What the Succulent? Today we are at the end of January, which means that in a few days I will have completed a full year of California residency, spending the vast majority of my days on this hilltop, with clear views to the ocean and mountains alike. As I sit in the living room I see verdant gardens to my left and dry hillside chaparral to my right. The sun is streaming in and we…
Necessita Casita We live on 2.5 acres of boulder-strewn hillside. We are on top of the hill, perfectly situated for views in all directions and the boulders create a lovely landscape to create nice spaces in various area of the lot, The Patio is nestled amongst boulders. The hot tub is perfectly sited in between and shielded for privacy by several large boulders. The newer Cecil Garden is framed by the boulders which form the…
Timber! Over the last year, as part of my succulent education, I watched an Agave Americana on my back hillside grow its once-in-a-lifetime seed stalk to a height of about thirty feet. The base of the Agave looks like the Queen Victoria Agava but the scale of stalk quickly outsized the Agava plant. The base is about three feet high and perhaps two feet across, but the base of the stalk grew to about ten…
Drafting The word draft is one of those English words with not only multiple meanings, but the word takes the form of a verb, an adverb, an adjective and a whole array of nouns all at once . You can draft a draft of a proposal to draft a drafting specialist by sending him a draft as a down payment to help correct flaws of a drafty room before he or she gets conscripted in…
Stopping the Steal I woke up this morning to noisy gusting winds. It woke up Betty and probably scared her, so I brought her up onto the bed and she did what she never does, promptly curled up to sleep some more rather than go out and brave the wind. I too would have preferred to stay in bed, which is equally unusual, but I got up because I have a doctors appointment for a…
A Haircut for Betty Betty, Betty, Betty. You’ve been with us for five months now and I think it’s fair to say that your recuperation is complete. Your teeth are fixed. Your eyes are fixed. Your diabetes is more or less fixed. You still cringe when someone tries to pet you or, worse yet, pick you up. If that doesn’t happen in the right way, you get kinda nervous and maybe pee just a squirt…
Double New Yorker I wish the New Yorker magazine treated its subscribers like American Express has chosen to, with a designation on the card that declares “Member Since 1976”. I must admit, I am proud of that designation. And here is the thing, in the forty-five years of my membership, I have never once not paid the AMEX bill in full every month. It used to be that there was no choice to do otherwise,…
The Door to the Castle I got a call today from my colleague Damiano from his home in Palermo, Sicily. He called to congratulate me on the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamal Harris today and said that he and his family had watched the whole inauguration on live TV from their home overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea that lies between their home and the mainland of Southern Italy. I am very lucky to have hooked…
Green Acres When we think of the shift in American demographics from rural to urban, we generally think of the period from 1870 to 1920 even though that has been an inexorable trend over our entire history as a nation. We have gone from being 95% rural in Colonial days to being less than 20% rural in recent history. I’m sure we are all very aware of this trend, but what we may be less…
The Hill We Climb I know what you’re thinking. My constant references to my life on this hilltop and the fact that I spend a lot of my day exercising on my own personal stairclimber going up and down the hills to work on projects and generally do chores. So, it is not hard to surmise that the hill I climb is covered in dirt and rocks with an occasional succulent to step over. But…