Random Memory - Kayaking in Puerto Rico Lightning

Must have been just about exactly five years ago that Nikki and I were kayaking in Laguna Grande, a tea-colored, brackish lagoon east of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was dark out, and we were navigating through a bioluminescent mangrove swamp by feel, pushing off the branches overhead to propel ourselves slowly with our hands, ducking our heads in the tree tunnel, spying on huge iguanas that were sleeping in the branches - when a lightning storm that had been looming suddenly came to life directly over us. The flashes were was so intense and all-consuming that you couldn't say it was coming from one direction or another. It was either directly upon us, or all around us or both. The thunder was instantaneous, and each clap knocked a deluge of fat rain drops off the branches. The storm left as quickly as it formed. Afterward we enjoyed some swimming and watching little fishes dart around in the dark water beneath our boats, each leaving a glowing a blue/green wake behind, like little sub-aquatic shooting stars.

Morning project: Bee House.

Hopefully we'll have some little polinators taking up residence soon. If you know any bees that need a place to stay, send them our way. There are 13 units still available.

The Official Before and After

This weekend we finally got the gigantic pile of dirt out of our yard and replaced it with sweet glorious grass!!! Our big spring project is finally done and now we have a nice big yard to hang out in this summer. We can't wait for everyone to join us for some BBQ's and drinks!


BEFORE: (muddy, unusable, sad yard)














AFTER: (huge, grassy, summer haven)

Onward...

Still no grass down below, but things are coming together.

Progress!!!

Yesterday we had both of our families over to help with the garden and they were SUCH an amazingly huge help. We planted all new plants along the driveway, stained the fence AND got all of the posts in for the retaining wall. There's a lot more to do, but we can actually see the framework of our future margarita-drinking-friendly backyard! Here are some pics:

















































The driveway...

































View of the fence from the driveway...

The Great Garden Project of '09

We've started our very big Spring project of re-doing our yard and here are some pics of the progress... Right now it's looking like a crazy big dirt pile but hopefully over the next few weeks it'll transform into a great place to hang out all summer... I think Kaia would be happiest if we just left it a big dirt pile!

Before...

Removing the old patio...














Movin' dirt...

Taking out the retaining wall...










































This is a preliminary design, shape of the patio has changed, but the spirit is the same.















Final structural plans, fully-rendered in 3D, board by board. Building begins in about 2 hours! This is just eh infrastructure... plants, pots, steps and all kinds of goodness to be added...

Mountain bike racing is back!

Warming up, a couple practice laps before the start...

Winter Wonderland in Seattle

We were really lucky to enjoy a white Christmas in Seattle this year! For those of you who didn't hear - we got a record snowfall in the city and at one point we had 9 inches of wonderful powdery snow. While most people tend get sick of it, Dave, Kaia and I couldn't get enough of it! Here are some pics of us playing...

Dave's experimenting again.

Made this little plant table out of scrap wood (pine) from the mess heap in the garage. Painted it flat black with house paint, then rubbed on an oil/beeswax blend. Carved/painted a little design in the top, whittled and banged it around a bit to make it look fancy. Too bad you can't see it when there's a plant on top. Oh well. Thanks mom and dad for the Christmas drill jig!