¡recordando los alamos / remembering the cottonwoods!

yeah. hullo. hi. it’s been a while, right? let me start w/ a short update. a couple weeks ago we drove out to Utah to stay w/ my mom and visit the cottonwood canyons of our youth.

a couple highlights: trespassing through a big hole in the chain-link into the abandoned plant nursery up the road. Ash found some big concrete platforms for showing off her skills. Tom putting on the charm at the west bank of Bell Canyon’s lower reservoir. geese at the east bank.


otherwise, I’ve been trying to tie up the last of spring semester’s loose ends and get our garden in. today I think we’re about there. the books are mostly put away. and a couple hours ago I opened the fridge and drank the last half liter of flat coke left over from finals.

this is our first crack at planter boxes; our backyard is mostly stone and clay. the wood is mainly pallets that Ash and I scrounged from behind strip malls and stuff, some old fenceboards too. I’d been holding out for some free topsoil on craigslist, since buying dirt feels a little like buying zucchini (lonely), or bottled water (sucker). I was finally able to get some great composted horse manure from a friend in town, who loaded about a yard into our truck to take home.

here’s Ash and Dirtlips working on their garden. it’s mostly a milpa deal (corn, squash, beans), with some carrots in the corner. because, as Kelly pointed out, kids love pulling those long orange spikes out of the dirt.