Dana called me up. She and Gerry were going to celebrate turning on their solar power system, and they wanted me to be at the party. I said okay, and what follows is the stuff she wanted to show off. It started with her garden. Dana has been an avid gardener for many years, and she thought this would be a great time to photograph her back yard.

     

The latest extension is a pair of the garden kit boxes on the porch. She likes them partly because she doesn't have to bend over to pull fruit off the vine. The most advanced tomatoes on the plant are still just green balls though.

  

The eggplant is still just purple flowers right now. Looking at the plant it's easy to see that it's a relative of the tomato. As Dana said "they are both in the nightshade family."

        

Beyond the porch there was a lot more. Chard, corn, beans, and flowers. Maybe it seems tiny compared to a real farm, but it's huge compared to the crop I'm able to grow in a few pots on my porch. Probably this yard has fed me more meals than any other in Santa Clara County, if you don't count the fruit snacks I get from the neighbors trees or the stuff I buy from farmers.

     

Dana had several squash plants growing under the corn. She couldn't show me squash growing on the vine because it had all been harvested to go in our supper. Despite having limited success getting the beans to grow up the corn like it was poles, she is still trying to do that.

     

I spent some time picking berries for the dessert. Some of them were so ripe that they would fall apart when I touched them. I had no trouble getting together a bowl of beautiful berries. I didn't want to goo up my camera showing them, so you have to take my word for it.

        

The fig tree has a ways to go before the fruit turn purple and sweet. At this point they aren't ready to eat yet. I know from experience.

That huge weed is a lettuce plant that escaped. Dana hasn't gotten around to pulling it out because she likes the way it looks.

  

The end of the tour was a look at the solar panels on the roof. Gerry confirmed that the power meter really has been going backwards since they were installed. In the foreground you can see the grape vine they are still training to cover the arbor.

  

Then we ate a wonderful meal. I didn't photograph the many fine dishes that weren't grown on site. The above were quite delicious.



I made the beans. Lois said they were quite good, but maybe a little more salt would make them better.

Later in the evening we played a game I found interesting. Gerry tuned in a radio station playing music of the 1940s and 1950s (before Rock & Roll). A song would come on and he'd ask title and artist. Dana got a lot of them Lois got some, and I sort of muttered. I just wasn't familiar with that kind of music. Anyhow, after everybody had done their guessing he'd look at the radio station's website and say who was right, or whom it was if we guessed wrong. I still think that's a great use of all that technology, since it was already there.