Long weekend

So much planned, so little time (considering it's a 3 day weekend!)

Saturday morning I met Emily who gave me a lovely bunch of brilliant red Dahlias she grew herself and a massive bag of Watsonias. Nice!

Then I managed to miss meeting Lee who left me a worm composting bin (ooooh - exciting!) and Heather (missed her by just seconds it seems). I'm going to close off the big compost bin for now and start adding household compostables to the worm bin.... can't wait to see what it produces!

I spent a few hours widening, levelling and generally futzing with the future site of the bench. Gary came by and gave me some suggestions, and I think I got it as level as I could... but it's still a bit rustic as you can see. Matt helped me add the bricks that Joan donated - they are wonderful Victorian bricks with a "CH" imprinted on them. Handmade too - they are all different. They look white in the pics but that's left over mortar from the chimney they used to be part of in the Mission.

I was curious about the "CH" and looked on the interwebs, thinking that this would likely be a fruitless search... and immediately found the following at https://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/96winter/brickyard.htm:

"The initials 'C. H.,' impressed in the brick of which our new City Hall is built, put there to denote that they were intended for that edifice, may (should they prove to possess the lasting properties claimed for them) become to the antiquar[ians] of the remote future a source of much worriment as they labor to decipher their probable meaning."

(Henry G. Hanks, Fourth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist for the Year Ending May 15, 1884 (Sacramento: California State Mining Bureau, 1884), 144; quoted in Karl Gurke, Bricks and Brickmaking: a Handbook for Historical Archaeology (University of Idaho Press, Moscow, Idaho, 1987), 1. )

Um, well, there you go!

I'll probably put black plastic under them to prevent weeds, re-lay them, and put sand between them to hold them steady. I may also place a landscaping timber at the front and left sides to hold them in. Then Gary is going to add the bench. Can't wait!

Sunday:
The Potrero Hill Garden Club tour is on Sept 13th and the club planned a pre-tour for all the gardeners today. So if you're part of the tour, and can't escape to see others' gardens, you get to see 'em anyway. What a show! We some some awesome, cool gardens today and met some fantastic people. John, P. Garden plant acquisition expert, came along too, and we just had a blast :) I also managed to snag a free piece of succulent I have seen around town for ages from Deborah's garden: Calandrinia grandiflora - Rock Purslane.

To backtrack a tad, before the tour I watered the cactus wall and John donated a nice big Cordyline to match the one in the entrance wine barrels that was cruelly hacked down a while back. Ahhh - symmetry is restored! Thanks John, for the Pulgita Memorial Cordyline :)

Monday:
Leah came to help with all sorts of tidying up for many hours. Lee weeded and gave me a tour of the fetaures and operation of the worm composter he donated. All was going well, except in the back of my mind was the nagging knowledge that Matt had rushed to Pacifica first thing, because his horse was sick. Then he called, and it became clear that his horse needed to be transported to UC Davis for emergency help.... we got on the road and arrived in Davis around 4pm in a panic, but it was too late and his sweet horse Matador had to be put to sleep. To cap it off my car decided to die on the way home, almost leaving us stranded in Novato were it not for kind Melissa who came to our rescue. We got back home at midnight in the depths of misery, all thoughts of gardening gone...

So, the second pet death in the family in 2 weeks... What a looooong weekend...