Greetings from Marysville

Boxes, not-so-tiny boxes….

Cynthia — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:03:07 +0000

Well, the first round of the packing boxes are already gone. I put a notice on Craigs List (there’s a whole Yuba-Sutter section!) and, whammo, four different persons sent emails saying they would be happy to take them off my hands. I guess I will just have to unpack more. Dang.

Some of the stuff I am unpacking doesn’t really “go” with this house, so I am setting aside items to donate to the RRRRummage Sale (or maybe it is a GRRRRage Sale) that will be held next month to raise more funds for the new off-leash dog park. Details when they are set. It will be an event not to be missed. Check for more info at the new Off the Leash website, and start saving your singles.

Think Outside the (Packing) Box

Cynthia — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:29:32 +0000

Hey, does anyone need any free packing boxes? They are genuine, heavy-duty, official, professional Atlas Van Lines moving boxes that I have finally gotten around to unpacking. They are still three-dimensional and filled with clean packing paper that’s only been rumpled up once. I have about a dozen - the heavy dish-pack types. Just send me an email or post a reply here with your contact info, and if there are any left, you are welcome to come pick them up.

That was my Mother’s Day present — to my mother!! I promised her I would empty out the towers of boxes lining my dining room since I moved in on Dec. 21. It was like Christmas all over again. I once again have use of my set of Pyrex mixing bowls, an iced tea pitcher, and my grandma’s Bakelite-handled spatula. I won’t dwell on my feelings about finding the fondue pot someone gave me in 1973; that would involve explaining why I still have it even though the last time I used it Reagan had just met Gorbachev in Reykjavik.

Don’t forget: free moving boxes are yours, yes, yours for the asking. Just in case you need to pack, I dunno, a Salton yogurt maker for your next big move.

Star(bucks) Wars.

Cynthia — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:33:10 +0000

I drink tea, not coffee, but word of another Starbucks arriving in our area always gets my attention, because I can’t wait to read what the editor of this newspaper will have to say about it. By now, faithful readers of the ad staff blogs know that Len LeBarth is one caffeinated critter, and he probably needs four Starbucks to relay himself across town. I also like to see the independent purveyors flourish, especially when they have bad pun names like Daily Grind or cryptic ones like Kaffe T Latta, over on Plumas Street. (Is the “T” for owner Toni Ruiz?) I wonder if somewhere there is a local coffee joint called “Java, the Hut.”

Ranch, dude.

Cynthia — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:13:44 +0000

I was at the DQ last night (Blizzard. small. chocolate. m&ms) and confirmed what I have been observing for the past few months: Ranch dressing is the new ketchup. Everybody was asking for ranch dipping sauce to go with their fries. The staff had it pre-poured into those little plastic cups right at the counter, so apparently the five people I saw getting it weren’t just part of a ranch dressing cult, say, the Hidden Valley Brotherhood, that happened to be meeting on Live Oak last night. Well, if they are already deep-frying Milky Ways at county fairs, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Then again, who am I to cavil? Have you ever had the deep-fried pickles at the Silver Dollar Saloon? I tasted some (reluctantly) at a hotel trade show in New York a few years ago and was looking for them in the wild ever since. Then I moved to Marysville and, bam!, they got ’em right here. Maybe I should serve the next batch of onion rings with ranch. (Only three pounds of onions left!)

“Hooray, Hooray, the first of May…

Cynthia — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:31:30 +0000

…Organic Veggies arrive today!” What, you were thinking of something else? This afternoon is the first distribution of the season for shares of the crops from Jim Muck’s organic farm in Wheatland. Can’t wait to see what I’ll be cooking with for the coming week. I signed up to share a share, as it were, with another household. Which turns the old “sharecropper” term on its head; now I am “cropsharer”! A full share feeds four with vegetables and sometimes fruit, herbs, whatever, for about $20 a week. The contents each week all depends on what’s ready to be harvested. So as I write this, Jim is busy plucking the stuff right from the soil to bring over here later in the day. This is part of a growing national trend (and we *are* turning out to be quite the trendsetters here in Yuba-Sutter), called Community Supported Agriculture. The idea is to pay the local farmer up front so he or she can invest in all the materials and equipment needed for the year’s crops without having to fork over all the cash or even borrow money. You become a shareholder (sometimes called a “subscriber” or a “member”) in the farm’s production. Don’t know if Jim has any shares left to sell, but you can check his website or give him a call. For other CSA options, go to the Local Harvest website and pop in your zip code, or Google “Community Supported Agriculture” for many other websites with good info on our region’s agriculture. Support Your Local Farmer — it builds our local economy and it saves you money, too!

Allium Redux

Cynthia — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:43:49 +0000

Just so you know, I am down to only 12 giant onions from the original 50 pounds. Friends can now stop avoiding me for fear I will foist a few on them as they leave. The milestone has been achieved by making yet another four authentic Swiss onion pies, easily two gallons of French onion soup (complete with crouton and cheese topping) and a giant batch of onion rings from a reader recipe. The Plumas Street Farmer’s Market opens for the year this Saturday (yippee!), so if all else fails maybe I can use them for barter.

College Collage

Cynthia — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:24:09 +0000

Monday was my third class of six at Yuba College on “Sacred Collage,” in which students learn to explore their inner selves, so to speak, using art and meditation. You don’t need to know how to draw or paint; the collages require nothing more than scissors, rubber cement and your choice of hundreds of photos and other images supplied by the instructor. It’s one of the many interesting courses offered as part of the Community Education program. Click this link for a peek at the current offerings; you can brush up on old skills or learn new ones, or just do something for the fun of it. From Home Brewing Basics to Boogie-Woogie Piano, Cardio Kickboxing to Retirement Planning, Quilting to QuickBooks, there’s something for just about everyone. Classes are not too expensive; on-campus parking is just a dollar a visit. For next semester, I am wavering between “Make Money Selling Books Online” and “Let’s Make a Puppet.”

Oh, how does my garden grow

Cynthia — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:05:39 +0000

My mother arrived Wednesday, and it is probably no coincidence that my apricot and peach trees fruited just about overnight. There must be 200 teeny apricots on the one tree and several dozen even smaller beginning peaches. Can’t wait to taste them. And, no doubt, give some away. I am still harvesting two dozen oranges a day, along with a few lemons from those younger trees. A girl can only drink so much freshly squeezed orange juice. Now I am making orange chicken, orange cupcakes, orange sorbet…. And, of course, I am still busy freezing chopped onions — 20 pounds left in the bag. I now am giving away oranges and onions; I should find a recipe that uses both so I can tuck that into the bag when I foist off the produce on my neighbors. I think I’ll check the Food Network’s website; they have literally thousands of free recipes from all the shows and their celeb chefs.

It’s also no coincidence that, with the start of my mother’s visit, I spent the last hour running a WeedEater in the South Meadow. She’s the plant whisperer, and already has attacked the extensive needs of the backyard. Yesterday, we went to the plant sale put on by the Sutter Buttes Garden Club (of which we are new members), and came away with a few items and some good suggestions from the Master Gardener on duty. We also bought our tickets for the club’s May 3 Garden Tour. Then we buzzed back to the house, dropped off the box of plants, picked up Jet and went over to the Marysville Cemetery to see how the bi-annual work party was going. Sure enough, there were people out there weeding and moving bricks and raking and mowing. If you want a free glimpse into Marysville’s history, just walk around and read some of the headstones.

OK, back to the garden….

Nothing Furnishes a Room Like … Books.

Cynthia — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:19:25 +0000

If you are reading this on Saturday, you should be over at the spring book sale at the Yuba County Library, organized by the Friends of the Yuba County Library. I was helping set up yesterday and I can tell you that there are LOADS of wonderful books. Except for a few exceptional volumes priced at $3, you can get any hardcover for just a buck, trade paperbacks (some look brand new!) for 50 cents and pocket-size paperbacks for a mere two bits. All the proceeds go to supporting the Library’s many wonderful programs.

On the other hand, if you are reading this on Sunday, you have two more bites at the apple of knowledge: the book sale continues on Monday and Tuesday. Be there or be square. I am sure you know where the Library is, but just in case — it’s in historic downtown Marysville at C and 3.

Chancy Gardener

Cynthia — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:37:13 +0000

When it comes to all things horticultural, like the Peter Sellars’ character, I like to watch. While my brother’s several fruit trees keep his whole block in citrus for most of the year and my mother can grow a gardenia on a guava graft, I specialize in keeping drought-resistant succulents from total desiccation. Gardening skills apparently are not hereditary. Fortunately, having been an apartment dweller since middle childhood, I have had only to deal with a few window boxes and terrace planters, and the occasional well-meaning gift of a plant or tree. (Ask me about my poetic masterpiece, “Ode to a Dead Palm.” ) At some points during the year, friends would find it difficult getting through my front door because of the two overgrown ficus trees that flanked it, and would ask, “Isn’t it time for your mother to come visit?”

Now, here in Marysville, I have a house that came with a front yard, a back yard, and even a side yard, complete with seven fruit trees, roses, camellias, hydrangea and wisteria. Make that eight fruit trees; Kelly Richcreek just up and gave me a Meyer Lemon tree. (There are other flowers and shrubs and trees; I just don’t know what they are yet.) Amazingly, everything is blossoming beautifully, despite my semi-benign neglect. I have yet to mow or weed or prune on my own. (Turning liability into asset, I refer to the overgrown side yard with two-foot grass as “The Meadow.” ) I have remembered to water (most of the time), and a few weeks ago my neighbor Merry Finch showed up at the front door with her shears and gardening shoes and said “I am here to prune your fruit trees.” She worked some magic with the apricot and the peach (or nectarine). Since Merry is a stone fruit person, the citrus trees remain wild, albeit productive.

Aside from watering, I harvest. Harvesting consists of going out every morning with a big bowl and a garbage bag and picking up all the oranges that have fallen during the night, culling the good ones for my new breakfast juice ritual. Freshly squeezed OJ is one of nature’s greatest delights. I have been getting so much juice, I had to get a bigger juicer. ($ 9.97 Osterizer on sale!)

I went to both of the Rummage Sales at the two Methodist churches (MVL and YC) on Friday, and at one picked up a Sunset book on pruning for just 10 cents. So now I am studying all the do’s and don’ts for each plant and tree, but I am holding out for my mother’s arrival on the 16th, confident that she and her two green thumbs will come to my rescue. There are two pairs of green rubber gardening shoes sitting by my back door; mine and my mother’s. Although mine are a size larger, I could never fill hers.

Hurry up, Mom. The Sedlers said we can borrow their roto-tiller!