A little tradition we have around here is to make a lei of roses for derby day, to adorn the kid’s rocking horse, Maximus. This combines my daughter’s two favorite loves- picking flowers and horse racing. My kids love horse racing a little more than what is probably appropriate, we’ve been taking them to “The […]
Earth Day is a good time to consider our impact on the planet and how we can do better, because we always can. I get annoyed with how much container waste is created by single-serve portions of food, yet my kids are completely addicted to the Trader Joe’s yogurt cups (sooo yummy!). I’ve limited them […]
“A burn day waits for no one”, says Lia. “I’ll bring the hotdogs!” Or, actually Joel will when he comes down for a lunch break. Now that we’ve had a little rain, and Calfire is permitting limited burn days, it is time to finally get some winter clean-up done. The kids spent the entire day […]
We’ve been crouching down and looking low for the tiniest signs of spring. Here on the mountain, spring comes late… about 6 weeks behind the valleys of the Bay Area. The gray days of a long winter can get a little depressing, so we eagerly search for Mother Nature’s tender sprouts of new life. The […]
It has been storming for a solid week now- snow, ice, and at the moment a crazy, torrential, down-pour! This is our most significant weather yet, as it is the driest winter on record for California. Just to give you some perspective, we usually have over 50 inches of rain by February, and as of […]
Well, this IS a first. I was watering my veggies this evening, (which is crazy because it is January!) and I noticed what looked like a lot of ash falling on the soil around the Dino Kale. I bent down to take a closer look and to my horror, a massive infestation of aphids! I […]
January kicks off my busy season in the garden. Maybe it is because I’ve been so pre-occupied with the holidays, or maybe it is because our Kill Frosts have been coming later and later, and we like to enjoy it all to the end. Whatever the reason/excuse, I always have massive clean-up to do right […]
Its a New Year’s Miracle! We have chicken eggs! Our chickens have FINALLY started laying again! Like I mentioned before, we adopted our flock as 1 year-olds last June. They matured the previous fall into egg-layers, and probably laid all through last winter. They were finishing up some kind of mini-molt when we picked them […]
Although I am thoroughly enjoying being outside everyday in a t-shirt, it is December, and I am having to water my garden! We’ve had only a few storms, and very little rainfall and snow. About a month ago we turned off the irrigation, as we normally do in the fall, and winterized it to prevent […]