English Elm Tree (Ulmus minor)

 Did not expect to find such a tree in the high desert.  One tree I look forward to seeing every spring is the English elm tree.  Its gaunt bare winter look is gloriously transformed.  "In the spring, before the leaves appear, tiny flowers form and from them spring bunches of bright green fruit consisting of ½ -inch disks with a seed at the center. The bright green clusters, which may be mistaken for leaves, add a very delicate color to flower arrangements."

2019 Spring: The previous winter's rain effect on the English elm tree: bursting with flowers.

 

2021:  Last year, the windstorm knocked off a big chunk off the tree to the ground.  We connected it back using chains and after several months, it has fused with the stump and new shoots are emerging.

Started using the buckets system to reuse kitchen water for the plants and trees.  Some days you get several gallons and you’ll always find some reusable water. The plants were struggling from lack of rain and the English elm tree is putting out flowers though not as much.

2022 spring:  Due to dry winter, the elm blooms were scarce this spring. A mixed bouquet with tamarix and mums. They would add great visual appeal to ikebana.

Recently I found a tiny elm tree seedling and am nurturing it. It is protected so the critters will not eat it. The future elm tree is about 3" tall growing in a container.

September 2022: Welcome to earth and get ready for alchemy. A future elm tree seedling in progress.

Heavenly Drinks from Around the World

 

 Nectar #1  Su-Jeong-Ga (Ginger Cinnamon Persimmon Beverage)

I make this nectar for special occasions.  Usually there will be someone who respond with bliss on their face after tasting it.    It is ginger cinnamon persimmon punch called Su-Jeong-Gwa, a special beverage in Korean cuisine.   In the blazing high desert summer days, serve with ice.  The pinenuts are lightly toasted and sent floating on the surface. The ginger, persimmon, and cinnamon converges to create a flavorful and aromatic  elixir.

Iced Su-Jeong-Gwa                            photo by High Desert World

The elixir is concocted with cinnamon sticks, ginger and dried persimmons. I brew them separately for about 30 minutes, then combine the flavors for another 20 minutes. You'll find many recipes on the web, which is where I learned to make it.  It's an enchanting elixir, perfect to cool off the hot summer days with some blissful flavors.

Ingredients for magic:  Fire, water, sugar, ginger, cinnamon sticks, dried persimmons and pine nuts.

Next on my Heavenly Drinks From Around The World entry is Atol de Elote, a    Salvodoran corn and milk beverage I discovered at Con Sabor restaurant in LA. It took some web sleuthing to find the special recipe as there are several regional variations.  Now I make them on rare snowy days in the high desert.  A perfect winter  beverage that will shelter you in warmth and goodness as snow falls outside.

Desert-Wise Living Landscape Tour 2022

How can we dwell wisely in the desert?   

 

The drought has made water more precious.   I invited my out of town friends to join us for our first Desert-Wise Living Landscape Tour hosted by Morongo Basin Conservation Association.   Their long morning trek is rewarded with banana pancakes, an award-winning custard pie dessert and coffee, then off we go together to learn desert-wise water and energy strategies.

 

We first visit the homestead of Mr. Jose Martinez in Flamingo Heights. He’s a cactus whisperer as all his plants look mightily healthy and happy.  He regales us with origin stories of his plants and adventures of local fauna. He has cultivated a desert garden of mostly native desert flora with cuttings and seedlings.  He tailors to the plants’ water needs as conservatively as possible and sometimes treats them to old milk and cola!  

 

Spring bloom!

Like desert roses...      Cactus bloom galore!

 

 The next stop is called the Ocotillo House in Yucca Valley, a straw bale house under construction with sloped butterfly roof.  The landscape is undisturbed, dotted with diverse native vegetation, so the focus is on energy efficiency: solar panels, rainwater collection, straw bales for insulation, gray-water usage and an unusual power system.  Kevin the owner/builder explains how the day’s solar energy would power electric motors to lift a boulder, and at night the stored inertia would cause motors to generate electricity as the boulder lowers itself.  Another novel element: the pipes on the eaves are designed with holes so the wind would play them like  giant flutes!  What a house of dreams!

 

 

 

                   Photo by Ocotillo House

 

Butterfly roof!            Photo by Ocotillo House

 

 After a refreshing cold drink stop at Food For Thought Cafe at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, we drive through long stretches of unpaved roads north of Joshua Tree to the homestead of artist Judy Wold & Robert Wold who are ambitiously restoring a formerly scraped landscape using various permaculture elements: downspout drains, gray-water usage, contour swales, berms and mulching. Their lovely garden is thriving with native and drought tolerant plants. The former homestead is transformed to a beautiful art studio and their adjacent new home is built with solar panels, rain gutters and rainwater tank. The inside and outside space handiwork is all exceedingly good and gorgeous!

 

The tour was an enriching experience. It was a wonderful way to see friends and share an experience together. We all agreed it was an inspiring call to action to see the desert homes and gardens use creative ways towards desert-wise living.  Water is life so use it wisely!  

 

 

 

Gardening In The High Desert

 Gardening in the high desert climate is a challenge.  Yucca Valley area is in the 8B hardiness zone. I have gardened in Zone 9-10 which has been a breeze compared to 8B zone.   I haven't had much luck with vegetable gardening. The weather and the critters have made the effort a failure.  Still one can continue to try and see  what is possible and not.  Gardening is like witnessing alchemy in action.  The constant transformation of plant life appears to me as magic unfolding.   The various fruit trees I planted the year before and largely watered with recycled gray water answered back in spring with  lovely blossoms. Almond tree blossoms, plum tree blossoms and peach tree blossoms are delicate and stunning.  And the bees show up in droves feasting on the flowers and other creatures also visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Aliens are here.

This young grasshopper 

lived underneath the 

persimmon tree leaves.

 

The moth visitor.

Almond tree blossoms in the high desert. The strong high desert wind caused almost all the petals fall so only couple almonds fruited and the birds got them early before the nuts fully matured.

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

          ~Iris Murdoch

 

 

 

Be mad with joy?  Iris Murdoch must have adored flowers.  A video I made featuring my sister and the beauty of flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peach tree blossoms after being planted into the ground the year before.

                

          Ta da...magic!  The peaches were very sweet...
       the birds and squirrels enjoyed most of  them.        

 

              Comice

I think of Issa often these days, his poems about the loneliness of fleas, watermelons becoming frogs to escape from thieves. Moon in solstice, snowfall under the earth, I dream of a pure life.

Issa said of his child, she smoothes the wrinkles from my heart. Yes, it's a dewdrop world. Inside the pear, there's a paradise we will never know, our only hint the sweetness of its taste.

                      ~Joseph Stroud  (California poet)

Superbowl or Medieval and Renaissance Music?

 Not everyone was glued to the Superbowl LVI game happening at the SoFi stadium in Inglewood, California. On game day, the Hi-Desert Nature Center offered a Chamber Music concert by The Joshua Tree Early Music Society along with special guest, double bass instrumentalist Dave Leon.  The 90 minutes concert offered a foray into the music of the long bygone eras with selections from the medieval through renaissance period and beyond.  

 

 With the aid of video screen in the backdrop, the audience was introduced to various early music composers.  The quintet ensemble of musicians on stage took turns to offer interesting tidbits about the composer or the musical genre. For example, Caravaggio’s painting The Lute Player, features a musician with music sheet bearing composer’s name Jacques Arcadelt.  The audience was also introduced to period instruments used then such as vielle, cornamuse and sackbut.

By Caravaggio, 1596. The Lute Player.  The music (Plate 4a) shows the beginning of a madrigal, by the popular composer Jacob Arcadelt .

 

From the lilting sounds of Ductia dance music of the 13th century to the sweet gentle melodies of Italian composer Jacopo da Bologna of the 14th century, the concert was a fast moving sweeping aural journey into the centuries of early music.

  The featured musical guest Dave Leon presented 3 solo pieces on the double bass from well-known composers of early 20th century classical music: Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. It was an interesting live presentation of late medieval or renaissance music by the Joshua Tree Early Music ensemble along with solo performance by Dave Leon.  Though the event did not have the roar of the nearly 75,000 Superbowl spectators at the SoFi stadium, it was clear that the audience found the concert thoroughly engaging and enjoyable.  Changing musical gears several centuries forward, we had time to catch the Superbowl's halftime real time broadcast featuring the popular 21st century rap music with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and the remaining second half of the Superbowl LVI game. The next chamber music concert is scheduled for June 12th and will feature baroque period music.