Winter Wonders

We have had a few days of warmer weather and the snow around our house has mostly melted. I think I prefer the fresh snow to the mostly melted kind! We have had marvelously wintery days around here. The fog descends and we get spectacular ice forming on everything. It only happened once last year (i thought it might happen all the time) and so this year I rushed out to take photos of it!

On these branches you can see the ice formed on only one side.

This is a bough of Douglas Fir!

 It can be treacherously icy around here and it is essential to have "yak traks" or similar grips on your boots for those icy days. I am still liking the 4 seasons "thing" but I am very much looking forward to spring and getting outside and mucking about in my garden. This year I hope that Timo will be past the "insatiable desire to put everything in his mouth" stage by the time i need to start digging!

betwixt seasons

As I told you before we have had our first snow. It seemed impossible that it could happen as the days had been so warm and the leaves were still on most of the trees. Just like last winter the tendency around here is to snow, thaw and freeze. It did a bunch of that but now it has melted (apart from the snowballs in the backyard) and now most of the trees have given up their leaves and we get to see the cover of unraked leaves that has been languishing under the snow (not so nice...).

Even with the snow I am glad to say that my garden is still producing veggies for us and I got to pick carrots and kale from under the snow drifts!! I had to wear gardening gloves so that my fingers didn't freeze in the snow. Seems kinda miraculous that I can still be eating out of my garden!! Yippeeee!
Here are some pictures from about a month ago. I love how these plants change their colours in a rainbow fashion.

Surprise day in SF with Mimi

Last Friday Mimi and I had a morning of adventure that wasn't planned. I decided to purchase some Himalayan singing bowls from a fellow in San Francisco who, in a strange twist, is actually a renowned ABM and Feldenkrais practitioner. I found him online when I was looking for bowls and I vaguely recognized his name and face. When I googled a bit further it all made sense since he was, until recently, Anat's assistant and he is in LOTS of the videos of her work with kids. I found bowls that fit my needs for pitches and on a whim I decided to just go and pick them up at the store in SF. We found the place very easily as we have been in that area of SF quite a few times. It is just at the end of Golden Gate Park. We spent quite a bit of time in the store checking the bowls and swapping out one of the ones I had picked out online. It was rather surreal choosing these bowls online! Ancient meets Modern technology.

After we left the store I decided we should check out the Randall Museum which is a place I had on my list of things to see and do! I wondered about waiting to visit there with Ami and Katie but thought it would be quite fun to go to see something by ourselves- a little Mum and Daughter date. Indeed it was fun although I had the feeling that Mimi really likes having Ami around - for interpretation, for giggles, for kid energy. The museum is located on one of the Twin Peaks and it overlooks the city and therefore has marvelous views. The museum specializes in exhibits about local flora and fauna. They had lots of rescued animals there which seemed pretty funny to be there - crows, a squirrel, a toad, a turtle, a king pigeon (rescued from starvation in Golden Gate park). Actually it was neat to see things up close that are usually running away from you. Mimi and I really really liked the California Quail- they looked very prosperous- and we even got to hear the male crowing. Mimi also really liked looking at the bee hive that they had with the little tube so that the bees could go out the window. I thought my Mum would be very excited to see the 3 or 4 owls that were living there. They were up on platforms in the exhibit room. An employee told us that every animal at the Museum is unreleasable. The owls were either blind or injured in some irreparable way. The barn owl was especially cool to see.  They had a nice photo display of images of a coyote seen on the Twin Peaks. Hard to imagine a creature like that in the middle of such a huge city. All of the photos were taken by a regular dog-walker on a point and shoot camera. They were remarkable quality.

One funny thing that happened was I thought I would help out by expressing my concern for the deadish looking upside-down beetle I saw in one vivarium. I couldn't quite believe my ears when the  employee said that "Oh, yeah, I'll go and stand him up again". He then told us was that this beetle only had 3 legs and was about 12 years old!!! Wowzers.

Mimi was really interested in the re-creation of a 1906 earthquake emergency house. It was about the size of our dining room and apparently people lived in them for up to 3 years. It had a little bed and a sewing machine set up in it. What more could you need?!?

After we had finished at the museum we were getting pretty peckish and I decided to continue to use the sage advice of Mighty Girl who writes the blog "Famous Among Dozens". She wrote a column which tells you how to see SF as a local. As a result we went to check out the restaurants at 16th and Valentia and got a super yummy veggie burrito and watermelon juice. We need more time to wander around the area. I'm sure we will go back there. 

We headed home in order to meet Ami at the bus. On the way home I think I saw a roadkill of a coyote on the freeway just off the Bay Bridge. Such a beautiful bushy tail. A very sad testament to the reality of the Bay Area.

falling behind

I knew this would happen. I said to myself that I would blog every day in order to keep a quasi diary while we are here. The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men gang aft agley
Ah well, Here we are anyway... if there is anything you would like me to elaborate on just post a comment at the bottom of this page!

Some things that are really Berkeley about Berkeley that i haven't mentioned before....

There is curbside composting pickup. Everything organic can go in the compost including anything paper that has touched food products (pizza boxes, paper napkins etc etc.). And meat, bones eggs.

Berkeley has fought to have 7 digit dialing so in Berkeley you needn't use 10 digits! I wonder how long that will last!

Now some things we have seen and done recently...

There were 12+ varieties of grapes at Berkeley Bowl. That is a LOT of choice! How do you decide? You have Heather there who worked at a grape ranch (really!) to help you out. that's what! I also had to decide between organic bananas and fair trade organic bananas - how ethical are you?

There are stunning pink amaryllis blooming on the sidewalk's edge. I don't know if/when someone would have planted them. They look a little funny because they are just 3 foot stalks with blooms on top- no foliage at all!.

There are lots of hummingbirds around. They love all the blooms in the neighbourhood.

Yesterday Ami and I joined Francis and Simon and their dad Shannon to go to release the crawdad/crayfish that F and S had caught in the stream at the UCal campus on their way home from school last week. They brought it home in a water bottle and fed it melon and grapes. it was quite happy being served me thinks!

Thursday nights are community night for the whole CDSP community. It means a Eucharist at 5:45, drinks after, and then dinner for everyone in the cafeteria with the meals on serving plates on the set tables. It is like a dinner at someone's home and the best part is that on Thursdays i don't have to think about dinner. Another great part is that the students have to pay the minimal 7 $ or so for the meal but their families eat for free! The kids in the community just love it too and they have all taken to sitting at their own table together. After dinner they run around all over the place and everyone hopes that at least one adult or older child is keeping an eye out on the fish pond in the little courtyard next to the cafeteria! The pond provided "a half baptism" of a kid last week. Whoops.

Ami is learning all about guns from the other boys in the housing complex.... But, he still doesn't want to read the page in Babar when his mother gets killed by the wicked hunter. That's my boy! We are really into Babar these days and I found "Babar and the Wully-Wully" and "Babar and Father Christmas" at a garage sale yesterday! yippeeee!!! more Babar!!

We still don't have a phone but I would love to hear from you on Skype! You can search me using my email address! Do it! it will be fun!!

Amiel
"Mum, what are white people?"
Mum
"well, have you noticed that people look different from each other?"
Amiel
"No"
Mum and Dad
"well, some people are chocolate coloured, some are pink, some are papyrus coloured"
Amiel (in a rather shrieking fashion)
"but Francis said there are WHITE people"
M & D
"you'd better ask Francis about that then!"

My garage sale-ing was very successful again this week. One of the main benefits seems to be that I have a better understanding of how Berkeley is set up from driving around to all the spots.

That's enough for now.
There's always more but if I wait this will never get posted...

Walkies!

Being in Berkeley means that we will have buns of steel by the end of our time here. It is so hilly that even though we are basically at sea level, both Martin and I likened our experience here to being in Banff or Aspen where we blamed our exhaustion on the altitude. We figure now that we really just were not used to climbing hills.
Because we don't have a fenced yard it means that Bohdi goes for walks a couple of times a day. This is a wonderful place to take little strolls. There is a wee ravine about a block from our place with a little creek running in it. The streets tend to follow the geography which is really refreshing. I realize how little of our natural geography we enjoy in Vancouver - with all the streams paved over and all...
Another benefit of walking Bodhi is seeing all the amazing flora around here. Who knew that jade trees could possibly be weed-like! There are gardens around here with MASSIVE succulents and unusual black flowers and cacti with fruit on them. I will photograph them soon.
Walking also allows you to take part in the Berkeley tradition of free-cycling. Even on my second day here I partook of it! I figure that I freecycled so much of my own house in Vancouver that I really aught to get as much as i can on this "network"! So far I have acquired

note cards
salt and pepper in grinders
a playground style ball for the kids
an original copy/box of the game of Clue with only the miniature knife missing!
2 wire baskets now holding my linnens and shoes
a present for Panos!! (an unopened package of dog biscuit cutters and recipes!)
a purple vase
literature (!)


Amiel
Climbed a rather substantial tree in our courtyard today and climbed down again! Organised his friends here to play diggers with him and they started making a worksite...

Ami is still waiting for his package from Uncle Panos. He predicts that our big boxes will arrive the day after his package does... we shall see.

Miriam
Chattering away all the time --loves the baby (and all its accoutrements) that are on loan from Frances.
I think she is getting molars. I have thought this before but she is wakeful in the night (it is really cute though because she just talks and talks and talks to me... i wish i could let you know what about specifically...)