let's go on a little tour, shall we?

if you take the stairs from the concrete patio area and walk up past the cherry tree, along the nature trail, you'll notice the pretty ivy growing back near the hammock.
go up the wood steps and then down the funky concrete stepping stones and take a break in the sitting area. go ahead and leave your beer on that bench/retaining wall, that's what it's there for...from the sitting area, head up along the new (still in progress) path that leads to the second cherry tree. it's there, hidden in front of the massive overgrown acacia trees.
take a rest on the bench that's made from recycled redwood and an old acacia stump. one day when the cherry tree is huge you'll be able to lean against the trunk while you enjoy the view of the bay. for now just enjoy the sunset....

long holiday weekend = many projects

i was too wiped out yesterday to document all of what went on this weekend but will take some photos this week.

here's a list:
- drip irrigation system installed
- moved picnic table to new picnic area
- cleaned out trashy zone (moved stacks of pressure treated wood scored off of craigslist)
- cleaned and recaulked the wall
- C built me a bench under the cherry tree!
- C finessed our "upper sitting area" bench/side table (photos will help explain)
- C started a really cool project that needs more time 'fore i can reveal but here's a sneak-peek:

and somehow we still managed to fit in our first Oakland BBQ (that we didn't host), play a fun but freezing game of baseball with the gang and eat fish tacos with an old friend...i love holidays.

our new vegetable garden is growing right on schedule. all of the vegetables look pretty darn happy and seem to be warding off unwanted diseases and nasty pests so far ("kenna hora nicht pooh pooh pooh", as my grammy would say), save for those damn mushrooms that are back with a serious vengance!
ms. wolfie wisely noted that i shouldn't worry about them (and interweb has confirmed many times over); their presence signifies good organic matter in our soil...but they are pissing me off. BIG TIME. ugh.
short of replacing all of the soil ($$$), i don't know what to do. really, just turn a blind eye and let the fungi live in harmony with my heirloom lettuce? that's the plan, for this summer at least. might rethink in the fall....

you know how every once in a while you go in for a regular old hair trim and you accidentally tell the hairdresser to give you mia farrow-esque pixie cut?

and then you go home, pick a fight with your sweetheart, cry about how you look like a chubby boy and wake up the next morning feeling somewhat reassured by the fact that hair does grow back...

well, we kind of gave our house an accidental pixie-cut last weekend.

our back bedroom windows had some work that necessitated repainting. we taped, filled holes, caulked gaps, primed everything and built a new grate for our attic window...it took 2 looonnng days.
and then on day number 3 we got a little crazy....
spurred on by a seething hatred for our trashy white security gate and the recent revelation that we could paint the gate (gasp!), we eschewed the white in favor of color! bright color! beautiful, rich, robust purple cornflower blue!
I'm working on a fancy photoshopped mock-up of what the back will eventually look like when we are finally able to repaint the entire house (yes, we know trim should be painted after the house...) and landscape a bit. We'd like a little sheltered area above the back door and I'm thinking that some sort of climbing orange/red flowering vine (nastursiums?) would look great...

oh and the original project? the inside of the back door? meh...not so great. i'll post a photo of the new color but i'm not excited about it. might need to repaint it. it only took us 2 years to get around to it the first time!

if you look close, you can see specks of color....
details coming soon...

image: elle decoration uk, november 2008

another swipe from my inspiration file. not really sure what specifically draws me to this photo; it's just so pretty and casual.

this would be perfect for the empty space in our living room (we moved a bookshelf and have yet to figure out what to do there) but we don't get much light.

anyone have great suggestions for house plants that don't need much light?

for some reason when we went through the hell of slapping gallons of paint all over our wood-paneled kitchen, we missed the back door. not sure how it happened, maybe we were so focused on getting the paint snuggled in each and every damn crack...
in any case, we're fast approaching our 2 year anniversary of becoming homeowners and the door is in dire need of a face-lift (see above). we're just having a little problem picking out the paint color.

i was leaning towards a slatey grey but C has requested that it be bright and cheerful.

yellow seems like the natural choice, but I'm kind of on the fence.....though I do love this photo:

image: australian vogue living, june 2007

i also really like this blue color:

image: domino mag, march 2009

thoughts? suggestions?

here's the latest update of our vegetable garden:

(click on image for a larger view)

so far i've planted in the far right box:
+ tomatoes: early girl, sungold, sweet 100, better boy and black krim
+ blue lake bush beans
+ marigolds
+ basil

the middle box is completely filled with strawberries. i grabbed eversweet because the woman at the nursery didn't really know the difference between the two types they had and i was impatient. we'll see how they turn out...

in the far left box we have:
+ bell peppers
+ jalapeno (early and regular)
+ shallots
+ bunching evergreen white onions
+ boston lettuce
+ heirloom australian yellow lettuce

i still haven't planted the cantaloupe. that guy will go in a wine barrel all by his lonesome over in our sunniest corner. last year our garden was attacked by an over-zealous zucchini plant and don't want the cantaloupe to follow in its footsteps...

still on the list to plant as soon as it stops raining: persian cucumbers, radishes, arugula, cilantro, mint, and parsley. i just need to figure out where everything goes. i read in my new favorite book that radishes can be planted throughout the garden as they get along well with everyone.

no drip system installed yet. it rained all weekend and we spent our time inside finishing yet another round of endless touch-ups and fixes. at least our living room walls are free from white wood-patch splotches and the hallway baseboards finally got a second coat of paint. we also discovered the incredible powers of the window paint-scraping tool. how did we miss that one?! sigh...the joys of home ownership, eh?