i have no photographic proof of any activity this weekend because lately our camera seems to mysteriously only take photos of puppies. i offer, instead, a brief list of what happened around the house, with photos to follow soon:

- planted the cantaloupe and peas, finally
- cleaned out the front yard and planted another small area. this job is HUGE and will be completed tiny bit by tiny bit. we're making progress...
- moved the huge pile of wood, AGAIN and turned the side yard into an outdoor elli play-pen.
- finished painting the carport
- replaced and restrung the old christmas lights on the carport
- strung outdoor "ball" lights along the back of the vegetable garden area

oh, and a friend told us last night that our backyard looks like how she imagined fairytale forests when she was a child (except that it's missing the fairies and elves). that made me a lot giddy...

lest we forget that there was a world before elli...remember that project i mentioned a week or so ago? here it is:an incredible potting bench designed and built by one talented german. it's made completely from recycled wood. the top pieces are redwood from our giant stack and the bottom pieces were salvaged from an old deck via craigslist. C sanded it all when he was done and then applied a thin coat of beeswax. he even added a few special details, pulled from a collected pile of old construction parts, to finish it off.i especially love the way the wax really brought out the different colors in the wood he used...while C was working on the table, I painted the funky carport. we figured it as long as it's still there (until we tear it down), we could at least spiffy it up a bit....and yes those are indeed overalls that i'm sportin'.

barring weekend-long thunderstorms, there are many more projects underway for this little area (and a special side project for elli!)...

Correction: after weighing her last night using C's grandmother's market scale (from a zillion years ago), Elli weighs approximately 8 kilos or roughly 16/17ish lbs.apparently, this is how you spend your evenings after you get a puppy: finding new and exciting things to put her in so that she looks even tinier and impossibly cuter.
she loved the bag.

we knew it would come one day...after all, a cabinhouse needs a cabin hund, nein?

Here she is: all of 12(ish) weeks old and weighing in at 14 lbs of pure puppy....Elli!

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?