Volunteering

Hey guys! Here are some pictures from the places I've been volunteering at. I can take you guys to either one when you visit in June, this is just to give you an idea of what they're like. The plant nursery is at Half Moon Bay state beach, which is right on the Pacific. It's a bit of a drive but both the drive and the beach are very scenic.

The nursery is behind that fence. We grow plants native to California from seeds, and when they're big enough they are planted along the coast. This is important for the land because these plants contribute to the ecosystem in a way that foreign plants don't. It's very nice working with plants, and I'm learning a bunch about the different types of species around here.

I also managed to take some pictures at the humane society. Baby squirrel season is almost over, but when it was in full swing we had a bunch of baby squirrels in incubators that we would bottle feed. All of the baby animals we receive are orphaned, usually because something happened to the mother like being attacked by a predator. We raise them until they are big enough to survive on their own, and then release in the location they were found. The babies were the cutest little things, but some of them were tough to feed because they were so picky with the milk. It had to be warmed to the perfect temperature otherwise they wouldn't take it, and most of them ate better when they were wrapped in a cocoon of blanket. Here are some tiny squirrels in an incubator.

Now most of them are bigger and in wire cages. We put them in wire cages so they can climb around. At this point we don't hold them when feeding them because we don't want them to get used to humans caring for them, so instead we hold the bottles through the cages for them to eat out of. We also try to wean them off the bottle at this stage so they eat more nuts and food they would find in their natural environment.

You can see their tales are just starting to get bushy. Once they get too big for the wire cages, we put them in outdoor aviaries, which are much bigger, and then when we're confident they'll survive on their own we release them.

Now we're in baby bird season. I don't have any pictures of the baby birds we have currently, but they are adorable. We have some baby hummingbirds, baby starlings, and another tiny one that we can't even identify yet it's so small. They get fed around the clock, tiny bits at time to prevent infection. They start out in the incubators, then when they're big enough we put them in baskets with netting on top, and after that we have big aviaries outside for them before they're released. I have a picture of a hummingbird in one of those baskets. It isn't a baby anymore, but still isn't fully grown. This little guy we got when he was a tiny baby, he had to be fed nectar out of a small syringe at first. Now he is self feeding, and looks for nectar in the flowers we give him. It's interesting how they instinctively know that nectar is found in flowers, even though they had it fed to them out of a syringe their whole life.

Here are some pictures from the bigger aviaries. This one has a lot of pigeons in it. Most of them are older, so they must have been brought in with injuries instead of having been raised by us.

This is one of the biggest aviaries, and is kept for the large birds. There is a raven in it, and we sometimes get hawks and owls too.

I find it a very rewarding experience working with animals. I'm sure you guys remember how I used to volunteer at the cat shelter back in New York, and then at Farm Sanctuary down in Los Angeles, but this is much more of a hands-on experience. It's not just feeding animals and cleaning their cages (or aviaries), it's raising them, bringing sick ones back to health, and making sure that they're happy.

The French Laundry

Greg took me to The French Laundry for my birthday :D The French Laundry is a 3 Michelin star restaurant in Yountville (which is in the Napa Valley), that has won numerous awards. You guys know how much I appreciate good food, and it was a spectacular experience. And yes, I was a total dork taking pictures of all of the food (I couldn't resist).

Check out what they printed on the top of our menus:

It was a fixed course menu with 9 courses. The chef prepared vegan and fish options for me, while Greg had their meat selection. The restaurant maintains a garden where they get most of their vegetables, so it was all very fresh.

I started with 2 small bites - the one in the spoon was avocado, and the other one was potato. The avocado was especially delicious, it had a lingering aftertaste.

This was a caviar and oyster dish Greg had.

And this was a carrot soup for me. The carrots all came from their garden, and it had ground up peanut and banana in it. I could have eaten much more of this.

The next dish I forgot to take a picture of, but it had salsify in it, which is a root that has so much iron in it you have to peel it underwater and cook it in a vacuum because it oxidizes almost immediately when it is in contact with the air. It was delicious, and I had no idea what I was eating because it didn't taste like anything I've had before.

An assortment of their vegetables on top of a marmalade.

A squash dish with black truffle on top.

A salad with roasted cauliflower, raisins, cashews, and heart of palm. The cashews was soft, like they had been cooked.

Greg's dish - chicken breast, chicken thigh, and potato.

Sea bass with avocado, cara cara oranges, and nuts.

This was a special meat dish for Greg. The beef came from a farm that only provides for the French Laundry. It came with a turnip, broccolini from their garden, and rice.

Hearts of palm and cara cara oranges.

Greg's dish had hazelnuts, cheesecake, cherries, and black winter truffle .

And then we had the palette clearing courses for desert. I had a grapefruit sorbet on top of pistachios:

Greg had a grapefruit float.

My desert was incredible. Since the deserts on the menu included cream and/or eggs, it had to be made special for me. It had a chocolate cake made with whole wheat flour, bananas, soy ice cream, and those little orange squares were tiny explosions of orange that went with the chocolate. I had a huge smile on my face when I finished this.

Greg's desert had chocolate ice cream on top of a peanut naugatine, with popcorn cream on top (yes that's right, popcorn cream).

Then there was chocolates. These were made in house and were similar to Elbow chocolates. My vegan chocolates were very rich.

Greg had an assortment.

And then there were more deserts, most of which Greg was left to eat.

Here is Greg outside after the meal, all suited up.

We drove around Yountville for a bit after the meal to take in the green and wineries. Mom, I remember you said Stags Leap was your favorite wine, so I thought you would appreciate this:

Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe

Hey guys, I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! Greg and I just came back from Lake Tahoe, and it was beautiful. We rented a cabin in North Lake Tahoe where we stayed from Thursday to Sunday. Since it was Thanksgiving, we had to bring the whole family, ie the kitties, with us. Here's some pictures of the cabin we stayed in.

It was pretty cold while we were there but we loved having the fireplace. The kitties claimed the wicker chair next to it.

We did a bit of hiking, and saw some great views. These were taken at Emerald Bay.

We found these piles of chopped up wood in the woods, they were for a designated burn site.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it was huge. It doesn't look like a Redwood, although we did see a few of those.

And here are some of the views we saw on the drive.

I brought a few art projects to work on in my down time, mostly knitting. One of the projects I brought was my Vivian sweater. I finished blocking it before the trip so all I needed to do was sew on the zipper I bought for it to be finished. This is the sweater I made with the Persimmon-colored yarn I bought in Cambria, and I'm happy with how it turned out. The yarn is very soft, and it's a great color.

 

Notice how I'm wearing a green hat to complete the Persimmon look :D

We didn't want to leave, but on Sunday the real world beckoned us. I hope you guys had a great holiday as well, and can't wait to see you next month!

The Zen of Knitting

Here are the pictures I promised mom of my knitting projects. The blue shrug pattern is called the Camellia and the red coat is called the Sylvi.

The Camellia took me about 2 months to finish, and was made with a silk and bamboo yarn. I actually bought the yarn before I bought the pattern, it has a very soft texture. These pictures were taken on the roof of our apartment building.

The Sylvi took awhile to finish. I knitted it when we were living in LA, but didn't have a good place to block it until we moved to our current apartment - Danny's room, where the kitties can't get to it. It took a few months to knit all of the pieces. The original pattern called for a hood, but I gave it a collar instead because I figured the hood would be down most of the time, covering some of the pattern. I had it lined here in San Francisco with a nice red flower fabric. The lining makes it warmer and hopefully will prevent it from losing its shape, since it's very heavy. The yarn is 100% wool.

Here's the lining

And my personal favorite part of the coat, the back

The vines and leaves in the design were knitted as a part of the solid back piece, and then the flower petals were added on separately, after the piece was blocked.

I have another green shirt (the pattern is called the Avalon top) that I made recently, but haven't worn it yet because I still need to block it. I'm currently working on a zip-up sweater with the beautiful Persimmon-colored yarn I bought in Cambria (which you guys need to visit when you can). The sweater is called the Vivian, it has a few more weeks to go before it's done.