Hanami in Oakland

A few months ago, Aunt Audrey bought us a cherry blossom tree. Uncle Mike and Cousin Jimmy came by and planted it in the corner of our backyard. Early indications didn't seem promising for any flowers in its debut year, but lo and behold:

We were very excited that our little tree decided to strut its stuff for us. The cherry blossom season lasts for just a brief span in April, so we have to enjoy it while it lasts.

In Japan, this time is so special that people organize cherry blossom viewing parties around it. Basically, you just get together with a bunch of friends, sit under the trees, and drink sake. This is called "hanami," or flower (hana) viewing (mi). Right about now is when the trees bloom in Northern Japan, but of course the mood there isn't so conducive to celebration.

The people who suffered through the tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster remain in our thoughts. Our hearts go out to them as they attempt to rebuild their lives.

Battle of the Veggies Round 2

We did a little bragging last month about how our homegrown kale stacks up against the kale that comes in our CSA box. This month, we compare radishes.

Full Belly Farm's are on the left, ours on the right. That's a quarter at the bottom, and in the middle is another one of ours from a batch that interestingly enough was planted a month or two before the bigger ones. Not sure why its growth was stunted. Weather, maybe?

We can't really claim victory this time around, since this picture represents half our harvest -- we barely planted any radishes this winter, just kind of experimented. These turned out pretty well, though, so maybe we'll up the ante next year.

We have a new planter box to play around with for such possibilities. Built off the model of the one that Liza and Willie made for us, it stands beside that one now as a kind of baby sister:

It's made out of a 10-foot plank of wood and a fence post that we found just laying in the backyard. There's already spinach, tomatoes, and onions poking their little heads out of that dirt. We'll keep you posted on how things go.

Basement Retrofit

In our October post, we uploaded a bunch of different pictures from that month, including this one:

You might have asked yourself, "Why is Natasha drilling holes in her foundation?" Well, when the next big earthquake hits, we're hoping to avoid the fate of the house on the left:

We won't know if we succeeded until that fateful day, but here's a quick primer on how we did our best to retrofit our house to withstand seismic activity.

The first step, as illustrated above, is drilling holes in the foundation. Well, really, the first step is to get your dad to help -- because father knows best. (So much so that he may have to set us straight on some of the specifications in the comments section; the details are already starting to feel hazy and may be slightly incorrect as listed here). This work never would have gotten done if it weren't for the one and only Bob MacDonald, so we again thank him profusely for all his help and hard work. You're the best, Dad!

At the Berkeley tool library, Dad rented us a heavy-duty drill, which we used to make some ten or so holes at strategic locations around the foundation, primarily near the corners. Drilled through the wooden sill plate and the concrete foundation underneath, the holes were seven to nine inches deep, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 inches in diameter. Once we'd had those drilled, we cleaned up the site with a vacuum and then a wire brush:

After that, Dad readied a double-barrel caulk gun to mix some ultra-strong epoxy for injection into the holes:

The disposable nozzle mixes the epoxy before it comes out:


Once we injected the epoxy, it was time to insert metal bolts. You have to act quickly, before the epoxy starts to dry:

Wiping off the extra epoxy:

Voilà!

Take note of the lighter piece of wood lying horizontally on the other side of the stud (the stud is the darker, vertical piece of wood). That will be important later.

Once the metal bolt is secured, it can be fitted with a bracket:
Secured with a nut:Screwed into the stud:



And now the foundation is more solidly attached to the studs. With these brackets in place, our house should be less likely to pop off of its foundation.

Notice again the horizontal piece of wood on the opposite side of the stud. This is called blocking, which is integral to the next step, which is putting up sheer panels.

Sheer panels (plywood of 1/2 or 3/4 inch thickness) get installed in corners, extending out eight feet if possible. The panels get nailed into the studs to prevent lateral movement during an earthquake (unlike the brackets, which oppose up-and-down movement). In our house, there is nothing to nail the sheer panels to on the bottom, which is why the blocking (2x4s, cut to length) is necessary. Blocking needs three or four nails per segment, while sheer panels get a nail every four to six inches along the studs and blocking. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 nails per panel -- a lot of hammering.

Once the panels are up, you need to drill holes in them, so that any moisture that makes it into the space between the panels, studs, and siding can escape:

Finally, after months of hard work, our basement retrofit was finished this past weekend. Here is what it looks like:

Pop Quiz

Which kale leaf was grown on a farm, and which was grown in Alec and Natasha's backyard?























Yes, that's our leafy green baby on the right, come a long way from its days as a seed. Not that we don't love our weekly box of goodies from Full Belly Farm, but we did feel a little bragging was in order. Oh, and by the way -- please send us your kale recipes! We're up to our ears in this stuff.

Happy New Year!

Here's a quick post for January just to let you know that we have taken the fabric squares that our wedding guests signed and strung them up around our bedroom, so we can always remember what wonderful friends we have. Larger bedroom shots have been embargoed due to general messiness, but here are a few close-ups for now:

We still have extra squares, so if you didn't get a chance to make one at the ceremony but want to, let us know and we'll send one your way!

Happy Holidays!

With the new year just around the corner, we hope you and yours have been enjoying a festive holiday season and gearing up for an exciting 2011. As we look back at this current year, we feel grateful for how 2010 has been full of blessings and memorable moments. One of the most significant, of course, was our marriage, which brought this blog into being and is now six months old today. How about that?

We'd like to thank everyone for all the holiday cards that we've been receiving. It's great to hear from you and find out how you're doing. We haven't been so organized as to send out our own cards, but in a nod to the tradition, we did snap a few family photos to share with you. We all posed around the Christmas tree -- which is our very first!

George wishes there were more ornaments to make mischief with.

* * * * *

Max smells holiday spirit. Is it edible?

* * * * *

Peace and love from Alec and Natasha!

More Wedding Photos

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We feel grateful to have you in our lives, among other blessings.

There are a few wedding photo sets on this blog in previous posts, but here are links to even more from Vivien, our good friend and photographer extraordinaire.



Bride and Groom
(35 photos)











Reception
(117 photos)
Pictured here: Bob, Trav, Austin, & Ruby










More reception
(42 photos)
Pictured here: Vivien with Sheila, who helped take many of the shots in this set. Thanks you two!