Cambria

These photos are from last fall. A memorable trip, with gorgeous weather and the California coast. The trip was a birthday gift from the fiance, including a visit to Hearst Castle. A romantic getaway, if you are looking for ideas...

We stayed at The Squibb House. Adorable, I recommend.

orchid in bloom

My orchid bloomed, gorgeous purple flowers.

They smell like grape juice. Delish.

...having second thoughts about the ladybug release.

I was enjoying my garden the other day. And noticing that we had more bids than usual. Jay birds, hummingbirds, finches.

And they kept nipping at my garden plants. Must be eating bugs. That's when I realized---they are eating all the LADYBUGS!

Arrrgh.

Time to get a cat?

ladybug release in the garden

Aphids were getting in some of our plants. And every time I go to Sloat Garden Center I'm dying to buy the little boxed container of ladybugs. 1500 of them! What fun! The fiance was quick to point out that the ladybugs fly away the minute you release them. But I splurged at Sloat this time, a whole $5.99, which was the best $5.99 I ever spent. SO FUN!

(In case you haven't caught on--ladybugs eat the aphids and other bad bugs. It's the organic way to garden, no pesticides. Plus they are purty.)

Here's the opening of the container:



They were like jailed convicts, they couldn't wait to get out.



On flowers:



On lettuce:



Eating aphids (hopefully):



And...they did not fly away. They were covering all the plants for a little less than a week. According to the box, they will stay for a few days, lay eggs, and then fly away.

I was just gardening yesterday, and walked in the house with a ladybug on my shoulder. Any other bug, I would have freaked.

elephant garlic

Here's the garlic, ready to be pulled.



It was in there pretty tight, took a lot of digging.



Ta-dah! It's huge!



We grew a bunch of cloves. Now they are drying out in the garage. Smells delicious.

our first tomato!

We took a chance trying to grow tomato plants in the sunset. So far the plants are still pretty small, but they are flowering.

Here's our first tiny tomato! I'm so proud of it!

Pacific Grove, CA

We drove down to Pacific Grove for the day. Walked along the coast line, and watched two birds on a rock.

Seriously, we watched these two birds for quite some time.

It made us happy.

June windowsill

This orchid hasn't bloomed in forever, and it has 4 big buds. I even forget what the flowers look like. Maybe purple? We'll see.

Next to it are my basil trees. They are fully recovered after being plucked to near-extinction. What can I say, I make a lot of tomato-basil sauce:)

City Hall Treats

We went to City Hall last week to get our marriage license. We filled out some paperwork, raised our right hand and swore to the truth, and were handed over the license for the minister (aka my brother) to fill out.

The highlight was receiving this 70's inspired, pastel-purple hued pamphlet.


Things get pretty darn romantic on page 2:



And then some helpful advice for when you are pregnant:



Ending on a happy note---full coverage of STD's. Everything you've wanted to know, and more.



We walked out of City Hall, feeling more ready than ever to do this thing called marriage.

Thanks City Hall!

pizza

Lucky us, we received a food processor and a pizza stone as wedding gifts, all in the same week.

I made pizza dough in the food processor, and then cooked it on the pizza stone.

Delicious.

Here's the stone, after use.

you know you live in the city when....

seeing a bird across the street causes this much excitement.

It's a crane!

In the park!

Across the street!

And he's BIG!

Here he is doing the funky chicken dance:


And walking like an Egyptian:


I need to get out more often.

Gopher War II

We have a new gopher in town.

Evidence A: a hole



Evidence B: another hole, with trap



There will be bloodshed. To cheer myself up, I bought this cute little worm decoration:

elephant meditating on amaryllis plant

Oh so Zen:

sidewalk graffiti

Oh, this is one of the better ones I've seen:

a little bit of orchid food...

goes a long way.