Minestrone Makings

We decided to avoid the town and the Santa Rosa Marathon this morning and took Ozzie to the park at the top of Los Alamos road behind our house. Driving the four miles up to the Regional Park at the top is an adventure, and practically nobody goes there so we can let Ozzie off his lead and throw sticks for him into the creek .We walked to the creek admiring the changing colors. The hills are still parched and golden, studded with oaks and bay laurels, but the poison oak is a bright red. It seems early for the leaves to be turning but it is also a beautiful time of year in this city of trees. 

There's something very satisfying about making a 'shopping list, collecting a pair of scissors and a bowl and going up to the garden. We decided on minestrone for dinner because, except for the rice and the Parmesan, everything came from our garden. And there is the added benefit of butterflies flitting around the last of the zinnias, the lizards coming out of their homes in the rock walls to sun themselves and do a few pushups, and the hawks wheeling overhead. The jays are but a flash of blue as they head for the suet feeder, and the quail march across the field, through the fence and down the steps. I would say it was a stately pace, but there just isn't anything stately about the progress of a bunch of quail, especially the babies who fling themselves off the steps they are still too small to jump down.

The wasps are fierce this year and followed me, well, my bowl of veggies, around even though I disturbed a lot more of them trying to pick the green beans they seemed to favor. Apparently they wanted the very green bean I was carrying off. Although the weather is perfect for sitting outside in the evening, it is the wasps that are discouraging us this year. Dana always insists that she HATES eating outside because it is always too hot, too cold, windy or buggy. Perhaps she's right, but we persevere.