The Day Before Move-In

Fortunately, the Tilden Park Botanical Garden's Native Plant Sale was today.  It gave us something fun and useful to do while we wait for the sellers to move out of our house.  We bought several plants native to the area - mostly for ground cover.

In the box above: Redwood Ivy, Currant/Gooseberry, and an unnamed succulent.

In this box: more succulents (the one common name for the one in the upper left is "Fingertips"), a low growing Manzanita variety, and Coral Bells.

On our way back to the cottage we stopped at a turnout on Grizzly Peak Road to take these photos with San Francisco Bay in the distance.

Our Last Week in the Urban Cottage

It's hard to believe it's been three months since we sold our home in Chelsea, Michigan and moved to California.  Since February 1, this has been our temporary home:

A bit of Googling led me to this 2005 article about the cottage and the story behind its construction:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Living-Small-Forget-that-monster-home-and-go-3253653.php#photo-2402592

While we're waiting to close the sale on our new home, I decided to take a few photos. There's not much to do this week except organize for the move and for April 20 to arrive.  I want to remember what it was like to live in a very busy part of Oakland, California in a very small but very pleasant place within walking distance of just about everything one needs to get to.  Lara, the owner of the cottage has been great. She's owns a landscaping business and has been giving us tips on selecting plants for our new place.

Photos of our living space inside the cottage as it looked for the renter's open house yesterday (all the furnishings except the two black chairs belong to the cottage's owner):

I think Ziggy and Sunny will miss the yard and the other cats in the neighbor.  One more time they'll have to get used to a new place. But at least they won't have to fly cargo again to get there.

Here's the final week's bouquet

And a pink Angel Trumpet visible at the top of the fence to the neighbor's yard.  It just started blooming this week.

Restarting Erick's Orchid Collection

With move-in day only two weeks away (the gods of loans permitting), we got the bug to start looking at potential landscaping plants at local garden centers.  We're aiming for fire and drought resistant plants for the front and back planting areas.

We weren't looking for orchids, but each of the two places we visited had beautiful specimens of varieties Erick hasn't grown before.

The one on the right is a Miltoniopolis, on the left is a Masdevallia.

Each has a bit more deep purple hue than shows up in the photo.

Bonus photos:

Angel Trumpets seen from the back window of the cottage.

This week's bouquet from the Friday Farmers Market.