Catches in the Yard

Black-bellied slender salamander.

Fence post lizard. Caught by Eric, release by our oldest son.

The downtown skyline. Photo captured by our oldest son.

Annals of Small Improvements: Hook Relocation

After my son wrestled with his jacket early morning, letting out the plaintive cry, "I can't get it off" I realized today was the day to rectify the injustice of tall jacket storage for the small.

Much, much, much better.

Patching Pants

Eric is really good at repairing his jeans. I remember a trip to Joshua Tree when our oldest son was barely two. In the quiet of the desert, Eric started repairing a pair of his jeans by hand stitching homemade denim patches over the holes. Those patches are still going strong and many more have been added.


I decided to take a lesson by repairing a pair of my oldest son's pants. We cut denim from a recycled pair of jeans and pinned the patches to cover the holes.


Eric usually uses the sewing machine these days instead of hand stitching. He added another patch to some of his jeans.

Interior of Eric's pant leg with the tear sewn down.

Then he turned them inside out and ran a stitch around the tear. The sewn down material is less likely to be caught when you push your feet through the pant legs.

Interior of my son's pant leg with the tear removed.

I sewed the patch on my son's jeans with a tight zigzag stitch. I turned them inside out. Instead of sewing down the material surrounding the tear, I cut out all the material inside the border of the patch. I figured a tear would grow bigger by curious toes, best to remove it altogether.


Ready to wear.

El Rio Charter School Public Meeting Today

Hope to see you today at the Audubon Center at Debs Park.

Insulation

About three weeks ago, the insulation truck rolled up to our house, unwound a hose and blew TAP insulation into our drafty attic. Living in a farmhouse construction house brings you much closer to the elements, even in southern California. The insulation was a much needed improvement at Camp Ramshackle.

TAP is 85% recycled post-consumer newsprint. Eric did the bulk of the research about our options. While searching online, he found a post on Treehugger.com about recycled newsprint insulation.

The insulation comes in block form which was opened and put into a shedder/blower machine.

Because the insulation is blown in, the job took only a few hours. The change was drastic. Even with our farmhouse construction (which means that our interior wall is also our exterior wall), the heat is more consistent.

With winter waning, I'm looking forward to seeing how the insulation works with the summer heat.

More Mushrooms

My most recent foray into the yard found this fairy circle...


and these beauties.

The Return of Oregano

I planted this oregano from seed months ago. The seed came from Ilsa of RamblingLA's prolific garden. In my garden, they took a long time to sprout. So long, I thought they might not make it with our changing weather.

I would gently check the new shoots with a gentle finger pinch to verify by smell they were indeed oregano as I weeded. And the plants remained small for such a long time. In the last week, they seem to have turned a corner and are finally growing.

I can smell the simmering red sauce from here.