FARMERS MARKETS

One great way to aid our economy’s recovery is by shopping close to home. Farmer’s Markets registered in the United States are at an all time high of over 7,000.  I noticed our local Save Mart advertisers refer to their produce department  as an “in-store farmers market.”  You know they are feeling the impact of  customers buying  directly from  growers.

This was my first time at the Murphys Farmer’s Market held each Friday starting about 4:30 at the Val Du Vino Winery. How lucky we are to have such delicious choices. A Farmer’s Market in Murphys, on the way to Angels Camp, stop at Douglas Flat to the Outer Isle, an Organic Market right on the Highway, then another Farmers Market in Angels Camp, also on Friday’s about 4:30.  There are others in Mountain Ranch and San Andreas, I’m told. Such a deal.

It is not huge, but growing. In San Francisco, there is a waiting list to get a booth at the Ferry Building Farmers Market. For a small rural town, when many people have their own gardens, I thought the offerings quite varied and interesting. Cheeses and olive spreads.

Herb vinegars and salad dressings, all locally made and grown. The smells alone made my mouth water.

I arrived early, as people were still setting up. This woman provides a meal. And her kotufa was fantastic. A seasoned lamb patty over cous cous with a delcious sauce. I could go there just to eat on Fridays.

She cooks something different every Friday and everyone was singing her praises. Yum. Then, paired with a glass of wine?  Hey. Good stuff.

It began to get busy, and I was glad I arrived early as I like to pick over the tomatoes. What I bought was unique and flavorful heirloom tomatoes  and a cucumber.

I was tempted by the home-made zucchini bread.

And the flowers.

But nobody could explain to me why they need a guillotine in a winery? I guess I didn’t ask the right person. Next time!

THE BOTTLE FENCE.

Standford University just completed a study about the way men and women relate to friends. I was pleased to find out that I fit healthfully into the study, because I treasure my girl friends and always take time out  to play catch-up with my friends when I’m home.  Lizz and Sharon popped over for an afternoon with a couple bottles of wine. A former neighbor, Lizz lives in Sacramento now and I hadn’t seen her in five years.

Of course we celebrated, and nibbled but what we do mostly  is gab, gab, gab.  Guys don’t do it like we do.

Then I found out they had pulled into my driveway and failed to notice my new bottle fence. So, out we went to see it.

We decided, maybe we needed more than snacks, and hopped over to Pizza Plus and enjoyed their chicken pesto pizza.

Back to my place for more gabbing. I’m really into health, doncha know. Sharon is a beader and I blogged a magnificent piece she did last year and this morning, coincidentally, I heard from Sig, the woman who had designed the piece she made, which is exquisite.  You can see it at the following link:   Sig said it took her 80 hours to design it. Amazing!

http://otrwjam.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/beading-an-heirloom/



So, we returned to the bottle fence, and Lizz  pointed out I have a lot of liquor bottles on the fence. Wine bottles, too.  So, now we have a couple more bottles to add to the fence. Hey, it works for me.  Maybe Sharon should bead wine bottle covers.

RUBBER DUCKY RACE.

The last two days have been heavy work days. My driveway got resurfaced and a dead almond tree was removed. I went out early this morning to look at how things turned out and misplaced my cup of tea. It is not a good morning when I misplace my cup of tea. I retraced my steps, looked at every fence post, every flat surface, and it has disappeared. And, it’s my favorite cup.

While my helper hand-spread asphalt in liquid form on my driveway, my house mate, Karen, worked on refinishing wooden chairs. Sanding the old varnish and paint off in preparation for a cheery coat of paint. I worked on genealogy and scanning  old family pictures.  On-line I shopped for an on- demand water heater to replace one beginning to make funny sounds at the age of 14.

While working with pictures, I  saw the Rubber Ducky Race I photographed while my young niece from Colorado and her  family were here for the reunion. Not only did they enjoy the race, but they  enjoyed the creek and the event. Officials dumped a bunch of rubber duckies in the water upstream.

Here they come. It is a fundraiser for the Humane Society. People buy a chance to win the race. Prizes are awarded for lst, 2nd and 3rd place. Each duck has a number on the bottom, you get a receipt and give the duck back for race day.

At the finish line, eager hands wait to pick out the first three that cross the line and give winning numbers to the officials.

Helpers gather up the remaining ducks, and stay wet and cool along with the adult helpers. Kind of a win, win for everyone.

The ducks are plopped onto a tarp and will come back to race again next year.

The kids enjoy other activities in the park put on by the Humane Society.

Brittany and Brianna get their faces painted. They wear rubber ducky necklaces received when they bought a ticket in the race.

This little girl asked for a purple dinosaur while her brother waits  his turn to be painted.
There are games and food; the playground and the creek.

Pull up a blanket in the shade of a tree and enjoy a family picnic.  Isn’t that the way to spend the hot days of summer?

SHILIN-UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

To resume my visit to China in 2006, we are in Kunming, The City Of Eternal Spring. It  is a very temperate area  known for its plant diversity. Most of China’s flower species come from Kunming with its  pleasant,  temperate climate. We see commercial flower gardens and orchards around Kunming, but  our tour will take us to  Shilin, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, a surrealistic  “orchard” of stone.

The drive  to this unique landscape  through a three-mile long tunnel, and we worry about it caving in, probably unreasonably so. But, safety isn’t foremost in Chinese projects, we think. The tunnel replaced a twisty, tortuous road, we are told. Then we take a shuttle to the base of the 200 acres of what are called karst towers, formed 270 million years ago as the Himalayas were forming.

It’s a lovely spot by a lake, but the sign that greets us with tortured interpretations was a hoot though well intentioned. We were relieved to know what we buy here will be genuine.

Yunnan Province has many minority people.  And we see them come to Shilin to get married, or celebrate special events in their lives. The most prominent minority in this region is the Yi people. The Suni Muslims are a branch of the Yi people. There are black Yis and white Yis. The black Yis enslaved the white Yis because they admired the rare  black tigers of Asia over the white tigers. The Yi were great hunters and wrestlers, strong and muscular. They walk in fire and have fire torch festivals unique to the area.  Mau banished slavery among the Yis.  Another nearby minority is the Hui people, called barbarians. They arrived here with Kublai Khan.  A very informative website can be found at the following link.
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/kunming/stone_forest.htm


The area does resemble a stone forest, which is the common name for Shilin.

The karst formations are  limestone and were shaped by a receding inland sea and harsh winds.

It was an easy,  pleasant  hike through the “forest” and one could imagine what it must have been like for ancient children  to climb and play on the formations.

We hiked around the lake and took pictures. There are caves and waterfalls deeper inside the forest, but we were given a limited time here. Without a guide it would be easy to become disoriented and lost if we wandered too far off the path.

The people in their special native dress were fascinating, anyway.

The costumes are somewhat different, but always the main color of red and yellow.

The Yi men show their single status by the way they wear their feathers. A girl shows interest in a man by touching her horn.

Vicki speculated this was some type of local holiday celebration. It seemed very romantic to us with couples and singlels having their picture taken by the lake.

Near the gift shop, this gent was  fiddling with a musical instrument. We figured there would be a musical event later in the day.

By lunchtime, the place was mobbed.  I saw that under the costume the girls wear street clothes, kind of like we do for high school graduation.


This woman may have been a different minority with similar costume. I enjoyed people watching as much as the stone formations.

The Stone Forest is seventy-five miles from Kunming and actually makes its own weather. At certain times of years, storms roar out of the caves and water cascades from the high formations. We will move on to Urumichi and visit a Yi village.

MUDFEST

I had never been to a Mudfest before and wasn’t quite sure what I would see. It was a first time event at Quyles Kiln/Brice Station Winery about two miles above Murphys. Pam Quyle runs the pottery, her sister and brother-in-law have a winery and tasting room.  Great combination. But I was there to meet  old friends from Alameda County. The first thing  I ran into was a dog-head with a ball in its mouth.  Not surprising since there are plenty of friendly dogs around the place who love balls.

The second thing I hadn’t seen before was this  magnificent dragonfly garden piece. The eye never rests here. But, I walked in the showroom looking for my friend Pam, who was nowhere to be seen.

The Quyle family has been making pottery here since 1928. Families come to replenish their dishes from one generation to the next. Always quality pieces, that never changes. I treasure my colanders, serving bowls, casseroles and berry dishes. But you can find any vessel here, made by Pam or other potters who sell their work  here.

Not only pottery, but other art flourishes. Water color and oil paintings, etchings and greeting cards, and then I see this poster of a dog story. The artist, Marilyn Pyle told me they are popular with school libraries and veterinary offices.

Pam has a potter working here who does faces and busts. I don’t know his or her name and didn’t get to meet the potter, but I did run into this sculpture:

And these delightful faces.

I often find galleries on the road and get my art fix, but here I am at home and able to  do the same thing. For the Mudfest, potters and other artists were invited to put up a booth and present  their work.

I guess when Cathi Newlin says, “Happiness is a lump of Clay” you can see the passion people have for working with clay.  Her rats  were so life-like I accused her of starting a plague.

She works in Angels Camp and does nice framed tiles and  photography as well from her shop at the  The Square Peg.

I poked around the booths until my friends arrived and Don Hall’s work caught my eye. He does highly decorated pieces and much of  his stuff has an Asian look to it. Delicate flowers and plant life. He has a website, donhallworks.com. He came up from Turlock.

Pottery can be so individual and I always love to see work that is exciting and different.

.

While I was looking I could smell the chicken in a barrel cooking.  Then Denise and Gary Lindsay, my Sheriff’s Department friends from Alameda County showed up and we enjoyed sharing a bottle of wine and food. The people catering the meals, I wish I had gotten their names.  Unlike some events, the portions were very generous and everyone was bragging about the food. It was excellent.

Gary and Denise had stumbled upon the Kiln and Gary, now retired and moved to Tuolumne County, is also a clay person. He does beautiful mosaic tables and since moving, needs a place to have his clay fired.  He came to the right place. Gary was an avid volunteer and served as treasurer for the Alameda County Archives for many years and was making cocktail tables even then for is fellow deputies. He has quite a following. I’m sure he’ll be just as successful in Tuolumne County enjoying his hobby.
We ate dinner, the band began to play in the meadow behind the tasting room and I again think to myself, how lucky I am to live here. I  hope they have another Mudfest next year.  And, they better have the same caterer.