It’s warm again. Really warm. Maybe 80 degrees or more.
The tomato tree is still going full speed ahead. The green zebras are ripening but there aren’t as many of them as there are red ones. The red ones are literally exploding on the vine. We’ve been eating them with garlic and mozzarella and basil drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Noreen who got a bag full the other day said she put them in the broiler with shredded mozzarella on top. Yum!

It looks like spring. There are seedlings coming up everywhere and grass growing on the hillside Monk garden. I don’t know know when I’ll get to that.

I planted well over a hundred tulip bulbs on Saturday and maybe half as many daffodils. The soil looks beautiful writhing with worms and there are bulbs peeping through already. Daffodils I think but they could be those little snowbells.
I also planted about a dozen collard green seedlings I picked up in Morro Bay. They look kind of spindly and sad but I have high hopes.

The terrariums are a new obsession.

We had our first storm of the season about two weeks ago. The garden loved it! As did I. So the time has come to start my planting and let mother nature take it’s course. I started with this beautiful fuschia the monk gave us years ago that’s been living in a clay pot rather unenthusiastically. I’m guessing this spot is way more exciting especially with all the australian violet I planted surrounding it. The lady at the nursery said it was blue star creeper but when I got it home and out of the flat the marker fell out and confirmed that it is indeed australian violet and that it does prefer shade which it will get plenty of.

I will have to start planting the hill side soon as well when the rains start in earnest. It’s an El Nino year so we should get nice and soaked.
It’s bulb planting time also and I bought two huge bags of tulips and one of daffodils and I’m sticking them in the ground this weekend.

It’s currently 85 degrees!

My shoulder is giving me fits. I’ve tried resting it and then not resting it and then applying heat, ibuprofen, massage, downward dog. None of these seems to be working and it’s been a week today. So this morning I’m organizing our photos. An insanely huge undertaking but I’m taking it in baby steps starting with pictures of our nest and garden. One thing I’m seeing here is how much we love to play with this house. We paint more than we probably should. The Dishwasher likes painting. We move things around regularly. This includes entire rooms. We’ve made our dining room our office and back again a couple of times. Bedrooms get switched at the drop of a hat. As a matter of fact, they will most likely be switched this weekend. See if that doesn’t fix my shoulder!

The original kitchen in black and white

Note the enormous bread machine!
We ate bread, we drank wine and we kept cookies in a mechanical police cookie jar that said “STOP! move away from the cookie jar” when you opened it.

Still in black and white but we got a little “cleaner”. Gone are the lace curtains with the little pineapples on them and the bread machine was retired but the policeman cookie jar was still working and we got a juicer. I still had some of my toys out. The little policeman Tim gave me who peed when you pressed down on his head and the little yellow dump truck I used as a salt cellar.

Then came

The orange kitchen. You might wonder what I was thinking with this color choice but I really loved it. It was just too dark. Gone are the toys now.

Today we have the blue kithen. My favorite so far. It fits the era of the house perfectly it’s light and clean looking and makes me happy every morning.

My shoulder is giving me fits. I’ve tried resting it and then not resting it and then applying heat, ibuprofen, massage, downward dog. None of these seems to be working and it’s been a week today. So this morning I’m organizing our photos. An insanely huge undertaking but I’m taking it in baby steps starting with pictures of our nest and garden. One thing I’m seeing here is how much we love to play with this house. We paint more than we probably should. The Dishwasher likes painting. We move things around regularly. This includes entire rooms. We’ve made our dining room our office and back again a couple of times. Bedrooms get switched at the drop of a hat. As a matter of fact, they will most likely be switched this weekend. See if that doesn’t fix my shoulder!

The original kitchen in black and white

Note the enormous bread machine!
We ate bread, we drank wine and we kept cookies in a mechanical police cookie jar that said “STOP! move away from the cookie jar” when you opened it.

Still in black and white but we got a little “cleaner”. Gone are the lace curtains with the little pineapples on them and the bread machine was retired but the policeman cookie jar was still working and we got a juicer. I still had some of my toys out. The little policeman Tim gave me who peed when you pressed down on his head and the little yellow dump truck I used as a salt cellar.

Then came

The orange kitchen. You might wonder what I was thinking with this color choice but I really loved it. It was just too dark. Gone are the toys now.

Today we have the blue kithen. My favorite so far. It fits the era of the house perfectly it’s light and clean looking and makes me happy every morning.

From one of Em’s old drawings.

Bowl of Skulls

One of my old book assemblages

Thank you Herr Dishwasher for another beautiful Sunday.

From one of Em’s old drawings.

Bowl of Skulls

One of my old book assemblages

Thank you Herr Dishwasher for another beautiful Sunday.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back, with a hinge in it.

Charles Dudley Warner 1870

Before

After

In keeping with our scorched earth policy we didn’t stop until our green waste container was about to bust. We got most everything even the Mutabalis rose which is one of the scariest roses in our garden. It will grab you with it’s hooked thorns and not let go.
We planted one blue hydrangea under the center window and hopefully there will still be a few left next time I go to Trader Joe’s for the other side of the walkway and I think we’ve settled on vinca as a ground cover to be planted just before the rains come.

Next week. Or the week after.

The back gardens.

the dishwasher is away for a few days and my plans were modest.

eat well
read
walk
sew
bathe the stinky dog

i’ve  done almost all those things.
the eating well part…
does a bag of potato chips for dinner count?

here’s what i’ve been sewing

i was sewing neat little circles on my other quilt finished it actually, all that’s left is the binding.  it made me crazy though and i was suddenly in the mood for raggedy edges and hanging threads.  so that’s what happened.  though it didn’t happen quickly or easily. it went through many permutations and may go through some more before i call it done.

it’s done for now.

the dishwasher is away for a few days and my plans were modest.

eat well
read
walk
sew
bathe the stinky dog

i’ve  done almost all those things.
the eating well part…
does a bag of potato chips for dinner count?

here’s what i’ve been sewing

i was sewing neat little circles on my other quilt finished it actually, all that’s left is the binding.  it made me crazy though and i was suddenly in the mood for raggedy edges and hanging threads.  so that’s what happened.  though it didn’t happen quickly or easily. it went through many permutations and may go through some more before i call it done.

it’s done for now.