This Pavements to Parks initiative in SF is really interesting. I must see if Oakland has something similar.
I drove by this little parklet on my way somewhere and I came back later to investigate more thoroughly.
Guerrero Park by Shift Studio in SF
This Places for People idea is marvelous. I love how they have created these planting spaces and seating areas on the harsh concrete of this street using recycled materials. I hope people come hang out here!
Here I am driving along and I see this truck with a massive palm all over it! How cool to see how they are moving it. I wonder what very large crane (VLC) is waiting to put it in it’s final place!? Where is it going?
I joined APLD folks to talk to people about CA native plants at the California Academy of Sciences. I like to do this sort of thing.
Here are some of the characteristics of native plants that help them conserve water:
Slivery grey leaves with little hairs reflect light help keep a plants temperature down in hot dry climates.
Small leaves help plants conserve water because less surface area means that leaf will lose less water.
Waxy leaves serve as sort of a waterproofing that reduces transpiration.
Thick succulent leaves trap and conserve water.
Look at all those adorable signs MF made! So cute!
Possibly a foolish decision… we asked the contractors to leave us the nicest bricks from our old, crumbling, 1896 brick foundation. Now we have this large pile of bricks in our backyard ready to collect spiders and who knows what else.
We visited NcNear brick factory for class today and it was super cool. I absolutely love weird industrial machines. It was so interesting to see how bricks and paving materials are made and processed and packaged and sold. They have been producing bricks since 1868. I like to think the bricks from my foundation where made at this factory.
Tah.Mah.Lah. is a really neat example of eXtreme green building for rich people. I’m glad rich people are trying out new techniques for green building and while trickle down economics is a giant piece of bullshit I can at least hope that trickle down green building can be a thing.
The entire site was amazingly gorgeous and the homeowners were so generous to let us visit and even tour the inside of the home! This was a tour with my classmates. I tried hard to not get other people or other people’s butts in my photos. :)
I am still overwhelmed by this visit. The property is huge and every nook felt highly deigned and fantastically executed. The first thing I was drawn to where the amazing willow structures made by Patrick Dougherty. They are billed as a play structure but honeslty they were BIG and DARK and not at kid scale really. So, while there was evidence of kids playing there, I didn’t feel like it was exactly FOR KIDS. It felt more like land art for rich people. Which is great and I’m all for that. It was beautiful.
I was also so intrigued by the swimming pool. I thought it was a natural pool and i had never hear dof that being a thing but damn! what a cool thingthat would be to have/build! Anyway, this pool is not that but they did build adjacent ponds to it looks like one. I am in love with the wooden walkway seperating the pool from the pond area. I felt like I could be walking through The Great Swamp I remember from RI. Not exactly but I did feel there was great scope for the imagination in that spot.
The warm gold of the paving materials was very inviting. It managed to soften the huge stone blocks around the driveway area. I also just loved the way the paving materials transitioned. In some fo the abve pics you can see how the paving softly transitions to the meadow or other areas.
What is an adventure playground?I think of them as a free form playground built by kids and the grownups with them. It's a space where the way kids play hasn't been decided for them already, they get to see a bunch of raw materials and see the possibilities and create their own spaces.They get wood and nails and discarded playground equipment and rope and old boats and whatever other cool stuff the staff can find or is donated. And the kids can use it however they want.I feel lucky to live in an area with an Adventure Playground, you can read about it's hostly here. It's such a cool idea and we have been taking my son since before he could walk. There is something for everyone!You have to earn tools and paint by helping clean up or gathering up old nails. Once J. could walk he loved to collect nails with a magnet fishing pole in order to trade the nails for paint.Here's J as an almost or maybe just 1 year old sitting in a boat filled with sand. Neat!This is an ever evolving instrument. It's got drums and harps and tons of other things that make great noises.I wish I could figure out how to embed this video of my son getting bonked by a hanging float.He is at about 2 years freaking out with excitement at some junk hanging around. At about 28 seconds he gets bonked with the hanging rescue float.Hiii-larious!The last time we went T. helped him build an airplane out of scrap wood.More awesomeness. In this picture you can see not only a a cool boat in the foreground but several boats filled with plants in the middle and then the oh so cool zipline in the background. Kids line up for this over and over and it's so fun to watch them. You must be 6 in order to ride it. I'm not sure if J. will want to!
In late 2010 my partner and I bought a lovely 1896 Victorian in Oakland on 5,000 sq ft. It had stood empty for several years and had the usual urban squatters occupying the house and garden at various times. RE: various crack pipes in the attic, backyard overgrown, uncared for, and filled with broken glass and trash.Here's a picture of it in October 2009 when we first came to look at the house:Here it is about a year later. Not much is going on accept we have one raised bed in. We took out a couple of the rampant plum trees, pulled up tons of black plastic, a took out all the gross jade plant and a bunch of other boring stuff.November 2010:In summer of 2011 I put in an herb spiral in the center of the yard:August of 2011 we have TONS of veggies growing. This was the summer of the 20 million tomatoes and 10 million of zucchinis:Here it is right now. man, it looks pretty crappy from overhead...The herb spiral is mangy and cleared out and the over crop on the greensward area is not filled in. you can see our new big-ass white coop in the back left.June 2012:At some point early on my plan was to have a mostly native garden but I ditched that in favor of sticking with food plants and at least Mediterranean plants. There were just too many awesome plants out there to experiment with.Back yard == 2000 sq ftFruit trees so far: 2-3 plums, meyer lemon, lisbon lemon, orange, lime, two apples and two avocados.Animals: 6 chickensBeds: 2 large veggie beds, herb spiral with flower bed attached, native bed, 3 round planters with blueberries, strawberries, zucchini and herbs.Other elements:awesome chicken coop and run, embankment slide, kids playhouse area under lemon tree.Left over from some cute little old lady who must have lived here once: many pretty roses, fuschias and a camellia.Plans: Eventually I'll put in a native meadow for our grassy are and we'll have a deck. I keep waiting for the supposed construction we need to do on the house to be over but we keep not getting started with it so we just keep doing cover crops and our patio table is on an old rug. Our 2011 backyard had a sad dearth of actual flowers so, MOAR flowers!
I came across the awesome Schoolhouse Creek Common Garden playscape in Berkeley during a Bring Back the Natives Tour in 2008. Here is the write up on the Bring Back the Native site. I think this was my very first experience with an actual natural playscape and I was really excited by it.This playscape has so many great features, including boulders, a tire swing, a mesh tunnel, tree stumps (movable and not), CA native plants, a nice BIG sand pit, a small hill with boulders and plantings, and secret paths.I have brought my son here a few times over the years although we were never regulars since it is a bit far from my house. The last time we went my son was about 4.5 and we had a really good time. the first thing I did was get out my sketchbook and some pens and I started to make a map of the garden. this was a great opportunity to talk about maps and to have my son help me. He got really into it and really got the concept of translating what we were seeing to the paper. I sent him off to explore and to report back with what he found.Note to self: find that sketchbook, scan and upload it.We have actually have never encountered any other kids at this site and I would really love to see a group or even just two kids playing here to see what they do! J and I made maps, and we played Hide and SNEAK(TM), and dug in the sand pit looking for dinosaur bones.You can read more about the process of building Schoolhouse Creek Commons here.
I love the Lake Merritt gardens. It is the perfect place to take a 2 year old! We often come to the sensory garden and J. also loves the Japanese Garden.
