March
We visited Medford, Oregon, where Bruce gave a presentation as part of the Ashland Historic Railroad Museum’s monthly lecture series. The Medford Mail Tribune said, “Author Bruce Petty will present a slide show of historical photos of Southern Pacific’s Shasta Division at 6:30pm Friday, March 8, at the Ashland library.” Bruce’s co-author Larry Mullaly and his wife Alice live outside of town surrounded by farm land: cow pastures, alfalfa fields, and one wild elk. She has violets, daffodils, forsythia and apricot blooming.
Delicious camarones y pescadero tacos with horchata on the way out of town at Restaurant El Kora. I passed the time in the car doing easy Sudoku and working on my latest manuscript draft, an invertor in the cigarette lighter of the Explorer allowed me to use Pépe the netbook with powercord. Beautiful sunny day, warming up to 59 F or 15 C.
Professor Don Eads shared this image with us, an Obama family portrait. Left to right: Craig Robinson, Leslie Robinson, Avery Robinson, Marian Robinson, Akinyi Manners, Auma Obama, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Konrad Ng, Savita Ng, and Suhaila Ng.
April
I tested and turned on four irrigation valves today. Then I set out the downstairs bonsai. I’ve been hand watering every day for the past few weeks. Peas are well up and flowering. The Tuscan kale is finally going to flower here and there: blue crinkled leaves and bent coat hanger flower stems surmounted by a sparse spike of four-petaled yellow flowers. Purple and white lilacs are blooming on the hill. Apple blossoms scatter in the breeze drying towels on the umbrella-style solar clothes dryer.
Dustin Song Tao Zhu shares news from Beijing: Dear Petty,
How is everything going?
Now is spring, and we are enjoying the clean weather.
Last Sunday is our student festival, and was playing in one modern drama.
Here come the photos!
May
After replacing my netbook Pépe with Pépe II and all that entails with wifi accessories, printer, security downloads and reinstallation of Word … and all the rest: I finished and sent reports to the Overseas Office, finished reading my ms out loud to dear friends willing to give me the time, made improvements and sent to editor: 26,000 new words. Now I’m relaxing in the backyard, playing Sudoku, eating a sandwich and finishing my coffee from the Cornerstone Bakery.
A mature gray squirrel snuck into the yard and nibbled peanuts I had set out for the jaybirds.
Eunice Woo from Beijing shares with us: I went to the Garden Expo yesterday, know you love these stuff. This picture is the typical kind of gardens in Southern China (Jiangnan District). Here's the Expo's website: http://en.expo2013.net/cj/list.php?tid=111#5. This one from Daguanyuan, a garden, too, the TV show "The Dream of Red Mason" filmed there.
I visited this site and found it to have an excellent English version and many pages of interesting horticultural exhibits of Chinese style.
June
Beautiful veggie garden this year with tomatoes, medicinal and culinary herbs, sunflowers, marigolds, snapdragons. I planted pole lima beans with morning glory. Planted basil and more morning glory on the old pea netting. Big full moon this weekend and rain forecast.
July
Just groovin’ on the porch. The sun went down behind Mt. Bradley an hour ago. The sky is still light and the air is fresh and pleasantly warm at 79 F or 26 C. Listening to Grover Washington “Just the two of us.”
Finished my manuscript Beijing Abduction. YAY! Now, I’m looking for an agent who will represent me to a publisher. Every day I send a Query Letter and samples of my writing. We call this a numbers game. The more query letters I send the greater are chances I will find the right agent.
Dunsmuir Brewery
Not so busy now. I go to the lake with my husband to the lake or Farmers’ Market. Thursday after 3:30pm, the Dunsmuir Growers’ Market takes over the corner next to the Dunsmuir Brewery, making it convenient for locals to shop and stop for something cold to drink. The director of SAM (Siskiyou Arts Museum) Lauri Sturdivant sits across the table from local activist Joanne Steele at an impromptu party for Linda Price’s sister Tammy and Helen Cartwright’s daughter Nicole. Who needs a reason? Entertainment a string ensemble traveling from North Carolina.
Last scene at the Brewery Thursday night: Brett LaMott proprietor and chef at Café Maddalena quaffing summer ale with Bruce Petty, after shopping for new okra from Redding growers. Ted and Bonny Lou, fans of Wendy Crist, one of the organizers of the wildly successful Dunsmuir Growers’ Market. Wendy and hubbie Michael grow micro herbs at their sunny location behind the Von Hein’s place for local eateries like Café M and the Dogwood Diner. Not only fresh veggies and fruits are available but also local food items, BBQ and homemade tamales. Boomer, live, soft rock entertainment.
See you later
