LAmom

I FOUND LAMB'S QUARTERS!

Here in the new house, I've been bemoaning the lack of mallow weeds in the yard.  I have bitter greens (dandelion and sow thistle), sour greens (wood sorrel), and delicate greens (chickweed, and lots of it!), but I didn't have anything I recognized that was a good sturdy, bland green to use as a salad base.

Meanwhile, this other weed was springing up back there and I watched it grow larger and larger, always wishing that I knew what it was.  Well, it has finally flowered, and the flowers gave me a clue!  They looked like Chenopodium.  A little research confirmed that I've got Chenopodium album, aka Lamb's quarters!

I'm eating a salad with them this very moment.  Cool.

DISHES I HAVE EATEN RECENTLY

• Sauteed zucchini
• Grilled squash
• Scrambled eggs with shredded zucchini
• Pasta with chunks of squash
• Crockpot chicken with squash
• Chicken and squash soup
• Zucchini walnut muffins
• Stuffed squash

Right now, there's a squash casserole in the oven.

WHY I'M GLAD TO BE BACK HOME: PART IV

Now that we have a backyard again, we've planted a few vegetables.  We tried to pick the shadiest part of the yard to plant peas, but the recent heat wave has left them looking pretty sad.  Similarly, we got no response from the carrots.  But the squash, sunflowers and turnips are looking great!  We went out this morning for our first harvesting.  JG and I got to discuss which parts of the turnip plant we eat and why ladybugs are our friends.  We picked a huge potful of turnips greens which are now in the crockpot cooking with a chicken.  Woohoo!

HEAVY CLOUD, NO RAIN

That's the title of a Sting song.  Anyway, right now we've got mad lightning flashing around our neighborhood.  It's coming a few times a minute, and it's been going on for at least an hour.  But no thunder and not a drop of rain.  Fascinating.

IT'S REALLY JANUARY

The traditional January rainstorms have begun.  I haven't heard, though, whether we're expecting this year's rainy season to be heavy or light.  Yesterday, we were without electricity for most of the day.  The boy's actually enjoyed it -- being in the darkened house listening to the rainfall.  After it cleared up, Hubby saw a container that had been left outside being used as a birdbath, but the rest of us missed it.

This morning, with the ground soaking wet, it was the perfect time to start preparing for this year's garden (you guys know how much I love the garden).  I really want to do it big this year.  I marked off a big section of the yard and started turning soil.  With no toddlers trying to eat dirt or pull up seedlings this time, it should be a little easier to focus.

It's time for another visit to my favorite seed source.  Squash, beans, and watermelon are calling my name.  Maybe I'll even try corn this year.  And I'm sure there will be some volunteer tomatoes that try to take over the garden (beware the Lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiforme, give it an inch . . .).

EXCELLENT HURRICANE PHOTOS

This is a long but unforgettable photo essay by Alvaro R. Morales Villa, who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans and went through Hurricane Katrina.

OIL BLOGGING

There's good reading right now from Emily at Strangechord.  Emily is involved in Peak Oil advocacy.  The Peak Oil theory is that we are soon approaching the end of oil that is easy and cheap to extract from the earth, and that in the future oil will be much less plentiful and exceedingly expensive, which will have a huge impact on the world's oil-dependent lifestyle.

Emily is blogging and linking about peak oil in general and about how Hurricane Katrina impacts the world of oil.  Check it out.

WE DIDN'T MAKE IT

From blogging.la:

barring any unexpected deluge before midnight, L.A. is set to come up 0.93 inches short of breaking the 38.18-inch precipitation record that's stood since the 1883-84 season.

I was really hoping we would break the record.

Anyway, SoCal summer, here we come!

FUDGING THE FACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

I'm angry but not a bit surprised.

A Bush administration official has been editing the content of environmental reports in such a way as to downplay the link between greenhouse gases and global warming.  (Here's a link to the original New York Times article; free subscription is required.)

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.

I know there isn't a snowball's chance in a globally warmed Sahara Desert that Bush will reprimand or fire the guy, but the least the administration should do is to release the unedited versions of the reports so that people can read and compare.

IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

Other people would consider our backyard a disaster, but I love it.  There's a whole cycle of life that goes on out there.  As the year progresses we see different weeds and other plants spring up, grow and flower, go to seed, and then die.  (Have I mentioned the nettleleaf goosefoot before?  The leaves are another nice addition to salads.)  Our yard attracts moths, butterflies, hummingbirds, all kinds of fascinating worms and bugs.  A discarded couch that's laying upside down near the back wall is now hosting a beehive.

Some volunteer tomato plants (descendants of seeds I planted a couple years ago) are starting to fruit already.  I did plant some new vegetable seeds in April, we'll see which ones flourish.  But right now, it's just beautiful out there.  Warm and vibrant and chaotic and humming and full of life.