Saturday, November 28, 2009

You Will Know Them By Their Fruit

Have you ever struggled to know whether you should take someone's advice or not? A well-meaning relative, a close friend, a neighbor, a teacher, an adviser?

I was reminded again of this verse last week as we stopped by the young orchard in our neighborhood...

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Matthew 7:15-18

Notice that although the verse calls them "ravenous wolves", which brings to mind easily recognizable evil, they are so "inwardly", and so outwardly, they may appear well-intentioned, concerned for your well being,




knowledgeable, reasonable,




helpful, caring, fun and satisfying.



It is only upon closer inspection that you will find the truth.
You will know them by their fruit.




How is the fruit they bear?



Take a good look.
Is it well? Is it good?




In this orchard's case, almost all the fruit has split from over-watering. The fruit plumped too fast for the skin to stretch and a whole year's crop is wasted. So disappointing after waiting all spring and summer for a sweet harvest!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving




A Thanksgiving

For summer rains, and winter's sun,
For autumn breezes crisp and sweet;
For labors doing, to be done,
And labors all complete;
For April, May, and lovely June,
For bud, and bird, and berried vine;
For joys of morning, night, and noon,
My thanks, dear Lord, are Thine!

For loving friends on every side;
For children full of joyous glee;
For all the blessed Heavens wide,
And for the sounding sea;
For mountains, valleys, forests deep;
For maple, oak, and lofty pine;
For rivers on their seaward sweep,
My thanks, dear Lord, are Thine!

For light and air, for sun and shade,
For merry laughter and for cheer;
For music and the glad parade
Of blessings through the year;
For all the fruitful earth's increase,
For home and life, and love divine,
For hope, and faith, and perfect peace,
My thanks, dear Lord, are Thine!

~~John Kendrick Bangs 1862-1922


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Frog Heaven

This video was taken in late Spring of '09 but I thought it was worth reposting here. My husband runs trails and comes to this spot sometimes to find solace and meet with God. He told me about this vernal pool with frogs everywhere and at the time, we had about 3 frogs we had kept through the transformation process. We got them as tadpoles which are herbivores, easy enough to feed with algae tablets, and had kept them after they metamorphosed into frogs which are carnivores - fed on flightless fruit flies. After having had them for about a month, I was done with getting them fruit flies and was ready to release them. The vernal pool seemed perfect for them - secluded, peaceful, romantic. I imagined they would be very happy there with all the other frogs.

So we packed them in a tupperware container with a tiny bit of water, put them in our lunch bag cooler and trekked up the 2 mile trail to get there. Once we were there, we released them and poked around to see all the other frogs. My son somehow tripped one of the dens and they all came hopping out en masse. The vernal pool is located by the cell phone tower close to the end of Live Oak Trail that begins in O'Neill Regional Park. It's mostly uphill and can get very hot quickly on warm days. We ran out of water on our way back that day - kids were great though. We stopped at the little Feed Store on Live Oak Canyon on the way back and got ourselves some ice cold water. Ahhhh.........

Hope it was a happy ending for our little frogs!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Thistles

This verse is ever more present for me at this time of year when all the grasses are dry and brittle, and the thistles appear in their twisted, tormenting way.



And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:17-19

"Camp"

The flier below arrived at our door the other day. Couldn't help but think of this quote by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder:

Not that long ago, summer camp was a place where you camped, hiked in the woods, learned about plants and animals, or told firelight stories about ghosts or mountain lions. As likely as not today, "summer camp" is a weight-loss camp, or a computer camp. For a new generation, nature is more abstraction than reality.

(Click on the picture for a larger view)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Prickly Pear

Have you noticed the Prickly Pear lately? The yellow and orange blooms of summer have made way for its deep red, pear-shaped fruit, which I recently read is very tasty.



Well a couple of days ago as we were taking the kids for a hike we came across some very ripe looking prickly pear fruit. I didn't have gloves, but I did have a plastic bag and a friend's knife so I collected two of the fruit into the bag without touching them.

Unfortunately, I still got several of the spines in my fingers! Apparently, there are two kinds of spines on the plant and the fruit. There are the large, smooth, fixed spines which are visible. These are easy to avoid. There are also much less visible, smaller hairlike spines called "glochids" which easily penetrate the skin and detach from the plant.

These glochids are what were all over my plastic bag and that's how they ended up in my fingers. They're hard to see and consequently, hard to remove once they're in there. But you can feel them!

They sat in the car for about two days before I got around to Googling how to eat prickly pear. Apparently, handling them with tongs and running them under cold water while scraping them gently with a knife will get rid of most of the spines. I was a bit leery after my first painful experience so I handled it with tongs until the skin was completely off.



Cut the rough end off - look at all that juice!



Slice the skin lengthwise. They do this much better in the video, I took too much of the meat off here because I was doing it with tongs.



And there you go! Prickly pear fruit.



Isn't it a beautiful color? The juice is such a gorgeous pink.

The kids and I, my hubby and Grandma all tasted it as is and agreed it is very, very tasty! Tart and sweet - kind of like a tart watermelon flavor with a plum-like texture to it. We're definitely getting more!

Here's a video that explains how to harvest and prepare prickly pear

And here are some fun things you can make with Prickly Pear.

Prickly Pear Sweets and Treats
Prickly Pear Margaritas
Prickly pear sorbet
Prickly pear cactus fruit salad
Prickly pear cactus mojito
Prickly pear juice with lime, ginger, and honey
Tuna Juice (prickly pear is also called tuna)

Enjoy!