If ever there was someone to keep me at home, it would be you

Believe it or not, I haven't been doing much hiking lately. Or, for that matter, camping. And yes, that's devastating to me.

Although I can't complain too much - the last time I did go camping, out in "my" Anza-Borrego Desert, I got engaged!

That's right. The cute boy who kept up with me last year in Anza-Borrego, and since then has put up with all my other expeditions, proposed to me on February 4th. And it was perfect. Because, let's face it, it's hard to mess up a desert-camping-with-wine proposal. Especially when you've got scenery like this:



And this:



And you're camping somewhere like this:


And the next morning, you get to hike somewhere like this, Oriflamme Canyon, leading up to what's supposed to be a breathtaking waterfall:








Because even though we didn't make it to the top (a freak thunderstorm hit and we had to race back down through the brush), and even though my car suffered for it all (broken and leaky shocks and a gnarly scratch down the driver's side), it was the most perfect trip a girl like me could ever have asked for.

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So now, we're planning the wedding. It will, appropriately enough, be an entirely outdoor affair. And even though it will be in the heat of summer and we have to spend the months beforehand living apart, doing internships in separate cities, I have no doubt that it will be as perfect as its beginnings.


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She just smiled and laughed at me and took her blues back again

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So yesterday, with a serious craving for some fall air and apple cider, we took a jaunt to Julian to pick apples. It was the perfect fall day - warm and sunny with a nice mountain breeze coming in the car windows - and we got an early enough start that we were able to get there, get our apples, and eat lunch - and still be home by 3 to hit the gym and do some studying.

These are some random out-the-window shots of the drive up:


I've hiked near this one, a little over a year ago - unfortunately, I don't think I had my camera with me at the time, because I can't seem to find a blog post here about it. It was a beautiful hike, though, and there were a ton of horseback riders - which made me miss my horses terribly!


From here, you can almost see Anza-Borrego, "my" desert. I've hiked there a couple times - once getting lost, once not getting lost but getting very tired, and once with the cute boy I now live with!


And here's Lake Cuyamaca, where we caught a whopping zero fish a couple of weeks ago. I guess you win some, you lose lots?


And here, even though it doesn't show very well, is the reddest field of...something...I've ever seen. It was really brilliantly-colored in person, and it made it feel that much more like fall!


Then we got to Julian. This photo about sums up the entire town.

We had to go through and past Julian to get to the orchards, which wasn't too much skin off our backs (except in the motion-sickness department, which got a little gnarly at times), considering it all looked like this:

And then we got to pick apples! And boy, did we pick apples. 24 pounds' worth of apples, to be precise (plus the one we couldn't resist eating in the orchard). It was ridiculously fun, aside from the obnoxious couple with their obnoxious child running around poaching on every tree we hit!

Then we went back into Julian, had lunch at the Cowgirl Cafe, and hit the road to come back and (blech) study.

So now I'm busy finding apple recipes. So far I've got: Mom's apple pie filling, some roasted applesauce that I fell in love with last fall, fresh apple juice every morning, and caramel apples. Yes, we made a trip to the Julian candy store after lunch yesterday to buy caramels for the caramel apples. And yes, their quantity diminished significantly on the drive home.

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And I say to myself, what a wonderful life

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I'm a very proud mom right now. The broccoli and kale I planted last Friday are sprouting, and so is one "batch" of lettuce.

See? Here's a very poor picture of my baby lettuce. All in all, there are 11 sprouts - unfortunately, they're all really close together, and I'm going to dread the day I have to thin them out (which always seems like code for something very cruel).

And here's a very poor picture of my one lonely broccoli sprout, which makes me terribly excited too, because it was so hot here yesterday (almost 90, even by the beach, and it's going to be toasty again today) that I was afraid they wouldn't germinate.


And here! Here's my potted kale, which I'm now wishing I would've planted in the ground so I could have much more of it. I'm sort of a kale addict, and just got a bunch of new recipes for it. I think I saved a few seeds though, so maybe I'll plant a few next weekend (in the ground) to see if I can stagger the harvest a little bit.

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And here is my little monster - I mean, my little darling. Grace has a bit of a laundry fetish, and yesterday, for a study break before our Evidence final (how sad is it that laundry = break for me?), I did a few loads of laundry.

Obviously, Grace was a very happy cat.

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And I tried to sing, but I couldn't think of anything

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I miss my horses!

Tell the repo man, and the stars above, that you're the one I love

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So, Sunday, after I'd spent all weekend admiring my "squigglies" and begging my boyfriend to take me fishing, he caved.

So we gassed up the car, packed up a picnic and sunscreen, and drove out to El Capitan Reservoir to catch some fish.

After three hours, two different spots, and a really annoying couple of guys in a boat that kept running over our lines, we hadn't caught a thing. Neither of us, actually, had even gotten a bite.

So we packed up our picnic and sunscreen and went home.

On the bright side, it was a beautiful day and the lake is a really close, convenient place to go when we need a break from schoolwork - it's only about a 40-minute drive from our house.

Here's what it looked like:





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What though the odds be great or small, Old Notre Dame will win over all

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Yes, those are lyrics to the Notre Dame fight song. Which I've been forced to memorize.

So, in the spirit of football season (which has been consuming my weekends, despite my futile protests), I give you this:



Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life


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I've still got sand in my shoes

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So the gardening continues. I'm sure I'll run out of soil/space/sun/time eventually, but until then, I can't get enough of having my back sore and my feet muddy and my fingernails dirty.

After a day of having my mint garden planted, I had to move it because the area they were in that I thought had 6-8 hours of sun every day is actually protected by some strange overhang, and only got about 3.

So I planted these, instead:




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It's the most colorful coleus I've seen in a long time (so I totally splurged on it), sandwiched between two other shade plants (which I've forgotten the name of at the moment and can't bother myself to get off the couch, walk thirty feet, and check), which are the prettiest deep maroon-purple color. They look like coral bells, a little bit, but obviously aren't. The tag says they reproduce by bulbs, so I'm hoping they take off and it turns into a pretty shade garden.

So I moved my mints here, and put edging around them (which turned out to be a hell of a project, not like the easy fix I'd thought it would be). I haven't quite decided what to put next to them, but I'm thinking maybe my carrots and onions. I ordered seed a couple weeks ago, but haven't put them in yet. I'm also going to be planting some lettuce, spinach, and kale - but I don't dare put them out until it cools off a bit. A lot. The mints look tiny and scraggly in this picture, but I'm optimistically thinking that they'll do the mint-like thing and take over that section.


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I also put edging around the tomato and basil.



And, I added two more herbs to my little potted collection. A rosemary plant, and the purple sage on the left. They seem to get along just fine with my lavender, and I'm a happy girl having all these plants to take care of and smell when I go outside for my morning coffee or my evening cocktail!



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In other news, I've been stocking up on fishing tackle (or, as I like to call them, "squigglies"). We're going fishing at El Capitan Reservoir tomorrow morning, as long as today's full lineup of college football doesn't leave us too tired/backlogged on homework/hungover to get out of the house tomorrow!

But anyway, I'm up to 23 "squigglies" now. Aren't they pretty?



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