The View From My Morning Cup of Tea

This is what I look at while working at my desk in the morning.  The only difference in the afternoon is the shadows come from the right.  I love this view.  The new Community Center just opened up one block over and across the street.  The traffic has increased some, but the foot traffic has shot way up.  Benicia is a walking town, and many people walk to and from the Community Center to take various classes.  I love watching them walk by.  Once there was a little blond girl in a pink tutu followed by her mother who was filming her.  The little girl was arabesque-ing and pirouetting her way to ballet class.

Sometimes someone will walk by and stop to admire my little Wellington.  At least that's what I'm imagining they're doing.  Our street is looking so great.  The eye sore that was across the street and to the left in this picture is now pretty cute.  It was a mess when we moved in.  There were renters in there who really didn't take any pride in keeping this house up.  They have a cyclone fence, which wouldn't be so bad, but they had two big labs in there that barked every time someone went by.  There were weeds everywhere.  Old furniture was strewn about.  There was a huge dead tree.  The people spent most days on the front porch smoking.  It wasn't very nice and it wasn't very private for us when we wanted to be in our front yard.  I felt like we were their entertainment.  They finally moved out and then the property manager (what took him so long?) came over and cleaned the place up.  He had the tree cut down, painted the house, tore out carpet, replaced sheetrock and appliances (those guys were a disaster) and moved in a nice quiet little family!  They have nice porch furniture, potted plants and a brand new mailbox.

And don't forget, the library is right up the street!  Who could ask for more?  Life is good at Wellington.

The Trees of Wellington

Wellington's trees have been growing lately. I thought they deserved a post of their own. Look at all of them in the front! Left to right: Pittosporum, Red Bud, Crepe Myrtle, Japanese Maple and Southern Oak.

In this little pot is a mini Blue Spruce we got last year and had on our table. The poor little thing was flocked. He's been spending all year trying to slough off that flock. He's kind of hard to see in the pot. It also has wild forget-me-nots from Mendocino, ivy nasturtium and, in the back and too tall, some sort of mum I took from a neighbor's plant. The Spruce is in the middle and he's getting some lights this Christmas. Some day he'll be big enough to go in the ground.

This is one of the few trees that has been here longer than our family. It's a Japanese Maple with its own pumpkin patch beneath. It has really grown this year. It's very excited for Halloween. This is its first pumpkin patch.

This is the Southern Live Oak we put in last year. We topped it off because it was long and gangly with a bendy top that needed topping. You can just see the new row of sedum we put in on top of the cobble wall. It's going to be gorgeous next year. It's large and interesting with three different textures. The oak has really filled out and I'm very happy with it.

Here are the two plum Crepe Myrtles. They're just about done blooming. I think they have doubled in size this year.

This is the Forest Pansy Red Bud we put in last year. It doesn't like hot wind, but otherwise it is doing well. It starts off red and goes green. It's almost all green now!

Here is our cherry tree. It's a dwarf and was really small when we put it in. It looks really happy. I think we got six cherries off of it this year. All edible.

Poor Figgy got a huge hair cut this year. He lost about half his girth. But we got lots of figs off of him and I made fig jam! It was green. He is a very messy tree. He has been here for years and years. I love him.

This is a little Norfolk pine tree we had out on our balcony last year. It doesn't like too much sun, so it's under the fig tree.

This is an Arbutus Marina, or strawberry tree. It was new when we moved in. We probably wouldn't have chosen it, or put it where it is. But we would have been wrong, because it's great. It has red, pealy bark and the coolest little pink cascades of flowers. It's getting fruit this year. Supposedly it's almost edible. I'll let you know. Or not.

This little Japanese Maple I plucked from the roadway when he was two inches tall the week before we moved in. I actually plucked four different Japanese Maples from all sorts of roadways that day, hoping one would take. One did. This is it. It's about five feet tall and sort of gangly. But he's only 16 months old.

Speaking of plucking from the roadway, right after we moved into Wellington I plucked this little guy from along East 3rd Street. I put him in a pot when he was about five inches high. When he was about 14 inches high I brought him to the nursery to see what he was. The nursery man said: 1. he's an ash; 2. you don't want him. Wrong. Apparently this type of ash is prone to disease. They use it for the root graft of the Raywood Ash. He looks great in this pot and so far no disease.

This is my poor little stunted bay tree. He is about 20 years old. Well maybe 15. He spent most of his life in a pot and didn't get near enough water. But he's a feisty little guy and is finally in the ground where he can flourish! Soon he will be huddling up to my chicken coop. I use his leaves for cooking all the time. He doesn't mind. That's what they're for.

Here is the oldest tree on the planet. Not this particular one, which I got at Morningsun Herb Farm (my favorite place to buy plants) when he was a stick. He's still not much more than a stick. But soon he will be glorious because that's what Ginkgo Baloba trees are. The little yellow flower in front of him is a begonia that I quickly shoved in the ground after I tried to kill it by keeping it as a house plant. It died back but now look! Flowers!

We have two of these weeping Japanese Maples in the Arbor Walk. They were on sale when they were bald last year. They are very happy in their new home.

This is Olive the Olive Tree. She has grown about two feet since we put her in about four months ago. She is very wispy and graceful plus fruitless. It's a good combination.

When we got Olive we also got this Magnolia tree which had about six shriveled leaves. We weren't shopping for a Magnolia tree but this one needed us and PLUS he was only $7 on account of being on his last legs. He's positively THRIVING. No flowers yet.

This could be my favorite tree of the bunch. No, probably not very favorite - there are so many. But I love it. It's a Persimmon tree. It had one persimmon on it, but once it got to be about the size of a dime it fell off. He's too young, that's why. He's only been in the ground since about July. He's very happy there, and there's always next year. Besides persimmons are not what I would consider particularly edible. I'm planning on using them for baking.

This is my peach tree which had about six barely edible peaches this year. I also have a lemon tree, an apple tree and an apricot tree along this fence. I'm saving them for The Trees of Wellington Post Two, which will include UPDATES on these trees and their progress which I'm hoping will all be in the upward direction with lots of edible fruit.

Fall is in the Air

We had a visitor from down under yesterday.  She's in America visiting her sister who is my mother in law.  So the two of them stopped in for a few hours.  We had crispy cod sandwiches with cole slaw then took a long walk to the water before coming back and eating a delicious cake, baked by The Dot.  It was very nice.  And slightly Fall-ish.  We stopped into my favorite Benicia store, Romancing the Home, and Aunt Olive bought a cute little bird bath dish for our garden.  Pics to follow.

The sweetest little boy was visiting from sleep-away school and he took this pic of my plants and watering can.  You can see some fall leaves lying there.  Sort of.  Just a teeny yellow one, but I'm counting it because I just about LOVE fall.  And that little boy who's back at school again.  I sent him off with a bag of clean laundry and a packet of home made cookies because he misses his Mama.  Not really, but I can dream.

Great Restoration!

It's campaign season here at Wellington. And in a small town that means two people have come knocking at my door handing out flyers. One candidate for mayor was on a Segue (ha!).  The second candidate sent a representative.  When The Dot answered, thinking it was a friend she had been expecting, the woman said, "Great Restoration!" She thought Wellington was an older home that had been beautifully restored! Is that fabulous? YES! That's just what we were going for. Not really, we just like gardening. The architect did everything else. Don't tell.

Arbor Walk Update 3

Today was absolutely beautiful. And even though we have two rather large pumpkins growing out front, it is technically still summer. The Arbor Walk was a perfect place to sit as the sun warmed up. It's free of breezes and you can pick your spot. Either a sunny deck or a shady one. One of these days we'll get our new outdoor table and then we'll eat out there whenever we want.

It did kind of have an autumn smell, which kind of makes me look forward to HALLOWEEN which makes me look forward to THANKSGIVING and don't forget about CHRISTMAS!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to get myself a glass of Chardonnay and sip it on the front porch. Life's good.

Juicy Juice

Here at Wellington we're trying very hard not to think of the awful day in the future (two more days!) when the littlest chick will be leaving for sleep-away school. I've hung on to him with two clenched fists for as long as possible. One by one my fingers have been pried off his arms while his feet edge closer and closer to the door.

So we distract ourselves as much as possible. It's a coping mechanism we have honed over the last (seven) years. Some people call it denial. I like to think of it as mental agility.

For instance, would you just LOOK at that gorgeous JUICE?! A month or so ago The Husband and I bought a juicer. It's this monstrous contraption resembling a large food processor. You click the parts together and shove in whole fruits and vegetables. You sort of cringe as it whirs and spins and spits out glasses of fruity goodness. Or in the case of The Husband, greenish vegetable slop. He seems to like it. Actually if you shove an apple in there (we take the seeds out just in case there's any truth to the old wive's tail about apple seeds being poisonous), anything tastes like fruit juice.

The juice pictured above is apple, peach, carrot and orange. I put a half an orange right in there, peal and all! Sometimes I'll shove a handful of fresh spinach and/or kale for good measure. I always put three ice cubes in mine so it seems like a summer drink! It's so good for me. Apparently it is full of something called "micronutrients", which sounds positively healthful. The first two times I drank a glass I actually got dizzy. Something about the stuff passing right into your blood stream or something, I don't know.

And here's a tip I made up with my frugal little brain. Once the spinning is done and you have your glass of juice, there's all this PULP leftover. I read somewhere you could just bake the pulp, which generally consists of fruit and vegetable matter, including kale, spinach, carrot and celery, with meringue on top. They lied. It tasted gross, apparently. I didn't try it. But when the husband proclaimed it tasted sort of like carrot cake (as he made a face and threw the rest in the trash) I was positively inspired to bake what is now referred to as Pulp Cake (or carrot cake if the kids are in the room). It was yummy! And you could hardly taste the radish.

Oh little boy, I'm going to miss you. I'll have to bake you something yummy and nutritious to take along.

Family Day Out: San Francisco with Picasso

It was a very stimulating weekend for the Fam here in Northern California. We started at the deYoung museum in San Francisco where they had a fabulous Picasso exhibit. That Picasso sure was an interesting fellow. I mostly like his older work. Like this Still Life with a Pitcher and Apples (photo courtesy of this website), that he did in 1919. In his later years he got pretty outrageous. Like this one painting of a girl going into a cabana. We thought it looked like a horse a camel or a llama, depending on who you asked. It was pretty cool to see his works, though. When we were done trying to figure him out (I think we all really enjoyed it), we wandered around the rest of the museum. I loved the Inuit art best of all, I think. I also enjoyed the views from the Hamon Tower.
It was beautiful.

Then we drove through the city. I enjoyed some of the architecture right from the comfort of my car! (I wasn't driving.)

Then! My favorite part of the day, even better than PICASSO was visiting The Dot's office. I can't say too much about it on account of they do a lot of secret stuff in there, but here is a picture of her desk! (It's the one on the left)And here is where she would hang up her bike if she rode one to work. She doesn't, but only because it's 35 miles which includes two bridges.There were lots more cool pics of her office, but I'm afraid of revealing corporate secrets, so these will have to do.

But here is the view from her gym. Is she so lucky? Yes! (She works hard, too, I'm sure. But come on.)

Speaking of bridges, here's what it looks like when you're going over the San Francisco Bay Bridge and you just come out of the tunnel and you're sitting in the back seat because your little boy is six feet tall now, for crying out loud.

It was a very fun day. Luckily, because The Little Boy leaves for sleep-away school soon and we're going to miss him. :(