Woodworking

Above is a picture of Kate's new 'art shelf.' Kate loves to draw and animate; you can see a sample of her work on the desk. A week ago, this desk was completely covered with jars of pens and pencils, and art supplies. It was impossible to work on, not because she was messy, but because she had too many things to keep organized. She was having to do all her work on her bed, which wasn't ideal. 

When I broached this with her, she said that she'd been looking at art shelves online and would like some. I looked at the pictures with her and agreed that it was the solution to her problem. I didn't have to figure out how to budget to buy something, or where to go to find the precise right thing, all because we have a woodworker in the family. Isn't that wonderful? Kate and I just had to talk with my dad, who luckily wanted to take on the project.

Woodworking is a skill that I feel is becoming extinct, along with skills like carpentry, food preservation, and raising livestock. Well, maybe not extinct, but certainly rare. Time was that everyone knew how to fix an engine, rotate a crop, make a pickle. These are valuable skills that I believe we should take time to learn and preserve. Tom agrees with me, and it's why we make it a priority to sign up for classes in everything from butchery to plant propagation. It's why we challenge ourselves with building projects that often do not come out right, which doesn't matter because we're still learning. It's one of the reasons we have this blog, to help folks recognize that it's a good thing to try something new, to stretch the brain creatively, to try to honor these skills and pass them on. 

My dad has been making furniture all his life. He is a master at it. And still he goes, every year, to Williamsburg, to study with other master woodworkers, in order to hone his craft. He teaches classes through local adult education, and blogs on Fine Woodworking, in order to bring his knowledge and skills to others. 

And meanwhile, I have never had to buy a piece of furniture, except maybe a love seat or mattress. The gift of this is two-fold: It has saved us an awful lot of money through the years, and more importantly, our home is full of museum-quality art pieces that are even more special because they are made by a family member. Each piece has a double history: each was made just for us, and yet each is developed from a piece of furniture that is housed in the world's greatest museums. My parent's desk is a reproduction of George Washington's desk. The cupboards on either side of my fireplace, made because I needed a place to store both books and video game equipment, were made as replicas of a cupboard found in Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. Our coffee table was originally made as a train table for Adam, and is based on a Pennsylvania Sawbuck dining table from the mid-1700's. This brings rich history to our home - both the stories of the original pieces and the stories of how Dad came to make it for us deepen the meaning and feeling of everything we use, every day.

I've often joked, that when I was young, every piece of furniture had a name: the Deacon's Bench, the Shaker Chest, the Chippendale Chair. Every piece still does; we own a Maloof rocker, Hans Wegner chairs, Windsor fan-backed and sack-backed chairs. A delightful mix of both old styles and modern. All kinds of different woods are represented, and an interior designer would probably be horrified by both the mix of colors - the deep reds of mahogany and redwood, the lighter poplars and pines, the refined silver maple, the various milk paint and shellac finishes - and periods. It's a delightful jumble of styles. 

You can see that in the above picture of just one corner of Kate's room, with the desk being a Hans Wegner design, made with Modesto ash, from a local sawmill that planed it from a felled tree in Oakland. To finish it, Dad used a light coat of white milk paint to bring out the grain, followed by a French polish (which takes days). This design would be from the early 1900's, probably the 30's. The chair is a Double Rod Back Windsor design from around 1800, one of the latest Windsor designs. It's made of the same ash, but the seat is made of pine. The art shelf was Dad's design, heavily influenced (as he says) in the Williamsburg style, made of Radiata pine, the wood that is most often used in construction. It's similar to our local Monterey pine, which is hardly used at all, for some reason. Dad finished it with a dark blue milk paint, then a white paint overlay, then linseed oil to give it shine and durability. 

Every single piece of furniture in every single room of our house has this kind of story. I really need to start writing down all the things Dad has told me about furniture and wood and history over the years, so that we have some sort of database of his artwork for future generations. 

Are you at all interested in learning how to build furniture? Dad uses Sketch Up, free design software, to translate these designs into plans for others to use. You can contact him at his website, Killenwood. There is also a link there to his blog on Fine Woodworking, as well as information about how to take a private workshop. He also teaches locally, and he can give you his schedule if you are interested. 

I'm so thankful that both Adam and Kate have spent significant time with Dad in his workshop, learning the basics that I never had the patience for as a child (I just wanted to read books all the time). Tom, too, has spent some time soaking up Dad's knowledge and skill, and hopes to more in the future. I see a real resurgence of a respect for true craftsmanship as well as an appreciation for historical skills, especially among twenty-somethings. I love this, of course. I do very much believe in progress and technology, but some things are always going to be needed to be done in an analog way. It's important for our kids to grow up knowing how to cook a meal, use a hammer, grow a tomato, mend a tear. I so admire folks who can knit a sweater, or milk cows, or make a dining room table. All these things do not have to be lost arts. 

Weekly Walkthrough: The first hive check of the year

This week's walkthrough is up; we decided to take advantage of a dry, sunny day and open the hive for the first time this year. We're always anxious to see how the bees fared over the previous winter. 

What's Blooming Now?

We're having sun today for the first time in a long while. It feels great. I moved Adam's homemade Adirondack chair into the sun, and you can find me there pretty much any time I'm not doing homework (the school kind) or home work (the cooking and cleaning and errand-ing kind). 

There, I chat with the chickens about the still-brown garden and watch the sparrows and chickadees dart from tree to tree. The bees tell me spring is coming, as they fly home with their leg panniers full of bright orange pollen. If you look with a honeybee's eyes, you can see spring arriving.

Westringia fruticosa or Coast Rosemary - an Australian plant that does well here in full sun with little water.

Pea blossom. I had to look back to see which peas these might be as I was expecting white flowers. Turns out they are an heirloom called 'Blush Tendril' and I planted them in September of last year. They are vigorously blooming in purple, pink, and rose colors - and apparently the pods will be green blushed with pink.

Ipheion uniflorum 'Wisley Blue', or Spring Star Flower. An Argentinian bulb that requires very little water and has a nice clumping, spreading habitat. Often the first flower out in spring, although it's usually a race between this and my manzanita bushes.

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus 'Snow Flurry' - this ceanothus requires a little shade inland and gets quite big - mine is way over my head, as you can see in from this photo. It has beautiful white blossoms (unusual for a ceanothus) that bees love. I do not irrigate it at all - it survives on winter water alone.

This is a blueberry cultivar I got from Stark Bros. called Bushel and Berry Pink Icing. It was made for use in zone 9 and has done well here after being transplanted THREE times (my fault, not the plant's). Because of that it is still small, but it is clearly plucky. I bed my blueberries in deep organic matter that is not so fertile - leaves, sawdust. This cultivar is self-pollinating but I do have several other varieties of blueberry in the yard which might mean it gets cross-pollinated somehow.

Vaccinium ovatum, or California Huckleberry. This is our native species and it does well in a mostly shady location in our yard, protected from wind (in the wild it would be in a riparian, woodland area). The flowers are lovely and the hummingbirds go mad for them.

Claytonia sibirica or Peppermint Candy Flower, this is a native Californian related to the other Claytonia we know well, Miner's Lettuce. It likes shade and damp conditions and is a perennial.

Lewisia longipetala var. 'Little Plum' - another CA native and one that likes dry spaces or rock walls. I have it in my pallet planter in bright shade. Isn't that flower something?

Our Santa Rosa plum is blooming heavily this year! Very exciting, as this means we will likely get a good fruit set. Santa Rosa plum is a cultivar developed by Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa CA in 1906. It's a very popular plum tree here.

I have Chinese Forget-me-Not all over the garden, as it readily self-sows. This is Cynoglossum and is also often called Chinese Hound's Tongue. I also have a purple variety growing - check out the next photo - 

I don't remember planting a specifically purple variety, so I'm not sure where this came from! But it's charming.

This is a Heuchera or Coral Bell or Alumroot. I have so many in my garden, I can't remember the which one is which - there are some with white flowers, some with pink, and they all start to bloom in early spring, in the shady parts of my garden.

This is some sort of geranium - perhaps Geranium pratense? Not entirely sure. I have it in the woodland garden and it blooms reliably and has a lovely, rounded clumping form.

Fuchsia thymifolia - or Thyme-leaved Fuchsia, this one hails from Mexico. The entire plant is compact and a beautiful green, and the flowers simply cover the plant. Bees love this. I have it in the woodland section of my garden, so it gets dappled shade and infrequent water.

I think this is a salvia? I have so many salvias and sages all over my garden, in both shade and sun, water and no water. They all perform spectacularly. This one has been blooming all winter, and in fact I don't think I've ever seen it OUT of bloom. The Salvia iodantha is also blooming now and is really something, I've posted a picture of that one recently.

And of course lavender and rosemary are blooming too, and a native nightshade that I forgot to take a picture of. 

Indoors, the tomatoes have begun sprouting - the first one out was 'Black Krim,' an heirloom variety, followed closely by 'Sungold,' an F1 cultivar. Now more and more are starting to poke up. 

I hear spring is happening all over the midwest, so here's to sun!

Weekly Walkthrough: Starting Tomatoes

The Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County say to wait until March 1 to start your tomato and pepper seeds (and eggplant, if you're into that). But I just can't wait anymore. Last year I started them early in January, transplanted them a couple of times, and put them in the ground late April. This year, I hope to transplant them in a month and put them in the greenhouse. Then into the ground late April or early May.

So that's the focus of the Weekly Walkthrough today. Next week, we hope to open the hive and check out the spring brood. 

By the way, if you saw my blog post about something living in our wind chime, we pulled out the material today to see what we could find. Inside were several dead winged insects, some in what looked like cocoons, tightly packed in a cigar-like roll of dried grass. Upon much research I do believe it is some sort of Isodontia mexicana or grass-carrying wasp. Fascinating!  A pollinating, non-agressive type of wasp. Hope to see a live one sometime this summer!

Thanks for watching, everyone.

Five Happy Things

Happy Friday! Here are some things that I'm really happy about today.

1) Solo cup cloches: My first transplanting of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage didn't fare so well, as many of the plants were eaten up. By slugs? By earwigs? By little woodland creatures in the night? I didn't know, but most of them were eaten to the ground. Tom made cages out of chicken wire for the ones that made it through the razing, and that has worked. But when I transplanted more brassicas in a fit of sun-drunkeness earlier this week, I knew Tom wouldn't be able to make cages for all of them late at night... after work... in the dark. So after transplanting, I just turned the plastic Solo cups upside down over each plant and voila. Makeshift cloches. This has worked great, also acting as a mini-greenhouse over each plant. So great that I'm planning to do it every time - and have found plastic cups that are made of compostable materials to use in future. Or I could just use mason jars.

2) Several interesting things are happening on our front porch. One of them is spiders. Now you know that I have a love/hate relationship with spiders - I love what they do to help us out by eating the nasties - but I also find them creepy crawly in the extreme and they give me the shivers. Lately anytime I go out on the porch at night, I notice that the eaves are positively festooned with small spiders in beautiful webs. I suspected they were orb weavers, but these are so much smaller than what I'm used to seeing in late summer/early fall that I wasn't sure. But after consulting some nature experts, I've been assured that they are indeed garden orb weavers. Likely they were hatched from eggs that overwintered on the porch, and they've decided this is as good a place as any to make a home. They'll reach full size by the end of summer, lay new eggs, and then die. And next spring we'll have the next generation, etc etc etc. I found it hard to get a good picture as they are so small and the webs are so high, so forgive my photograph. There are dozens of these ladies all over the porch. Extremely cool and extremely shivery all at the same time.

3) The other interesting thing happening on the front porch possibly has to do with a native bee. We have several wind chimes hanging out there, and as you know we've been having stormy weather, and when it's really windy those chimes keep me up at night. So I went out to take them down, and this is what I found in one of the chimes.

You see that grass sticking out? I took the chime down very carefully and laid it on a bench. Here's another shot of it.

I wrote to Dr. Gordon Frankie of the Urban Bee Lab at UC Berkeley. He replied that there is no way to know what lives in there unless I pull out the grass, which of course he didn't recommend and I would be loathe to do. He suggested I put it in a box so that I can see what happens when the creature emerges. I'm not sure I want to do that either, but if I am lucky enough to see what happens serendipitously, I will let you know. Mason bees like tubes, but they usually close the entrance with another sort of substance, so I'm mystified. 

4) As part of one of my school courses, we are required to do some volunteer work with plants, in some way. There are numerous opportunities, of course, but I wanted to pick something I was particularly interested in and that would benefit my area. And I found this: The Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation's Fossil Hill Native Plant Restoration Project, in nearby Shell Ridge. I hike here often, and have wondered about the obvious signs of a project on this particular hill. Turns out the foundation is working to eradicate invasive mustard and replant with native species. This is something I can get behind! So I signed up to do my volunteer hours with this group and will begin later in February. 

5) I received a letter from the Superintendent of our local high school district, where our son Adam already attends and our daughter Kate will begin attending next year. I try to keep political stuff out of this blog, because it's simply not the focus here, unless it directly effects something ecological (and on that note, have you let your senators know that you do not support Scott Pruitt for EPA?), but I am so proud of our school district that I must include a copy of the letter here. Our high school district includes four schools, one of which (our own high school, Las Lomas) has a high percentage of immigrant parents. Here's the letter:

"Dear AUHSD Community: I am writing to share that the Acalanes Union High School District Governing Board last night declared through formal resolution their unequivocal commitment to ensure our schools are safe and welcoming places for all our students, and that the District will provide equal access to a public education for all our students, regardless of students' or parents' actual or perceived national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, citizenship, or immigration status. Through a series of value statements and statements clarifying the law and student Constitutional rights, the Board reaffirmed the Acalanes Union High School District will be a welcoming and safe educational environment for ALL students and employees. The resolution was passed by the Governing Board 5-0 and was also supported by the Student Board Member. Sincerely, John Nickerson, Superintendent."

You know, just last week we got the news that Acalanes Union High School District is 5th on the list of excellent schools in California. So we are excellent AND we're safe for all students regardless of race, origin, or religion. I think this sends a very clear and positive message that the two are not exclusive. And this makes me very happy and proud that we live here.

In other news, I think we'll get a video made this weekend, though it is rainy outdoors! I plan to start tomato seeds (see, I told you I wouldn't be able to wait until March), and I'll show you our setup. Also if there is a break in the rain, we need to do the first hive check of 2017, and we'll record that, too. So see you all this weekend!