Down on the corner

So I realized that I've never shared what the outside of our little urban compound looks like. Here we are, hidden in plain sight, at the end of that drive, sharing space in what used to be dry storage for Dole.

Oh the possibilities I wake up with on a daily basis! There are literally 10,000 things we could be doing with the amount of space we have...
The building is situated right between the rapid high-density development of Japan town (which can be seen in the right background) and the older, somewhat decaying neighborhoods of East San Jose. Living in this area is quite a trip..
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I finally finished this book..


The author lives in Berkeley, (not far from us), so I gained a new perspective on the availability of local food sources in our area. The winding stories of the way each of the four meals come together is well-written and easily digestable..not to mention funny, sad, and eye-opening at the same time! I've been reading about food, food chains, and everything related pretty consistently for the past 6 years (thank you Fast Food Nation), and found this book to be one of the better selections. I'd recommend it to a first-time American food-system detective anyday!

Revamping a deadscape

I'm trying to make this expansive space a little more home-y. I also am trying to get into gardening and eventually growing a lot of our own food.
First, I started with trying to clear out a lot of the shit that was piled up outside of our front door. Believe me, when I say a LOT I mean it. There are two vehicles that are owned by various tenants, that are currently not running and being used as storage units. Outside of them, there is a rusted barbeque apparatus, a city garbage bin, an oil drum (full!), a dismantled gumball machine, various outdoor chairs in varying stages of disintegration, an empty stereo cabinet, flooring, marble slabs, pallets, half a palm tree stump, and piles of trash and empty cans. Whew!! The previous tenant had left a lot of planting containers and potting soil, so I snatched those up pretty quickly!
The first step is to shovel out all the trash and set up the container garden area, barbeque area, sitting area, and clear out the corner where our compost pile is going to be!




Some of the plants that were left over are pretty sad. I know cacti are pretty resilient, so I'll try to get them kickin again.


I thought we'd get to keep these awesome succulents, which are obviously thriving, but we were informed a couple days later they belonged to another tenant and he'd "be needing to move them back into the driveway soon". Bah...


We salvaged some of the snap-together flooring and pallets to build the frame for our compost pile. I'm hoping to cut down on the amount of trash this four-person, two-animal compound produces. The worms are doing an awesome job at eating our raw food trash, but with this pile, we can effectively get rid of all of the other organic-type matter in a useful way as well!


I had been aerating the left over soil in some of the pots and adding new material and water for a few days, to build up the sponginess of the soil before planting anything. As an experiment, I threw a handful of flax seeds onto one pot...and in just a couple days....We've got sprouts!


As long as I can remember to keep up on these things...I'm sure I'll have a pleasant wall of greenery in no time!
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Pickle and I spent some time at the park the other day. He's definitely a high-strung, undersocialized little dude, so taking the time to have him in a public area is helpful. I had a pack of treats, a book, and a blanket, so he was free to sniff around, roll on the grass, and explore. Every time someone walked by, or a bike rode past, or (and this was the scariest for him) an ice-cream vendor rolled by, I'd give him a treat. He eventually calmed down and layed on the blanket next to me.



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Barrett got somethin new...


And can you tell who is who?