Mr Pickles Famous Ginger Beer

Zoey, who is also widely known as Mr Pickles, as well as The Duke & Duchess of Pickles, has been very busy at Susie & Paul's, brewing her own ginger beer.

It is a very serious & potent ginger beer, as you can tell from her expression on the label. It demands intellectual rigor, in addition to intestinal fortitude, and it will cure all that ails you.

Fence Magnificent!

As promised, here are photos of the construction of our fancy new fence!

First, the before photos:

The Jungle overtaking the fence when we moved in.

After Adrienne cut back the overgrown ivy -- note how thick it is coming over the top. 

The neighbors had a trellis attached to the back of the fence, with 200-300 pounds of vining plants on the trellis. Mr. Bunkport, our contractor, feels that this is the reason the fence failed, & that it failed before its time.

When we started working with the neighbors to replace the fence, they removed their trellis & cut back the plants from their side to get ready for Mr. Bunkport to work his magic. Here is the fence in May:

Mr. Bunkport & Company were on another job that went unexpectedly long, so it took them until this past week to get to us. Happily, the work went quickly!

The wood was so rotten, that it took one guy with a hammer & his bare hands just an hour to pull the whole thing down.

Fence gone! Trellis & vining plants remain!

Rotten retaining wall removed!

Remnants of vining plants that needed to be cleared for construction!

Ready to begin!

Then, two guys & a Jack Russell terrier came over, spent 4 hours in the yard, & voila! Fence!

Adrienne enjoying the extreme privacy afforded a 4'11" woman by a 6' fence.

The wood makes it smell wonderful out there. Having the work completed makes me excited to start planning the next backyard project. Maybe it will be reusing the random bricks & paving stones that we dug up out of yard to make a little patio area to break up the extensive dirt patch back there.

Lastly, in veg news, we dug up our first carrot:

It was delicious!

Fence done! Meditate-a-Thon beginning!

Big news on Mars this week: the fence is finally finished! And it is gorgeous!

Photos are forthcoming. In the meantime, I wanted to mention something else that's happening for the next 30 days on Mars: I'm doing a sort of meditate-a-thon to both improve my own health & also raise money for a 30-year old LGBT community clinic called Lyon-Martin Health Services.

The clinic is based in SF, & provides critically needed care here, but it also runs very important national educational programs for healthcare providers on cultural sensitivity when working with the LGBT community. The kind of healthcare that LGBT people -- & transgendered people in particular -- get is a real travesty. A recent national study found a high rate of transgendered people having been turned away at emergency rooms, being verbally abused in doctors' offices, & just generally experiencing the kind of crappy, humiliating treatment that makes folks not seek healthcare at all, which obviously leads to abysmal health outcomes.

Every little bit helps & every little bit is hugely appreciated. If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in pitching in a few pennies, here's my fundraising page:  https://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/christinedarosa/30-days-of-health-2012

The site is secure, & the donation gets sent directly to Lyon-Martin. And Lyon-Martin is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, so all donations are tax-deductible when the tax man cometh.

Thanks for reading my pitch! Photos of the fence tomorrow!

Little Doings

Lots of little doings around Mars this week.

 New rug for the dining room:

Favas & lettuce coming up nicely:

Getting ready for fireworks on July 4, we tried out drugging the dog (under a vet's supervision, of course):

We expect she will do just fine on Wednesday.