Full of Life

We’ve returned from laying Grandma to rest in San Antonio, and it feels like we should focus on the new life all around us right now. So, since I’ve been telling everyone all about how her spirit seems to have settled in our houseplants, I thought some more photos were in order…

Here’s the orchid she taught us to care for. This is the second time Trent has successfully re-bloomed it in the now 2.5 years it’s been alive in our house! See the bloom stalks? (and that stained glass behind it in the window is by Grandpa, btw)

First Harvest

I’m sure I’ve probably called something ELSE our first harvest by now, but… This one will be way more exciting.

It’s our first RAINWATER harvest, and it’s coming… SOON (hopefully)!

Chances of a rainy, gloomy holiday weekend are GOOD! YAAAYYY!

Yard Update: October

Yesterday was the first day of the rest of our lives.

It basically hasn’t rained since we moved in in June 2012, really (good thing we got a new roof!), and at this point we’ve pretty much given up on planting a tropical jungle of food in our backyard any time soon. We’re too busy saving the glasses of water we don’t finish overnight for our dying rose bushes.

But we finally got some relief. Not in the form of liquid manna from heaven (yet – although there are some weird clouds on the horizon as I post this, so… fingers crossed). We’re no longer in this alone, you see…

We have Roselio. Our new gardener.

Roselio showed the ornamental grass in our front beds who’s boss on his first day. I had no idea you could make it look like that.

He’s in this with us now on a weekly basis. Devoted to turning both our front and back yards into something trim and tidy and drought-tolerant. Devoted to fixing existing sprinkler and drip systems and installing new ones to help the water go where it’s needed most. Devoted to helping us move beyond grass once and for all. Devoted to helping us keep up with the weird habits of our nine confused fruit trees and our now-never-out-of-season vegetables.

Devoted to helping us get our weekends back.

And, Trent would like me to add that he completed OPERATION: FIND SOMEONE TO HELP US, DAMMIT three weeks ahead of the deadline I gave him.

To course-correcting; and to sitting on our asses on Sunday.

Water Worries

We’re coming to the end of a dry, dry summer here in California, and recently I went in to a panic about our ongoing drought (three years and counting now since we had real rain!).

I may or may not have suggested Team Temple begin a five-year countdown to OPERATION: EXODUS. I may or may not have suggested we start job hunting in Seattle. I may or may not have done some real estate dumpster diving back home in Detroit. I may or may not have ruined my coworkers’ nights with droughtpocalypse nightmares. I’m fairly certain I’m really unpopular around the office right now.

Covering Ground

We’ve given up on grass.

California is on the brink of what could be a century of drought. We’ve had just 9 inches of rain in the past year here in Oakland. That’s an apocalypse stat, people.

It’s officially too dry for grass to grow any more.

At first, that made us a little sad, since we have a really pretty raised grass lawn in our yard. It’s kind of the yard’s centerpiece, really. I’m not gonna lie – I shed a few tears as I gazed out at our rapidly-yellowing centerpiece every evening.

We even tried a methodical reduced watering schedule that juuust miiight have gotten us through, but who were we kidding. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DROUGHT, PEOPLE.