An Evening Stroll to the Arsenal

We don't walk to The Arsenal very often.  And we don't walk in the evening as much as we walk in the daytime.  This evening we walked to The Arsenal with the little boy, so I had to take some pics.  Above is the photo shop.  Below is the Guard House.  It used to house prisoners and rumor has it Grant spent 30 days in there for being drunk on duty.

Here you can see some ship docked at the Martinez marina.

Just some more buildings down there.  Not sure what they are.

Over by the Ironhorse Furniture store we saw this little stray kitty.

 This one old warehouse building had some nice sort of chimney pots.

I just loved this building.  I don't know what it could have been used for.  It has a very steep roof.  It's very intriguing.

This last pic is not very pretty.  But it's very exciting!  There has been this terrible, boarded-up building on East 5th since well before we moved to Benicia.  They finally tore it down!  I hope they're going to tear down the one to the right also.  It's just as ugly.

It was a really nice evening stroll, as usual.  

Happy 4th Birthday, Wellington!

It was four years ago today that we moved into our lovely Wellington.  Is he just precious?  In honor of his fourth birthday I made Beef Wellington for dinner.  And the whole city celebrated by having the first Farmer's Market of 2014!

Happy Birthday, Wellington!

Ducklings at the Harbor (a Video)

Since the video has been reduced by Blogger, I uploaded it to YouTube.  The quality was reduced there when they took out the shaking, but it's a better quality than this video.  The best part of the video is the sound.  It's so peaceful down there with the birds chirping.  And that little wayward duckling at the end climbs aboard the duckling island with his siblings.  So cute.

 

Find the YouTube version here.

What's Blooming?

Last week The Dot gave these two little rusty metal birdies to The Hub for his birthday.  The one on the right seems to have collected a present for the one on the left.  So cute.

Walked down to the water again.  The tide was low.  It's about 75 degrees here today and absolutely gorgeous, as usual.

Here is the little bird bath and The Hub watering some flowers.  That's the neighbor's garage wall in the background.  Wellington was originally built in 1918 when it was common to build the garages along the lotline in the alley.  It's pretty quaint.

This little wall is looking lovely this year.  The window boxes hold most of my culinary herbs.  Two different mints, two different basils, oregano, thyme, yellow and red strawberries.  There are a couple of sages growing along the wall and of course, rosemary on the ground.  In the picture above this one you can see the bay tree that I bought in about 1995.  It's to the right of the bird bath.  It was stunted because it was in a pot for years and didn't get enough water.  But I love that it isn't huge and taking over everything.  It's much happier in the ground.

A very tranquil spot to relax.  There is a fig tree in the pot to the right of these chairs and an avocado tree in the pot to the left.  Just little dashes of shade.

The cactus in the pot on the ground is blooming yellow-orange.  I'm sure I have pictures of him in previous posts when he was on my kitchen window sill.  He's so adorable in the evening when he closes up his little flowers.

I am in love with this Japanese Snowberry.  Little dainty dangly white flowers, then he gets cute hard seed pods that hang from the branches.

Wellington is full of delights.

Good Morning, Wellington!

On a scale of 1 - 10, how happy am I?  The Dot asked me that this morning.  The answer is apparently 8.5.

This little baby geranium was just a little snippet I plucked from a pot in Carmel last May.  We went there for The Dot's birthday.  I spent a large percentage of the day plucking snippets.  Many have taken.  And this little guy in his little pot on Wellington's front porch is just adorable.

Speaking of Wellington, isn't he just looking splendid?  The answer is, of course, yes.  Maybe you shouldn't love a house this much, but Wellington is one in a million.  And I just can't help but be crazy about him.

Another Glorious Day in Benicia

It never gets old.  It's so beautiful here.  Another walk downtown.  Another pic of the old boat with the bridge in the distance.  I've seen it before, bit it's just so picturesque I felt a picture was in order.  Here it is.

 Here is a shot of the palm tree promenade by the pier.

 The palm trees are full of black birds chirping away.

 Wellington is looking lovely.  Springtime is his absolute favorite.

 The weather has been nice enough that Boo, the guinea pig, got a bath.  Here she is drying on the grass.  She took the opportunity to have a munch.  She has to keep up her figure.

Here is Stumpy.  This is actually a stump that Hub dug up after chopping down the old ivy that was ruining the fence.  Yes, this is an ivy stump.  I made him save it on account of it's CUTE.

The apricot tree has a lot of blooms this year.  Hopefully we will have more than one apricot.  But no pressure.

After all he's just a baby.

Creepy Santas 2013

It's Christmastime again at Wellington and you know what that means.  Creepy Santas.  My Creepy Santa collection has a special place in my heart and in my storage cupboard.  It's the thing I look forward to unwrapping and displaying every year.  I love getting my new Creepy.  This year was a great year for the Creepy Santas.  First of all I was very excited to get them out because I got a super special Creepy Santa last year from my beloved brother and sister-in-law from New York.  They came to visit and surprised me with a little old Santa with eyes that open and shut.  He's so cute I hate to call him creepy.  

Here is the whole collection:

 I've had this little guy above for a couple of years now.  His eyeballs are lopsided and no one knows why.

This one with the string of lights is almost too cute to call creepy.  In fact he's not technically creepy at all.  But he is old and has a little rust on him which makes him precious so he fits in.  He came as a surprise gift from the same beloved brother and sister-in-law who last year gave me THIS:

The googly-eyed Santa above.  Is he great?  I admired him for weeks in the little downtown antique shop and was thrilled and surprised when he showed up in front of me at the table during lunchtime last Christmas.  He qualifies as creepy, that's for sure.  But he's also really old and special.  Next to him is the little German elf who was among the trio who began my collection.  Why he needs to have that look on his face is anyone's guess.  Plus he cost about 12 cents because I got him and his brothers in a $1 bag of Christmas picks about five years ago.

These are the other two that helped start the collection.  The guy on the left is really good.  He's holding a little Christmas tree and a metal spike. I would assume the spike used to have something Christmassy attached to it except look at his face.  He's positively evil.  I have a feeling he came with this old rusty spike.

This fellow came from a shop in Danville.  He would be pretty creepy anyway, but the fact that he's footless really helps.  The guy lurking behind him is more tacky than creepy.  He cost $1.  Cheap and tacky equates to creepy in this Creepy Santa collection.  He's plastic and hollow and has a hole in the bottom.  I think you're supposed to jam a light bulb up there.

 This one is from my brother-in-law, plucked right off his tree while he watched and didn't object.  He barely has a face which definitely qualifies as creepy.  Here's a close-up.

 I bought this guy below from a shop in Benicia.  His nose is peeling.  He wasn't too good-looking before that either.

Here's my other new addition this year and I can't express how perfect he is.  But I'll try.  He's about 10 inches tall.  He's very old.  He has one black eye.  He is sitting on a toy tin rooftop.  If you put a quarter in his chimney he's supposed to move or something.  He doesn't have batteries yet but I'm told by my most special friend, Cindy, who gave him to me last week, that he may need repairs.  I don't care.  He's fabulous just the way he is.

The entire collection of Creepies with their little Christmas tree that has four little Santas playing instruments.  They don't qualify as creepy because they're not.  But I bought them for 25 cents each last spring at the Peddler's Faire, so they can sit in the tree and keep the collection company.