Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Grand Tour (Outdoor Edition)

The event you've all been waiting for! Or something like that. Here is the outdoor portion of the Steingruebl World Enterprises headquarters.


Please, step up to the front door-


Or the back door, or the sliding back door. The front door is the only one with a buzzer, though.



This is pretty much my favorite view of all. When we look out of the sliding back door, this is what we see. Not a huge surprise that I spend a lot of time in this sunny little room!

Following the path of stepping stones, you can see the part of the yard that isn't visible from the back room due to garage-based interference.

From left to right, we have our prickly pear, nectarine tree, tall tree with little blue berries that the birdies all seem to like, plum tree, and swing.


Here is a better look at the prickly pear. It's huge! I need to look up some recipes for the fruits, because I understand they're pretty tasty. Observant readers will notice an ugly sign protruding from the plant. It says "No Trespassing" because shortly after our arrival a bunch of fruits were taken and parts of the plant hacked at. (Including a letter sliced into one paddle.) I have no problem sharing, but dude, ask first. We haven't had any problems since adding the sign.


And now, we turn back toward the house. In the foreground is the bed where I'm intending to do most of my veggie gardening. It will need expanding, though, so I'll be asking for the landlady's okay. Given that this is where she used to have a chicken coop, I'm looking forward to some lovely gardening. This picture doesn't show it, but the peas and lettuce I planted for a winter crop are coming up nicely. The gophers and squirrels will be very happy!
Ah yes-back toward the house. The yellow house you see here? That's where the pigeons like to sit. And poop. And then fly over to our house and sit. And poop. Doggone pigeons anyway. Under this little overhang is our lemon tree. Seems like a silly place for a lemon tree to me, but some of the fruits are starting to ripen so I can't argue too much. The big round bed here was the home of our old english walnut tree. It was looking pretty sickly when we moved in. A lot of dead branches on top and a classic case of walnut blight evident on the leaves. I had hoped that the dead stuff could be trimmed off and the tree given a few more years, but it was not to be. Rotten to the core, it was.These are the remains of the tree, waiting to be picked up and hauled off. I'm pretty glad this didn't fall down on our heads.



Living here is like living in a park, truth to tell. With all of the plants, birds, bugs, cats, squirrels and, apparently, gophers, I could pretty much just exist in the back yard.

One last peek to send you smiling on your way:


And, a big happy birthday to Grandma Char!

12 comments:

Jaya said...

So many fruit trees!

I'm jealous. All we have is the scraggly mulberry by the driveway.

SWE said...

Is it male or female? I'm hoping the gargantuan one in our front yard is male, as I can't imagine trying to keep berries from something THAT big out of my house. Faintly nervous, as fellow prospective renters tracked in something ghastly and purple when we were all looking at this place. On the plus side, we'll be able to supply Elise's class silkworm project this year!

Anonymous said...

Holy Wow Heather! Your new place is so the shiznit! I was behind you at a light the other day and missed seeing you in our cramped little drive aisle... missing you and your smile. The kids love their Little People!

SWE said...

Hey Jessica! Thanks for stopping by! We should figure out a time for you to do that in real life, too. :) It is sooooo weird to drive past Laurel Grove and not turn in. The new place is nice, but it's going to take a little longer for it to feel like it's our only "home."

I'm glad the Little People are treating your little people well!

Anonymous said...

You only think you live in paradise! Just because the evidence is over whelming. I am greener than your yard with envy.

Check around. I think prickly pear fruit are pretty good just eaten without any recepies.

SWE said...

I hear airfare is coming down-we can't wait to have you here in February!

cacophonyx said...

Wow.. that is gorgeous!

I'm not entirely sure I could take.. er.. one good photo of our house. It's, er, functional :D

I love that you feel like you're living in a park.. is that not some flavour of paradise?

jX

SWE said...

Indeed it is James, indeed it is. :) I've been jealous of your back garden for so long, and it is in fact one of the reasons I desperately wanted to find space for gardening this time around. We just happened to get very, very lucky with this one. Plenty of space and time for you to bring the clan to visit, you know...

Roni said...

Sweet digs, sis! I may take your lead and show off my beginners garden. With the school season slowing down and the weather warming up I'll be getting more things into the ground any day now.

Congrats on your newly rediscovered earthiness!

SWE said...

Thanks, Roni! It will be great to see what goes on in a Kiwi garden. Do you get interesting critters wandering through? And how did your audition go?

Roni said...

Our Kiwi garden is really just a collection of pots that take up the few places where we get adequate light for growing. Most of the yard is poorly drained (read soggy year round) and too shady to grow much.

We have hedgehogs that keep the snail population relatively in check, but we still have to draw a bait perimeter around the bok choy and spinach to keep the snails at bay. There have recently been signs of night time digging in some of my other pots, mostly the jalapeno and spring onions, that point to rude cats. I might have to get some netting for those to train the cats away. For the most part we're safe down here from most veggie eating critters.

I haven't been asked to audition yet, but they've passed my head shots on to the director. I'll hear back sometime next week. Fingers crossed, mostly for the paycheck!

SWE said...

Pots can be fun. Too bad you've got such mucky soil, though. I'm envious of your hedgehogs! Fingers crossed on the audition-large piles of money for small amounts of work are lovely. :)