Bricked Up

No posts for a while because I went off for a week and a half to lovely upstate New York, where it rained and rained and rained. But I got to hang out with some sheep.

Over the weekend my parents and I went to Rhinebeck, New York for New York State Sheep and Wool (those are my photos from the festival). Good fun, lots of interesting things to eat and see, and of course plenty of wool. I got to see and hang out with a lot of people I've known for ages but rarely if ever get to see in person. Plus maple sugar cotton candy, lamb hotdogs, and apple cider.

Despite insane jet lag, I got back to work on the front garden when I got home. Some weeding, because it rained and was warm while I was away (the classic weed causer). And I relaid the brick walkway out front:

The irrigation tubing runs under the back of the path (you can see it emerging in the top of the photo, at the left side of the pathway), and there are more bricks than before because I carried the path all the way to the concrete. My great idea of brushing sand into the cracks didn't work so well, nor did watering the sand into the cracks, but the bricks will settle in soon enough.

I was so consumed by laying bricks and digging around that I totally missed the 4.0 quake on the Hayward Fault this afternoon. Not that that is much of an earthquake, but it was very close, which kind of makes up for it.

In addition to lots of weeks sprouting all over the place, a bunch of wildflowers have also germinated, like this little lupine. Makes weeding more difficult as I have to go through and pick out the weeds by hand rather than coming through with hoe and fire, at least if I want to keep the wildflowers.

posted by ayse on 10/20/11