Flowers from the Garden

A gift from my favorite German...collected from our yard: california poppies, sourgrass, wild artichoke flowers, toyon berries and peppercorns from the pepper tree. Isn't it gorgeous? Probably the best bouquet I've ever received.

Little Owl Lost

This is one of our my favorite books lately. The story is super sweet but the illustrations are my favorite part. The style reminds me of David Weidman's work. 

I found a "making of" Little Owl Lost on Chris Haughton's blog. I think it's such a great example of the creative process that goes into a project. It makes me excited to start collecting inspiration for my own projects.

Stripes

Hummingbird Family

We watched the mama bird sitting on her eggs and now we get to watch her feed the babes.

quandry

I have this other blog. It was the first blog I started and was really just a way for me to keep track of inspiration, etc. that I came across while perusing the interwebs.

The Cabin House was supposed to be a separate place to keep a journal of the work we do on our home. I've gone back and forth trying to figure out how to maintain the two independent places but I think it's just too much. There's so much that crosses over. 

Do I merge the two? Allow for random posts over here that have nothing to do with our home? Share pictures of the cows we see on our walks and the sketches I hope to start making again? Hm, not sure yet but we'll see what happens...

Early Evening Light

Acacias in the backyard

Crash!

This was a tough week.

E had her first set of shots and was a brave little girl at the doctor's but was a major fuss-pot the rest of the day and night. She was not a happy little girl. Happily she's back to her adorable self but it was rough. So hard to see the little one not feeling well...

Earlier in the week a crazy windstorm toppled one of our Eucalyptus trees. In the middle of the night we heard a loud crack, a woosh and a crash. That morning C discovered that our aprium tree had been squashed, our nectarine tree suffered a pretty killer hit and the cherry tree up on the hill barely escaped. The pictures aren't easy to decipher but I wager the Eucalyptus measures in at a solid 80-90 feet tall. We're having that other big one cut down on Friday...too damn scary.

And we (or more specifically C) had yet another bad run in with that damn poison oak. If someone could come up with a vaccination again poison oak they'd be a millionaire. That stuff is so nasty and serves no purpose. No beautiful flowers or unique nutritional benefit to other animals that counter the viciousness. I don't get it.


Lastly, we seem to have a major and disgusting fly infestation somewhere in the house. We can't figure out where they're coming from. There must be a breeding spot somewhere. Not in the trash, or the compost....in a plant? Ugh.

Oh, but we did find a hummingbird nest in our orange tree!

Baby E

Born 10 days late on her great grandfather's birthday and named for her great grandmother. We plan to keep her.

Gate: part 2

After the steel framing and posts were all in place, C fit pieces of wood to the interior of the steel framing using scraps from leftover redwood boards from our previous projects.

He found the boards we used for the fence via Craigslist. They're old-growth redwood floor boards that had been removed from an old home. He planed the boards, sanded them and treated them with rosewood oil (the same treatment we used on our front porch and platform).

The boards are tongue and groove and fit together seamlessly. We had a really hard time trying to decide if we should use them for the gate/fence project or save them for future interior projects. The grain and color of the boards is really amazing. Obviously we went with the gate/fence but it was a tough choice....

And while C slaved away on the gate/fence I spent time on our other big summer project...

Gate: part 1

Just a little hiatus...

One of the most involved projects of the past 3.5 years is nearly complete...and I didn't have a single thing to do with it. 

Salvage wood atop our "transporter"

before

first gate-post in

C dreamed up, designed, collected materials and built our new gate. It's built nearly entirely from salvaged materials (save for the custom welded frames and the electrical components) and every detail is customized to fit our wonky driveway and old house. 

There are many, many photos so I'll break it up into parts.

It started in the summer when our pint-sized assistant was here to help us get the project started.

Of course the minute you mess with something, the entire house seems to fall apart. In our case, it was the retaining wall at the side of our house. We ended up pouring an entirely new wall and added a new walkway and a few stairs.

Steel gate and walkway framing up, new walkway and retaining wall in place. Up next is the wood...