin

About 10 months ago, I started noticing that when I lay in bed on my side, my knees "knock", bone against bone.  When I was well over 16 stone, my knees could not touch, with fat, fleshy thighs keeping them apart.  Now that I am much closer to 14 stone, and riding the stationary bike & hiking all over the valley both this winter and last, the unexpected secondary result is bone upon bone knee contact.  I guess I'll know if I start to get more rotund again if the knee-to-knee contact goes away.

The feline foot warmer can be seen at the very top of the photo.  We Might have to turn on our furnace this evening, if the house dips much below 65F.  So far, it's been steady and stable at 72F, throughout the month of December.

Threadless Zombies

 
Last Year, my son and I enjoyed watching Zombieland in the theater. It was hilarious. This year, for Christmas, my son got me a "In Case Of Zombies" T-shirt from Threadless[TM] and the "Zombie Awareness Council".  Last year, I would have fit in an Extra Large comfortably.   This year, a Medium would fit much better- thanks to the good example my friends Ron and Matt showed me.  The extra large fits me more like a kaftan, but that's fine for sleeping.

#5 "Show No Mercy. She's Not Your Mother Anymore" - LOL!

#6 - looks like Dale Gribble

#8 - nice use of a cricket bat.

Our Hajj is Complete

Last Weekend, we completed our Fifth Pillar Koranic Obligation to complete the Hajj, and visited Mecca while we were in South West California.

It was one our way back from the Salton Sea, where we had HOPED to see flocks of migratory water fowl, but instead just found a brackish inland lake, with an occasional seagull (not a whole Flock of Seagulls).

Note: if you are in Mecca, and attempting to head East towards the I-10 on Box Canyon Road, do not waste your time.  The bridge has been washed out by the recent heavy rains that Southern California has experienced.  Turn around, drive back up to Coachella, and put an extra 10 miles on your vehicle.  There's no short cut here in December 2010.