smoke & bananas

4th of july was a perfect opportunity to smoke.  nothing better than back ribs that have been sitting in a smoker for 5 hours.  we had a family bbq with ribs, grass-fed ny strip, free-range chicken and grilled corn.  since we've lived here, we've only used wood for cooking outdoors (i never knew what i was missing by using charcoal!).  fortunately, we have plenty of olive, pomegranate, fig and citrus wood from numerous prunings for fuel.  we have a cheap little barrel smoker from home depot that james bought when he lived in reseda.  when he'd smoke meat, the neighbors would come over to make sure the house wasn't burning down.  now, no one even notices.  the smoker sits on the foundation of a brick oven that was destroyed during the '71 sylmar quake.  that oven was built by the original owners - the owner's daughter showed us the plans for it (someone actually drew an elevation).  we haven't gotten around to re-building it - looks like it was awesome before it collapsed.  there was also apparently a wine cellar in the middle of the yard that was destroyed and buried after the quake.  the owner's son-in-law told us that there might still be some old, homemade bottles of wine underground.

we had our first mission figs last week.  the trees give us 12-20 "early" figs that ripen a few weeks ahead of the rest of the fruit (like a little preview of what's to come).   they didn't last long.  there are lots of tiny pomegranates on the trees.  we still have a few oranges higher up on the trees than i can reach, and the lemon tree is full of fruit even after quarts and quarts of homemade lemonade.  in an effort to use more lemons, i made a few jars of lemon curd last week (it freezes well, hurray!).  yesterday, i made a cake with lemon curd filling for dessert. turned out well, i think.  gave the leftovers to james' mom so i wouldn't be tempted to eat half a cake by myself.

we lost all of our lettuce plants and some herbs in the heat of last week.  fortunately, mostly everything else seems to be thriving.  a friend generously offered us some sweet potato slips, which went into the ground last weekend.  i've never planted potatoes before, but they are doing well.  we're having a bit of a water crisis, trying to figure out how to drop our consumption without damaging all the trees and plants.  we've cut our watering down, but we may need to take more drastic measures once the next bill arrives.  fortunately, since we have no sewer and use water for irrigation, our rates are lower than most.

the "save the bananas" project is on-going.  after we moved in, james transplanted some banana plants from reseda, and we moved a stand of plants from the back of the property to the front. we had a huge, lush stand of green plants and little burro bananas until the winds and sheep took their toll last winter.  once the wind and cold had weakened the plants, the rams discovered they could topple them with a few good head-butts.  they polished off all but one lone stalk, and nibbled the rest down to little nubs.  james had the brilliant idea to surround the perimeter with straw bales to keep the sheep at bay.  bananas are very prolific so we've been hoping the roots would re-generate shoots.  leaves are finally emerging, but now the chickens have taken a liking to the tender sprouts and peck at them mercilessly.  the next step in "project banana" is surrounding each plant with bird netting.  it's always something.