Saturday, August 25, 2012

Tropical Quickie

I'm just making a quick update, since I am out taking pics for future posts and don't have time to make a full post. This was from a hike in western coastal Costa Rica a few years back.

 The trees are so big, this buttress was bigger than me

 These two are deadly poison-dart frogs

 A red-eyed tree frog


 A couple of great views of the forest


Chocolate flowers above, and pods below
 Vanilla vine with beans
Tropical flowers are so interesting and diverse





Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Day On The Farm

A farm up in the Capay Valley, northwest of Sac, throws an annual Peach Party to celebrate their harvest. What a Party!


Some cool, old farm equipment
A neighbor grows dates (a wonder what an aquifer can produce)

An apple at the front of the home 
Ripe in a couple of months 
There were so many flowers 
Zinnia 
 And bees (echinacea)
 Wisteria
Sunflowers
The star: Peaches
 

They had peach pizza

 

Surprisingly good
And peach salsa 

They showed us how to make apple juice 
Grind them up 
And press 
Fun for the kids 
But unpasteurised 
Peaches drying 
Coated in their own sugar 
So many pits 
Amaranth grew as a weed here
Pomegranate
Lots of citrus, this is a pummelo 
 Squashes
Green beans
Grapes 
old artichokes 
 
 Peaches
From the aquifer 
Not quite ripe pears 
Persimmons 
Apricots 
 This is one of the peach trees, they let them start rotting and they came back very well, while providing all kinds of new habitats for the local wildlife, a tenant of this organic farm