Our new front yard, part 3: design

...needed smallish, well behaved plants to make something which looked like a meadow. Also, as I discussed before, I didn’t want anything too tall. I wanted a clear view up the slope. Really tall grasses and flowers are part of meadow communities, but not this one. In mine, I wanted everything about knee high or less, with the exception of flower stalks. Sometimes I felt like I was building a model train or something similarly miniature and persnicke...

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Our new front yard, part 2: theory

...ive sages, which I adore. Instead, I began to think in terms of a vertical meadow. The meadow Strangely, landscapes based on meadows/grasslands/prairies have yet to really catch on in California. I understand from my readings that they’ve been popular in other places for a good twenty years or so. I have no idea why California is dragging its heels. The upshot, though, is that I don’t have many good models of what a California meadow would look li...

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Is Facebook Useful?

...vorite Facebook posts are by friends who post stuff that they are actually making or doing rather than linking to click bait articles. Curate my “friends.” I don’t mean that I’m going to unfollow everyone that I don’t agree with. One of the things I like about Facebook is hearing from people outside my own liberal, Los Angeles milieu. But I’m going to unfollow “friends” who only post finger pointing click bait rather than their own opinions. I wil...

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A Thanksgiving Debriefing

...this terrible magazine cover depicting Puritans. I can’t tell the difference. Plus the central figure has the haggard look of someone who just spent the whole day making way too much mediocre food while the rest of her family kicked back and watched a bowl game....

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Whacked the President with a Single Stick

...e ex-Colonel nor the ex-Lieutenant Colonel of the Rough Riders has aimed a making this point, but both havve confined themselves to developing their skill with the weapon and getting as much exercise and fun out of the game as possible. Notwithstanding this, it is impossible to play with single-sticks without occasionally getting hurt, and both the President and his ex-superior officer have daily given and received some pretty severe raps. Lumps h...

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