Approaching Kingman, Arizona, after storm
In this month’s blog:
Post-Vaccination Driving Trip
“Traditional” (?) Irish Dishes for St. Patrick’s Day
The Garden in March 2021
March 2021 Garden Gallery
Chris:
Having received our two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, we decided to hit the road in a major way and try to travel safely. The CDC gave commonsense advice about masking, social distancing, and sanitizing, and we were happy to find that all of the hotels, AirBnBs, places we planned to visit, and restaurants we might choose gave stern, detailed info about their safety rules and practices. Traveling long distances by car is not something we had done much of in recent years, but we figured that if we split the driving and limited our contacts with other humans in reasonable ways, we could see and do everything we wanted to during a week away. If we succeeded, we figured, we would be energized to do more long distance trips in the future.
Our agenda included three states: California, Arizona, and Nevada, about 2000 miles round trip, with a mix of cities and open country. I was actually more concerned about the weather than about health dangers, because it would be early to mid March and a big chunk of the driving would be in the mountains, with good chances of running into ice and snow. I was a dogged student of weather.gov both before and during the trip, and we put together a much less interesting Plan B if we had to avoid the mountains in Nevada in order to get back home.
A big goal of our trip was to take part in baseball spring training in the Phoenix area, which we had done a few years earlier and wanted to do again, seeing different teams at their new stadiums. We were especially curious to learn how the return this year of crowds in the parks–albeit masked and socially-distanced–would affect the fan experience–and if the spectators would actually adhere to the health rules.
Nevada high desert near Tonopah
The results? Great! Even the 500+ miles of driving on the first day to Palm Springs, our first destination, were not too taxing on us old folks, and gave us assurance that the rest of the days on the road would be manageable. We did encounter two days of rough weather, but nothing that our car and we could not handle. The bonus was spectacular high desert scenery in Arizona from Phoenix to Kingman, then from Kingman to Hoover Dam, and on to Tonopah, Nevada, at 6000 feet. We saw hundreds of miles we’d never traversed before, including Joshua trees, massive sand dunes, range upon range of snow-covered peaks, and driving through rain that we’d seen coming toward us from 100 miles away.
Big Dune Park, Arizona, with storm clouds coming
Spring Training was just as invigorating as we’d hoped. Major League Baseball has done an amazing job of making the stadiums hospitable to fans while conscientiously helping us adhere to the rules for masking and social distancing. We managed to get tickets to three games, all our schedule allowed, but such is fan interest that we had to grab the tickets online on the first day they went on sale, because attendance was limited to 20% of capacity. Oh yes, and the beer was cold and the hot dogs hot.
A few more highlights:
Hotels and AirBnBs. In every place we stayed in all three states, the health rules were remarkably consistent and the service exceptional despite restrictions. Masking was always used by personnel–and by most of the other guests, who always socially distanced–and sanitation was evident in rooms and public spaces. For food, we mostly relied on drive-thru fast food places, where masking and gloves were the rule. But we also had a few restaurant meals, including a special dinner in Tempe, AZ, where the fine dining restaurant had heated outdoor seating and staff were masked.
All in all, our traveling experience gave us many happy memories and, as we’d hoped, inspired us to take to the road soon again.
St. Patrick’s Day: “Traditional” (?) Irish Dishes
Jean:
We went big on St Patrick’s Day foods this year, cooking almost every “traditional” dish I could think of during the week after we returned from our driving trip. I also during that week reread my favorite book about the Irish famine by Liam O’Flaherty. This got me thinking that these meat-heavy dishes I was re-creating seem more British than Irish. Maybe this is how the landlords ate, but it was not how the peasant farmers ate.
The peasants’ over-dependence on the potato crop led to the famine when the crop failed, because the rest of the produce and livestock grown in Ireland were largely exported to England by the mostly British landlords. The food insecurity in Ireland had gone on for a long time, as shown by Jonathan Swift’s publication of “A Modest Proposal” in 1729, more than a century earlier than when famine reached its peak around 1848-50. The region hardest hit was southwestern Ireland, which included County Clare, where my mother’s paternal grandparents lived. While at least a million Irish died during the decade of the 1840s, my great-grandparents were among the 1-2 million who emigrated from Ireland in those years. They came to the United States when they were young, eventually meeting and marrying in “Bleeding Kansas” (with its own terrible story).
My mother transmitted something of their Irish culture to me, but her favorite foods were pretty basic: potatoes, bread, and oatmeal, which her ancestors were grateful to have–when they had them.
The Garden in March 2021
Chris:
About an inch of rain during our week away kept the garden fresh and growing. We now have had about 6.5 inches this rain season–only 1/3 of normal–so we’re expecting water restrictions this summer for the first time since 2016. But because California’s mostly persistent drought battles beginning in 2011 provoked us then to cut back water use by more than 50%–and keep it cut back–we’re already using considerably less water than what the state is likely to mandate this year.
(See W Is for Water (Dec. 2017) for our fullest post on the topic.)
I was anticipating that I’d be uprooting our winter veggies this month, perhaps as soon as we got back from the trip, but most are still doing so well that I may delay spring planting until, say, mid April. The temps have been slightly below normal in March (until this last week of the month), so two of the broccolis are still producing heads, not flowering, while the green onions, leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, and beets are prettier and fuller than ever.
But I’ll need to make room soon for the spring/summer tomatoes, zucchini, cukes, squash, herbs, and eggplants!
Oranges, Meyer Lemons, Peaches, and Apricots
Our final season tally for oranges is now over 300, with a dozen or more still to be picked. We are a long way from using or giving away all our lemons, as you’ll see below. Both trees are now in full bud for next season, too.
Meanwhile, our peach tree is in bloom, so we have hope for a good crop of peaches this year. But our apricot tree had just begun to bloom when strong winds knocked off the buds, so we may have our first fruitless year since we planted the tree nine years ago.
March 2021 Garden Gallery
And so on to April…
From Sacramento to Potomac: Tales of Two Valleys 
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