A Shoebox Full of Memories: A Winter Solstice Letter

Well another year of collecting and collecting – just like the political arguments all fall, we have been collecting: fruit from our trees and vegetables from our garden; roses and flowers from M’s diligent caretaking of the “upper 40” (as she likes to call it). Retirement is a wonderful time to collect. Memories, laughs and a few bottles of wine.

The rumor about not sleeping as you get older is certainly not an issue here. Both of us are sleeping as we wish we could have for many years. Getting up at 4 am for 15 years was trying at times, especially when invited out on Friday, and had to be in to work at five on Saturday. We now sleep with clear consciences. Oh, and we take our mandatory siesta every day for an hour or more.

Gracie, our once-feral black tabby does go in and out during the night. M dutifully opens the door each time and is greeted with a bright greeting cry from our 3^rd member of the family. The routines sometimes make us giggle, for Gracie is so prompt to her own schedule.

Looking down from roof

Gardens: This year’s pole bean harvest was way over the top. Some weeks I gathered 5 gallons of beans, whereupon I distributed them to select neighbors. In the fall, a year ago, I planted fig, avocado trees. The fig went berserk by growing 8 branches over 20 ft tall. I pruned them this fall to 8’, so next year there should be quite a few figs. I’ll have to net the tree to keep the raccoons off of it, they ate most of the small crop this year. The avocado should start to produce this year. A dwarf apple that I espaliered along the garden wall, grew quite a lot this year, but no fruit, so I have now planted a mate for pollination. I am about to plant a male and female kiwi to provide cover for the new ramp I installed (more below), and provide some fruit. This year the grape plants didn’t do their job, but I am told that it may take 3-4 years for them to start. I am looking forward to having table grapes from the garden. We had lots of beets this year, and some are still growing. We love to roast them for the chunks in our salads. Ah, salads, we had lots of lettuce of various types this year, this fall more is coming along. I just planted cabbage, and broccoli for a late winter harvest.

M has groomed the north hillside to become day-lily hill. Under the climbing roses that arch over the path, she has worked in quite a few new plants. Her shade garden under the pittosporum tree has dozens of plants, including a couple of three to four foot long Donkey Tale plants, a robust staghorn fern and a couple of Christmas Cactus that are in bloom right now. She has a couple of pitcher plants, which I didn’t think would grow so well in this climate. But the wonderful weather of Southern California allows us to keep the gardens green all year with a large variety of flora.

Building: For many years we had tent-type gazeboes on the west side of the house over the deck areas. This protected us from our nutty neighbor, and reduced the heat gain in the bedrooms in the afternoon. After replacing the covers every other year, we decided to build a structure. I used a special extruded aluminum from 80-20 Corp, and built a 20’ x 40’ tent that matches our roof slope. On it we put a 15 year material that is somewhat translucent, but provides all the advantages of a tent: light weight, strong, and modestly priced. The most amazing thing, it only took a week to put together. And several months for me to get back to do a bit of finish work (still not done).

Out the kitchen, laundry room door, we replaced the very small 30” porch with a large 12’ x 20’ deck. That required a retaining wall at the north end of the property, so with the help of a neighbor boy who was without gainful employment over the summer, we formed and poured the massive retaining wall and deck supports. The goal of this was to make a level entry to our house incase either of us should need access via wheel chair. The front steps are a count of 20+, which makes for a difficult journey in such a case. We also hope that the few friends we have with disabilities can now visit much more easily.

Silliness: We have a Harold’s Trumpet Vine (aka Easter Lily Vine) growing on the southeast corner of our house. The first year it wound it’s way up the downspout, then this year, due to some improvements to the garden such as better watering, the vine has taken over. The vine has quintupled in size, and become invasive to the house. Any crack is a potential anchor to latch onto. With our roof being tongue and groove, there are cracks between the boards. Well Audrey III (named after Audrey II from “Little Shop of Horrors”) found her way under the roof and over the beams into our living room. Hopefully this spring we will get a full display of the bell shaped flowers. No not in the living room, I’ve cut that and pushed it back outside with a dowel.

To see many more photos of the events of the past year, please go to https://picasaweb.google.com/116743480428293422071?hl=en where I try to upload my photos fairly regularly. Or you can just type my name into a Google search and follow the links.