Berry picking at Underwood Family Farm

Last weekend, N and I headed up to the Simi Valley area to pick fruit at Underwood Family Farms. We've gone cherry picking in SoCal before, but I had this grand plan in mind wherein I would come home with pounds-upon-pounds of fruit that was easily freezable. Then I'd make awesome, fresh-tasting fruit smoothies in the middle of winter. So with that in mind, I decided that blueberries would be the perfect choice.

Underwood Family Farms has two locations, but we went to the one in Somis since that's where the berries were (their Moorpark location is mostly vegetables). It also seems to be a much smaller farm, and we wanted something that was quiet. It was the tail end of blueberry season, but there was still plenty to pick. The farm was almost completely empty, which we really appreciated. I called beforehand and found out we were allowed to bring Stewie with us, so with us he came!

There was a fun little tractor ride to the blueberry field:

N hoarding blueberries in his container:

Even though it was technically only 75 degrees that day, we were out in the glaring sun and it was HOT. Hot-hot-hot! Stewie was being so wussy that he started to drive me crazy. He kept crawling along the bush line desperately trying to find as much shade as he could (which there really wasn't much of since it was around noon). I was trying to be an efficient blueberry picking machine, but all his leash pulling and frantic yanking made it impossible. I had also recently given him a bath, so while he started out nice and white, by the time we left he was a distinct yellow color from all that army crawling he did through the shade.

It was so sunny he could barely keep his eyes open:

N did the majority of the picking while I dealt with Stewie. So instead of pounds-upon-pounds of blueberries, we only ended up with 2.5 lbs. And we ate all of them in the following week. And they were the sweetest blueberries I've ever had (by the way, fresh blueberries + cottage cheese = awesomeness). We could have picked so much more. Darn you, Stewie!

There were also raspberries available for picking, but they were few and far between. We ended up with less than half a pound of them. This is where Stewie is thinking, "Can we go back to the air conditioned car now please? PLEASE???":

The farm also had several animals in pens to feed/look at. Here's Stewie encountering his first goat. Why, hello there....

And his first chicken (which had a really badass hairdo):

The farm had a little stand that sold veggies from their Moorpark location, so I also swooped in and bought fresh corn, golden beets, bok choy and romaine. Their produce looked FANTASTIC. The romaine literally looked like a heart of romaine but it was the whole head somehow (somehow!!). We've eaten everything  and I can also say it was all very tasty.

And finally, we had to take a photo of Stewie's blueberry-stained feet. What an adorable paw bouquet:

Stewie

...loves sticking his head out the window of the car!

silverlake dog park

We brought Stewie to his first LA dog park yesterday. The Silverlake dog park has two separate fenced areas--one for large dogs and one for small dogs. Both have water fountains and watering bowls for the pups, and chairs and benches and overhangs for shade for owners. We went on a Saturday afternoon so I expected the place to be packed, but it was actually manageable! That was the first weird (as in, different from NYC) thing I noticed about this dog park. But the weirdest thing of all was that when we entered the park with Stewie, there wasn't a deluge of dogs that tried to smell his butt he second he entered. All the dogs in the park were totally laid back and friendly and were busy relaxing or playing fetch with their owners. Which made me think--can one study a city's dog parks and extrapolate those observations to the surrounding city itself? Are LA dogs (people) more laid back, happy, and even tempered and NYC dogs (people) anxious, nervous, and starved for socialization?

Anyway, that dog park is fantastic. We also walked around the Silverlake reservoir and found a bunch of rosemary growing along the path:

But, most importantly, I achieved one of my lifelong dreams (seriously) while at the dog park. I saw a hummingbird in real life (in the 'wild')! I have never seen one before although I know a good amount about them. It was the tiniest thing, and did a lot of hovering. I was way too excited to see it and actually was able to catch a photo of it flying away from the fence it was sitting on (look at its blurry wings!):


I am really looking forward to seeing different flora/fauna here in California. Once my hiking book gets here we can start doing some trails...

Snow nose

Stewie's got snow nose. His nose used to be 100% jet black.


Soon he'll never have snow nose again! T minus 17 days...

January 21st, 2010

Three one-way tickets to LA booked and bought. Yes, the second seat does say "Extra Seat For Dog"...

a non-nyc thing to miss about nyc

A couple weekends ago, N and I drove 5 hours upstate to attend his cousin's wedding at Lake George. I certainly never heard of Lake George before even meeting N, and probably never would have if I never came to NYC in the first place. The entire idea of "upstate new york" was foreign to me when I arrived. It still confuses me somewhat--what does upstate refer to, exactly? North of the Bronx? Hudson Valley and beyond? Albany and further? It probably means anywhere above Midtown to some native New Yorkers.

Anyway, N's family hails from the Lake George area--a true vacation spot with 100% sparkling clear water and many miles of protected forest. People travel there in the winter for skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, etc., and in the summer the place is crowded with people boating, parasailing, water skiing, camping, hiking, biking, and above all, eating ice cream. The place has a mom and pop ice cream shop (mostly soft serve) every 5 feet. Well, that's what it seems like to me, at least.

I truly love taking these trips upstate with N to visit his family. Not only is it a chance to get away from the city from a bit, but it's nature. Nature! It's not like going home to Chicago suburbia. It's actually nature. His parents have a forreal natural spring-filled pond in front of their house (none of that manicured, white rocks lining the bottom, powered by a installed fountain artificial junk), and we love catching frogs in it and seeing how big the fish inside have grown while the dogs romp around us. Including Stewie--even though he's a designer lap dog, he certainly loooooves being outdoors in grass. I love letting Stewie off leash to run around, fence and border free. He won't be able to have that experience anywhere else, probably.

Besides the nature, the place swells with old-timey goodness. During our summer visits there, we always make it a point to go to the drive-in. A real drive-in! With the speaker that hooks over the window of the car and everything (that's the pic above). And there's always the truck with an open bed full of raucous children there, too.

I'm going to miss that whole area once we move to LA. I totally see how people live long-term in the city, now--since it seems that most of them have summer/weekend houses upstate, in the Hamptons, or somewhere in Connecticut or Vermont. If I could have that, well, I'd have a much better perspective on the city, too, I bet.

MQ#4: Moving cross-country with a pet?

I've made quite an exciting discovery. There are a LOT of cheap pet friendly hotels/motels around, including major chains! I was blown away by this. Check out this list:

1. Best Western
2. Motel 6
3. Holiday Inn
4. Comfort/Quality Inns
5. Days Inn
6. and more

I guess I'm mostly blown away since I never, ever, ever see people with pets at hotels. Ever. Apparently the general rule is that hotels don't allow you to leave the pet unattended in your room, so it's got to be with you at all times. Maybe it's because people don't know, just like I did?

Now, I know I said in MQ#2 that we decided to fly to LA for the move, but we are now revisiting that question. Besides, that was back in October 2008, before the economy died (I mean, died even more), before we adopted Stewie, and before many other things.

N is convinced we would actually save more money in the long run if we spent more money/time on driving all of our stuff cross country instead of selling what we can and then re-buying once we got there. I personally really like all of our current stuff and would rather keep it than getting new stuff, but I'm just not sure I could handle driving a 16' truck, and I definitely don't want N to drive the entire way! We are looking into renting a cargo van (I could drive that), but apparently there is no company out there that rents cargo vans for one-way moves. U-Haul, Penske, Ryder, Enterprise, etc...they don't do it for some reason. It's weird.

It would certainly be fun driving cross country, especially with Stewie. We even thought about camping it along the way, except then we'd need space for a ton of gear which would make it kind of pointless. Which brings me back around to the beginning of this post. If we were to drive, and take Stewie with us, we'd need to find pet friendly hotels along the way, and it seems we'd have a good amount of options! Lots more thinking ahead...

a little more catch up

One big change to cover before getting back to the move. I'll ruin the surprise with a photo:


One thing that I've always, always wanted, was to get a dog. I heart dogs. All dogs! I grew up with a dog, and a house without the sound of clicking nails on the floor is very empty feeling to me. N wanted a dog, too, though not nearly as much as me, and he always told me that we'd get one once we got to LA. With the huge postponing of our move, though, I couldn't wait any longer.

One thing I was not looking forward to about getting a dog was scouring the NYC animal shelters (I will never buy a dog) to find a right fit for us. I fostered from the shelter system before, and the whole thing is just a huge bureaucratic and stressful mess. But as fate would have it, the stars aligned, and an adoptable dog appeared in our lives through a friend. The one big shocker for us--he was a bichon frise. I know I just said I heart all dogs, but that doesn't mean I don't have ones I especially like over the others. And the ones I especially like are the big ones. I actually have a bit of a soft spot for pit bulls and yellow labs. At the bottom of my list would be designer dogs that overrun New York City: Pomeranians, malteses, mini chihuahuas, yorkies, etc. And yes, bichon frises would definitely make that list. But at the end of the day...I heart all dogs.

So Stewie the bichon frise joined our little family in January. He didn't have a perfect life before he came to us, so he had quite a few kinks to work out. He suffered from terrible separation anxiety (would bark LOUDLY nonstop if he was left alone...for hours, if we let him, which is just not okay in an apartment situation), teethed on our hands, and pulled at the leash. After a solid two months of very regular discipline and training, he's a completely new dog. He trots happily besides us on a loose leash while walking, no longer barks when left alone, and gnaws much less than he used to.

When we first got him, I definitely had a miniature selfish moral crisis. I'm always torn about animal issues, especially with dogs, and I'm 100% pro-adoption. I'm not against breeding, per say, but I am against how most people go about purchasing cute puppies to use as an accessory and neglect later on. Whenever we walk Stewie outside, everyone comments on how he's "such a beautiful animal" and some say they'd like to get a bichon frise, too. I certainly don't want people to go out and spend thousands of dollars on a bichon frise puppy because they saw Stewie. I also don't want strangers to think that I am the type that did that exact thing to get him. I actually want to put a sandwich board on Stewie that says "I AM A RESCUE AND WAS ADOPTED BECAUSE MY OWNERS THOUGHT I WAS CUTE WHEN I WAS A PUPPY AND GOT TIRED OF ME WHEN I GOT OLDER. PLEASE DON'T BUY PUPPIES!" I won't subject him to that, though...yet.

Having Stewie puts an interesting twist on our move. Moving with a dog is harder, of course. We're going to be limited to pet-friendly rentals in LA. We'll have to figure out whether we'll fly with him there, or drive with him cross-country. He's actually very good with long car rides, so he'd enjoy that. Or we could also have him housed a bit longer term with N's parents (who love the heck out of him) and move ourselves, and go back for him later. Lots and lots to think about...