Rivenrock Gardens Cactus Blog

  I came upon a nice article extolling the beenfits of eating cactus. As always, I wish to pass on the great news of cactus eating.

From Walgreens came this great recipe for bell peppers, onions, corn and cactus sauteed together. I’ve eaten cactus like this so many times, it is just great…. What is also fine is to make a raw salad of the same ingredients with tomatoes added. Yummy… hold down on the onions maybe when eating it raw. And in both dishes, I’d suggest cilantro instead of the parsley/cilantro suggested, and another spice I usually use with cactus is cumen, and salt and pepper also.

   Rivenrock Gardens is being evaluated by Whole Foods as a
supplier of Organic Edible Cactus!
   Yes, this is good news indeed, we’ve been pursuing supplying
large distributors such as Whole Foods for a few years now. This is
the first big indication that such a huge distribution company
might actually buy from us.
   Such a move would benefit us and our customers… due to the
high price of transportation for little batches of cactus, and the
attendant costs associated with processing numerous small batches,
we can sell cactus wholesale to a large company such as Whole
Foods, and they will distribute it through their huge network and
bring it to many markets around the country. Our customers who buy
from us over the mail, will be able to go and get just the amount
they need for that week, one pound, two pounds, and be able to get
it like-as-not for less on a ‘per-pound’ basis than we can sell it
to them through the mail system. It is a win-win situation for us
all.
   But, Whole Foods still seems unsure of the suitability of cactus
sales to the public… what we need to do is convince them there is
a market out there.
   What we are asking our customers and readers to do is next time
you are in Whole Foods, mention our cactus to their produce
manager, let him know you would be a buyer for cactus since you
likely are already… that you appreciate the quality and growing
practices of Rivenrock Gardens, and could they please send an e-mail
to the buyers in Vernon California to let them know that there is
indeed a market built up… and with their marketing saavy, it will
only grow.
   While we’re at it, if you are in Trader Joe’s or other health
food stores, let them know we offer pricing incentives for quantity
buyers, you might well be able to buy your cactus from us through
such an outlet for a lower price.
   We desire to ‘turn-the-world-onto’ this wonderful food source.
And you, the reader and buyer hold the key.

   Thanks,
John and Vickie
Rivenrock Gardens

   African Gray Parrots are a really smart type of bird. They not only are able to learn to speak, it seems that many of them can learn to understand the difference in sizes shapes and colors. They can also seem to compile sentences that make sense…this is seen as a highly advanced brain function. We have a story of a little African Gray named Mr. Yosuke Nakamura. He recently ‘Flew the Coop’ and was lost. The local Police were able to capture him and turned him over to a veterinarian. The vet eventually got the bird to talk (he wouldn’t say a thing to the cops… good training), and the bird gave his name and address. It was a touching story, and you should go to Mr. Yosuke Nakamura newspage to read the whole story.

You know you live in 2008 when…..

1.) you accidentally enter your password on a microwave.

2.) you haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.

3.) the reason for not staying in touch with your friends is that they don’t have a screen name or a myspace.

4.) you’d rather look all over the house for the remote instead of just pushing the button on the tv.

6.) your boss doesn’t even have the ability to do your job.

7.) you read this list, & keep nodding and smiling.

8.) as you read this list, you think about sending it to all your friends.

9.) and you were too busy to notice number 5

10.) you actually scrolled back up to check that there was a number 5.

11.) and now you’re laughing at your stupidity.

12.) Put this on your blog, YouTube, Facebook or MySpace pages if you got Pwnd, and you know you did

   Garmarna is a now-defunct folk music band from Sweden. They specialized in taking old Norse folk tales and putting them into song using both modern and Midevil instruments. One of the pleasures of watching their videos is the energy and vitality which they possess as a group. Another bonus is the glimpse into another culture, one in which I have spent several years living in.

   Their song ‘Euchari’ is one that is poignant for me, I miss the gutteral sounds of Germanic languages being spoken on the street… I miss also the sights of the architecture of the ‘Old World’. Watching a video like Euchari brings back some deep memories…

 Here their tale is a sad story, but one which we all know happens often enough…
It is the story of the parents wishing their daughter to marry into wealth,
but instead she settles for the love of her life.. a poor shipsmate.

Friends and kinsfolk met to deliberate
To whom would they marry off their kinswoman this year
Rosy youth
They deliberated
To whom would they marry off their kinswoman this year

We want you to wed the son of a king
Who has more gold than poor Roland has land
Wed the son of a king
Who has more gold than poor Roland has land

On Saturday and Sunday the word it was spread
Monday and Tuesday will show what she gets
Word was spread Monday and Tuesday will show what she gets

On Wednesday and Thursday the wine was made
Friday and Saturday the wedding was cheered
Wine was made Friday and Saturday the wedding was cheered

They drank for days, they drank for two,
But the bride wouldn’t to the chamber go

They drank for two
But the bride wouldn’t to the chamber go
They drank for days, they drank for three
But the bridal bed she refused for to see

They drank for three
But the bridal bed she refused for to see

Then entered in a poor ship’s hand
Wore a blue blouse both tattered and torn
Poor ship’s hand
Wore a blue blouse both tattered and torn

He stood at the table and he spoke
“I see only masts and the places where they go”

And he spoke “I see only masts and the places where they go”
And the maiden went up to the high loft
And ran down the path to the broad sea shore

Went to the high loft
And ran down the path to the broad sea shore
She ran on the rocks, she ran on tiptoe
But took great care to mind the blue waves below
Ran on tiptoe But took great care to mind the blue waves below

And she was invited on board the ship
And there they bade her drink both mead and wine
On board ship
And there they bade her drink both mead and wine

“I see, I see on your white fingers small
The wedding band has not been there for long
White fingers small
The wedding band has not been there for long”

“I see, I see on your golden hair
That before yesterday the wreath was not there
Golden hair
That before yesterday the wreath was not there”

“I see, I see on your lily white breasts
That small children they have not consoled
Lily white breasts
That small children they have not consoled”

And now the maiden lays at poor Roland’s side
She feels neither sorrow nor anguish
Rosy youth
At poor Roland’s side

(lyrics translated by Milicent)

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‘Herr Holger’ is an old Swedish tale about a corrupt tax official (Mr. Holger) whos perfidy is uncovered by the King who has him beheaded. Sent to hell for his crimes, his ghost pleads with his wife to return the purloined goods to their rightful owners and save him from hell. His wife refuses to live in poverty, so his sentence is sealed by his wife.

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Some people think cultural cross-pollination is a new thing. But I submit that the foreign is always exotic when it is seen in glimpses. Adam Smith wrote in ‘Wealth of Nations’ of the beneficial influences of cross-cultural meetings and teachings. This is a subject that has long fascinated me, I suppose because of my own family history in these matters. My mother was born in Budapest Hungary which was once known as ‘The Paris of eastern Europe’. As such it was at the crossroads of Eastern influences on Europe. My fathers’ family spent three hundred years making their way from Maryland where they landed in the late 1600’s, and working their way west valley by valley, marrying into native peoples as well as the other immigrants from Europe.  Learning of other peoples and cultures and customs can deeply enrich what you know and how you perceive things.

In this next video we can see some cross cultural growth, the seeds of belly dance are bred with the seeds of Northern Europe to produce an interesting amalgam of dance in this one video… with the song ‘Klevebergselden’ by Garmarna.
The dancer is a student of Midevil history and Norse Sagas, so she took a Norse tale about a murdered woman, and using her belly dancing skills, turned it into a mix of Mid Eastern and Norse…. yeah, I like it.

In agriculture we call this ‘Hybrid Vigor’. It means that cross-bred, line-bred, or even just a static population with no new gene introduction becomes weak. One needs the new seed from other places, in the end it makes for a vigorous and active organism, or in the example of a culture, it makes for an invigorated and strong society. This is the secret that has made the USA so strong… we are an amalgam of a hundred peoples, most anyone whos’ ancestry is here for several generations has the blood of a dozen tribes and countries. This made for a strong people, and a people that can reach back for inspiration from the deep recesses of ancestral development.

Oct 23, 2004    A beautiful and compelling story of coyotes from the ‘four-legged-tribe’.
A Coyote Family Story

COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER
HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY
JUST LIKE CHILDREN SLEEPING
WE COULD DREAM THIS NIGHT AWAY

BUT THERE’S A FULL MOON RISING
LET’S GO DANCING IN THE LIGHT
WE KNOW WHERE THE MUSIC’S PLAYING
LET’S GO OUT AND FEEL THE NIGHT

BECAUSE I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU
I WANT TO SEE YOU DANCE AGAIN
BECAUSE I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU
ON THIS HARVEST MOON
~Neil Young ~

 The full moon comes over the hills as I drive home early in the AM. A full night behind, the warmth of home ahead of me, the realization that life is full of twists and turns just like the road I drive.

   The full moon often makes me think of the many places I’ve watched that great orb rise and settle down.

   Some of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen has been the moon lowering itself into the Western sea. That great Pacific Ocean that lies not too far from home. Great glossy sea, smooth with the oils from the kelp, shining the reflection of the moon back into the dark sky. The moon can drown out the stars with its reflecting brilliance.

   There are times that the moon takes up the reflection of the sun from the earth. These are the times that we see the dark moon, but it has that curiously light aspect to it. Not the full moon shining like we usually associate with the lunar light. This is actually the reflection of the sun off the Earth lighting up the moon in a shallow imitation of it’s full-moon brilliance. This is a parlor trick of God as He plays with His great polished mirrors that He so long ago set spinning in the vastness of space when He took His first days foray into creation. This back-shining is called ‘Gegenschein’, which is German for something like ‘reflected back’.

   As I drive along looking at the moon, seeing the silver light shine upon the fields and hills around me, I can’t help but remember the words that my Grandmother once told me of her life on the farm in Hungary before the Nazis came. They had a large farm, and were well-to-do by the standards of the time and area. They had fields, orchards, and livestock. They did all their farming with animals and human power and all in the family worked long and hard to enable them to have a full larder before the winter snows would drown the fields in a carpet of white.

   When the harvest of wheat was ripening the work would be long and hard. Yet the mid-days were still hot. My grandmother told me they would wake at about two AM, and the old women would have already prepared coffee and baked rolls with lots of sugar for energy. The workers and family would all eat and then climb into the wagons for the ride to the fields where they would work harvesting the wheat by the light of the harvest moon.

   At about six AM the old women would send the young children out to the fields with cooked bacon, rolls with butter and jelly, potatoes and eggs and more coffee. All work would cease for breakfast. And then they would resume work after eating and refortifying themselves.

   The at about ten AM the children would return with a small lunch of rolls, jelly and butter, and other assorted treats. Then they would get back to work again.

   A full lunch would be sent to them at about noon, this would be a large and massive lunch consisting of chicken or pork, vegetables including always potatoes and some Cole crop such as kohlrabi or cabbage. They would also have a fair amount of homemade brandy. This large meal would make them all sleepy, and they would then go to sleep in the shade of the trees or under the wagon. This would spare them from the heat of the day.

   After a four hour break and nap they would resume working again. At about five or so a small supper would be sent out to keep them from hunger. This would be the same kinds of things they had for lunch, but in smaller quantities. Then at about eight or so they would have some more food, something with sugar for energy. they would work until about ten at night, when they would return to the house to stumble bone-tired into their beds to sleep for four hours until they woke again at two AM.

   I think about my grandmother and the hardships she endured in her life. The sadness of having her husband snatched away to die in a foreign land when she was just a young woman. Widowed at twenty-four, and then driven from her farm and the land of her ancestors by the communist government with a young daughter in tow to go penniless to another land where she was regarded with suspicion because of her accent and different clothing and eating habits.

   She was indeed a marvelous woman, and a strong and wise one. She had a tenacity that was amazing, an intuitive knack of being able to find the simple in the complex, to break all down into the simple meanings that a peasant would understand and be able to convey to a child.

   Now as I watch this moon on it’s ascent as I drive this California freeway at a time when all good and honest people should be safely tucked away into their own beds, I reflect that this is the time when she and her kin would be rising from the goose down folds of their beds and rising to the scent of fresh coffee on a cool Hungarian morning, and I am just now heading home to retire for the night.

   How is it that life has taken us all from one generation to the next in a flight from the peaceful bucolic peasant life with it’s hugely manual labor to the frenetic pace of a cyber-ponzi scheme that rushes from one moment to another at all hours of the day? She told me often that I should slow down, and take some time to enjoy my garden, not just work in it. She was trying to tell me to take the time to smell the roses.

   She is now passed on into another world for some eighteen months now, and she walks with the Lord in a land of eternal sunshine in the peaceful fields of her youth, alive with the sounds of the birds in the trees shining with green leaves. The children of a lost time run with her, free from the trauma of war-weary men who break into the house and rip up the bed sheets to make bandages for their fallen comrades and cause unspeakable damage to the innocents around them out of avarice and despair.

   She is free now from all of mankind’s ills and demons. but she left me and other people she touched with so much. So much she told us and taught us. And so much that she did not say. I can still think of her way of saying “uhuh” when she did not agree with something I was going to do. This was her subtle way of telling me that she did not agree with the outcome that I thought would ensue, but she left it to me to do as I wished and experience the outcome so I would more fully learn the lesson. Now as a result of so many decades of hearing her advice, I can imagine what she would say to almost any situation that might arise in my life. If I get that little niggling doubt in my mind I can hear her “uhuh” coming through to me warning me of a dangerous and foolhardy undertaking (I’ve had my share of those).

   So, I drive along, a smile of whist fullness on my lips, a longing to be able to hear her speak again. But I speak to her everyday, and ask God often for His help in her new life. And I know that He loves her much more than I ever could, so He holds her close to His heart always.

   There is a saying I heard once, “when you pray do not say “The Lord is in my heart”, say “I am in the heart of the Lord”". And she is in His heart.

   So, I turn from the freeway, heading to the California hills that are now my home. Two generations from the plains of Hungary, and one life from the next.

   The harvest moon rising in my eyes.

   Gott Sei Danke.

The following little prayer in German was at a site from Bruder Titus,
that I liked enough to want to include.
Because it would have meant a lot to my grandmother, it means a lot to me.

Gott sei mit dir

Gott sei mit dir, da wo du wohnst und lebst
und schenke dir seine Gnade.
Gott sei mit dir, da wo du arbeitest
und schenke dir seine Kraft.
Gott sei mit dir, da wo du hoffst und betest
und schenke dir Erfüllung.
Gott sei mit dir, da wo du den Frieden suchst
und schenke dir Gelingen.
Gott sei mit dir, da wo du feierst
und schenke dir Freude.
Gott sei mit dir, da wo du liebst,
und schenke dir seinen Segen.
Amen.

God is with you

God is with you, there where you live and love
and gives you His grace.
God is with you, there where you work
and gifts you with His strength.
God is with you, there where you hope and pray
and gives you fulfilment.
God is with you, there where you look for peace
and gives you success.
God is with you, there where you celebrate
and gives you joy.
God is with you, there where you love,
and gives you His benedictions.
Amen.