Golden Retriever Smile Recipe

 Smile recipe:

1 dog

1 ball

1 lake

watch her swim

 water shakes off

wild laughter.

Caroline Gerardo October 2016 copyrights reserved

Little Lakes Poem and Videos

Little Lakes Fly Fishing

Slabs of Kimberlite press ribbon of quartz.

Ultramafic rock lines bridge over Little Lakes.

Volcanic eruptions formed hidden diamonds, as

lovers under covers, puppy streams between

dogs like water get into fissures.

Tie flies before Rock Creek hike.

Mosquito Flats creates feed for trout. 

Every minute of climb a new pool:

Marsh Lake, Heart Lake, Box and Long Lakes

Early Explorer sans poetic imagination rule.

Climb faster than Big Horn sheep - jewels are yours.

Ruby and Gem Lake side trips deliver glacier schools

Swim with Paiutes and tourists but for

heaven's sake don't scare the fish.

Puppy swimming back in Little Lakes

examine for Golden Trout

Caroline Gerardo September 2016 copyrights 

for poem, video and photographs are mine.

Food Grows Where Water Flows

Food Grows Where Water Flows


Central California 2015
Rain fall catch us up
No interstate rail works
No system to retain water
Solutions can fill a cup

Doves Nest

Ginny and Fred return to the gazebo. They prefer the confines of passion vines.

“Jack in the Beanstalk plant.” My son calls it.

Bells of flowers cling up under the hat of the structure. A loose nest of sweet peas and weeds hides their offspring. Mourning doves are dutiful parents. They take turns waiting.

Fred goes missing a week. She continues the duties. The eggs hatch any day. Still she calls to him, praying a cat didn’t nab him or my neighbors didn’t shoot him.

Raising children alone is rare for mourning doves. Piles of millet and safflower seeds sprinkled on the feeding platform near the nest. It’s a make shift feeder. Predators can’t easily enter. Ginny’s slender body hops down for a drink of water and snack. Back to the nest, feed the infants pigeon milk.

Spring turns to summer. Children begin to fly. The nest falls to the ground.  Ginny calls. We fill the feeder. Ginny and I wait.

Caroline Gerardo
"Dove's Nest"
2015 Poem copyrights reserved

Photographs of the passion vine in the gazebo
A mating pair have returned year after year.
Look what Google did with my images they made one
photograph of my several. The google gods are genuis

see:

Mistletoe For Christmas

It is Christmas season. I like to make something to share with those around me. The memory of mistletoe in a plastic baggy sold by Boy Scouts at a tree lot forever ago inspired this post.

I am a hiker of the canyons. Local mountains have oak and sycamore trees that are hosts for mistletoe. They appear low enough to pluck but- I know better.What appears within reach from a distance is going to be a project. In Wyoming we used to shoot them down with a 22 to stop the parasite from weighing down apple trees. Here in California, I don't think the rangers would let me go without some monetary fine for shooting in designated natural areas.

 

In my mind I am still sixteen. I decided to climb the sycamores and knock down mistletoe for my project. The first attempt failed. An owl watched me without laughing.

 

My second trip I was prepared. I brought my ten essentials and: climbing rappelling ropes, a scythe for cutting and a short pole. The trick was to appear as any normal hiker ( using the stick like a walking aid).

 

I got up the tree easily but dropped the cutting tool in the first attempt. Wish I brought extra paracord to tie to the moon shaped cutter and just toss it over a branch before I started my second ascent. The scythe would be hanging ready like a Christmas ornament if only I had more rope.

 

After successfully gathering the green boughs I quietly carried them to the back of my car. It began to rain. Rain in California is a blessing. I placed the branches and leaves on my front porch to enjoy the clean off from the mist that evening. To my surprise the next morning the mistletoe had begun to turn light brown. Within a day it turned charcoal.

 

There must be some secret emerald glycerin those Scouts used... I brought the branches into the garage and experimented with left over gold and silver metallic spray paint. I wasn't that pleased with the first results. 

 

 I had some plaster of Paris in the craft bins, some glitter, iridescent modge podge and old grocery bags for the next part of my "project." I believe mistletoe is poisonous or so the Nordic legend with the arrow goes, but that's another story... I covered my kitchen counters and saved a few trimmings to keep the mistletoe from sticking to the paper.

 

See how dark and brittle it became in two days--

Old paint brush, recycled plastic container and recycled plastic spoon and fork. Keep the spoon dry and use the fork for stirring in the plastic cup. I ended up using my hands. Using my fingers was better because I could judge the plaster to be more liquid than toothpaste and firmer than cream. I did not measure. This is fun not work.

Above is a photo (all pics from my iphone) of my snowy white and green mistletoe. When they dried they were less fragile. I saved even the brown paper- I will use it as wrapping paper. The stencils of the mistletoe on the brown paper were graceful. The shadows of the mistletoe on my printed papers (saved from when I printed two parts of the Bible for my son Carson's school project) might also make some pretty cards.

 

 

If you receive one of my funky crafts this Christmas you will know they are made with love and a process like no other. My Pinterest friends would be proud. When I get them into glass ornaments I will post some more images. 

I read this formula that if you sell something on Etsy that costs X 2 plus labor X 2 = wholesale value. I spent a little on gas driving there but all my materials are from recycled things or left overs. But my time well that's priceless times two

For more mistletoe stories, Nordic lore, Christmas meaning of mistletoe - The Farmer's Almanac is very helpful
see here
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/home-garden/2010/12/13/mistletoe-facts-and-lore/

In case you need a home mortgage : http://eaglehomemortgage.com/carolinegerardo/ baby needs new shoes for Christmas

Sharks Are Friends Ban Shark Fin Soup

Indie Writing Challenge

Dispel a stereotype is my challenge from Jen O.
Please click on all videos to open before you read, yes all at once.
 I am experimenting with interactive links. Please provide input about the interactive aspect. Readers please provide comments. I will include your words and ideas. I will make changes each day this next week. If you want your personal link added, please post url in the comments. All free links in the text. Thank you  - have fun. 
I am looking for your story changes, ideas, and responses.

Should AB 376 be thrown out of California?
Is it prejudicial against Asian culture to ban shark fin soup?
Everything you say I intend to incorporate in the body of the text.

 ***

Sharks actually save lives. Sharks provide oxygen.

Sharks are an apex predator. They are a necessary balance in the universe. There are about sixty shark attacks on humans worldwide on humans. Sharks need a new Public Relations Representative. Over fishing and shark finning have placed many shark species on endangered lists. We will miss the mighty shark. http://bit.ly/dycB0S

The brutal practice of shark finning is a multibillion-dollar industry. While the shark is living, the fins are sliced off. The anglers throw the body back into the sea to drown. The process is wasteful and cruel.

http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/shark-finning.html

Shark fin soup is a delicacy in Asian restaurants sold for up to three hundred and fifty dollars a bowl. The fin provides no flavor to the broth. Chicken and pork stock reduce to provide the taste in the dish. Believers think the fin provides mythical powers of strength and an aphrodisiac.

http://www.greenmuze.com/animals/wild/2100-shark-fin-soup-facts.html

Seventy percent of the world's oxygen comes from phytoplankton if we kill off sharks we will reduce the air we breathe. Sharks feed on many of these plankton-eating fish. Sharks keep the ocean in balance and provide the world’s oxygen supply.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800901002737



The ecosystem of the Atlantic Ocean is off balance. The disappearance of species of sharks is one cause. This demonstrates why we must conserve remaining shark species. Sea scallops disappeared from the lack of large predatory sharks in the coastal waters of the Atlantic. During the past thirty years, an explosion in the number of ray, skate and small shark species that they prey on, devastated organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

"Large sharks have been functionally eliminated from the east coast of the US, meaning that they can no longer perform their ecosystem role as top predators," said Julia Baum a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada and co-author of the study.

"With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon - like cownose rays - have increased in numbers, and in turn, hordes of cownose rays dining on bay scallops have wiped the scallops out."

Several of the larger shark species in the northwest Atlantic are verging on extinction, according to Baum and colleagues who analysed a dozen surveys dating from 1970 up to 2005.”

http://youtu.be/XyeKjrxZSRY

The Assembly Bill 376 has passed through the first hurdles. Many emails have come in in support of saving many species of sharks. Few have posted links or information. Above is a wonderful link from SuperMaren  to her utube swimming with he sharks.

http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ssg_pelagic_report_final.pdf

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