DryStoneGarden

A couple of weekends back, we went to a party in one of the gardens we installed this spring. I realized that this doesn’t often happen, that we don’t often get to see people out using and enjoying the spaces that we create, and that we don’t often hang out in and enjoy those spaces ourselves. It was really nice to be in one of our gardens in something other than a professional context.

It was also interesting because the project was at an Eichler house. Eichler was a developer in the 50′s and 60′s who built homes in the California modern style, mostly in the Bay Area. The homes are known for their vision of California indoor/outdoor living, often with floor-to-ceiling glass looking out on the backyards, and it was nice to see that in action. The house and garden really do have a seamless transition.

Allium unifolium in the no-mow blend this past spring

The plantings are still young, so the No-Mow fescue meadow is the most interesting horticultural element while everything else grows in. The no-mow blend is one of those things that we’re not always sure that people will like; it’s not manicured enough for some people, and the sod looks like a bad shag carpet when you first unroll it. This one has been a big success, though; everyone at the party seemed to like it and talk about it and to find it much more interesting than a regular lawn. Someone recently wrote into the Chronicle describing the no-mow blend as looking like ‘bear fur or yak fur or something, really beautiful.’ I wouldn’t have expected yak fur to be used as a compliment, but I guess I can see their point. I just think it looks more appropriate for California than mowed bluegrass. I have tended to think of the no-mow blend as a form of lawn, but this summer it sent up golden seedheads that glowed in the sun like a proper meadow.

We’re planning to add bulbs to it this fall and see what we can get to naturalize. It was too late in the year to do much this past spring, but we did put in a few starts of Allium unifolium and two kinds of Rain Lily, Zephyranthes candida and flavissima. Neither of them were in sufficient quantities to make a big show, but the rain lilies have taken and we’ll see if the alliums come back this fall. (update 10/20 — I just did the bulb planting and the alliums did indeed survive through the summer. A. unifolium really is the most moisture tolerant of the alliums in my experience.) We’re doing our bulb order soon, and if all goes according to plan I’ll have some photos with a bunch of flowers in the meadow next spring.

Sorry, but here’s one more.

At the hacky sack world championships (for those keeping score: a new 18 year old Czech kicker won the title, a Swiss woman won the women’s title, and Poland swept the doubles competition) I saw a bunch of people for the first time in years, including my friend Lon with whom I travelled around street-performing in Europe for a couple of months ten years ago. I haven’t kicked a hack in years, but Lon has continued playing all of this time and, unbeknownst to me, starred in a Modest Mouse video a couple of years ago.

Besides the fact that it’s nice to see a professionally shot and edited video of my friend playing hack, and hilarious to see him undressing (only part way, don’t worry) in a rock video, the video is rather true to the hacky sack experience. When I was traveling around with Lon, I remember it was sometimes easy to draw a crowd of two hundred people but in other places impossible to build a crowd of five. And Lon never seemed to care much either way; more than anyone else I know, he’s content to do his thing whether anyone watches or not.

I’ll be back to stone and plants this weekend.

I have a feeling this has slipped under most people’s radar, but the hacky sack world championships have been happening in the Bay Area this week. Sadly, the event is not quite the same as it was depicted by Hollywood, with no disco breaks or confused-looking celebrities, and no game resembling indoor soccer (though there is a game with a badminton net).

The main event is a freestyle competition; the current world champion is from the Czech Republic. He’s won seven of the last eight, going back to 2002 when he won the title from a friend of mine. My friend is now retired from hack, though he still shows up in front of the camera sometimes. That was him scoring the goal in the Zohan movie, and Honda just paid him to kick a hacky sack and say, ‘My bad,’ in one of their commercials. They also put up a youtube of him doing one of his old routines while dressed like a Honda technician, no doubt fishing for some link love from a garden blog. It’s below the fold. (more…)

A few months ago, I mentioned that the US Census had sent out a form for our tepee. No one, of course, resides in the tepee; we said zero occupants and mailed it back, but then I guess the census was left to wonder who had filled out the form if no one was living in it. They’ve now sent two separate workers to verify that there really is no one living in it. I suppose a tepee does sound like it could be the home of an anti-census militia activist. Neither of the census workers spoke enough English to even know what a tepee was, and until this weekend we hadn’t found time to put it up yet, so we’ve had some rather long and involved conversations to explain the situation. In a couple of weeks some friends will be coming to visit; we have to just hope the census doesn’t send out a third worker while we have people in the tepee.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Anita and I got in a couple of days of climbing at Lover’s Leap on Highway 50 in the Sierras. It’s one of my favorite places in California.

The rock is easier to climb than it looks because it has a ton of horizontal dikes — veins of quartz and feldspar that erode more slowly than the rest of the rock, leaving lots of positive edges to hold onto and stand on. There were patches of snow at the base of some of the climbs from the big storm last week.

Lover’s Leap is the site of one of the most famous rock climbing videos, a segment of Dan Osman free soloing 400 feet in 4 minutes. Climbing videos can be boring even for climbers, but this one is fun even if you’ve seen it before. Using a rope and climbing with a concern for our mortality, Anita and I took over two hours when we did this climb, about thirty times as slow.

The Tepee in April

Somehow I’ve managed to post nearly a year and a half without mentioning that our yard has a tepee during the dry season. I photographed it several times last year, but I think I needed some time between it and the post about our outdoor shower. I don’t want to sound too feral.
I may not have posted about it here, but the tepee hasn’t escaped the eyes of our government. This week we received census forms addressed to two different residences, one to our house and the other addressed to our tepee. It’s pretty funny to receive official government mail addressed to a tepee, but it’s also rather Big Brotherish, as the tepee hasn’t been up since October. Though maybe that’s just the speed our government works at; a census worker walked the neighborhood last summer, and now we see the fruits of that labor. Maybe we should reply as occupants of the tepee.

Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

We learned about the unique charms of a tepee while traveling in New Zealand (tepees are surprisingly popular in the northern, sun-belt part of the South Island) where we stayed for several weeks in a tepee overlooking the Marlborough Sounds. It was an ecotourism place called Vanishing Point, and we helped build a larger tepee that was seventeen feet tall and wide enough for beds for eight people. The place was only accessible by boat, and there were other logistical challenges as well, but it was a beautiful place with a panoramic view of the Sounds. Vanishing Point doesn’t have a website anymore, so I think it’s defunct.

A Really Big Tepee Under Construction

Our tepee is much more modest and homemade. Anita sewed two canvas tarps together according to the pattern we saw in New Zealand, and we cut some of our bamboo for the poles. We put carpets and a futon and a little stone table with a candle lantern, and we call it the summer house. When we have house guests we run electricity out to it. One or two people were skeptical beforehand, but everyone leaves singing its praises. There’s something very very nice about a tepee, like it’s the cathedral version of a tent.

The Tepee in May