Hope to continue blogging. Am learning to paint better with watercolors.

bitter melon

i need you here
among cattleya orchids in celadon vases.
my lacquered spoons and ivory chopsticks
are silent on golden rests.
i envy that frail old lady
nodding patiently in the company of bright eyes
that peep over bowls of steamed rice;
or that surly gauche noveau-rich peasant
who dines with honorable wife and first concubine.

tonight
in this grandiose palace-garden,
i dine alone on green tea
and bitter melons.


26 aug 1995 rev 12jun2016
honolulu hawaii

trying to catch up

Been  busy year... growing older is always a challenge and a blessing... what is the alternative?
At least there is time to go trout fishing in the summer in the Eastern Sierra. The mountain garden hasn't done much due to lack of rain... but fishing is good.

poppies

copyright z m evensen 

march 2014

Poppies from the garden... Spring has the Eastern Sierra covered

with flowers -- desert dandelions, poppies, and rabbit bush..These are California 

poppies I grew from seed in our southern California garden. Our daffodils are being

battered by spring snow in the high mountains.

february 2014

Been waiting for rain .Looks like we are going to get a gully-washer this weekend. Thank God! Usually this time of year we would have daffodils all over the place. A few flowers have managed to come up. The freesias are abundant-seeing that their bulbs are shallow.

 We turned off our sprinkler system and are hand watering .The "cocktail" apple tree is blooming and setting fruit ... the old navel orange tree is full of blossoms and a buzz with bees while its fruits from last year are the size of grapefruits and the meyer lemons are the size of oranges.

New plants this year are two clementine oranges, a honey crisp apple tree, a "panache" fig, and an asian pear and a kieffer pear. Some have started to flower, but even hand-watering does not get water deep enough.

Hope this  weekend's forecast of rain will help. I love the smell of the air just before it rains... like a foreboding yet magical calmness -- especially around blossoming orange and lemon trees.
Waiting for spring!

coconuts

photo copyright z m evensen

Everyone seem to be talking of coconuts as one of the new super foods. The only way I would use coconuts is to crack a fresh one . I love young coconuts -- not as young that the meat drapes over a spoon. The freshly cracked  coconut above is just about perfect. Once cracked , you can carefully slide a knife between the meat and the shell. Then slice the nut meat long and pencil thin and enjoy the snack. Nice with crudite  with  jicama, avocado, unshelled edamame before dinner.

One more thing, the only coconut water I'd drink is front a freshly cracked nut. Coconut in cans or cartoons do not taste as good. . A friend is into the paleo way of eating and seems that coconuts meet a lot of her needs. 

photo copyright  gdlc

Growing up, we used fresh coconuts as skin lotion,  hair conditioner, snacks, cooking oil, and flour. My grandfather built houses with coconut and bamboo, The coconut fronds are thatched for roofing.  Our generation ate the real organic foods -- mainly because we couldn't afford store-bought fertilizers. What an irony that my children and their kids spend a fortune buying everything organic. See my previous postof a poem on growing poor up in a rain forest. 

The picture above is from my family's coconut plantation.

resuming ....

     It has been a while since I posted around here. Life has been very hectic since I retired three years ago. My  grandkids are now 10 and 8 -- feisty, smart, more techno-savvy than I am. The seven year old actually taught me more about my new iPad3 than I can ever follow. He would say: "Hey, Farmor, that's easy!" Of course, you know that Farmor is Norwegina for father's mother.

     I thought I was quite a reader when I was 10, but my granddaughter beats me to it.  It is so much easier to read with a Nook than with hard copy. The only thing I can brag about is I was in high school when I was nine and entered college at 13.
     It is amazing what young people can do these days. I would not tell you that retirement is a breeze. We are busier now than ever before.