Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

Posted on by under food

I love tomatoes. David loves tomatoes. Following the blackberry extravaganza of September, it should be no surprise that we’re now in the full throes of torrential tomatoes! It started with our new friend Sharon. She was staying aboard a nearby boat at anchor and well, she’s got tomatoes on the vine at her home in nearby Rio Vista. Periodically we’ve gotten bags of what we call “Sharon Tomatoes” which are yummy with vinegar and oil, as a tomato/mayo sandwich, in another salad, or any way we can think of preparing them.

Sharon is the source of our tomatoes even if she didn’t grow all the ones we’re now eating. Why? We also happen to be anchored where there’s a huge field of tomatoes across the levy road from us. A few days back, the farmer who owns the tomatoes saw Sharon on the road (I think she was taking pictures of his field of tomatoes…) and told her he’d be harvesting the ones right across from our anchored boats in…oh, about an hour. Sharon reported back to all: There’s tomato picking going to happen AND we can pick up fallen ones after they’ve gone through. So, of course, Sharon was ready with cameras and a bag for fallen tomatoes shortly thereafter.

Wow, there are A LOT of tomatoes on those vines. Amazing. Here are just a couple pictures of the picking that I took following Sharon’s “tomato alert”. These tomatoes are ones sold for soups so says the farmer. And, taste-wise, they’re not as good eaten fresh as the authentic Sharon Tomatoes. In a soup, pasta, chili or other cooked dish, they’re wonderful. Not very acidic and quite meaty.

Hello Autumn Days

Posted on by under anchoring, living aboard, Musings, photos

“The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.” – Joshua Slocum.

For these past several weeks, our ship sails the waters of the California Delta. Fed from the Sacramento River, the Georgiana Slough is our anchorage for now. The rich agricultural history of the Delta is still here: Pear farms, grapes, fields of ripe tomatoes, corn ready for harvest stands dry and golden in the fields. New Delta friends tell us that in the days gone by there were packing sheds alongside the sloughs and docks everywhere because the fruits were taken to market on the rivers and sloughs–not by truck. Today, we see the farm trucks going by with their loads of hay, grapes, tomatoes, and other good fare. Heavy equipment on the levy road; it makes me smile and remember growing up in a farming community in Indiana. River otter, mink, muskrat, woodchuck, familiar furry neighbors. The birds overhead include eagle, falcon, swallows, phoebe, egrets, heron, and the usual assortment of songbirds and unidentified little brown birds. Fish jumping, big and small, but no anglers are successful in luring them to hook. I call out to the passing fishermen “did you catch anything?” and I hear “no, not today” even as I see a big fish jump near Mahdee.

Slough sounds and sights from the dinghy:

The evening sun shines over the slough side and onto the calm waters.

Blackberry days are over and the rose hips are the autumn gifts to the birds and canoeists along the slough-side.

Beryl’s new bird-watching spot is just outside the companionway door.

The ending of yet another beautiful day on the water.

On The Georgiana

Posted on by under anchoring, News, photos, sailing

This is an interesting and peaceful place to be. We have Mahdee tied into her spot 6-ways-to-Sunday. Well, two anchors and four lines to shore (to four different trees, two of those…big trees!). Our GPS shows us moving, oh….maybe a foot! David is teasing me about our situation but I like it alot. The brow/swim platform is down, Tinker in the slough and we can enjoy swimming, rowing, or if we feel like it take out the canoe. So far we’ve been empathetic to Beryl’s desire to keep the canoe on deck where she can sit under the shade of it and enjoy watching everything around without a creature knowing she’s there.

Our new spot for now:

We’re quite close to Walnut Grove, so on Thursday afternoon I rowed us up to the town center for a late lunch. Well, it turned into an early dinner instead. I thought it would take maybe 30 minutes when we left in the late afternoon. However, I’d forgotten about that little thing called “currents” which always flow downstream in the Georgiana and the winds were pretty strong blowing, strangely enough downstream as well. I managed to get a blister on my palm from rowing hard for the mile and a half to our destination in town. And even so, it took us an hour to get there. All I could think was “so nice it will be on the way home! I’ll drift!” David enjoys my rowing. I enjoy my rowing, usually, but this was a little much.

On the edge of town, there’s a lovely little floating home that I had to take pictures of as we went by:

We visited Mel’s Mocha and Ice Cream as our meal location. It’s a fun little shop, good ice cream and sandwiches:

One of those places with too many choices:

And great signs like these:

And after a “Grand” sandwich, a Sprite, and a dip of Mocha-almond-fudge ice cream, I was wired for the trip home:

We futzed around Walnut Grove drifting on the Sacramento River, watching the sun lower over the trees and fishing boats.

The row (drift) homeward was calm and surreal.

You see unexpected things here. I saw a motorcycle with sidecar sitting under a tree on the levy as we drifted downstream.

I wonder what we’ll see next?

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