Bits that don't make a solo post, yet.

There's a few things that I'd like to post on, but don't have much to say about just yet. So, here's a list of partials from the last couple of months, some of which will get a full post... eventually.


• Completely boarded the attic in the main house, where the POs left off and cleared out a bunch crap.

One of the previous owners put plywood in a good chunk of the attic and that's the portion we've been using over the last couple of years. They didn't board over the kitchen, which has cans popping up into the attic. We raised the floor level a step, over the canned lights, and boarded it up. It's amazing how much more space we have up there. We hadn't realized that the unboarded portion of the attic was such a huge section. Photos soon, but no befores since I didn't think of it at the time.

• We went to Echo Lake, near Lake Tahoe, this summer.

I'm slacking on posting Summer in Reverse. I need to get the photos all together. Dan and I went with his mom and sister and their dogs. Beautiful weather and beautiful little lakes.

• We started a compost bin in June.

Worms, fruits and veggies and browns. It's going great so far. There were flies, but managed to eliminate that issue. We have maggots in there, but they aren't harming so we haven't tried to clear them out. There's an awesomely rich chunk of fresh soil in there and it looks amazing.

• Finally figured out where I want to plant my pomegranate tree.

It was a birthday gift two or three years ago and has been in a large planter ever since. We took out the small turtle pond in the front yard when we replaced the windows earlier this year and now have a great spot for the pomegranate.

• Re-drew the front yard landscaping, again.

It's still a mix of fruit trees and a lot of native plants. We still need to decide what natives we want where. There's a native plant sale coming up at Joaquin Miller Park on the 24th, if we're able to go. Once I find one of the cables for the camera I'll post it.

• We picked out which city-approved tree we want planted in the sidewalk planting area.

And we know the steps we need to take to finally get that concrete broken up and removed so that we actually HAVE a sidewalk planting area. We absolutely hate that we don't have many trees at our end of the block. It looks barren and gets ridiculously hot. We think the Jacaranda suits our needs. Grows fairly fast, has a round, open canopy and has nice blue flowers. It'll be a little bit of maintenance (dropped flowers, seedpods), but honestly, there are two Jacaranda at the Dunsmuir Estate, where I worked all summer, and damn those things are gorgeous looking.

• Over the summer, I ran a small day camp at the Dunsmuir-Hellman Historic Estate.

I was brought on with ~2.5 weeks before summer and there hadn't been any promotion about it between then and the beginning of the year so the numbers were ridiculously low. The camp was stationed out of the original Milk Barn and had free reign around the estate. Wild deer, turkeys, foxes, skunks, cats and more would be around all the time. It was a blast.

• I'm being placed directly underneath the City of Oakland Naturalist and will be training underneath her.

Applied for a position in my organization (City of Oakland, Parks and Recreation) - oh... almost two years ago. They finally went through with hiring from the list of candidates this summer/fall. I'm crazy excited about this. I'll be working next to the first wildlife refuge in the US. I start on Tuesday. Partial benefits, pay bump and 30 hours a week. Finally.

• Dan and I took off a week of work and went to Chicago for our five year anniversary last week.

We both had free Southwest roundtrips from visiting while he was in college in So. California for two years. Most of my family is in Chicago, and that's where I was born, so we had free lodging wherever we went. We had so much fun. There'll definitely be a post on it once we remember all the things we did and have it all written down (we're a good chunk of the way there). Dan says it's his favorite vacation ever now. We volunteered to get bumped from our flight home if they needed space, we weren't in a hurry home, and bumped we got. Free 4.5 star hotel room, free flight the next day and we each got $400 flight vouchers. Our free trip got us more free trips!