Friday, July 31, 2009

Fresh Celeste Figs - Regaining Taste

If I cursed the heat, 103 F was good for ripening the figs on the tree in our front yard.

In November 2006, when we moved into our house, there was just a stick in the ground, buds the only promise a tree might grow out of it. After a bad frost I thought the stick was dead wood, but Gary had faith. Low and behold the sap pushed up and our baby fig tree took shape, springing branches in all directions and immediately producing a few fruits.

Last year the harvest was meager, but look at the spoils now! Each day there's a plate filled with these green surprise packages. Break one in half and you see red interior, but there's no need to peel. The riper the fruit is, the more the flesh is reminiscent of the powerful sweetness of dried figs. Something our taste buds search for perhaps.

Wait a minute, what did I just write? I tasted fig! Now that is absolutely splendificous. Each time I taste something, it's one more step on the road of recovering my sense of smell. This coming from someone who's been living with the phantom smell of ashtray contents all through the heat wave.

Next step is to follow Blake's instructions to make delectable fig jam (I Googled "What to do with fresh green figs and there he was).

Monday, July 20, 2009

Painting Grass

Mocha at Discovery Park is a picture I would like to paint.

Fort Lawton Bus Stop

Construction of the bus stop at Fort Lawton dates back to 1949. The morning I shot this picture I got all turned around running through the damp fields with Mocha. The fog made it impossible to detect the cliff that hangs over Puget Sound, other land marks, or even the sun. Not until I ran into another wanderer near the officer's row, who pointed me in the direction of the church, was I able to find my bearings.

A picture says