latest obsession

my housemate's juicer...

yes, bring me fresh carrot+orange/tangerine+apple. throw in a beet or two to make it a homemade vampiro. So. Good. Yes, I deal with cleaning every nook and cranny of the juicer in the mornings because it's just so right.

tillage

some times a day's work is really good. 

sometimes there's a tour of rolling oak wonderlands, with coyotes and red eagles by someone who feels every inch of the land in his bones. a man who will haul ass up a rocky steep hill in his huge pick-up barely looking at the road and then screech to a halt to point out a baby oak that might just beat the odds of oak regeneration.

Then you happen upon soil  untouched for over 20 years. and that magic crust is tilled before your very eyes. you are in the company of soil scientists. this kind of tilled soil is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread for them. this soil is a time capsule. a sequester of carbon. an ancient text to translate. They hatch a plan to come back out the very next day to poke and prod and sample and stand in awe for all the information only they can read from these big chunks of hard soil. 

I did some long awaited tilling with my own hands this weekend--beginning again feels good. a garden that follows fall into winter is slow going, but so rewarding.
 

my bountiful box of dreams. strawberry runners, arugula and broccoli starts all from a sliver of a nursery in Noe Valley. seeds of fava, baby gem lettuces, and tatsoi.

before

after. half the plot done, half to go...

bilges and bolts not blogs

Immersed in new world these days. A world of bilges and bolts, sockets and screwdrivers, grease and gasoline. Learning port and starboard, not ropes but lines, clove hitches and boulin knots. Learning the blessed beauty of a wet/dry shop vac and the wonders of 5200. All while riding the slow rock of D dock at Pier 39.

Our neighbors: tourists, seagulls, cormorants, sea lions and the characters that live and work the pier. Hearing the big creak of the lines holding us at moor while laying in the v-berth, the loud barks of the sea lions and the neighbor's Shih Tzu's. Breathing in deep: sugary sweet ice cream mixed with the clam chowder bread bowls and a side of gasoline. Projects tackled only to uncover a new or two or four or more. Learning more some days about how to do something wrong than right. Progress slow but sure even when it doesn't feel that way. But nothing's better than watching the sunset from the cockpit, or laying out a picnic in the cabin. Nothing beats dreaming of the open ocean and adventures in anchoring abroad.

 

my man sure can clean his bilge

Grease & Blood #1

Grease & Blood #2

Look up. Look out. Look deep.

Going deep within the beer at Social Brewery thanks to the master cicerone Rich!

Lesson learned: It's all about the yeast.

He's one of the best tour guides ever---SF friends let him take you on a tour of beer traditions here