Garden Massacre

Searching for purpose for our Monday off, I decided that it was time for the overgrown jungle corner of our backyard garden to die. Steve and I discussed the plan Sunday night and then went to sleep.

It is possibly one of the greatest understatements of all time to say that I am not a morning person. Left up to my own devices, I'll stay up until the wee hours of the morning and stumble out of bed shortly before lunch. I woke up Monday morning (11 am is still technically morning...) to an odd cracking sound. Staring blurrily out the window (in my freshly awakened haze I often forget to put my glasses on) I saw Steve ripping through the aforementioned jungle foliage.

I found my way downstairs to get a picture before he got too much further along:

The finished product (with some azaleas and hydrangeas planted):

Steve is victorious (and tired):

Before I am accused of being useless, I did help out. The corner had been completed swallowed up by a renegade spider plant that jumped its pot and a Canna plant that never flowers. It's very satisfying to see it all cleaned up.

A Reading Vacation

Last Wednesday, I took the Amtrak Coast Starlight to spend a long weekend in Southern California for my Grandpa's 87th birthday. It was cheaper than driving (for one person, anyway) to take the train. And since tax season is over, I had the 11 hours each way to spare.

I get easily and epically motion sick, which didn't used to respond to medication. Fortunately, this trip, the Bonine seemed to have worked, so I was able to read the whole way down and back. On the San Jose to L.A. leg, I read Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right and Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. Both were light, enjoyable reads.

On the return trip, I read Peter Singer's Practical Ethics. It was assigned for a class I took in college, but I confess that (possibly ironically) I only read the bare minimum assigned sections and the book sat on my shelf for the next 8 years or so. Having never done any reading of anything even vaguely resembling philosophy, I wasn't sure what to expect.

The first thing that struck me was the imprecise language. I read tax code at work, and sometimes help edit Steve's scientific papers at home, so I was not sure what to make of statements like "Some may say..." or "Some think..." that cropped up the text. Who are some? Are their studies that back up the assertion that there are groups of people who hold these views?

I realized I was reading from the wrong perspective and adjusted my focus. This is a philosophy discussion; there are no facts.

Mindset thus adjusted, I plowed through the rest of the book, often having to stop and re-read sections whose reasoning I had failed to follow. It's not that the book had an obscure vocabulary or unusual structure (the writing style was simplistic, really), it's that discussions like "what are ethics" and "why should one behave ethically" are fairly complex when reasoned without divine influence.

All in all, the book was pretty fascinating not because of how it was executed, but the thought process it inspired in me as I was reading it. It tackled refreshingly taboo topics like euthanasia, infanticide, refugees from poverty and the treatment of "non-human animals" (as he phrased it throughout the book). I enjoy very much topics that are challenging to consider, no matter how dark.

I'm not sure what I'll pick up next, but since that train ride home was the most intellectually engaged I've felt in years, perhaps I'll wander through the philosophy section the next time I'm at the library.

Child of the 90's

If you grew up in the 1990's and watched TV, you may get a kick out of this: Relive Your Entire 1990's Childhood in Under 4 Minutes. Steve and I were amused.

The Great 28

Apparently blogger was having some problems and deleted my post about Steve's birthday and some comments I'd gotten in the past few days.

I don't remember exactly what I said originally, but Steve had a low-key birthday at home with his hazardous gifts:


With caution tape and old t-shirts, who needs wrapping paper?

This was the 10th time Steve and I have celebrated his birthday together and, after spending our entire adult lives together, we still always have a wonderful time... even with Steve having class in the evening and me serving leftover spaghetti ('cause it's no gift to have me cook for your birthday).

Anything else I could say about Steve's birthday would probably start sounding pretty sappy, so I'll just say thank you to Steve's parents for going for that sixth kid. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Garden Update

In honor of my mother, who loves to garden, a Mother's Day garden update:

We went to the UC Santa Cruz plant sale last weekend and per our usual modus operandi, we picked out some plants that we liked at random.

I generally prefer not to have a plan when it comes to gardening. We acquire the pieces, then try to make them fit together. I like the chaos of it.

Steve drilled some drain holes in the variety of pots we acquired from Ikea.

You can see the new potted plants interspersed with our other plantings in the picture below of Steve cutting a board to length for our new planter bed.

Speaking of which, I decided that the nice sunny area next to our deck would be a great place to grow veggies. So, Steve dug up the area and some of the surrounding area he wanted to sow with grass seed. (He's laughing at NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" in this picture - we really like our outdoor stereo system).

Cutting boards to length (with our new potted plants behind him):

Fastening the boards to form the planter box:

Spreading chicken wire to dissuade gophers (and any subterranean chickens in the area):

Filling with soil (the most expensive part of this whole project):

Finished off with some tomatoes and cucumbers (Steve is spreading his grass seed in the background):

Steve's parents got me this great bunny pot for my birthday, so we went ahead and filled it and another vessel with strawberries:

I'm really pleased with how everything turned out. We'll probably pick up some onions to add to our new planter bed, but I think we accomplished enough for one weekend.

Required Viewing

Courtesy of my friend Nick, the most awesome thing ever: Rabbit Dressage.

My rabbits know their names and Buster understood some basic commands like "come here" and "no" (the latter being only sporadically obeyed). Buster even walked on a leash when he was younger. But I've never seen anything like rabbit dressage. Perhaps another hobby to take up now that tax season is over...