Tiny Cat Warriors

Sunrise from Sausalito

iPhone photo from this morning.

Giverny - Japanese bridge

japanese bridge giverny

Scanned from a negative, this is a photo I took of the Japanese bridge at Monet's garden in Giverny. Probably taken in late April sometime around 1990 or 1991.

Mid-week Caturday-4

Mid-week Caturday-4

Photo of Hobie taken at sunrise - sleeping on the stairs

Sonoma valley house - what a difference a few years makes

I've been in this house about 6 years now - I  moved in during June 2003.  The house was built over the period from July 2002 to April/May of 2003.  when I moved in there was virtually no landscaping.  There were two major landscaping projects undertaken during the time I've owned the property, but there's been a Winchester Mystery House sort of ongoing landscaping going on as well, new trees and shrubs have been planted pretty much continuously since summer of 2003. 

I took a few pictures today of the house and yard, with all the deciduous trees, the yard looks really great during the few weeks while the leaves are turning and I got to thinking how much the property has changed since I built it.  Here are a few pictures showing the changes over time.

This was the property as I first saw it - the builder had permits already done for the house and had just started the excavation for the footings.  View from the street to the Northwest.

This picture was taken in September of 2002.  The footings for the foundation were in and they were pouring the floor for the garage (I had them pour an extra thick floor since I knew I'd be installing a car lift in the garage).  The Bobcat was grading part of the backyard.

Picture taken in mid-September 2002.  The foundation was finished and they were starting the decking for the main floor.

End of September 2002 - they'd started the framing for the first floor.  I was hoping that they'd get the roof on before the rain season started, but that was not to be.

Third week of October 2002 - framing was nearly complete and they'd started sheathing the exterior while roof joists where being intalled.

First week of November 2002 - roof joists had been sheathed & some of the windows were in.  Rain season usually starts about that time of year, which would have been perfect, but in 2002 there were a few significant rainstorms during October.

February 2003 - the house had been enclosed, roofing intalled & all windows installed.  The heating system was operational by around January, which meant that the wood for the hardwood floors could be moved in and acclimatized for several weeks prior to installation.  In retrospect, I should have insisted for a longer drying time for inside the house.  The Brazilian cherry floors haven't been especially stable dimensionally - gaps in the floors after 6 years aren't terrible, but I'd hoped that there'd be no gaps.

Mid-March 2003 - side fences had been installed & the minimal amount of landscaping the builder did was partially complete.

I'm skipping ahead a little bit here, but this is the view from the street of the house after the first major landscaping project - pillars & walls near the driveway are in by this time and a number of [at the time, very small] trees have been planted.

You can see the current view of the house in the panorama at the top of this post.

Laying out the front path and the stone wall wrapping around the front of the house.  This was from October 2003 and shows the lay out of the drain system as well.

Different view of the area where the front walk & stone wall were going to go.

View taken a couple weeks later in October 2003 of the stone wall as it was built.

View looking down the driveway in mid-October 2003 of the stone wall as it was being built.

Current view of the gravel path and the low stone wall.  The plants have really filled in - New Zealand flax seems to do really well here.  The low green bushes are rosemary.

View from the back deck of the patio as it was being built with the ornamental gate in the background as it was being built.  Mid-October 2003.

View of the finished patio in late November 2003.  You can see the wisteria has been planted near the post in the left center & two ornamental maples were planted to the left of the path.

Another view in late November 2003 of the finished path and finished ornamental gate.  Newly planted small red-leafed ornamental maple on the right.

View from above of the ornamental gate - taken in November 2003.  Look at how skinny the tree trunk of the flowering pear is on the right.

Views of the patio, gravel path, ornamental gate & ornamental maples today.  The poplars on the left of the arbor/patio have grown from about 6 feet tall when they were planted in the Fall of 2003 to about 40 feet tall now.  The Atlas spruce in the center of the lower photo was about 4 feet tall when it was planted in late 2004.

View in October of 2003 of the area where the back gravel path would shortly be installed.  At this time there were no plantings in the back yard.  Anything green was just weeds and grass.

View of the same part of the backyard today.  There are mixed plantings of butterfly bushes, lavender, olive trees, madrona trees and ornamental grass.

Lopez Island sunset Oct 10, 2009

View from the web cam in the village tonight:

Great essay by Paul Graham

Here.  Paul Graham of Y Combinator discusses the [dismal] future of publishing, music companies and, (probably) movies. 

Caturday #2

Old scanned photos -106

Another old photo of Hobie on his favorite chair

Caturday

Old scanned photos -112

Old photo of Hobie from when he was about a year old. This was his favorite chair. What a cutie.