Dog Vacation in Apache County

I haven’t posted on the blog for quite a while. I have written a couple, but one in particular I have been doing research for it and siting sources so it has been taking a while to write. It is more of an article than a blog post but I will just post it here when I’m done. The reason I have not posted for a while is because I was working on getting the barebones of the website setup so there are no dead links or pages that were from the template. I also was doing this for my wife’s site https://sonoran.art. I haven’t got very much of her art there at all but I did add some and I’m working on it. I just like to take pictures of her art outside in the sun in the morning or evening on some pieces of wood. I think it looks nice.

I dedicated my largest space in my garden, that I put by far the most effort into, for growing gourds (mostly.) That was the only product I took out of the garden other than a few dry black eyed pea pods to save for the future and also to plant around in different raised beds. I have maybe 4 or 5 beans that are still alive that came up and all I did was stick them in the soil of the wicking beds and it was moist enough that they just grew on their own. One other thing that happened when I planted the black eyed peas in the wicking beds is that the local squirrel seemed to figure it out. Right after I did that, I noticed holes being dug in the beds and at first I thought somehow it was my dog but it became clear that the holes were too small, and they seemed to be in area where I put the beans. The squirrel did pull up at least 2 small bean plants and probably ate them or whatever. I tell my dogs that they are not doing their job of chasing the squirrel out of the yard. It’s no big deal though and the squirrel usually leaves my plants alone, except the two bean plants.

I have 11 gourds that I took out of the garden while it was growing. Some of them were on the small side because we thought they were cute and also trying to encourage the plant to produce more gourds. There are also like 8 or so gourds still on the plant that I am letting dry naturally. I do not believe it worked to make more gourds because the plant made it clear when it was done making gourds and it wasn’t long after. It seemed to put out some chemicals that attracted the leaf cutter ants to it, however they could not get their jaws around most of the gourd plant and it was pretty funny. They had no problem stripping some of my beans but the gourds were obviously attracting them because this was the first time they ever showed interest in that plant, and it was only one specific one. There is another gourd plant equidistant from the ant hole and they had no interest in it. I also noticed that the gourd plants are only putting male flowers out just in case another plant needs to be pollinated but there haven’t been female flowers for about a month so the plant is like “I made my gourds, they are full of seeds, I did a good job being a gourd plant.”

So I had my 11 gourds sitting on a dresser and they were drying a big at the top, but I did know that my aunt usually would hang them. I realized why today (not that I couldn’t have figured it out). I looked at the bottom of one of my gourds today and it was all moldy! Turned out that three of them had mold on them, so I looked up how to clean it off. I figured a mild bleach solution would work but I always like to look these things up. Seems like people actually use the mold to give it like a design and stuff and do not remove it. Only one seems seriously damaged from the mold, but they have thick mold on them and I’m thinking they are referring more to these black spots that give the gourd a design. I think mine are too moldy, so I will probably just clean them after doing some more research. Another awesome thing I’ve seen people do with gourds is using ropes or molds you can greatly influence how they form. You can use rope wrapped the right way to make a twisty really cool looking gourd.

These are some of the things I just came back to. One wicking bed is completely covered in sweet potato and it is beautiful. I am planning on planting two more types of sweet potatoes, maybe today. I’ve been growing them out inside and they are super leafy and have tons of roots. We just got back from camping in the White Mountains in Eastern Arizona. We brought the dogs and they had so much fun.

I grew up going to the White Mountains with my family. We would have 30-40 or so people all camping down a small stream in several campsites. We always would go back to the same place, it’s called South Fork, but the campground has since been closed. It is back in a canyon where if it floods, there is one small bridge to get out and I have been there when we had to evacuate and the bridge ended up being washed out. I was crying and didn’t want to go even though it was pouring out. We still go back and visit, and there are still a lot of memories there. Native American drawings adorn some of the rocks as you drive in, and there is a tree with a bunch of pieces of wood nailed to it that we used to climb up as kids.

I love the White Mountains and will write more about them. I have a lot more I want to say but unfortunately I have things I have to do. My lions mane mushroom bags are not growing yet so I am planning on adding more liquid culture and, well, I also am looking for a part-time job. Super fun!

–Nichollas