For the last two weeks our house and garden have been in the annual dancing seed storm from the female Cottonwood poplar trees along San Jose’s Guadalupe River. Thankfully, we are now almost done with blowing fuzz for the year. All of my cactus have fluff caught in their spines. I will be watering down the garden all weekend. At least the white seeds make it very obvious where the spider webs are – giving me a target for the hose.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews
Yesterday, the TechWomen mentors gathered at my house in San Jose to cook a dinner for eleven guests from the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the Institute of International Education (IIE West Coast). Our guests arrived from Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Here is more about the IVLP program:
IVLP at IIESF works to promote citizen diplomacy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Community supporters and IIE members are called “Citizen Diplomats” and promote international understanding through person-to-person interaction with emerging foreign leaders from around the globe. Through direct contact with these visitors, members have an opportunity to share unique aspects of the Bay Area and/or their professional field, while increasing the visitors’ understanding of local and national culture and institutions. In the past 53 years Citizen Diplomats have had direct dialogues with tens of thousands of emerging international leaders from more than 145 countries.
These particular ladies are part of WISE (Women’s Innovations in Science and Engineering), invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Their program was arranged by World Learning.
The TechWomen prepared a delicious potluck dinner, I showed them WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office, John and Paul helped and served as local guides to the house and kitchen, and everyone had a delightful time talking and learning. As always, I feel blessed in the community of my TechWomen sisters and look forward to our continued work together!
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
In my 2008 blog entry Obsessed Towhee, I reported on a little brown bird attacking our car windows here in Willow Glen. What is probably that bird’s grandson has started attacking the house windows and those of WP668, our backyard caboose. The stupid California Towhee apparently sees his reflection in the glass and feels called to defend his territory against the other bird by knocking with his beak, flinging himself at the window, and smearing it with bird dirt. Sigh.
The Towhee moves from window to window knocking. I feel like I am in a performance of Macbeth:
Whence is that knocking?
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
The only good side is that regular knocking lead me to read the Thomas De Quincey 1823 essay “On the Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth”, which in turn lead me to De Quincey’s black humor essays “On Murder, as Considered One of the Fine Arts” and “Second Paper on Murder”, the source of the famous quote:
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family
“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894
Rock Rose
Iris or Flag
Borage or Starflower
Apple Blossom
 California Poppy |
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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family
Despite all official weather prediction to the contrary, we had no rain but a warm lovely morning for today’s Easter Egg Hunt. This year, we made some procedural changes. Young people who have been coming to this party for years volunteered as Associate Bunnies – staying over the night before or arriving very early to help the Assistant Bunny (me) hide 500+ plastic eggs with candies inside. Jessica (Senior Associate Bunny, in the Washington DC Branch Office) drafted the Gold and Silver Egg poems:
Gold Egg (hidden on the roof beam of the cabana, next to the hot tub) – found by Paul:
In my hutch I am squatting,
Through a triangle I see,
Above the earth I’m spotting
A train, two dogs, and a tree.
Next door water is too hot
But folks sit in there alot.
Silver Egg (tied up inside the San Francisco fire plug) – found by Jim:
My nest was moved from the city,
There its job was very gritty.
It once was wet but now is dry.
A little river I can spy.
Like a bunny safe in a log,
I’m hidden here from nose of dog.
Hunters lined up by age on the new porch – where they could see the eggs in the garden and plan their launch strategy. One family arrived late – I was so pleased to watch the big kids re-hide their eggs so that the new little ones could hunt. One teenage boy dumped his whole basket for them. Of course, there was food and drink (John made pulled chicken sandwiches, mint tea, and punch) and WP668 caboose tours for all.
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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher
Filed under Church, Home & Family
I have been getting my garden in Willow Glen, California, ready for our annual children’s party – the great Easter Egg hunt this Sunday. We are also collecting goodies for our little guests, including stuffies, candies, and baskets. Every child in the hunt picks a stuffed animal to be their personal advisor (since parents are not allowed to help), plus a basket for their eggs. Last year, we hosted over a dozen children searching for eggs on Easter morning.
Over the years, I have collected ceramic flue liners of many sizes – to use as planters. Some I inherited from my father’s garden. I have just planted two of these (plus an old steel pipe section) with red and yellow kangaroo paws, to go with the two I already have filled with pink geraniums. These tall planters create a new visual level (and keep the flowers away from our boy dog’s attentions). In the pictures, you can see the pipes against the background of WP668, our backyard caboose. The new flowers will be a pretty background for the egg hunt.
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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains, Home & Family
The city or suburban lawn, although a delightful play place for pets and little people, is controversial -particularly in its water usage and run-off:
Our family has been decreasing the size of our three areas of grass and creating drought-resistent gardens in their place.
John and I go for daily walks around our San Jose neighborhood of Willow Glen and naturally notice what our fellow-gardeners are doing. As we approach Easter, we now see the results of both fortunate and ill-advised Winter gardening efforts. As patchy as our back lawn is from enthusiastic dog wallowing, at least it is not the saddest lawn around! Some neighborhood notables:
Zebra-lawn (from uneven fertilizer distribution):
Dandelion crop (too long between weeding):
Bowling lanes (from mowing when wet):
Dirt (work in progress?):
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family
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