Christmas Trees and The Holiday Season

I thought it prudent to split the past two weeks into two posts. You'll see why...

While staying at Brandon's place of origin, I got to experience something new and wildly exciting.

CHRISTMAS TREE FARMS! Like many mainstream families, his goes to a tree farm and there find a perfectly shaped tree to later decorate and admire in the comfort of their living room.

So we wandered around the lot, I got distracted by mushrooms, and they picked a tree while I was staring at fungus.

Our Christmas trees being such as they are, I thought ALL the trees on the lot looked marvelous. But then I clearly don't possess the discerning eye of a seasoned Christmas tree expert.

See how alluring and distracting these basidiomycetes are with their rain slicked caps and gritty stipes... We all know I could ponder on them much longer than you'd like to listen.

So they got the tree down, and carried it in.

Had the bottom trimmed, the tree baled in twine, and attached it to the top of the van. And off we went with a real official Christmas tree.

That night it got it's decorative layer added and it looked so... normal. Do most Americans have trees like this? Anyway, at some point it snowed a little too.

At some point I made it to California, got lost in the Sacramento airport, got found, and made it to Martha and Orlando's. Orlando made duck for dinner, which apparently wasn't up to his standards although I found it quite palatable.

Martha and Orlando's tree (note the use of lures)           

And then... I went back to the place of my origin... Backwater Hickville California.

There was a splendid sunrise the first morning I was home.

Being home is like being at work....

My mother offered for me to wash pots. I didn't even know that they had pots that needed washing. I gently declined (Ahhh HELL NO). So instead, I cleaned some seeds...

And then spent a dozen or so hours cleaning and organizing data (Farmer's market signs, there must be a thousand)

But otherwise, it was a pretty typical visit. I spent a lot of time harassing the family dog. She was very (un)perturbed by the extra attention and love.

Spent some more time watching her dig holes, and be snippy and jealous of her much larger cousin. 

He likes to walk really close to you, often about three feet ahead and then stop. Then he looks up at you quizzically as you trip over him, as if to ask "Why are we here, what are we doing, where are we going?" and most of all I think he wonders "Do you know where my papa is?" He belongs to Orlando, and only Orlando.

Considering dogs are supposed to reflect their owner's personalities, I can only conclude that we, as a family, are loving but jealous, attention seeking, excellent gopher hunters, love grapes, and possibly a little blind.

There was some photogenic fruit around,especially with expansion of the Tyson Hill Farm citrus empire.  Josh has been trying to grow papayas for the last few years, this year the tree still had three on it that it hadn't aborted.


Nothing like some Meyer lemons, or little insects.

Its likely that I spent an hour slowly circling this loquat tree a-buzz with bees. Of the roughly 75 pictures I took, there were about 5 really good ones. So this is my offering to the critical eye of the internet. 

One of the lemon trees was already getting its bloom on.



Oh and guess what! I found you some more mushrooms to look at! Fancy that.


Well, holiday season was upon us all, so while others cleaned, I holidayed. I made a wreath, it was about 30% larger than I meant it to be. With a little help from the real certified Rachel baker I made a Buche de Noel, mushrooms and all. The meringue in pre-mushroom form were a little... unappetizing. Just ask Orlando what he thought of them.

As you may know, being mainstream has never been our forte, so you might imagine our Christmas tree story is a bit different. There are two trees our dad must have transplanted (and nurtured or something) from which we have been cutting oddly shaped Christmas 'trees' from for several years. I thought I was going to go out with a bow saw and you know, cut myself a real nice 2D branch and haul it in. This year, we sort of needed a chain saw.

The result was a fairly typical (for us) never-to-be-recreated bizarrely shaped tree... with all the old ornaments and tied up, as ever, with a couple neon green shoelaces.

Mom decided this year's was either dancing, or Superstorm Sandy themed. 

I've mentioned before that our family doesn't mess around in the food department. I offer you evidence in the form of butter.


Mom got some tulips that lasted well over a week, and grew and grew.... They are phototrophic (light seeking) and can grow an inch per day if they feel like it. They were interesting  to watch. 

Oh and here is Rachel being a Hobbit-witch or something. I'm not sure. 

Nibbles and bits. Family silver. Christmas was a long event this year. We had stockings after breakfast, presents a while later. Then the rest of the family appeared, we had nibbles, stockings, dinner, presents, then dessert. Yep.

In case you aren't nauseated by the doggy pictures yet, here's another.

Happy Holidays from me, and Torch (the mutt) says, LEMME GO!