Warm

Today's weather report says it'll be 87. That's craziness, after last weekend's rain. A few nights ago I was still wearing my flannel Christmas jammies, and now 87?? And it's supposed to stay warm, I'm so excited!

Although it was nice to have our rain barrel topped off (and then some), we were all pretty much ready for the rain to be over.

Last week, I went to Vegas for work. I stayed with Cali and Craig, and when I arrived Tuesday evening I found them outside on their patio working on their garden. I noticed their box is Craig-sized. Curious.

Cali was directing, from the patio, while wearing knee-high rubber boots.

I'm so excited for them - I hope they have far more success than I ever did trying to grow things in Vegas!

My meetings all went well, and it was nice to see the family. I had lunch with my dad, and dinner with my mom and Cali. I wish I could have spent more time with Kat, but she's a terribly busy college student so I'm thankful for the half hour I did see her!

Oh, and Cali cut my hair for me. I've been trying to grow out the super short pixie type style since last fall, and it's been awful. Especially recently, I'd been sporting a 'do that made me look more at home at a truck stop or something, which is unacceptable when your sister is a hairstylist. But she assures me the worst is over.

Anyhow, Sparky and I had a good trip, and as always, he was thrilled to see his BFF Ziggy. And eat his face a little.

So, Neil got a new job! Although he really likes the people he works with now, and it's a good company and a good job, it's just not the kind of work he enjoys or gets any satisfaction from. He's going to be working at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA now. He's so excited!

This means he'll have to drive about 15 miles each way, but he has to go over the hill to get out of the San Fernando Valley, and there's only a couple of ways to do that and a whole lot of people. He's expecting about an hour commute each way, but there are other options such as carpool shuttles. In any case, he's SUPER HAPPY and we went to look at the campus last weekend to see his new office, and figure parking out and all that good stuff. UCLA has a beautiful campus, and the surrounding area is nice too. Here he is in front of the building he'll be working in, doing his "I got an awesome job" pose.

So we drove around the campus and surrounding areas so he could get a feel for his new environment. We had an amazing donut from Stan's Donuts, and drove through some neat little neighborhoods. This house looks like it's from a fairytale...

And we passed by the Hammer Museum. Neil told me this is a museum filled with one of every kind of hammer in the world. This turned out to be a lie, which he was so proud of.

We also went to Tomatomania. There were lots of people there, and I was overwhelmed by the number of choices of tomato plants. We managed to come home with several anyway :) The plants all seem really  healthy, but we were also impressed by their friendly, knowledgeable and very busy staff.

Over the weekend we also moved the piano from our garage to Carmen's house, and had an excellent dinner with Carmen, Paul, and Steven at Versailles Cuban Restaurant.

And finally, our garden update! Our sunflowers are growing about three inches a day, it seems! I planted these prior to reading the instructions, where it says to plant them 16" apart.

And the potatoes are all thriving, except the fingerlings.

All our onions and garlic are tall and happy...

We have new lettuces sprouting!

And most exciting of all (I know, terribly exciting... I don't get out much)... the BUSHEL BASKET GOURD finally sprouted! FINALLY! They can grow pretty big, and I'm hoping mine is productive.

We have strawberries...

and two sticks from Home Depot that we bought for $10. They've been in the ground for over two months now, and they're still just sticks. NOT blackberries. I think we got hosed.

And while the garden is quietly growing, the ever-vigilant SCARECROW keeps a close watch on things.

And that's all I've got!

March showers?

It rained all day long on Sunday and part of Monday, but no sign of rain today. Which is awesome, because later Sparky and I are driving to Vegas for work and some visiting with family.

Sparky can't wait to see his best friend Ziggy (Cali's dog)... he loves him!  And is also slightly afraid of him.

Last Friday, our friend Erynn came over for dinner. She's visiting from Seattle, and we enjoyed barbecued tri-tip, mashed potatoes, grilled zucchini with fresh garden herbs, and wine. It was good to see her and catch up!

Luckily the weather was nice, and we were able to eat dinner outside for the first time this year. We really enjoy our outdoor spaces, and I miss using them all winter.

Carmen bought me some beautiful flowers, Canterbury Bells, and they really brighten things up.

I love the purple ones...

Saturday we spent working around the house. Except our quick trip to THE MOST AWESOME PLACE EVER... Apex Electronics. I don't even know what to say about it. I could have spent all day poking through all the stuff they had, and thinking of ways to repurpose it.

Who doesn't need a centrifuge??

Or a bent up propeller??

I took this picture of Neil on the way out. I think it makes him look little. He says it's something to do with film and projectors and stuff... I was too busy staring at other junk while he was talking to remember.

Sadly, we had to leave Apex. But I'll be back, mom in tow!

We picked up more straw, especially Sparky...

And Neil built a box for lettuces and another for herbs. We're done with the garden now, really. I SWEAR.

We were out of compost though, and made a trip to the free compost site to stock up. It always amazes me how hot it gets!

Winchester discovered the catnip we started, and he LOVES it. So much! It's a good thing it grows so fast; his love is not gentle.

Of course, this is what happens post-catnip:

Sunday we woke up to rain, and lots of it. I don't think it stopped once all day. Our seedlings were already trying to recover from us accidentally overwatering them, so I was sure I'd have to start seedlings all over again after seeing our beds become ponds.

But when we went out the next morning to survey the damage, there wasn't much. You can see the waterline on the sides of the boxes... the straw we had put out the day before was all floating.

Whether or not the excess water will hurt them remains to be seen, I guess. And it's not done raining, more is forecast throughout the week!

We stayed inside all day Sunday and watched movies. And relaxed :)

Victory! Maybe!

I know it's probably too early to declare victory, but I'm just so pleased I can't help myself. So after we worked so hard and got the garden all prepared and planted, the cats started using the freshly prepared soil as their litterbox. I immediately started researching my options... had we considered the problem prior to building and setting up, we could have easily laid down chicken wire at the soil line. There are chemical deterrents available, but this is where we're growing our food and we don't love the idea of chemicals anyway. Some suggested planting disposable forks, tines up.

Neil says the vein in my forehead starts to visibly throb when I talk about this, and I can feel it throbbing now, so I should finish this story quickly. I planted lots of forks. I laid down unused tomato cages around the little seedlings. I put citrus peels down on the ground. My beautiful beds look like a warzone.

And it didn't help. In fact, I think they enjoyed the challenge.

So, I bought... THE SCARECROW!

It's a motion-activated sprinkler. I am pleased to say that so far it has been very effective, and I've only soaked myself a dozen times or so setting it up. And forgetting it's there.

While I was deciding where to put it, Chester was following me around so I let him see THE SCARECROW.  He loved on it a little bit... I encouraged it. Is that wrong?

That evening as we were sitting outside talking, we heard the sprinkler go off then saw Hamilton come running, slightly moist. That happened two more times that night, that we saw. Chester also got hosed, and quickly learned to stay up on the tops of the fences and on the roof to avoid THE SCARECROW. Tomorrow I'm going to move it... switch things up a little for them. You want to keep the enemy on his toes.

We went to Disneyland the weekend before last for Cali's birthday, and met up with my side of the fam. (Kat/Patty, Cali/Craig, Neil/Andrea)

Unfortunately, Neil felt crappy and was well on his way to getting sick, but he made the best of it and we had a great time. Cali & Craig especially :)

My dad, Cali & Craig on the Jungle Cruise... Craig's first time!

We stayed until just after fireworks, and then went home before Neil passed out.

I got sick too the next day, and it took us the whole next week to recover, it seemed.

But we're all better now! And last weekend we tried out the food dehydrator my Aunt Debbie sent us. We bought pineapple, kiwi, apples, bananas and nectarines, sliced them all up, and made some fruit snacks. Encouraged by our success, we moved on to meat, and made some really good beef jerky.

We also picked up free firewood from some people who had cut down several trees in their yard, and Neil spent a good part of Saturday chopping up what he could of that.

I noticed we suddenly have a huge aphid problem on the roses in the front yard and some of the plants and trees in the backyard as well, so we picked up some ladybugs from the nursery and set them out on Saturday evening. They went right to work, and have been doing a fabulous job so far!

I planted some more seeds to replace some of the plants that either died from our overwatering episode, and from the cats (throb), as well as new varieties like this really cool thistle-looking flower from my cousin Saz in Oregon. I hope the seeds grow, I can't wait to see what the flowers look like.

Spring has definitely arrived here in LA, and everything is growing and blooming. We're really looking forward to our garden!

I think that's about it. If we did more, I can't remember!

March

Ok, first, it SNOWED last weekend! We were driving on the 101 through Studio City, and the rain turned into big slushy drops of snow. It even stuck around for a little while - long enough to gather on the tops of the cars and on the road.

It's been awhile since the last post, so there's catching up to do. Neil built me this awesome planter box for my herbs! It's raised and sitting on a bale of straw, which I read will last about 2-3 years, and allow the roots of the plants to grow down into the bale, which will also start to compost. It's sitting up close to the back door, by the kitchen.

One of the books Neil and I have been using for gardening reference is the Square Foot Gardening book by Mel Bartholomew, given to us by a friend - it has a lot of great and practical methods for easily growing your own food. We love this book, so I was excited when I found there's an entire forum of really helpful and friendly people who garden using Mel's method. 

BUT... the kind and friendly forum people over there have started a seed exchange, which is a really cool thing but I now have more seeds than I know what to do with and Neil keeps asking me where we're going to put all these plants (especially the large rambling vining ones)!

I don't have an answer, but I did find out that our king-sized box spring had two trellises hiding inside of it!!! I'm pretty sure I can grow stuff up these!

My mom visited this week! She came on Wednesday morning, and stayed until Friday, and we decided to make some marmalade with grapefruit, lemons and oranges. My trees are really full of ripe fruit, and I can't seem to give it away fast enough. I need to make a trip to the food bank!

Back to canning... this was my first time, and I was nervous. It seemed overwhelming and complicated, and I read so many warnings about various things, it seemed dangerous too. But Carmen had let me use her new pressure canner, and my aunt Debbie sent me all her canning stuff, and I had been given some good advice from the SFG forum canning mentor, so I had no excuse to not try.

We prepped all the fruit... 

then boiled it down before adding more sugar than I thought was possible for such a small recipe!

Then we cooked that down until it looked like really grainy marmalade.

Then it had to sit for 18 hours. Leave it to us to choose a recipe that took two days!! 

So we looked at the garden, and all the spring flowers...

and found a salamander. 

The next day, we boiled all the jars and lids, and brought the marmalade back up to a boil...

before pouring it carefully into the jars. 

Then we just waited to hear them pop as they sealed, which they all did!

I'm looking forward to much more canning as my garden starts to produce this year, and my awesome family made it so easy by lending me their equipment :)  As I type this, Neil is on his computer looking up recipes for dehydrated foods because my Aunt Debbie also sent along her food dehydrator.

Once the marmalade was all done, my mom and I went to visit a really cool succulent nursery down the street, but it was closed. So we stood outside the fence and took goofy pictures!

We also went to a couple of thrift stores and found some treasures, then came home to work on making some cute little fairy dolls my mom had brought with her. 

When my mom and I get together alone, our maturity level plummets and our sense of humor goes right into the gutter, so it didn't take long for the cute little fairy dolls to become something else entirely. This is the only picture I can really post, as it's kind of vague, but things just went way downhill from here.

Friday morning we had breakfast with Carmen then my mom got on the road to go down to Huntington Beach with the rest of the fam. We had a great time, and I hope she visits again soon!

And today, Neil and I are off to join them at Disneyland for my sister Cali's 25th birthday!