Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

The Cat on My Patio

Posted on by
3

Weird on so many levels.

Last night, my husband and I were sitting outside on our back patio. We have two back patios — one upstairs and one downstairs. We seldom sit downstairs in the evening, but that’s where we were last night at around 8 PM.

We were talking, looking out over the empty desert southwest of our house. We have 2-1/2 acres of land and our house is perched on the side of a hill on one corner of it. There are four houses “nearby,” one of which is vacant. None of them are within 500 yards of ours. It’s very private and that’s probably the best thing about our house.

All of a sudden, my husband said, “There’s a cat behind us.”

I looked and, in the darkness, saw a bit of white. I reached back, expecting the cat to run off, but it stayed in place, arching its back and pushing up against my hand as I stroked it.

This is weird on so many levels:

  • We live in the desert where common house cats are predators, but they’re also prey. The area is full of coyotes, which often travel in packs, and my husband saw a bobcat in our backyard this past summer.
  • Our dog was lying less than 5 feet away in his favorite spot on the patio, between two planters, where he can look out over the desert, keeping the house safe from small critters like…well, like house cats. He didn’t see or hear this cat either.
  • The cat was clean with soft fur. It was friendly. It was not at all like the feral cats we normally see from our patio, the ones that never get anywhere close.
  • If this cat belonged to a neighbor — which is possible — it walked a long way across empty desert to come visit us.

As Mike and I chatted about the weirdness, Jack the Dog happened to glance back. He caught sight of the cat and gave chase. The cat ditched him easily in the dark. While the dog jumped off the patio and chased him around the front of the house, the cat really ran around the back of the house. A moment later, it was on the wall around our backyard, not far from the barbecue grill. For a moment, I thought there were two cats — after all, what was the dog chasing? But no, it was the same cat. Our dog is just plain dumb.

Wondering if the cat was hungry, I fetched a small handful of dry dog food and put it on the wall in front of the cat. It sniffed the kibbles once, then went at them. It was hungry.

We retrieved the dog and went in for the night. I haven’t seen the cat since.

Back when we had horses and chickens — when we lived in our house full-time — we had a mouse problem in our shed where we kept the horse and chicken feed. Back then, I really wanted a barn cat — the kind of cat that could keep the mice out of the shed and fend for itself against predators. I never got one because I always assumed that some predator would get it in the end. Now I’m wondering.

I’m also wondering if the cat has begun hanging around because I’ve started putting out bird food again. While I haven’t seen it here during the day when the birds are around, I know mice must go after the seed after dark. Chances are, it comes around every night for a fresh mouse meal. But since last night was the first night we were downstairs, it was the first night we saw it.

I just hope it doesn’t start going after birds.

Telemarketing Gone Very Wrong

Posted on by
3

A telemarketer goes postal on me.

TelephoneAll of my phone numbers are listed in the Do Not Call Registry. I have zero tolerance for telemarketing calls and report every single one I get.

Today, I received a call from 347-982-0051. It was a recording. I pressed 1 and got a company representative. He said he was from YourSearchListing.com. I told him I was on a No Call list and would be reporting his company. They would likely receive a $5,000 fine. I then told him to get a real job and I hung up on him.

I filed the complaint.

Next, I got a call from 714-869-1805. The man on the line was barely understandable. It sounded as if he were looking for someone. I told him he had Flying M Air and asked him if I could help him. He hung up.

I called back, angry. The phone was answered by a recording for YourSearchListing.com, which is “affiliated with Google.” I pressed 7 when prompted and likely wound up with the same guy I spoke to the first time. I told him to stop calling me and hung up.

I filed another complaint.

I was in the supermarket when I got a call from a “private” number. The man on the line, who had some kind of Hispanic accent, asked me if I got his e-mail. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He sounded confused. I realized he was the same guy who’d called the second time. He asked if he was speaking to Maria and I told him he wasn’t. He asked again if I was Maria and I denied it. He then said he made a mistake. I told him he probably had a wrong number and hung up.

When I got back to my RV, I found an e-mail message sent using Flying M Air’s contact form with the following text.

Subject: you bitch

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/flying-m-air-c370249.html
look at your link bitch
you should get a real fucken job u peace of shit

I followed the link. It was a compliant against my company on ComplaintsBoard.com:

They took me in a tour and what they did is get a girl to give me a blowjob in the air, they are realy an escort service. At the end of it all i let her give me a blowjob for $100 then i decided to fuck her she loved it. I RECOMEND FOR HORNEY GUYS

I understand now why telemarketers are telemarketers. They lack the simple social skills needed to get real jobs and do real work that benefits others. All they know how to do is interrupt people’s lives and then, when people fight back, pull immature and obscene stunts like this.

On the advice of several Twitter friends, I tracked them down via the BBB and filed a complaint. I included the text you see above.

My advice: Do NOT do any business with YourSearchListing.com. They’re likely as fraudulent as the complaint they filed against me.

Why I Go On and On about the Cherries

Posted on by
Comment

I’m awed.

Cherries on a Tree

Cherries in their natural state.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably sick of me tweeting about two things: cherries and the weather. I’ve explained, in detail, why the weather is so important to me this time of year. Let me take a moment to explain why I keep tweeting about cherries.

It’s In My Face

For the past month, cherries have been an integral part of my life. I’m living across the street from a very large cherry orchard. My helicopter is actually parked in the orchard. I drive or walk into the orchard nearly every day. I’ve also spent literally hours flying over the orchard’s trees, low-level. I feel that I have a first-hand knowledge of the orchard surpassed only by its owners, managers, and workers.

Even before I moved to my temporary home across the street, I visited the orchard. The first time was in June. Back then, the cherries were bunches of small pink dots, clustered on the branches. A few weeks later and there hadn’t been any serious change. It seemed like they’d never get ripe.

Hydrocooler in Action

The hydrocooler with its water chiller and accompanying generator in action during the peak of picking time.

Then I moved here and started to observe the activity at the orchard. Watering every morning and night. Spraying for pests many afternoons. Bringing in hundreds (if not thousands) or red wooden cherry bins. Bringing in the portable toilets and ladders for the pickers. Cleaning out the shed. Moving in heavy equipment, like the hydrocooler and its water chiller with massive diesel generator. Preparing the tractors and bin trailers and forklifts. Distributing the bins among the rows of trees.

The cherries took their own time to ripen and the growers couldn’t rush them. When the packing plant had a high demand for fruit, some picking began tentatively, pulling the scant ripe cherries from the trees. Then quiet again as they waited.

I did my part, blowing rainwater off the trees four times, protecting the vulnerable fruit from water damage.

Picking for One

Washed Cherries

Not the best photo, I know; I snapped it with my cell phone to show off how beautiful the cherries were. I hope I don’t seem too demented.

I asked for and got permission to pick cherries for my own consumption. Two or three times a week, I’d head out into the orchard and find some trees with dark red, ripe fruit. I’d fill a small colander, then head back to my trailer with my prizes. I used my RV’s small sink to wash off whatever they’d been spraying on the fruit with cold water baths and rinses. Once clean, the fruit looked beautiful. So beautiful that I couldn’t help by take photos to share on Twitter and in my blog.

I think what I like most about the cherries I pick is the way they’re so unlike store bought cherries. They haven’t been processed. Don’t misunderstand me — processing doesn’t hurt the cherries. It cleans them, probably better than I do. But it also cuts the stems to separate the bunches of cherries and sorts them by size. In my plastic cherry bin, the cherries are still bunched together in twos, threes, and fours — just the way I picked them. Some of them even have small leaves attached. And although most of the cherries I pick are quite large, I’ve also picked the small ones that never make it into stores. That somehow makes my cherries seem more natural. More real.

Even if they’re so perfect looking that they seem fake in photos.

There’s So Much To It

There’s something about being part of the farming process that really makes you appreciate your food. People see cherries in a bag at the supermarket, but do they ever think about what went into getting them there?

This orchard is on the side of a hill that is, in some places, very steep. Someone had to clear the land of scattered pine trees, sage bushes, tall grass, and big rocks. They had to plant rows of young trees and protect them from deer and other grazing animals with tall fences. They had to put in irrigation systems that would deliver fresh water, on demand, to the bases of the trees from a system of reservoirs stair-stepping down the hillside. They had to prune the trees, spray them for pests, fertilize them. They had to protect them during harsh winters and late spring frosts.

They did this for years, nurturing the trees as they began to bear fruit and grow, always adding more trees and irrigation to expand the orchard. Now, this orchard is 86 acres, but I can see the newest, youngest trees, just planted this year, on a hillside not far away. With a few years of care, they’ll be bearing fruit, too.

It isn’t always easy. The orchard’s reservoir is filled by turning a valve that brings water down from another reservoir at the top of the hill. The other day, someone left the valve open too long. The reservoir overflowed and flooded out the overflow area. Two small dams were on the verge of breaking; one of them would have released enough water to take out a road the pickers needed to get to a far orchard block. It was fortunate that a large backhoe was available nearby. The grower was able to dig out a channel to direct the water to a nearby stream. While it must have hurt to release valuable water he’d paid for, it was better than having a road rebuilt or possibly losing access to 15 acres of trees.

Picking

Picking began in earnest about two weeks ago, then stopped suddenly for five days. It started again yesterday. This grower picks for color — they’ll go through the same trees more than once to pick only the best, ripest fruit. They’re probably about halfway done; trees I picked fruit from only a week ago are now picked clean.

I’ve already documented the picking process in my “Cherries: From Tree to Truck” video. What I’ve learned is that every orchard does things a little differently. The process here is similar, but not quite the same.

Pondside Parking

Yesterday, the pickers were parked uncomfortably close to my helicopter.

It’s going on as I type this. From my office window, I can see the pickers moving ladders. I can see their cars parked out in the orchard. I can hear the refrigerated tractor trailer truck pulling up for another load of 30,000+ pounds to take away to the packing plant. The tractors pull in with full cherry bins, the water truck sprays down the roads to keep the dust down, the forklifts shuffle the cherry bins around.

It’s a good day for picking: very cool, partly cloudy. They might work until 2 PM today — a full day, considering they started at first light.

It’s an amazing thing to be part of. Can’t help it if it makes me want to talk about cherries.

Farm Stand Fruit Isn’t Always the Best

Posted on by
3

Look before you buy.

When I was a kid, when the harvest months rolled around in northern New Jersey and Upstate New York, my family would take Sunday drives to farm stands and apple orchards. The drive was the activity, the destination was the excuse. The destination also had the rewards: fresh-picked apples, fresh local corn, fresh-made donuts, cider, soft-serve ice cream. The smell of apples and cinnamon and donuts brings back memories of those days.

Just a Memory

A regular destination was Tice Farm, which was founded in 1808. It was torn down in the late 1980s so a mall could be built in its place. This article on NorthJersey.com offers a look back at two of the farms we visited when I was a kid.

It’s this fond memory of farm stands that has always remained with me. It’s no wonder I began visiting a handful of farm stands in Washington State where I spent much of the summer. But I soon realized that today’s farm stands cannot be compared to the ones we visited 30+ years ago.

Today’s farm stands are mostly tourist attractions. Sure, they have some produce (more on that in a moment), but they also seem to sell an awful lot of non-food items that can’t easily be connected with a farm. Things like candles and scarves and t-shirts. Things like made-in-China “crafts.” Stocking and selling these items must be more satisfactory for the farm stand owner. After all, they’re cheap to buy, don’t need to be refrigerated, and don’t spoil. Sure, they’re usually the same kind of crap you can buy in any mall — even Tice’s Corner Mall — and probably even in a local Walmart. But tourists don’t care. They come, they buy, the farm stand owners keep them stocked.

Reject Fruit?

It’s the produce that upsets me, though. I visited a farm stand in Quincy, WA several times early this summer, attracted by its handmade signs for whatever “fresh” produce was currently available. What I found was often produce that was bruised or otherwise damaged, days old and, surprisingly, often not local.

I bought my first cherries of the season there and was disappointed to find that nearly half the bag’s contents had to be discarded because of splits and bird pecks. This is the fruit that the packing companies reject.

I suspect that the cherries I’d bought were from orchards in Mattawa that had lost 60% or more of their crop in heavy rains early in the season. (That’s what the helicopters are for, folks — to keep those cherries dry so they don’t split.) When the grower decides not to pick and take a loss for the season, the pickers will sometimes go into business for themselves, picking fruit and selling it directly to farm stands.

Rainier Cherries

These organic Rainier cherries, although ripe and tasty, were flawed for two reasons: they’re slightly bruised by the wind and there’s not enough red on them.

I saw this first hand at one of my client’s orchards this season. He had several acres of Rainier cherries that didn’t get enough color. (50% of a Rainier cherry needs to be red to meet standards.) The fruit was good — I picked at least 15 pounds for my own consumption and they lasted two weeks in my fridge — but the packing companies wouldn’t take it. The grower didn’t pick but the pickers descended on the orchard anyway, taking away a lot more fruit than I did. Was it a coincidence that local Rainier cherries appeared in the supermarket for 99¢ a pound that week? I don’t think so. I’m sure that farm stand got their share, too.

Fresh, Quality, Local Produce? Not Always

And that’s the point: the farm stands don’t always get quality produce. It’s not always local. It’s not always fresh. It’s whatever they can get cheap and sell at premium prices. The tourists don’t know any better. They see farm stands and they think fresh, local, organic. They don’t realize that they’re often buying the produce that the packing houses don’t want.

Is all this produce bad? No. The cherries pictured above were sub-standard for the packing houses, but they were perfectly good to eat. (And it’s good to see that someone was picking them and making them available for consumption — I picked so much primarily because the idea of all those cherries going to waste was very upsetting to me.) Still, a farm stand might charge a premium for them just because they’re Rainiers and just because they’re at a farm stand. It’s the sucker tourist who doesn’t know any better who is paying a premium price at the farm stand when they might get better fruit at the local supermarket.

As for local…well, I’ve never seen an orange grove in Washington State. Lemons, limes, kiwis — these are all produce you might find at a farm stand. If you’re looking for local produce, think of what you’re buying and ask if it really is local.

And fresh? Here’s a secret: apples are picked in the late summer and early autumn. If you buy an apple anywhere in the U.S. in May, it’s either not fresh or it not local. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy apples off season — apples are one of the few fruits that we’re able to preserve for up to a year and maintain in near-fresh condition. I’m just using apples as an example, since apples appear at nearly every farm stand you might visit.

Look before You Buy

My point: don’t automatically think that the best produce can be found at a farm stand. Not all farm stands are created equally. Look before you buy. Ask questions. Don’t buy pre-bagged items — remember my bag of bad cherries? Make sure you get what you’re paying for.

And support the good farm stands — the ones really delivering produce right from the local farms — by visiting them often.

Technical Support FAIL

Posted on by
Comment

Staff that can read, understand, and reply to requests in English would be helpful.

Two weeks ago, I needed to access a restricted area on a Web site operated by a major software vendor with beta software I needed. I’d been given an invitation link that should have gotten me access, but it didn’t work.

After searching the site, I finally found a link I could use to send feedback. Because I’m under nondisclosure for this project, I’ve redacted some of what I sent, but you can get the gist of it here:

I’m supposed to have access to the [redacted software] beta. I got an invitation. I filled out the form and it said the invitation was invalid. My contact is [redacted contact], at [redacted PR firm]. The error code I got when I tried to get a product key following the instructions of my [redacted PR firm] contact was 2f1dc2b1-4e83-4dc5-8c3b-8988079801af. I need access to the software. Can you please help me?

Several days later, I got the following response:

Hi Maria,

The reason you are getting this error is because the [redacted acronym] with which this invitation is associated is no more a valid [redacted acronym] hence to fix this you need to follow following steps:

1. The account for which the [redacted acronym] no longer exists will need to be merged with an existing (valid [redacted acronym]) account ,
OR
2. You need to create a new registered account in [redacted service] with which, we can merge this existing account.

Thank You!

[redacted name]
[redacted company] Team

I had no freaking idea what this meant, so I responded:

This information does NOT help me. I cannot get the software. Can someone PLEASE help me resolve this? It’s been going on for nearly a week and I NEED the software ASAP.

Nearly two weeks have gone by. In the meantime, I was suddenly able to access the software. I no longer had a problem. Yet today, I got the following message:

Hi Maria,

The reason you are getting this error is because the [redacted acronym] with which this invitation is associated is no more a valid [redacted acronym]. Every invitation is associated with users valid [redacted acronym] and in your case there is no [redacted acronym] a/c showing and hence to fix this issue there are 2 steps:

1. You give us a valid registered [redacted acronym] and we will merge it with your account for which the [redacted acronym] no longer exists. OR
2. You need to create a new registered account in [redacted service] with which, we can merge this existing account.

By merging we here means that all the permissions which your original [redacted acronym] had will be transferred to this new [redacted acronym] of yours.

Thank You!

[redacted name]
[redacted company] Team

Look familiar? It should. It’s almost exactly the same message I got two weeks ago. It’s even purportedly from the same person.

One thing is obvious to me. The support system of this major software vendor is broken — possibly because it’s hosted in India where the people sitting at keyboards don’t understand English. They might consider getting some English-as-a-FIRST-language support staff to help their English-speaking customers.