The seasonal ice cream parlor opened up in Independence at the end of March! It is run by a cool couple who make their own dairy and non-dairy ice creams. They have classic flavors but also very fun flavors like Apricot, Honey-Lavender, Rose with Pistachios, and Peanut Butter Cup. We go at least once a week!
My parents visited us this winter and we went on some windy walks and visited the museums like the Eastern Sierra Museum, the Lone Pine Movie Museum, and the museum, exhibits, and park of Manzanar, the local WW2 internment camp for Japanese-Americans. I hadn’t been to Manzanar since we last lived in Bishop and there has been so much restoration work! Really impressive.
So when I saw a request for volunteers for a work week at the site of the old hospital, I signed up. Our group helped rebuild a wall, sift through dirt around the path and built-in bench, and remove brush so visitors could see the foundation piers of the buildings. It was very satisfying and dirty work.
Almost as soon as we moved to Independence, I tried to garden in containers. There was more sun than I had experienced in years and many days were t-shirt wearing temperatures. I tried radishes, marigolds, pansies, peas, kale, tulips, cabbage, chard, nasturtiums, and lettuce. I thought I’d try things that do well in my mom’s Alaskan summer garden here for winter/spring. Well, some things hid under the dirt the whole time and I got some greens for a few other things, but nothing much. So I guess night temperatures really do matter.
Once it was a more normal time to plant, our friend gave us 4 tomato starts and 3 eggplants. I tired to find a used bathtub to make a larger container, but didn’t find anything. So I dug a small garden in the ground, lined with chicken wire, and heavily supplemented the sandy soil. I also sprinkled some marigold seeds in there to ward off pests and recently planted 3 summer squash seeds. I might have over stuffed it, but those plants look so happy (compared to my typical plants). I’m really excited!
My container plants are still sad, even though I’ve added more seeds a few times and fertilizer in some. I’ll keep experimenting.
We had a really fun time in the Inyo Mountains in the Fall, Winter, and first part of the Spring. Lots of hikes and runs and rock hounding. We took one overnight backpacking trip and slept in a pinion forest overlooking Saline Valley. Jon went on a longer adventure in the Inyos and he’ll probably write a blog entry about that in the future. Now it is really hot in that desert range, so we’ve transitioned to the Sierra mountains for our fun.
We still don’t have house plans from our architect, so we don’t have a dome update. I know it will be very busy once we get the completed plan set, so I’m relishing this time to play in the mountains.
