Movin' Right Along

I'm really loving living in LA. When I first moved here, I wasn't so sure... it's very different from new and shiny Las Vegas, and even Orange County. Things here are old and close together, and there are a lot of people. But I've quickly grown to love it - the climate is great, the people for the most part are laid back and nice. I know my neighbors, am getting to know my neighborhood, and I'm comfortably settling into a much slower paced life.

We did a lot this weekend, and we're both sore! With each new task, I seem to discover some new muscle I didn't know I had, and didn't know could hurt so bad!

We've been wanting to get a tow hitch put on our SUV for awhile now, so we don't tear up the inside of the car so badly with all the stuff we haul around, and also to increase our hauling capacity, so we got one put on last week. Neil likes to wield it with his angry face on.

And while we were at the shop getting that done, we were talking about how we'd be keeping an eye on Craig's List for an inexpensive trailer, and another customer there was wanting to sell his trailer. We met up with him and it turned out to be a great trailer for an even greater price, so we are now the proud owners of a trailer and the means to haul it. It's our first farm equipment!

So, trailer in tow, we picked up the lumber we needed for the trellises for the vining plants, and spent Sunday afternoon building them. Neil swore a lot, but they ended up looking great! We're planning to grow all our vining vegetables up strings on these trellises, so we can grow them closer together and take advantage of more vertical space.

And you can see the straw we put down between the raised beds to keep the dirt down. Eventually we'd like woodchips, but they seem more permanent so we want to make sure all the boxes are where we want them before doing something like that.

Sparky mostly got in the way a lot.

Our seedlings are all sprouting and doing really well, and several varieties are getting their first real sets of leaves. I spent some time thinning out the seedlings and repotting the ones I could, and I also started a bunch of marigold and nasturtium seeds to hopefully help deter some pests.

The tomatillos sprouted, which I planted later than everything else. We planted them specifically for Cali so she could make us her homemade chile verde with homegrown tomatillos! The peas are growing like crazy, and reaching out their little tendrils looking for support.

As we've been digging up the yard, we keep finding "treasures" buried in the ground. Our landlady's dad used to live in this house, and from what I understand, he did a lot of welding, and we keep finding strange pieces of metal and other things. My favorite is the little army guy whose limbs and head were forcibly removed from his body.

Our landlady, Beth, is great, by the way! And I'm not just saying that because she might be reading this. She's quick to respond and fix things, and doesn't mind our garden experiments.

We also made some plant markers with some scrap wood...

and observed how fat our animals are becoming.

Oh, and this is Hamilton. He was feeling left out of the blog.

It was another beautiful, productive weekend!