Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Apple-picking time! Southern California may not be known for “real” falls the way New England is, say, but we have them—the signifiers are just a bit more subtle. And it’s still possible to find something as quintessentially autumnal as apple-picking here—you just have to get out of the city a bit.

How far out?

Far enough to see signs like this. I mean, you might find similar ones in West Hollywood, but they'd mean something entirely different there.

So sure, it’s a bit of a trek, especially considering there’s no shortage of apple cultivars in stores at this time of year. (Fresh apples, I mean, not to be confused with apples in their properly finished state.) And not just the ever-popular Honeycrisp—sometimes you want the faint sourness of a Braeburn or the sweeter, softer tones of a Gala. Or maybe you’d prefer the tart crunch of a Jonagold or the candylike punch of a Jazz? Ambrosias, Fujis, Pink Ladies, these too all turn up pretty reliably at the supermarket every fall. But sometimes a rabbit simply wants something that’s a little more unusual, like a Mutsu or a Gravenstein or an Arkansas Black—and for those, Rob and I have to head about ninety miles inland to Oak Glen.

Or we could just hit up a farmer’s market. But what fun is that?

And so we’re off to Parrish Ranch, our first stop on the narrow mountain road that sets our course on this little sojourn. Established as the first full orchard in Oak Glen nearly 150 years ago, some of the ranch's original buildings are still in active use, with additional shops added later. First things first, though...

...let’s get something to eat at Apple Dumplin’s, housed in what was originally the ranch’s horse barn. Very home-y food—I’m kind of partial to the grilled cheese with bacon and apple slices, just because it’s almost like a ploughman’s lunch in every bite. Guess I should’ve asked for a pickle, though.

And from there, it’s a quick hop down to the store, where we can get our first look at this year’s selection. Ooh, Vasquezes! As good as Honeycrisps, if not better, and a lot harder to come by. No way I’m leaving without at least a couple of bags of those—my brothers will make a point of plowing through an entire sack before they even bother to see what else we got.

We’d linger, but with the rest of the mountain ahead of us, we’d best keep moving. So it’s off to Snow-Line Orchard at the high end of the road, where we find a bit of a surprise—the very last of the summer raspberries, still available as U-Pick. The only catch is that they’re mostly at the very bottom of the bushes—hard for a human to get to, but that’s where I come in. Don’t tell Rob I licked all of them before putting them in the basket, though.

But berries are just sort of an unexpected bonus at Snow-Line—there are two main reasons we come here, and the right-out-of-the-fryer cider doughnuts are one of them. The line for these things is usually out the door, so as you can imagine, this is about as full as I’ve ever seen the doughnut-catcher-thing. And it’s about to get half a dozen emptier.

Aw, yeah. I know I shouldn’t ask for extra cinnamon sugar because that stuff gets in the fur, but I do every time—and every time it’s worth it.

And the other reason we come here? The cider, available in regular, raspberry, and cherry. I know full well we’re getting jugs of each to take home—we brought an ice-filled cooler and everything—but I get in the sample line for a quick fix anyway.

Don’t judge me. I don’t get to drink pure sugar like this all that often.

In fact, having waited a full year since my last taste of the stuff, I get an extra pint for myself and park it outside for a few, enjoying the sunny day and a little live music. Well, partially live—our singer’s backup band is a laptop. And it’s a Toshiba. The slight irony of SoCal apple country is that the nearest Apple Store is about forty miles away.

But my break doesn’t last long, because Los Rios Rancho awaits! And good news—they’re set up for U-Pick today, although apparently all they have available at the moment are Granny Smiths.

Oh well. A pie’s a pie. Let’s get cracking!

And...wow. Holy Hesperides, I think we’ll be doing them a favor, taking a few of these apples off their hands before the weight of the branches causes a bunch of them to become windfalls. Going back to the human-rabbit teamwork thing, though, I’ll let Rob deal with these upper branches...

...and I’ll take care of the crotchfruit.

Oh, grow up. What else was I supposed to call it?

And in fact, I finish filling my bag while Rob’s still filling the larger box he picked up, so that leaves me time to debate: bake these suckers or just throw ’em in the cider press and get more sweet, sweet juice? Because they have traditional presses here, and that’s something I’ve never done. Yeah, I think I should go for it.

On second thought...pie still sounds good. Why don’t family-friendly places like this at least have kid-size versions of these things?

Then again, maybe cidermaking’s best left to the professionals. And here you can see them go at it, smashing the pulp down in a process that’s mechanized but still fairly similar to doing it manually. Although with the old-fashioned presses, the juice doesn’t splatter all over the way you see it on the windows here. Funny how it’s probably better not to know how the proverbial sausage is made even when it’s a vegan product.

So as long as we’ve got some downtime, why not explore the rest of the ranch a bit? I don’t know if this is the most sincere pumpkin patch...but I can tell you now that if that stupid beagle shows up, I’ll clobber him.

Behind-the-scenes anecdote: As we were leaving the field, some guy asked Rob, “Where’d you get the rabbit at?” Rob told him he found me in L.A., where I was looking for my break. The guy simply responded, “I want a rabbit.” Rob suggested doing what he did, which was use promises of filet mignon as bait. Then why has it been mostly tri-tip ever since, Rob? Why?

Beautiful day that it was, we also made certain to go for a nature hike, with a pause on this floating deck to really take it all in. How wonderfully picturesque. I may be an urban rabbit, but there really is something to be said for the country views out here. If they just built some condos, I could actually imagine moving out here. Condos and Apple Stores.

Then on the way back, I decided to try something really fall-traditional: a hayride. Let’s get this show on the...wait, is this a manual? Can’t drive a stick with paws. Oh well. You’re on your own, kids!

And with the sun setting, it’s a good time to get back inside anyway—not only is there a ton of stuff to peruse at the farm store, we got tickets for the monthly Los Rios jamboree. Can’t be late for that!

How many kinds of chutney do you need? I think they have all of them in stock.

Then after the regular business day is done and a temporary shutdown occurs, the Riley family—the longtime owners of Los Rios—take off their proprietor hats, put on their host and musician ones, and reopen the store with long dining tables, where ticketholders can listen to the family band perform classic country and bluegrass tunes while we enjoy a BBQ dinner. You don’t get this kind of thing very often in Pasadena, I’ll tell you that much. Bel Air, forget it. And Inglewood...

But even better is that after dinner is over and most of the crowd clears out—why, I don’t know, this is the best part—the family and their friends get together for the true jamboree portion of the evening, where they gather ’round with their guitars, fiddles, and mandolins and just jam on whatever songs people feel like playing. It’s warm, it’s intimate, and even strangers feel utterly welcome.

Of all the times for me to forget my 808 at home, too. Oh well, there’s always next month!

So our long day comes to a happy close, and the only thing left to do is to return home and decide what to do with all these apples! I could make a monster pie with the Granny Smiths and Honeycrisps alone...or do a blend of all the kinds we got...or do an apple crisp instead of a pie...or a cobbler...a dumpling...a crumble...a cake...a strudel...tarte tatin...

Funnily enough, even after a day like today, I still just kind of want to eat one of these things straight.

And that’s how a city rabbit found the true meaning of autumn: get out into the country, breathe some fresh air, eat a ton of fresh produce, and throw down at the hoedown. You know—the very same way that people have been celebrating a bountiful harvest for millennia.

I just hope those kids aren’t still out there waiting for somebody else to drive that tractor.

One quiet Sunday

Even a peripatetic rabbit likes to have a relaxing day sometimes.

To that end, Rob and I decided to spend our Sunday in San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles and Rob’s preferred jumping-off point for Catalina Island. We won’t be catching the ferry, however—today we’re staying put and seeing where the day takes us within town.

First stop: Mishi’s, for some leisurely tea and cherry strudel. With Hungarian strudel, the dough is supposed to be rolled so thin that you can read a newspaper through it, ensuring the flakiness of the pastry. Flaky, I can confirm, but honestly, I was too busy tucking into it to verify its transparency. Guess I’ll just have to come back another time to do that—I’m thinking I’ll have to test the blueberry. Or the apple-walnut. Maybe both, just to be absolutely sure. That’s scientific method, right?

Tea and strudel finished, it’s an easy roll down the hill to Angel’s Gate Park, where we find the Korean Bell of Friendship. This was South Korea’s gift to the U.S. on the Bicentennial, to honor both our Korean War veterans and the warm relations between the two countries. And if you don’t think seventeen tons of copper-tin alloy signify a serious commitment, I don’t know what to tell you.

There’s also a pair of jangseungs—carved wooden posts meant to keep evil spirits at bay—possibly best known in the States from a 1976 episode of M*A*S*H. But usually they’re carved to look conventionally scary and intimidating, not...dementedly happy.

Probably just as effective, though.

Anyway. Closer up you can see the detailing on the bell as well as the ornate decoration on the pavilion that houses it. Instead of a clapper, the bell is sounded with a suspended log; however, it’s only rung on certain holidays (New Year’s Eve and both countries’ Independence Days among them) and the log is chained in place the rest of the time. Not that it, uh, crossed my mind to try anything anyway.

The other notable feature of the Korean Bell? The view. Well, some days more than others—today we had the gloomy marine layer that SoCal gets in the late spring/early summer. It’ll burn off later, but for now you almost have to take my word that that’s Catalina looking like a mirage across the water.

Moving on, we swung by the other side of the park to see the Marine Mammal Care Center, a nonprofit that specializes in treating injured seals and sea lions as well as educating the public about our pinniped friends. You can watch whatever’s going on in the half dozen saltwater pools, but don’t expect any performances—this is strictly a veterinary facility, and its patients are bound for release rather than domestication. Well, not every species is cut out to be an urban critter like I am.

As it happened, that day the center was having its Annual Seal Day fundraiser, with food, music, vendors, and carnival games. We chipped in a few bucks for the raffle—didn’t win anything, but seal rehab’s always a worthy cause, I suppose.

There were also a couple of educational tables with marine specimens to show off—these are the teeth of the silky shark. Eep. This is why you never see a rabbit in the water, at least not without a speargun. And depth charges.

Hey, Rob, he followed me home! Can we keep...it’s already a no, isn’t it?

Then a stone’s away throw from the Care Center is the Fort MacArthur Military Museum, built on one of the batteries that the fort—named for Arthur MacArthur, Doug’s dad—occupies. The grounds have been through a few incarnations over the last 125 years: Originally a Spanish public landing, by WWI it was a training center that was expanded to a Pacific defense station in WWII, and later it served as a peacetime reservist camp, a Cold War anti-aircraft base, and, eventually, a city park, although some of the facilities have been transferred to the Air Force and are still used for housing and administration. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll concentrate on the museum area only.

Can I drop the arm down and do the “You shall not pass!” line now?

Actually, Fort MacArthur is said to be the best-preserved example of an American coastal-defense gun emplacement, as most of the others have been completely gutted for parts; this, on the other paw, is still intact, right down to the dog cemetery that commemorates the first sentry K-9 Company unit being formed here. Only some electrical equipment and the original guns—which locals considered more of a windows-shattering nuisance than genuinely practical, their twenty-seven-mile range notwithstanding—were removed, but the replacement guns still draw draw the eye first upon entering. Ain’t no gophers gettin’ in my lettuce patch!

Inside the battery—which is buffered by concrete walls twelve feet thick—there’s a whole array of historical displays, including photos, old military gear, internment notices, a radio room, and this wall of war-era newspapers. The headlines are what you’d expect, but what’s great is that some of the ads are preserved as well—1941 meat prices were unbelievable! Yeah, I’m aware the inflation rate since then is like 1350%, but still.

Wander deeper into the access tunnels and you’ll see more military relics of the past, including a mess hall and even unused ordnance, such as a Nike anti-aircraft missile, a mine, and, well, this. Of all the days to leave my cowboy hat at home, right?

But one on-site feature that still works: the speaking tubes that crisscross the base, for lack of an intercom or anything higher-tech. So if you happened to be at Fort MacArthur the same day we were and heard someone singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the distance? That was me.

And where do those speaking tubes go? Well, all over, but especially up to the battery commander’s station, the low-lying surveillance booth at the top of the parapet. From here, the commander had a pretty good view of the harbor without the hazards of being in a high-profile watchtower...

...and the docent on duty may even set up the scope so you can scan the horizon yourself. He also let me borrow his hat for this shot. All clear, Los Angeles! The sheep of Catalina will not be invading today.

The afternoon, however, is winding down. Still, there’s just enough time to duck into the Maritime Museum on the way to dinner. Ahoy-hoy!

Housed in a onetime ferry terminal building, the museum crams quite a bit into a fairly compact space: exhibits on the history of the port, local fishing and canning, commercial diving, nautical equipment, even displays of rope knots and ships-in-bottles. Not to mention a huge number of boat models, from sampans and schooners to modern oil tankers and Navy vessels. Though of course, nothing trumps the appeal of a good old-fashioned dragonboat!

But my favorite item in the museum might just be this—the original 1913 lens from the Angel’s Gate Lighthouse, which sits at the opening of the harbor breakwater. A magnificent fourth-order Fresnel lens comprised of fourteen separate prisms, lighthouse keepers had to be well-versed in several different disciplines to maintain such a powerful yet delicate piece of equipment; it served San Pedro for over seventy years before being replaced and donated to the Maritime Museum in 1990.

I just wanna see the Bat-Signal you could run through this thing.

On to dinner! We stopped off at Baramee because I was in the mood for some crying tiger beef, but it was the dessert that left the real impression on me—fried bananas with fresh berries and vanilla Thai ice cream! That alone might’ve been a great end to the day...

...except that we had one more stop, this time at the Fanfare Fountain near the foot of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. If you’re reminded of the Fountains of Bellagio, you’re exactly right—same designers and everything.

And just like Bellagio, the Fanfare is a musical fountain that performs a choreographed show every thirty minutes—or every ten during peak hours—to a range of classics from “’O Sole Mio” to “Dancing in the Streets,” with a mixture of waving, swiveling sprays...

...and vertical water jets that explode upward like fireworks. I don’t recommend watching downwind of the fountain if you’ve got fur, but upwind, what a perfect ending to a summer evening.

So that was our Sunday. Unfortunately, our San Pedro excursion happened right before the USS Iowa opened to the public, so we’ll have to come back another time. But oh well—you can only do so much in one day anyhow.

Rabbit among the swallows

Sorry, busy April.

So to begin where it really began, let’s go back to my Northern California trip last fall, when I took an unexpected detour to the Soledad Mission (or Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, if you prefer). It wasn’t the first mission I’ve been to—that would be Santa Barbara—but that’s where I saw a display with models of California’s twenty-one missions, and that got me thinking: why not see Capistrano, where the swallows famously return on St. Joseph’s Day each spring? For a better view of that model, however...

...let’s jump ahead a few months and about 330 miles south to the model at Mission San Juan Capistrano itself. The mission—the only one in Orange County, in fact—has quite the history of triumphs and setbacks: It was founded twice, on a site consecrated by the Franciscans in 1775 but soon abandoned due to native unrest, then reconsecrated a year later. After that, things went well for a time, with the mission establishing California’s first vineyard and expanding to include the Great Stone Church you see on the right there. But then the latter was devastated in an earthquake, and once Capistrano was secularized in the 1830s, it was used as a private ranch until Abe Lincoln returned it to the Catholic Church in 1865. Even then, it was another thirty years before anyone attempted to undo the disrepair the mission had fallen into, and longer still—1910—before Father St. John O’Sullivan arrived and effected a permanent restoration.

And that’s the short version. So how does the place look a century after Father O’Sullivan stepped in?

Well, none too bad, considering; I can see why it’s called “the Jewel of the Missions.” This is the plaza area—you can see one corner of the main quadrangle on the left, and on the right, a surviving wall of the Stone Church. Fire up some Ink Spots, then let’s start with the latter.

So this is what remains of the Great Stone Church. Due to the mission’s initial successes, a magnificent sandstone cathedral was commissioned to supplant the original chapel in the main quadrangle; construction began in 1797 and completed in 1806. With its Byzantine influences, it was unlike anything in America at the time (and even called “the American Acropolis”), but it only lasted six years—on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception in December 1812, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck, collapsing the bell tower and most of the nave, killing forty congregants and the two young bell ringers. Time and neglect did the rest; restoration efforts have seen limited results, to the point that only the sacristy and sanctuary are largely intact, though the transept and nave walls are partially standing as well.

Even less remains of the bell tower, however—just the footprint, where the two largest of the mission’s four original bells, also damaged in the quake, now sit. Each bell was named after a saint, so here we have San Vicente and San Juan; surprisingly, they remained in use for decades despite their cracked tones, until finally being replaced with replicas in 2000.

As for San Antonio and San Rafael—and Vicente/Juan 2.0—they remain in place in the campanario, the bell wall connecting the Stone Church and the quadrangle, and are still rung on a regular basis. In fact, they’re having a bell-ringing ceremony today to welcome the swallows back—guess I’d better hurry to the plaza side of the wall if I’m to catch that, huh?

Aw, the crowd beat me to it. Everybody present cameras...and go!

Ladies and gentlemen, your rhythm section.

But did the bells summon the birds, you ask? Honestly, my expectations were low because fewer swallows have been reported in recent years, probably due to the area becoming more urbanized and the birds having more options for nesting sites than the mission’s eaves and archways. And I mean, if I’d just flown in from my Argentinean migration, I’d probably want a little more privacy too. Still, there were a few viewing stations set up with binoculars zeroed in on existing mud nests, such as this fourplex under the roof tiles, in case they decided to grace us with their presence.

Nothing yet.

Nonetheless, the mission holds festivities on St. Joseph’s Day for people hoping to see the prospective swallows, with food, crafts, performers, and other such fare—it basically goes back to O’Sullivan himself, who used the tradition of the swallows to drum up interest in the mission. Hey, whatever means a good opportunity for me to tour the place while the crowd’s distracted. Well, and sneak in a shot with the cutouts.

And where better to start my solo tour than the Serra Chapel? So named because it’s the only place Junipero Serra is known to have held Mass, although it’s also notable as the oldest extant building in California to have been in continuous use since its construction in 1782; after the collapse of the Stone Church, services resumed here and continue to the present day. Granted, there were a few lost decades where it didn’t serve as a chapel—when Father O’Sullivan arrived, it was actually being used as a granary—but that counts toward the record, and more importantly, he was able to make it a cornerstone of the mission’s restoration, from installing a new roof to touching up the colorful wall ornamentation.

On the way up the aisle, between the Stations of the Cross, we find the mission’s namesake, San Juan Capistrano, originally known as Giovanni da Capistrano of Italy, a 15th-century theologian famous for going into battle armed with only a cross and a flag. Ballsy. Actually, even this painting has some crazy history behind it, having been lost for years until it turned up in a flea market in Mexico, where it was bought and returned to the mission. What were the odds?

But the obvious centerpiece of the chapel is the 400-year-old retablo, a stunning Baroque altar of gilded Spanish cedar that was shipped over from Barcelona in nearly 400 pieces, then reassembled here, requiring that O’Sullivan have the sanctuary deepened and the ceiling raised in order to accommodate it. Kind of hard to quibble with the end result, though.

One other noteworthy feature of the Serra Chapel that I’ll mention: the Peregrine Shrine, dedicated to St. Peregrinus, patron of cancer patients and, more recently, AIDS patients, where worshipers can come light a votive and add their prayers to a book. I wouldn’t normally do this, but with a couple of people I know dealing with ailments at the moment, I couldn’t very well not make an entry of my own. Hopefully Peregrinus can make out my paw-writing—I do the best I can without thumbs, you know?

Then right outside the chapel is the campo santo, the mission’s cemetery, where some 2,000+ people are buried, including the native converts who died in the Stone Church’s collapse as well as Father O’Sullivan himself, who was the last person to be interred here. Rest well, Padre; your work continues, with your mission still standing and still beautiful.

I also swung through the quadrangle, where many of the rooms are on display as recreations of their original functions—kitchens, pantries, workrooms, or in this case, soldiers’ barracks. Probably most notably, the soldiers stationed here had to fend off an attack from Hipólito de Bouchard, “California’s only pirate”...and lost. To be fair, they were outnumbered four to one, but I guess we should just be happy Bouchard’s men left the place standing at all.

Fun aside: You know how historically, people tended to be shorter than they are today? Look at this shrimpy little doorway—for reference, I’m 1’2”, including the ears.

I also stopped by the California Missions Resource Studio, AKA the kids’ room. Among other things, they have a display of the cattle brands for all twenty-one California missions, which I immediately jumped on—might as well add to my rubbings collection, right? Although instead of Capistrano’s brand, I chose the one that was closest to my initial, which belonged to Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. A future stop? We shall see.

All the while, though, I kept one eye skyward whenever we were outside, always looking for swallows. No such luck—birds, I saw, but crows are what I specifically heard. Big deal. I can hear those at home any given day!

So for lack of any other avian payoff, I went ahead and stopped by the gift shop, where I...bought a swallow charm. Yeah, it’s not remotely the same. Better luck next year?

Of course, that’s all the more reason to come the day of the festival—even if I don’t see a single swallow, at least I can still spend the afternoon eating my weight in churros. So I suppose I’d best get started on that; never know when the vendors might start running low on cinnamon sugar, right?

Three missions down, eighteen to go! Uh, eventually.