Saturday Yard Day

Here are the some of the fruits (or veggies) of today's labor - beginning of vegetable garden and new native plants from the Botanical Garden. I have planted all the vegetables from seed (a few indoors first) except for the tomatoes. I bought some heirloom plants at the nursery today.

The Tudors

When I was in 6th grade, Masterpiece Theatre came out with a series on Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. I was enthralled. Now we are watching the Showtime series which is quite a bit more risque. We are finishing up the second disk tonight, and I'm wondering what they are going to do with the character of Thomas Tallis, the British composer.

Curriculum Writing

The Claremont Unified School District is working to help classroom teachers incorporate arts teaching into their curriculum. Before I went on sabbatical last year, I was on the Arts Task Force, and apparently things kept going while I was gone. Today I was invited to create some music lessons for grades 4-6. I got to collaborate with Maria who wrote her master's thesis on music in the classroom. We came up with one lesson plan for each of the grades which will be posted to the district site for teachers to access and use.

Orchestra Party

I'm just home from my last "concert celebration party," this one with the orchestra kids. We had more food than could even be consumed by this band of hungry elementary kids, but we managed to get this group shot - three teachers hiding in the back row....Next week it's back to rehearsing!

Blogspot Presentation

My friend, Rosemary, invited me to give a presentation on creating and maintaining a blog for her computer group. Tonight was the night, and from the looks of this picture, it appears as though I'm having a great time. It went well, and I expect that blogspot will see more new blogs in the near future!

And now you can see that Rosemary is officially one of my loyal followers.

Lengthening Days

The days are slowly getting longer. We now have more than 11 hours of sunlight each day. I came home from teaching today at 5:00 and had time to water our new succulents, weed a patch (battling photosynthesis), and listen to the bird sounds that are in this little video (taken at 5:35 p.m.).

Mardi Gras Sunday

I realize that Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, and today is Sunday, but we had a Mardi Gras church service this morning. As far as I know, we've never done that before, so this is what was fun and different. First of all, the children paraded in with decorated crowns, and a few of them throwing plastic coins. Then the choir processed, continuing singing When the Saints Go Marching In. We were accompanied by a drum set, electric bass and trumpet.

In lieu of a sermon, we had three scripture readings, each with a short story added, and then the congregation sang. We got to rouse up some oldies such as Everything Is Beautiful and I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.

We were encouraged to wear the Mardi Gras colors: purple, gold and green, as well as any beads we might have.

Progress in the yard

Today's tasks included planting succulents in front of the cottage. We took cuttings from plants we already had as well as one plant purchased today at Target. The plan is to put decomposed granite over the black tarp and also add more rocks for a desert look. It's one area of the yard that gets full sun.

Hal also took some excess pea gravel and made a nice spot for our fire pit. He used excess sandstone and made a spot for the BBQ.

Changes over the years

I went through our old photos of this house and scanned them in for the last few days. Here is a picture of the front of the house when we were in escrow in 1994. It's amazing how much has changed over the years.

Dessert

Hal brought home a thank you gift one of his students gave him for writing letters of recommendation for grad schools. It is a pie (I think it's peach) from Some Crust Bakery. Totally yumminess!

Turns out it is apple.