Rain!

Thank goodness!  We've gotten about 3 inches of rain the last 3 days, bringing us close to 9 inches for the year.  Our natives are starting to go crazy.  The cleveland sage and wooly blue curls are growing fast.  A chamise we just planted took all of 5 days to start growing.  Of course, the mandarin orange tree is so full of blossoms that when the rain stops the air will be full of perfume.

Wow.  Winter is good around here. 

Cataloging plants

We've suddenly realized we have quite a few natives. Here's a list of what natives are currently growing.

Brewer's Salt Bush (we think)
Cleveland Sage (x2)
Manzanita (1 ground-hugging, 1 Howard McMinn)
Wooly Blue Curls
Deer Grass
Ceanothus (several types)
Artemisia (California Sage)
Island Bush Poppy (Catalina Poppy)
Primrose
Sugarbush
Desert Lavender
Chamise
Galvezia Speciosa
Heuchera
Fuschia
Willow mint/coyote mint
Buckwheat (2 kinds)
California poppies
Tufted Hairgrass (I think)

Backyard is coming along

Well. It's been a long summer, but the patio is taking shape now that the wall is done. We might actually have some time to blog it now!

I'll be taking some pictures of the setup tonight. Until then, here's VP (Veeps, Veepster, etc.) among the capstones.

Pictures...

Hi, Everybody.  Thanks to all our friends who've been helping us out, we're nearing completion of the wall.  That means we actually have time to post!

Picture 1 (Has nothing to do with the wall): Leslie, Jeff and I ran the SF marathon.  It was as hard as...building a big wall. Picture 2 is just the wall, and Picture 3 is Anne and Jeff laying down geomat.

 

Building a Block Wall

More time-lapse photography to document the hard work of all our friends. We're building! We're building!

Thanks to Jeff, Leslie and Seamus!

Still digging, after all these years.

but until then, we wanted to bring a word about:

SEDIMENTARYAND VOLCANIC BEDROCK UNITS
La Habra Formation, undivided (late Pleistocene)Siltstone, thick-bedded friable sandstone, pebbly sandstone, and pebble-cobble conglomerate; locally abundant clasts of platy white siltstone.

This stuff is really hard to dig.  Also, it wasn't created 6000 years ago, but you can believe that if you want to.

Behind Schedule

It's funny to look at our to-do list that we made a few weeks ago:

 

Needless to say, we're way behind.