12 Oakdale

The first day of our seventh year at 12 Oakdale Street. I hope this will be similar to the previous ones, with no surprises. At our age, surprises are rarely good. I will keep on shedding stuff, being optimistic about how much I will accomplish. I also continue shedding weight, since some crept back, definitely no surprise. Baking and eating sourdough bread has consequences. Will this year be when I get rid of all the grass paths? Sure, why not? Could happen. The freeze gave me an opportunity to rethink some of the plantings I’ve done. I will continue adding to my hedgerows on the north and especially south property lines. Since the lychee died back, I’m moving more bananas along the canal. Eventually that 2-story house will be built across from us. Grant is slowing down, although he is still doing his 2 mile, somewhat daily walks. I use a lot of my energy being patient (that’s definitely ironic). Sometimes I’m successful, often I’m not. A growth edge it would behoove me to work on. Bi...

 Another year of tiny paintings from Kristian Van Leuven: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2 3 4 5 16 7 8 9 10 21 2 3 4 5 26 7 8 9 10 31 2 3 4 5 36 7 8 9 10 41 2 3 4 5 46 7 8 9 10 51 2 3 4 5 56 7 8 9 10 61 2 3 4 5 66 7 8 9 10 71 2 3 4 5 76 7 8 9 10 81 2 3 4 5 86 7 8 9 10 91 2 3 4 5 96 7 8 9 100

For some reason, I can no longer add my pictures to this blog. Google keeps telling me to sign in, which I am. Remove cookies. Done. Etc, etc, etc.   Maybe it’s Chrome. No, doesn’t work on Safari either. Maybe it’s just my iPad. No, doesn’t work on my phone. And I still haven’t figured out how to grab photos from Google on the laptop without downloading each individually. (Update 2/14: it is suddenly allowing pictures. I’m quickly putting them in before this magic goes away.) Next frustration up: adding photos of my watercolors to the bootcamp group. I’ve downloaded the Google Slide app, but can’t create a new slide in the group’s deck. I just want these things to work. In any case, I did all 30 of the bootcamp projects using the huge quill brush the instructor recommended. Not easy for me. However, I am proud I stuck it out. My plan is to redo all them, then bind the before and after into a book. I am also frustrated with myself because I’ve been eating like the Olympic cross coun...

It is 25° at our house. I fear for our bananas, but have done all I can do with watering. Now time will tell if they survived. No trimming for a month to see any green shoots. I am in California, visiting Mary for a week. Grant is home, managing plants. He moved the potted ones deemed cold-intolerant into the garage and put sheets over my bat plant. The vegetable beds are on their own. All of the native plants should be fine.  This our third round of cold weather, but the previous 2 only got down to the mid-30’s. This is the coldest winter we have had since we’ve moved to Windermere. I wore the sweater I made years ago from yarn  Betsy brought me back from their scouting trip to Australia in 1985. Grant is also caring for the turtles. Yes, plural. A couple of weeks ago, we got Robert, a 21yo box turtle from Matt, whose wife died 5 years ago. Matt decided time to re-home Robert and put a Free notice in our Nextdoor app. I fell for it. Robert is more red than William, so I don’t...

A year long project.