some of y'all have asked for photos of my garden. there they be.

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above is a shot looking W-NW. foreground is the fuyu persimmon tree, and some flats of seedlings that'll go into the ground in another month.

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a close-up of persimmon.

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the braeburn apple tree.

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looking almost due West. leftish to rightish in the foreground: culinary sage, purple coneflowers nearing bloom (echinacea), lemon verbena, some bush thinger i didn't plant, chicken wire inside which is lettuce.

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clockwise from 6pm: lettuce and chickory, lemon verbena, big rosemary bush, carrots, lattice, strawberry patch, purple cherokee tomato, more chickory, couple more tomato plants, more lettuce, and a yellow bell pepper at 4 o'clock.

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left to right, more or less: purple coneflower gonna flower any day now, rosemary, homemade butterfly bath, gnome, purple coneflower, lil trellis, butterfly bath, black-eyed susan, some bush thinger, more purple coneflower in back, foreground mums which are gonna flower any day now. foreground flowers are zinnias. in this little mound in the spring pop out some nice daffodils a previous person planted.

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vegetables! clockwise from 6pm: three rows of carrots! a mound of cucumbers: lemon and regular which i'm aiming to grow on that bamboo trellis in the ground. purple cherokee tomato. chickory and more tomatos in back. strawberries right there in the middle. lavender bush at 3:30.

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here's the bit of lawn i ripped out to put in some flowers and a homemade birdbath. yeah, it's janky now. i intend to rip out more lawn in this section and plant more flowers and natives and such. my garden is a painting i hope to never finish, but always work on.

ok. maybe more later.

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Although my cats are named Arthur and Daschel, I tend to call them "[poop|shit] [stains|steaks|flakes]" at this juncture. I chose Arthur and Daschel from the film "Minority Report", which is of course based on Philip K Dick's short story of the same name. The precogs in the movie are Agatha, Arthur, and Daschel. I'd rather stay true to PKD, but Phil gave his precogs boring names: Mike, Donna, and Jerry. p.s. Daschel farts.

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ugh. names are so hard for me.

wyoming and cecil? -- tack and jibe? -- wyoming and carson? -- calaveras and telluride?  -- dexter? festus? avery? feynman? mogwai? deckard? hamilton? hodge?

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yesterday, i went to the SF SPCA and found two cats i liked. they're brothers, 10 months old, from Calaveras county. i think they're gonna be good. so far they seem well-adjusted and well-behaved. they're friendly, open, playful, cuddly. right now they're sitting in my window together on the cat perch grooming each other and watching the happenings outside. last night they slept with me, cuddling and kneeding me.

still, it's scary. what if they don't work out? and then there's also the feelings that they're replacing Theo.

i don't really like their names -- Romeo and Jules. i need to think of my own i guess.

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Foo2

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Tonite made black bean soup from elise.com's site, and Northern Cornbread in my cast iron skillet. Yes, I am the bomb. I need a wife with whom to share these things.

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i didn't think friends were coming to help me plant my tree today. but i misunderstood their RSVP, and had to jump off the couch, throw on a bra and yesterday's t-shirt. s'all good. shannon and andy and their baby eleanor came along with dan who's visiting from manhattan. too bad andy stayed behind the camera.

BRAEBURN APPLE  from New Zealand. Superb late season fruit: very crisp and tangy, more flavorful than Granny Smith. Excellent keeper (like me!). Green with dark red blush. October-November harvest. Self-fruitful.

M-111 ROOTSTOCK  Excellent all-round rootstock for apples. Tolerates wet soil, dry soil, poor soil. Resists woolly apple aphids and collar rot. Induces bearing at young age. Unpruned tree height 15-25ft. Trees on M-111 may be held to any desired height by summer pruning.

i plan on pruning the tree to keep the fruit in reach.

not that i'm suffering over it, but i'm suddenly aware of how much instant gratification i'm accustomed to -- this tree won't bear fruit for a few years. i won't get to bring friends and coworkers its bounty until maybe 2010, and i'll be almost 40. that's a little scary. but that's why i'm putting fruit trees in the ground during my first year in my house in berkeley -- get 'em growing!

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Soon I'll be getting the three bare root fruit trees I ordered from Berkeley Horticulture:

• Braeburn apple - good for eatin' and pie bakin'
  
• Fuyu persimmon - the non-astringent kind you eat like an apple
  
• Black Jack fig (or a Brown Turkey fig depending on availability)

So exciting!

Hopefully I'll come back to post about how the planting goes, and photos.

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My typical internal debate again tonite. Go out to celebrate NYE or not? Inner tug-of-war for 3 hours between:

1) BARTing to the Mission to a huge party. If it were easier to get to, I'd have at least dropped by, done a "fly-by"
2) Walking a few blocks to Jupiter for a beer and some live music. eh.
3) Walking a few blocks over to Freight n Salvage for some country and bluegrass music. But they don't have beer :<  Still, prolly more my kinda place.

Instead, making tea and catching up on what the internet has to say about introverts. It's nice to remember there's a reason why I'm like this. just a couple URLs:  "Caring for Your Introvert" from The Atlantic, introvertretreat.

*shrug*  .. whatever calendar you follow, be well on yet another trip around the sun.

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Tell us about your holiday traditions.

paying close attention to the Solstice

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