Under Construction

#neverendingdirt

If you're on Instagram you may have noticed that every spare minute of every bit of daylight has been consumed with our major front yard relandscaping. It's been 80% moving of dirt. As of now, it's mostly moving mud and sand (lot's of rain, lately!).

But, but, we are finally seeing some progress and the patio might actually be done eventually. The rain just cleared but before I head back out, a few progress shots. I honestly can already barely remember the first images and they were from earlier in October.

That dirt made a perfect spot for a "fire ring" and many experiments in what will burn. Followed by marshmallows.

We're almost through an entire pallet of flagstone and maybe, just maybe, the patio will be installed in time for the neighborhood party we're hosting next weekend. Hopefully they won't mind the dirt completely surrounding the patio.

Lately

I was out for a (slow, painful) run today and realized that I've been blogging (inconsistently) for 10 years! Whoa.

So a few updates from these parts.

Gardening: We had a hot spell and then rain and today was just lovely. It's been a perfect spring. I'm so, so glad I planted a winter garden. It's the first time I've really done that and it's so fun to pick peas, beets and carrots. The potatoes are growing, the daffodils were lovely and it's been all around fabulous. The most annoying part of gardening is the irrigation and, this winter, the rain did it for me about 80% of the time. Oscar is a great age for the garden and getting good about not stepping on the plants. It's been a lot of fun. In other good garden news, I had a bumper load of compost so the soil in the beds looks great and my rhubarb that I thought I killed last year seems to be coming back. In addition to the winter veggies I just put in some tomatoes, a pepper, bean seeds, strawberries and flowers. Now if the slugs would stop eating the strawberries I'd be all set.

Biscuit: She has been busy! Last weekend was the Science Olympiad competition. It's always a fun day. It was a bit rough for her team and she wasn't totally satisfied with one of her events so there was a little sadness but she got a 4th place medal in Write it, Do it which exciting. It was fun to cheer on the team. She also had her final choir concert with several schools from the district and that was really great. All the choirs sounded so good and the big, group number was very cool. She's still playing trumpet and getting better every day and is in the Running Club. Fortunately, just as she was starting to get really stressed about being busy things started wrapping up for the season. It's hard to believe the school year is almost over.

Entertainment: I just finished All the Light We Cannot See. I know, everyone read it last year but I'm always behind. It was recommended a few times in the What Should I Read Next podcast and my name finally came up on the library queue. It was good but I read it practically back to back with The Book Thief and seriously need a break from World War Two Germany right now. So, for lighthearted entertainment, I started Mozart in the Jungle (on Amazon Prime TV) while I was waiting for season 2 of Catastrophe (also on Amazon). Then Catastrophe finally became available so I got our taxes done and started watching it last night so was up far too late.

Productivity: ha ha ha. I got nothin'. Well, I did read some books and watch some tv and everyone has clean sheets on their bed. I'm calling that a win. Oh wait, I have clean sheets but they aren't ON my bed. I best go handle that (while watching TV of course). I'll check in soon with more about getting in shape and planning for Oscar's 5th (5th!!) birthday.

 

Garden notes

This time of year the garden is usually a crispy wasteland and my gardening mojo is long gone. But, with our mild weather and my haphazard and relaxed approach to planting this year it's a whole new look out there.

I grew up in Southern California where you can grow many crops year-round. Even here in Northern California cool season crops like broccoli are harvested all winter and the Farmer's Market is open 12 months a year. Still, I have never grown a winter garden. My dad is from Iowa and I seem to recall growing up that his very impressive garden was a summer activity.

But see those little beet seedlings? I actually planted a second crop of carrots, beets and chard in the spaces where beans and the first crop of chard used to live.

In late June (or early July?) I finally planted the little squash and cucumber plants I had in pots from Oscar's birthday party. Lo and behold the butternut squash is going crazy. This one grows a visible amount every day. And it's one of at least 6 squashes out there. The cucumbers are growing and flowering and setting exactly zero cucumbers.

The tomato plants look great but the crop isn't great at all. Lots of yellow cherry tomatoes. A decent crop of shady ladies and then a bunch of foliage without a lot a fruit. I think too much shade in this bed--tomatoes will be moving next year.

I threw some potatoes in the ground. This one came up. In unphotographed areas the raspberry plants I was thinking of ripping out finally produced some delicious raspberries. The grapes have a bit of powdery mildew and we didn't really harvest them. The strawberries are going to be ripped out and the artichokes are done and brown but I'm not sure if they're perrinial. Maybe they will come back in the Spring?

And last time Biscuit visited Grammy she planted a bunch more winter crop seeds so this garden just might keep going until spring. Or until I get sick of it :)

It occurred to me to document the garden after reading Amanda's weekly garden notes all summer. It really is fun to see different gardens in different climates.

Trellis

I happened upon a library book called Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates and Fences. I brought it home and next thing you know I'm clipping hopefully inconspicuous branches off our redwood tree and bending them into a very crooked, very amateur heart trellis.

Author Jim Long would probably be horrified at my construction and my top arch is definitely "too pointy" but that was an impressively fun project. I've already installed it, crookedly, in the front yard.

I certainly need to practice but if I get better at bending wood there's a privet bush/weed across the street with my name on it. Jim suggests that privet is good for bent wood trellises. (He didn't have anything to say about the suitability of redwood.)

::

I've had project A.D.D. lately. Everything. Sounds. So. Fun! I'm super inspired about all sorts of work. But, when the kids are asleep and I have time to actually DO projects I've been just falling asleep myself. This is, as you might imagine, very frustrating. But at least I made a dorky trellis. Now to plant some vine seeds at the base.

Lunch sacks and chocolate

Cockrell and Hackett families don't keep reading. Unless you don't like surprises in which case go for it. Here's a photo of my leaves this afternoon.

Then Oscar and I did a little strategic raking.

And the weeping cherry tree.

Pretty, huh?

Anyway, the lunch sacks and chocolate.

Truffles (dark chocolate with toasted almonds and milk chocolate with cocoa) in wax paper wrapping

The truffles are day 6 of the lunch sack advent calendar Biscuit and I put together for our family friends.

Lots of dollar store trinkets, some food treats, ornaments and other odds and ends. Several bags have something for all the kids to share, some days are for one particular kid and other days are for mommy or daddy. The yarn closure is the key.

Today I got all 25 bags carefully stuffed into a shipping box and put in the mail to arrive by December 1!

I hope the anticipation and fun of having something each day will make up for the fact that lots of the gifts are sorta lame. Still, pretty fun to put together!

Thursday was brought to us by the letter C

Concrete

Cherry crop

"Oscar" (who's given name starts with C)

Cake/Churning/Creamery

First. A moment of silence for the beloved, dearly departed Lickety Split. Apparently he churned his last batch last week. This delicious Salted Butter Caramel ice cream. He was making some bad sounds last week.

Yesterday, with my dad's birthday cake on the line and the ice cream custard chilled in the fridge I pulled him out, said a little prayer, plugged him in and....nothing. So sad.

I thought the spirits might want my dad to have his banana split ice cream cake so I sprinted to the Thrift Store where the Lickety Split was uncovered in 2009 and, for $3, found this:

and proceeded to make the menfolk churn their own dang ice cream. Mr. H has plans to hook this baby up to an electric drill to save our arms.... By the time we got that churned it was too late for the ice cream cake to freeze up solid so I'll report back later on the cake. The more I think about it the more it sounds disgusting. We'll see.

White

The last day of of Color Week. White turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Lavender

There's a fine line between lavender and pink. Some purple snuck in too.

 

Pink

Pink was a lot easier than yellow for color week. Strange since daffodils are my favorite flower.

a hit of pink apple blossom

 

Yellow

More colors week. Granted, there are some greenish yellows and a lot of green around. Green is hard to avoid this time of year.