Death and Carnage in the Garden

Last week our garden suffered a great loss, the loss of 75% of our tomato plants and nearly all our winter squash. This is a photo of where some our plants once stood, about 20ish plants with hundreds of yellow, red, orange and mostly green tomatoes as well as a few almost veggie producing squash plants.
Here's a close-up of the carnage left behind with a lone tomato plant still standing in the background.
You may be thinking pestilence, famine, drought, disease, grasshoppers, thieves or localized twisters. I thought of all those things...luckily the culprits left a calling card.




Can you guess.





Come on, just take a guess.




No






You'd think right...but no.







Not even close....






Ahhh, you'll never guess.






Wait, did you say Mormon crickets....






Close.






Yes, missionaries.

Allow me to start from the beginning. We planted a garden in our neighbors yard. A single woman who had a lot of land, irrigation rights and an excellent watering system already in place. She asked if we wanted to garden in her yard in exchange we would help her clean up her yard. We invited our neighbors to join us and planted away. We quickly found organic gardening required far more time than we had...i.e without the use of weed killer, one has to actually weed. Eventually we just let them go, figured the garden and weeds could cohabitate...it's almost more "organic" that way;). It did ok, at least the green beans, fava beans, greens, carrots, onions, soy beans etc. didn't seem to mind. So, while there were lots of tomatoes and a few squash plants, the untrained eye may have only seen weeds.

Our neighbor was having some missionaries help her in her yard and instructed them to clear a path to the backyard through the garden. She stood on her porch, saw that the northern end of the garden looked like all weeds, told them to pull up that end...and they did...infact they did a really good job. Had it not been for all the squished tomatoes on the ground you would have never known there were tomatoes there at all. I called the neighbor to ask what happened to the tomatoes and she felt REALLY bad. She said the missionairies mentioned something about there being tomatoes but she was in a hurry and thought there might be a straggler or two and told them to weed on.

Alas we will miss our little tomatoes. I have to admit, I've already bottled enough this fall to last a lifetime so the loss is somewhat a relief for me, but not for all those I was going to share my tomatoes with. Still, I felt really bad about the loss, but as Melanie so graciously helped me realize "if anyting, it's really good blog material."

Into the City

We made our annual pilgrimage to the City of Rocks last week...I wish it were more like a monthly pilgrimage but, we take what we can get. Remember last year; my how the kids have grown. Here are lots and lots of photos, and more photos can be found here on the Gallegos blog.

Ari and Myelle looking fresh in the morning at campsite 32.Joe and the kids on their (meaning the kids) favorite rock near the campsite. Sitting in the potholes on the top was apperently really cool.
Behold Elephant Rock. Brian (the climber to the right) on Wheat Thin, Joe on belay.
Ari on attempt 47 to get a photo of him looking at me.
Joe lounging in his favorite harness; he says it's not pink.
My how they love to share at this age.
Brian on top of Rye Crisp

Claud and the kids wait as Joe nears the top of Rye Crisp...photo taken just before the children had meltdowns and were taken back to the tent for naps.

Brain shows Myelle the finer points before attempting to climb Conceptual RealityA napping Myelle after she was sent into hysterics due to her chin getting caught in the helmet clip.
Ari breaks in his/my shoes.Me nearing the top of Roller CoasterK-So finds a friend.
Ari takes five after a long morning of playing trucks.
This photo was taken after a sudden hail/rain storm that hit while I was near the top of Private Idaho. Brian, who was in the van with Joe and the kids, ran back to make sure we made it off the climb. He helped Claud hoyst me to the top (climbing on granite with frozen fingers when there's water running off it proved to be difficult). Claud stayed on belay while Brian yelled through the storm directions on how to clean the route. I cleaned up, came back down and we all ran to the van. Joe snapped the shot from inside the van where the kids sat contently watching "Bugs Life". Mini vans really are great.
Me and Claud...ahhh I just liked this one.Our rain shelter which we got up just in time for it to stop raining.
Claud takes on the crux near the top of Private Idaho.
Myelle tries to find a warm and comfy spot.

Taseko Falls - Day 2

August.11.2008

Thought I'd throw in another river post; I can't believe I'm only on day 2. oops.

Taseko falls is a little Class IV section that some considering portaging; we thought about it but decided to run it; for which I am eternally grateful. It was fun, and I think I would have rather swam the falls pinned under a raft then haul that thing through the trees! Had I known how smooth this run was going to turn out I would have filmed it from the back. The best part of the run was all the cheering at the bottom of the falls; we had been a bit nervous about it all morning; you come to the falls shortly after the lower gorge section (which is also known to make one a but anxious) so it was nice that everything went well and we landed it right side up. Chad took some video from the middle that can be viewed on KC's Blog. I would post it here but oh ya, KC hasn't sent me his videos/photos yet!

Later that day we floated past where the Chilcotin River came in (photo 2)...or was this the Chilco? At any rate we were no longer technically on the Taseko. We treated ourselves at Indian camp that night by drying out our gear and making dutch oven brownies.

The Kids got Talent

Song: Gabodepoop
Artist: Ari

Sorry, I didn't have the heart to edit down the first half.

Don't Backpack With a Broken Arm

Turns out staying in town for a weekend is quite enjoyable. We took in three potluck style social gatherings (including one we hosted), stocked up at the farmers market, hiked in the snow, lounged around, canned peaches and read; it was awesome. The only photos I have are of Monday's festivities. You can play "find K-do" in the first set of photos.

Kim, Victor and I decide that despite the weather we were going to hike White Pine Lake (Tony Grove) since none of us have been. We knew there might be precipitation so we were prepared; when we started the hike there were a few snowflakes, and within minutes of starting we were in quite the snowstorm; it was awesome! About a mile or so into the trail we saw a woman carrying a shivering child in her arms. Apparently she and a group of people had backpacked into White Pine and didn't expect to encounter weather. After spending a cold wet night in the tent, her and her sick little girl left their camp at first light. When she ran into us she was pretty worn out and upset and needed some help; we got off some of the little girls wet clothes, wrapped her in some of our clothes, carried her back to the parking lot, dried her off in my car while we broke into the woman's car and went back up the trail to make sure the rest of the group was ok. The woman said something about her husband having a broken arm, but come to find out he broke his arm before they even left to go backpacking...and went anyway. Interesting. After finding out everyone else as ok we bagged the hike to White Pine and took a stroll around the lake instead...where we promptly walked through thick vegetation and got soaked. Kim's photos can be seen here.

That evening we had some friends over for a potluck. The main attraction was Jaime and Victor cooking up some arepas; yummm they were good as usual.

It was a nice weekend. Sometime in October we might try staying home again.

Ari

It's been called to my attention that my blog lacks recent Ari photos...so I took some today.
Here's Ari at home:

Heres Ari in Green Canyon:

Backwoods BC; Day 1

August.10.2008

Hanceville, BC
These photos were taken at a place called Lee's Corner. It's the general store, gas station, restaurant, meeting hall, and internet for the middle of nowhere. For us it was also our nighttime accommodations (we camped behind the store right off the side of the road) and shuttle service (the owner and his son drove us to the put-in). They were nice folks; it was epically nice of our shuttle driver to tell us bear and cougar attack stories on the way to the put-in.

Photo 1: I want this sign for my yard.
Photo 2: Chatting with our shuttle driver (the guy in the hat). I was swooning over his Canadian accent.
Photo 3: See that bearded man behind Lacey? He's from Germany; when we woke up he was sleeping in our camp. Nice fellow; he ordered breakfast and lunch, ate them both, and left.
Photo 4: Lacey gives me "the look".




On the Taseko River
Photo 1: The put-in.
Photo 2: Rafting in the rain.
Photo 3: Eating in the rain.
Photo 4: View from the hill behind our camp.
Photo 5: Red sky at night, boaters delight.
Video: This video was shot in the upper gorge section of the Taseko. I'm putting it on not because it's particularly exciting, but it shows how pretty the gorge was and how continuously fast the water was. It was a cold, wet and fast paced first day.