AgentZ Posterous

Started back this morning as the Technical Sales Manager for Grinding for the Western U.S. Feels good to be back in the saddle! 
 

As I mentioned in a previous Posterous blog my son Josh was down for the weekend. After our trip to Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Preserve we stopped at Sur La Table at Dos Lagos so I could buy him a Springform pan. For Easter dinner he made a New York style cheesecake and we collaborated on the topping. Its made with unsweetened dark cherries and instead of water we used Late Harvest Syrah (2007) from Wild Coyote Vineyards in Paso Robles. It can only be described as "decadent"!

Now I'm going to go eat it before it melts under the lights... AgentZ

It has been exactly one month (to the day) that we got our garden in. Since then I've bought steel posts and heavy gauge wire to start building a support structure for the plants. Everything so far is going well. The plants are all healthy and I've added a few more peppers to the mix, 2 more bells and a poblano (for making mole).

As you can see the tomatoes are quite heathy and have really taken off.

The peppers are also doing quite well. They are starting to blossom.

The cucumbers are growing like weeds and I've alrerady started training them up the trellis. And the tomatoes are all flowering. We have excellent bee activity this year so I'm hoping for some fruit to set soon on all the plants.

AgentZ

So, things started looking up on Thursday when we got confirmation that Josh was coming home for the weekend. One of the things that means for is me is, help in the kitchen for Easter dinner.

On Saturday, Josh and I went to the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in Murrieta, Ca. We hiked and hiked and hiked through stands of California Live Oak, native grasses and wildflowers (or as Josh sees them, WEEDS) out to the "historic" adobes, to the vernal pools and along the overlook trail. Allegedly the "oldest" adobes in California. They are well maintained.  Some sots from our trip:

from my set From Josh

Our sets are are available from the image link.

Sunday, we had a great dinner. I made ham with an orange spice glaze (juice & zest courtesy of the tree in the yard) and josh made a killer New York Style cheesecake for desert. He'll be making more, I made certain of that by buying him a springform pan at Sur La Table on the way back from our Santa Rosa trip (to make up for his feeling his life was threatened by the imaginary wild animals in the preserve (they were there, just that we didn't encounter them)).

Yesterday I hooked up with my cousin Bob and we went out to the Claremont HIlls Park (in Claremont CA, a public land trust) and then over to a few abandoned vehicles along Thompson Creek just outside the park. Here's a shot from those hikes. Image should link to the Flickr set.

AgentZ

Here, I have been able to combine a traditional Easter flower, the lily, with traditional Easter candy, chocolate.

This chocolate lily was shot in the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Preserve in Murrieta yesterday while on a photo walk with my son Josh.

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Easter.

AgentZ

Went to Micheals yesterday looking for some frames for some prints I just had made from our recent Death Valley adventure. While they had most of their frames at 40% - 50% off (select lines) I found a real bargain in the area with framed "art". I was able to pick up a 16x20 frame with an 11x14 mat, glass & backing for $12.

Mounted and hung the prints in the living room (there's a lot of wall space there).

The frame on the left is the $12 frame.

Prints are available at Photography by JPL

AgentZ