iditarod appears in LA
memories beneath secrets in the produce district/ industry of Los Angeles. That same day I met a man named pepper who fishes for carp in the LA river. We waded out to the center and saw a school of them caught in an eddy. Pepper rode a bike with one wheel, he told us how to roast the fish under the bridge. There is a fine moss on the bottom of the river, my squish-squash canvas shoes puddled and i carried it with me the rest of the day. Carp, 1 and a half feet long. Life and what the river continues to provide.
so this is the picture hanging at the americana at brand, a fantastic new live/work/shop space in glendale.
at 10 am on november 13. there is an event where people should duck for cover. the mythical big one is coming. many people will suddenly be under tables and standing in door frames.
http://www.shakeout.org/
will this be real soon? i am going to do a little more research, but I have heard that tensions in the faults are rising.
los angeles is the most magical place. a couple of weeks ago the CRA decided to rent some goats from Monrovia to take care of a weed problem on the hill by Hill and 4th Street. My brother and I stopped by to feed some nice alfalfa to our hooved friends. Apparently a group of business men joked about roasting said animals and the kind shepard on duty responded, " you wouldn't want to do that. they've got poison oak all over them." what a friend. The goats were supposed to stay for two weeks but they finished the job early, returning to their inland empire home after only four days of cud-chewing. we need goats here ALL the time.
a nice juxtaposition
a brother and a friend
I moved back to LA to be a gardener here and write about it too! So this nice blog will now be known as una(LA)ska. Here it is a heat-wave and the crisis of a beginning. I am trying to be the next Jane Jacobs, manifest destiny style.
things to think about in LA
Rancho Cucamonga- a former ranching/growing community.
Activity,
Green roofs
Alaska colony project? Failed.
Humanity
Sense of self
Possible locations
Sense of time and space
Victory gardens
Gas prices
Hillsides
Protected land
i am on an adventure this week with my little bro. we have already spotted 13 glaciers, which reflect blue because it is the shortest wavelength of color. the other colors all fractallate into infinity in the ice crystals of the past and future. i learned that there was a mini ice age in 1813 (temps dropped 3 degrees or so) and a certain exit glacier flowed hundreds of feet closer to seward alaska. glaciers are slow moving rivers of ice- they recede about 1000 ft a year or so in this time of global warming. pioneer species such as aspen and birch grow up where they once were, shedding leaves until a layers of soil forms on the ground and the ecosystem can support more forms of life. i am reading into the wild, there are old blue school buses everywhere in alaska! and lots of beardeds headed everywhere.. there is a gale brewing, the midnite sun colored sky vibrates greys and the myth of caribou. i saw a blak bear from 50 yards away. barry lopez would call the eye contact, the deliberation, the back and forth between two species when they meet in the wild, the conversation of death. our conversation ended in the the bear fleeing. i saw her later on the mountainside with her two cubs. society.
im watching sky change from super gold to the myth of black. here it seems all i do is wait for the stars. it doesn't happen. there are no firework shows in alaska for the reason of the midnight sun. i think they sell products that make more noise though. feels like forever, our free-doms, our houses built of stories we tell over wires and with artificial light. im looking in the dirt for all of it, wondering what a truly brown sky would be like, maybe it would give me a couple choices, mix up the greens and whites scattering fields and growing before my eyes. this is another dream in a farmhouse surrounded by mountains, this time im purple. a howling malamut outside, 165 lb native alaskan dog makes the ground shake.
This week we are harvesting the first root vegetable of the season: the radish. The radish, botanical name Raphanus is a brasica and a member of the crucifer family. The radish, a spicy, often slightly sweet root that tastes great eaten directly out of the ground, as well as in a fresh summer salad is a fast grower with quite a past. The radish has been cultivated in China since 700 BC. In ancient Greece small replicas of the radish were made out of gold and given to the god Apollo. It was heralded as an appetite stimulant, served in France at the beginning of lavish fifteen course
meals at the palace of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV.
We planted radish seeds a month ago. Things are starting to happen fast in this land of 18 hours of sunlight a day....
Heres a recipe:
Japanese Radish Salad
4 Servings
Ingredients
8 oz red radishes (large bunch)
1 1/2 ts rice vinegar
1 ts sugar
1/2 ts low-sodium soy sauce
1 ts toasted sesame seeds; more
-or less
1 radish leaves; garnish
Instructions
Wash the radishes well to remove all grit. Trim, reserving a few leaves
for garnish, and thinly slice.
Combine vinegar, sugar and soy and mix to dissolve sugar. Add the
radishes. Refrigerate for 1 hour. When ready to serve, sprinkle with
sesame seeds and garnish with radish leaves.
