Last Ride of 2008 - A Pilgrimage

Although I wound my way all over SE Arizona today, for my last ride of the year I did have one specific destination in mind - the "Our Lady of Sierras Shrine" south of Sierra Vista. I had no idea there was a shrine tucked away in the Huachuca Mountains above Sierra Vista, until I read about it in the paper a few weeks ago. I'm hardly a "churchy" type, but something about a shrine attracts the latent Catholic in me, I guess. It's a New Age Vortex from the old age! Plus, the last day of the year isn't a bad day to reflect upon one's life. I certainly don't need a special day OR special place for this sort of mental exercise, but something about a making a specific journey for the purpose, gives more intention to it. I suppose that is why people have been doing it for as long as they have.

The shrine is, well, a shrine. The wooden cross is huge - 75 feet high and weighs 40 tons, and there is a stone chapel nearby.



There is quiet music playing in the chapel, which, admittedly, drove me out of there in minutes. Being a musician, I'm pretty picky, and a poor choice of music in this situation really just seems sacrilegious. Here was my peaceful retreat from the distressing chapel music.



There a statue of Our Lady, almost as tall as the cross. I especially liked her toes, the smallest being larger than my entire foot, riding boot included:


If you want to relive the violence of the crucifixion, you can visit the stations of the cross, and suffer a bit yourself along the way by climbing the steep hillside that houses the entire shrine. I had a few crosses of my own to bear, along my journey. My trusty heated vest wasn't so trusty today. I still can't seem to find one little intriguing road shown on my map. Getting a pass to ride through Ft. Huachuca requires close inspection of several documents (license, registration, insurance, proof of successful completion of a motorcycle safety course) as well as appropriate safety gear in contrasting colors (I wear that anyway, so no big deal on that point. Ditto for the safety class.) There's also always at least one Border Patrol Checkpoint to negotiate in that area of my state. I've been the recipient of a number of miracles this week, including managing to exit the narrow, tightly turning, oddly and steeply canted parking lot without an embarrassing spill. It's odd how, during moments of real danger, I am cool as can be, but put me in an awkward spot where my short legs won't be able to save me and my whole body trembles with fear, and not just a little bit. That just goes to show you that fear is not always rational. My sporadically functioning cheap second hand iPod, which lasted only until my first gas stop today, must have benefited from the positive energy of the shrine. It fired right up when I departed. A miracle indeed!


Lunch was, well, less miraculous. Fried chicken from a gas station restaurant. Go figure.

Planting Time at Richcrest

Lest I be accused of always harvesting and never planting, I can report that I had a fine time at the Richcrest Farms Garlic Planting Party last weekend. I didn't end up taking the moto - alas, a good friend talked me into a carpool. It was a tough choice, but having some quality catch-up time with a girlfriend, even in a car, is a good thing. I lie - it wasn't a tough choice at all. Having another good friend, just now, out of the blue, diagnosed with stage 4 cancer is a not a very gentle reminder that relationship upkeep should be pretty high on anyone's priority list. I figure I can post about my day here anyway, since it was supposed to be a moto trip.

Now if I do my math correctly, our little group of 15 or so field hands planted, oh, some 30,000 cloves of garlic. Wait, can that be right? Sixty-three rows of about 190 feet each, two to three cloves or so per foot, depending on the variety (white, purple and elephant, which, incidentally, is really a type of leek)... yup, that's 30,000, give or take. Whoa. Even though we can expect a germination failure rate of 25-30% (I don't know why) that'll be quite a few heads of garlic to harvest in May. Sounds backbreaking, doesn't it? Actually not at all -we were done well before lunch, really. Of course, the field was already plowed and furrowed, and most (not all) the garlic was already separated into cloves, and Farmer Jim has yet to run the tractor over the field to cover up the furrows (which will take a good half day), but still I was impressed with this motley field hand crew of all sorts.



With deadly speed and accuracy we dropped in our cloves. Funny - each person had their own "technique." Some were squatters. Others stood upright and dropped the cloves in, their aim improving with each row. One gentleman used a walking stick both to lean on and to scoot errant cloves into their proper place in the lineup. I was a fan of leaning over, resting my weight on my elbow, which in turn, rested on my knee sort of yoga style.







After plantin' was done, we sat down under the fall foliage of the fruit trees (sadly not demonstrated in this photo) to a hearty lunch, provided by Etta, the good wife of Farmer Jim.



To borrow a phrase, I am truly blessed.

I went riding!

Big deal, right? Actually, yes. The very fact that I not only went riding, but am sitting here writing about it is huge. Did you happen to notice that seven month gap in my blog from Sept 2007 to April 2008? Last year I had one full time job, two part time jobs, the odd gig and student and a summer job. That doesn't count all the practicing that happens when you're "off duty." Plus I took a number of auditions (aka job interviews, the preparation for which totally consumes you and your life for weeks or even months at a time.) On a good day, I found time to brush both my teeth AND hair. On bad days.... In this case correlation DID equal causation. Riding (or anything else "optional," although I think of riding as mandatory) wasn't really in the picture. Well, a few things have changed, at least for this year, and I can not exaggerate how pleased I am to not be working every waking minute! Funny, I FORGOT all the things I used to like to do. A few weeks ago, it dawned on me: "Hey, I used to do yoga. I could DO that again!" Or, upon contemplating a ride, my instantaneous response to myself was "no time." (See, not even enough time to form a complete sentence.) But wait, I DO have time! So ride I did, down to Madera Canyon one afternoon earlier this month. I didn't really eat anything remarkable as I recall (I think I had a sunflower seed roll with Alouette cheese, plus the half eaten gasoline scented granola bar tucked away in my tank bag), but the very fact that I got out is blog-worthy, in my opinion. Just a little ride, with a walk along a short trail, but wow! It took me a good two weeks between riding and blogging, but still, what a quality of life improvement! I hope I can manage the same for next year...

Madera Canyon is at the base of the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. It's one of our "sky islands." We've got a number of these small mountainous regions poking up from our desert floor, and they really are remarkable. The climate, flora and fauna atop these islands couldn't be more different than the Sonoran Desert. There are things like pine trees and snow up there! Each sky island is unique, since they are isolated from each other by the desert surrounding them. This was clearly demonstrated to me by the deer I saw that day. I have never seen a deer in the Catalina Mountains, north of town (including Mt. Lemmon.) I saw at least half a dozen on the 1 mile stretch of road in Madera Canyon.

Here are a few more pictures from my day.

The Santa Ritas


One of the cute little B&B's


There were fuzzy caterpillars everywhere!

Edit: I woke up this morning to this article in the paper about Madera Canyon.

Delightful Contraband!

I can NOT believe my good fortune! I am planting some trees today, and a really special tree just came into my world here in Armory Park, Tucson. I have been tossing around the idea of putting some sort of deciduous tree in my back yard. Something to let the sun in during winter, give me shade in the summer. Such a tree will likely have to be watered, and I'm not known to be very reliable in this regard. I'm hoping to have laundry facilities soon, and the only way I can deal with the waste water will be to use it as grey water, rather than tapping into my sewer (not possible with my current, 1916-old house set up.) But it's the perfect solution for watering a tree. And, I figured, if I am actually going to WATER something, it should return the favor in the form of food. Maybe an almond, maybe a fig...

Well today I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I acquired a little Black Mission fig tree. This is not just ANY fig tree. It's a "Kino" fig tree from the Kino Heritage Fruit Tree Project. Coincidentally, I had read about the project just a few days ago. The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, The Desert Survivors Nursery and an organization called Native Seeds/SEARCH have joined together to identify, preserve and propagate direct descendants of fruit trees brought to this area by Spanish Missionaries centuries ago. The name Kino refers to Father Eusebio Kino (1645-1711), a Jesuit missionary and explorer who made about 40 expeditions to AZ. These trees will be used to replant ancient orchards at The Tucson Origins Heritage Park, and the Tumacacori National Historic Park. The trees (fig, apricot, pear, quince, pecan, walnut, pomegranate...) are not, at this time, available to the general public. Unless you're lucky enough to be me! (I've been sworn to secrecy regarding my source.) As tiny as the tree is now, I'm told it might even have a few figs this summer. My glee is uncontainable! What is it that makes this living link to the past so special? I hope I can manage to be a good custodian to this wonderful tree!

Update May 30, 2019
I must admit, that tree did not survive. But I did acquire two others a few years back.
And? Exquisite. Everything a fig should be.

Twitter!

I know you're all just dying to know what I'm eating at any given moment. Wait no longer! By checking out the "twitter badge" I've added here (top right of the page) you can satisfy your curiosity about my every bite. For past repasts, use the little arrows at the bottom of the blue box to go back in time. (Reload the blog page for the latest breaking news.)

Nuts!

Who knew that the "world's largest irrigated pecan orchard" is a mere 20 miles south of Tucson? I didn't, until a spread about it in the local paper caught my eye. The Green Valley Pecan Company, located not in Green Valley, but in Sahuarita, AZ, has over 6,000 acres of trees. They provide pecans to such companies as Hershey's, Ghirardelli, and even Costco! That's a lot of nuts. I thought a visit to the orchard would make for a fun little day trip, and indeed it did. I was hoping for a bit of a tour, but I was told that the facility wasn't set up for that sort of thing. But the nice ladies in the shop were kind enough to answer all sorts of questions and I did get to watch a little video. I guess not too many people grill them about the life of a pecan as much as I did - eventually they gave me a quizzical look and asked "Are you writing a research paper?" I had to laugh and admit, that no, I wasn't, I was just a geek. I picked up a nice bag of organic nuts. Given the amount of entertainment I've gotten from them already (and I haven't even made anything with them yet) they were quite a bargain at $10.

I couldn't help but take a detour through Saguaro National Park (Eastern Division) on my way home.


Hmm - looks like the prickly pears are ripe for the picking...

Found! The Holy Grail

Here it is, friends, the holy grail of the plant kingdom. More precious than saffron, more elusive than the Italian White Truffle...

it is The Perfect Tomato.

Yes, these are as good as Grandpa's, as good as those from Gary's farm in Utah. And they're right here in Southern, AZ about 70 miles from my house. (Well, if one chooses to take the scenic motorcycle fun route, it's substantially further.) I came to meet Jim Dumas of Richcrest Farms in a prophetic fashion, befitting to the singular event of coming across this seemingly endangered species. An SOS email written by him hit my inbox, wisely forwarded by a friend. Up to his eyeballs in ripening produce, with not enough help at the farm, he put out the call to all he knew. Come out and can! He would provide the produce and the use of his fully equipped commercial kitchen free of charge as well as a host of canning jars, if we would put in the labor of picking, prepping and preserving anything and everything that was ripe that day. His fee was 50% of the finished product. Woo hoo! I was SO there! People of all sorts came from far and wide for this two day project. Despite it being an interesting sociological study on the "too many cooks in the kitchen" phenomenon, our productivity was impressive. We made soup, salsa, pickles, hot sauce, we preserved zucchini, peppers, eggplant, onions....

I was the first to arrive that morning and got a nice tour of the farm. Here are a few things I saw above and beyond the expected fields of crops (organic, even!).

Artichoke in Bloom

Butterflies and Zinnias

Grape Arbor

A Particularly Handsome Chicken


Farmer Jim at Rest

Last week I cracked open a jar of salsa. It was just way too good to be served as a mere condiment. I poured the entire jar into a bowl and called it gazpacho. Ahhh - sunshine in a bowl. I'd never had better. It confirmed that the canning party was a complete and total success. Except...

...nary a jar of pure unadulterated tomatoes!

Today I returned to the farm to correct this grave omission. Here I am in Farmer Jim's kitchen, canning almost 30 lbs of deliciousness.

NOW I can sleep.