Well, One of My Blogs…

Fancy beans that died in the horrible heat:

Eggplants:

Tiny okra!Giant, almost-tomatoes:

Giant tomato plant toppled (self and cage) under its own weight and had to be staked up with the bird feeder:

Asian pears and peaches from my neighbor’s garden:

Oh, the pears!

I’m at the laundromat.  I haven’t been to a laundromat in a LONG time.  The downside:  I’m spending the evening in the laundromat.  The upsides:  there is wireless here, a big TV playing “Friends” reruns, and NO ONE else here.  I was able to drag a little table over to prop my feet up on, so I may as well be in my living room at home.

Speaking of my laundry, my jeans finally died:

They were going to require more patching (on top of the 7 they already had) so it was time to call it a day.

I replaced them with some fabulous jeans from Target:

The new jeans are fabulous for a variety of reasons:  they fit remarkably well, they were $15.  On the downside, they have “designer” worn spots and a small hole.  I couldn’t find any without this sassy, pre-worn look.  That was a bummer, because I am sure to destroy them in due time, and would have liked to start with a hole-free pair of jeans.  Still, for $15 bucks, you can’t have it all.

I have the non-emergency numbers of several police departments programmed into my phone.  You’d be surprised at how many times I’ve called the cops.  In San Francisco, there was always something interesting going on:  possibly dead or dying homeless dude on my sidewalk, junkies on my steps, local youths drinkin’ in the park on the block, a Christmas tree in fire in the street outside my apartment, someone passed out in their (running) car, etc, etc.

I’ve already called the cops once at the new house, and tonight was nearly a second.  There was some interesting domestic yelling going on out front.  From this I learned that my neighbor is either named “Mike” or possibly  “F*** You.”  Mike (aka FU) and his lady friend were having a quite the discussion.  Because I’m so nosy, I really wanted to find out what the screaming was about.  It was only my fear of being shot through the window when they saw me peeking through the blinds that stopped me.  Just when I was about to settle in on the kitchen floor to listen in and call the cops, their bus must have come or something, because the fighting stopped.  And I didn’t even get to find out what it was about!

On to other business.  I had a bit of a housewarming this weekend which was super fun.  Towards the end, my Aunt Theresa helped me rearrange my living room furniture, and now it looks like a real room!

(a real room photographed in extremely low light)

In backyard news, I had my first tomatoes!

There were three, but I had to eat one instantly.  I didn’t plant my garden until late June, which explains why I’m not getting any tomatoes until September.

Speaking of September, my little maple is losing leaves!  But they’re still green.  So why are they falling?  I don’t understand.  The chickens don’t either.

While the chickens roamed, I dug out a few dandelions.  Their roots are out of control.  Look at the root on this tiny weed!

Anywho, so that’s what I’ve got today.

Holy crap, it is so hot.  It was 109 degrees when I got in my car after work today.  At one point on the freeway, it cranked up to 111, but I blame the hot road for that.  It is almost 10 at night and it is still hot.

The chickens are not a fan.  I came home this evening to find them panting and holding their wings out to the side.  I couldn’t get a good shot of it because they became a little more poised if I came to close, but here is a peek of Greta’s wings up stance:

For tomorrow, I have two large containers of water in the freezer so that they can have something cold to stand on or near tomorrow.  I’ll start them off with the first one, and then hopefully my dog walker can swap it out for the second when she comes by in the afternoon.

In exciting news (but not for the workers who had to work in over 100 degree heat), the coop, junk pile, and old chicken run are GONE!!  Now I just need the concrete man to come and tear out the stuff that was left.

The yard seems so much bigger now.

And the graffiti looks so, um, horribly ghetto.  How do I get rid of this?  Just paint brown faded-fence-colored paint over it?  Still, I’ll take graffiti over broke-down coop.

Casey made the news at Sonoma Humane.

(Her story is towards the bottom of the newsletter…)

Liesel Chicken is apparently tired of being the lowest in the pecking order, and has started to challenge Greta Chicken.  It is pretty funny.  She mostly just stands up tall and flaps her wings at her.  It makes me like her even more.

The possible story of shantytown:

When I first google-mapped what is now my house and saw fourteen cars in the driveway, I thought: “Oh, how funny, google took the picture on the day they were having a party!”  When I saw the house in real life, I realized that all of those cars probably lived there.

There was the main house (where I live now).  Plus the garage had been converted into a second house (with an add-on on what is now my back patio).  Then, in the back yard, there was a shanty-town which consisted of two dwellings, each big enough for a twin bed, and that was about it. There was a bathroom that could only be accessed from the backyard which served the shanties.

Altogether, there were 8 bedrooms and four bathrooms.  Now, there are two bedrooms and one bathroom.

Awkwardly, the house used to belong to my next-door neighbor’s brother.

More awkwardly, when they lost their house to foreclosure, they had to leave most of their belongings under tarps in my next-door neighbor’s driveway.  Which I share.

Even more awkwardly, this weekend, the brother came by to pick up some things while I was sitting in the backyard contemplating my next steps.  He stopped by to say hello and: “Wow, it sure looks different.”

It seemed rude to say “thanks,” so I didn’t.

I don’t know the whole story, and because my neighbors are so nice I don’t want to ask them.  But here is what I am guessing:

Next-door neighbor’s brother and his family lived in the main house.  According to my googling, it looks like they bought the house for around $100,000 in 2001, but foreclosed on about a $400,000 mortgage in late 2008.  I don’t know exactly how those bad mortgages work, but I’m guessing they had one (some?) and kept adding on to have renters to help out.  I’m also guessing they rented the shanties to individual dudes because you know no woman would ever live in a shanty.

I’m guessing somewhere between 10 and 15 people were living here.

According to next-door neighbor, most of the gardening was done by the lady who lived in the house before them.  But somebody definitely hodge-podged together all kinds of poles and boards and assorted garden supports, and there was definitely some kind of drip irrigation system, because I am constantly tearing out bits and pieces of it.

There were also chickens, and two of them ended up having to live with next-door neighbor.  And SOMEBODY was keeping pigeons.

From my garden.  I grew it from seed.  Then I cooked it and ate it and it was awesome.