Red White and Blue

Today was Red, White and Blue Day at camp. So Iain whipped out his extra special Charleston Library T-shirt (a gift) and off he went.

It was a hit. Most of the kids were dressed in either red, white or blue. Not Iain. No sir. He's got camp spirit to spare.

Today they made parfaits out of blueberries, strawberries and yogurt. They made stars on sticks (paper stars, painted, on popsicle sticks), and they had a parade where they all waved scarves. I guess they didn't have flags.

It's crazy hot. For the last 3 or 4 days it's been in the 90s, and although we're pretty comfy indoors and it's cool by evening (so we can walk), that's still hot. So Iain and I have decided that this weekend we're making ice cream and sorbet. Last summer I made wild blackberry ice cream, black tea ice cream, chocolate sorbet, and lemon verbena ice cream. Any votes for this year?

Yeah. Plain, Jane.

Above, the problem. Our house comes with this lovely, untouched, completely new yard.

Whaddya mean, new? You may ask.

Welll....it was a corner, right? And it had a sloping side yard instead of a back yard. Where there might have been a back yard there was, instead, a garage. So the previous owners built a retaining wall, fenced in the side yard, and created that wonder of green you see above.

BUT.

Charles observed today that the view from the kitchen window (or anywhere else back there) is kinda boring. The yard feels blank, and it would be nice to do something more appealing. So we're thinking Japanese, of course, since that's one of our favorite garden cultures. Something like this?

Karesansui garden at Tofuku-ji in Kyoto, thank you Wikipedia

What? Too serious? Not enough play space? How about this:

Above and below, examples from Bowdoin College's fantastic website on Japanese gardens. Both illustrate the use of trees in landscape.

As we walk around the neighborhood, we've observed a number of twisty, silver pine trees that would be a pleasure to look at and would retain their beauty in all the seasons. So now all we have to do is decide what we want. I'm for a quiet nook with a water feature, some seating, and a couple of these twisty trees for visual interest. Maybe one pine and an espaliered fruit tree. Charles is still thinking about it, but has a lot of ideas.

So stay tuned. Our blank, blindingly green side yard might just turn into something interesting one of these days. Not today, of course. Or tomorrow. But maybe next year. Or the one after that.

Naptime Talking

"I want a chicken salad bacon soup..."

"Iain want hold you. You're baby."

"It's him! I told you."

Iain is attempting "quiet time" (aka NAP) in the pack-n-play behind me. I'm ignoring him so he'll go to sleep. Ha. Anyway, he's talking to himself.

Penzey's Greek Dressing

You are so lovely. And so tasty. And so easy.
Can you convince Iain to GO TO BED????

The Library: A Hit

Even with the screaming hot sun, the 90 degree temps, and Iain's post-nap grumps, the wall fountain proved appealing.


He wasn't that interested in the crystal cave, but Grandma's Attic was so "awesome!" he kept coming back and back and back.


There's stuff to climb on, see?


And stuffed animals and books and you can hide in the corners.

We got about 20 books, walked all the way around the SL Arts festival (which I attended Friday night), got back in our car at our outstanding parking spot (good job, Dad), and headed for home with our loot.

Then it was ribs, asparagus, and The Tickle Truck. In fact, the Tickle Truck is still circling the house, stopping periodically to grab Iain and make him squeal.

Wacko Layout Issues

Sorry about the changes to the formatting here. Blogger has decided to get all Fancy Nancy and no longer supports our other version of the blog layout.

So I have to choose new colors, backgrounds, font sizes, all kinds of stuff-ola. And it's just too, too many choices to make. I've been playing around, trying things on for size, and am still chewing it all up. Feel free to opine.

Cluck!

I spent the morning with chickens. And a few interesting ladies. But mostly: chickens.

The Wasatch Community Gardens sponsors a tour of urban chicken coops, so my friend and colleague Kate organized a group of ladies (four women and two girls) to visit a few. We saw 7 coops on seven private properties, all on small (sometimes tiny) lots here in the city. And let me tell you: these were some spectacular gardens.

The coops were cool, even funny, but the amazing thing was the use people made of their yards. Herbs grew next to perennials and vegetables sat in raised beds atop vermiculture containers while chickens pecked at scraps and ate bugs and rested in the shade of apricot trees. Really.

One garden contained three areas. There was a beautifully landscaped deck and grass portion near the house, intended for relaxing and play. Then there was a large coop (probably 100sf) made of scraps of modernist iron fencing. So if you imagine sheets of iron with cutouts of various designs (fish, yin/yang, birds), then imaging a screened-in box with walls partly made of that stuff...well, it's hard to imagine. But it was splendid. Third, they'd transformed the roof of their home into a deck and raised-bed vegetable garden. You could look down on all their neighbors, too. I want to meet the people next door, who have an enormous FIG!

And get this: here's how they help their fig survive the winter: they built a box around it made of 2x4's. It's like a big open frame around the fig. I couldn't figure out why it was there, but then the owner explained that in winter he frames it in, fills it with straw, and the result is a cozy little box for the fig to stay warm(ish). Genius!

Of course, I forgot my camera. But I learned a ton about chickens and gardening and the community of urban farmers (which is a pretentious phrase but it's fun to see how much they could grow here).

In other news, we went to the grocery. On the radio was a live dance concert in LA. The DJ chanted "Yo, Yo, Yo!" and from the backseat Iain echoed: "Yo!YO!YO!!!" Then we all threw our hands in the air, as ordered.