Weekend Yardwork

After a weekend spent cleaning gutters, raking, trimming hedges, cutting back heaping mounds of dead landscaping and storing away all of the patio gear (not that we have much of it)...I see why people always smile and say slyly, "so, how do you like home ownership?" Well, my answer to that question is even with the mucky, dirty and hard work, I still love it. It's nice to be tasked with taking care of something that's yours and working hard to that end.

I felt happy for the sunny and mild weekend, which made the outdoor work more enjoyable. We tied the beast up in the yard where he rolled around in lots of dirt and each of us set out to our own individual tasks. As we completed this work I couldn't help feeling satisfied that we have a modest home and small yard. I can't imagine what it would be like to complete these cleaning and maintenance tasks for something even twice the size of our small lot. Modesty is a virtue - it's gratifying to know that not only do we not need more, but that it would probably be really annoying to keep up with maintenance for something larger.

I was also thankful for the opportunity to try my hand at home maintenance tasks that have always interested me, but I wouldn't have been allowed to do in my family home because I was known (and still am sometimes) by the nick name "Brutus". Clearly my parents don't think I have a delicate touch. Point in case, I was not allowed to use the lawn mower or the exercise bike for the last several years I lived at home.

So, why would anyone be excited to clean gutters you might ask? For the sheer novelty of it, I suppose. But I also liked the additional perspective being up on a ladder, seeing our neighborhood and St. Luke's hospital for a different angle. I was closer to the birds and I could peer down on things. It was also interesting to see the top of our house. No big explanation there, I just liked being up high. It's also clear to me that our previous homeowner may never have attempted to clean the cutters during her tenure. They were filled inches of black muck that I had scrape out with a putty knife and lots of leaves on top of that.

Not a flattering pic in the least, but you get the general idea.

Gutter muck. It got inches thicker than what is picture here.

Bucket of gutter muck.

Additional tasks accomplished this weekend:

Ry - Put on storm windows, cut down several years worth of unattended undergrowth from our landscaped yard and bagged up lots of yard waste.

Brutus - Cleaned cutters, trimmed out-of-control boxwood bushes into sweet little topiary-like globes with a hand trimmer, raked the yard and stowed away fire pit and chairs.

Beautiful hawthorne tree berries.

I love this man. My little elf, messing around during a break from hard labor.

On a totally separate note, what's a Knudson weekend without cooking?

Ry made his typical weekend loaf of bread, a whole grain sourdough miche. We improvised a dish with Israeli couscous, a grain we've never cooked with before. And I made my weekly pot of Sunday soup. I realized that this weekend makes something like four or more weekends I've cooked a big pot of soup for the week. It's nice to see little traditions emerging that define what our family life will be like. We'll be out of town this coming weekend, but I like my Sunday soup tradition, so I'll try to stick with it.

Here are the vegan, gluten-free soups I've made over the past month, three of which were totally improvised and turned out deliciously:

Weekend #1 - Pureed Lentil

Weekend #2 - Tomato, Potato & Kale

Weekend #3 - Black Bean & Kasha

Weekend #4 - Butternut Squash & Potato Curry Mash

Yay for hard labor in the yard and new family traditions!

Sunday loaf.

Israeli couscous with steamed brussel sprouts and pine toasted pine nuts.

Squash innards.

Butternut Squash & Potato Curry Mash

Beast in the sun. I'm a little embarrassed how quickly I'm becoming a unabashed cat lover.

Beautiful Little Surprises

Over the past few weeks we've had a lot going on in the garden. Since it's all new to us we've decided to sit back and watch for the season, then decide what additions or changes we want to make next year. So lots of shots of flowers with just a few others thrown in for good measure:


My hunk of a man lazing on our little porch with a fav Montana beer.


Hydrangea bush.


Pretty blue flowers.


Something that looks like a dahlia but climbs on a vine.


Wisteria.


Honeysuckle.


Spray roses.


Not sure and a pretty little pink flower that was a gift from my aunt and uncle.


Miss Kim's lilac bushes, very fragrant.


Wild strawberry flower.


Holly bush berries.


Hawthorne tree with flowers. The birdies love the little berries from this tree.


Walking path to our patio surrounded by wild thyme ground cover.


Vegan chipotle field roast "sausages" with wild picked asparagus. Yes, Ryan's been out in the Racine County ditches with a knife cutting these bad boys down. They are yummy!

Birds and Church Bells

We made it into Mexico City after a long airplane journey. The first leg we flew to Cancun and I was sitting next to a hyper active eight year old who was switching between games on her Iphone, her portable Nintendo, furiously coloring in some sort of special Sponge Bob notebook and fishing in her Tink bag to get Fruit by the Foot and mini Ritz crackers. My bag did not make it into the DF (Districo Federale), the Mexico City name equivalent of DC. So we waited at the airport for two and a half hours until it came on another plane from Cancun.

Taking off from Cancun on the way to Mexico City


We took a taxi to our apartment off the of the Plaza Santo Domingo, where we met the owners Arturo and Sarah. We settled in last exploring all of the rooms and doors that open out to multiple courtyards with birds, plants, the back of the Catedral Santo Domingo and lots of sunshine. It got dark quickly and we went out to have dinner. We went to a traditional place near our apartment called the Hosteria Del Santo Domingo. I enjoyed a Caldo de Rez - a delicious beef soup with squash, awesomely flavorful carrots, hominy, and avocado. We split a nopal cactus salad and each had a Mexican beer. Off in the corner of the place there was a key board player and a female singer that serenaded diners with vaguely familiar tunes that we couldn't quite place.

Living room of our apartment.


Master bedroom in our apartment. There are two more plus a fold out bed in the living room. We could have a vertiable Mexican adventure if someone else wants to go with us in the future!


View out a bedroom window down to courtyard behind Santo Domingo.


Man watering the ecological garden exhibit in the courtyard. Bamboo plants and grass were planted in old truck tires turned inside out.


We walked over to the Zocalo, a huge central square bordered by the La Catedral Metropolitana and the Palacio National. There was a huge evangelical festival happening with contemporary Christian music in Spanish and people throwing glowing bouncy balls into the air. We walked through several circles of Aztec dancers wearing traditional dress and noise makers on their shoes that jingled every time they jumped up to do a new move. There were also Mexican hipsters in the mix wearing the noise makers over their Chuck Taylor All-Start high tops. The smell of incense was thick, delicious but an almost too-much mix of cedar, cypress, eucalyptus and other unidentifiable scents. We also checked out various vendors selling their wares on the street, awesome colorful trinkets and clothes as we walked around. We stopped in the large cathedral during mass to hear some of the most beautiful mass music I've ever experienced. It almost always makes me cry and this drew tears immediately.

We came home to find that the apartment owners had to enter our apartment and run an extension cord through another courtyard window to get electricity since theirs had cut out. We also played around with the shower in our continental style bathrooms, with almost no luck getting consistent hot water. It was sort of funny, the water would vascilate between ice cold and so hot it filled the little room up with steam completely.

This morning we were woken by the sound of the cathedral's church bells and the birds in cages from a neighbor on the other side of an inner courtyard. I went to bed with wet hair, but we were unable to take showers this morning due to our lack of hot water, then lack of running water at all. As Ryan says, this is Mexico. We're leaving a note for the owners but have used the big jug of bottled water to brush our teeth and wash our faces. I pinned up my crazy curly bedtime hair into something that looks sort of classy.

We walked down the the cathedral to find that we missed the first Easter mass. We walked around the Santo Domingo cathedral, smelled the glorious Easter lillies and checked out all of the little side chapels, some of them a lot more gold and gory than you'd ever see in the U.S. Now it's off to find breakfast and meet a former student of Ryan's in Coyoacan for lunch.

View of the 3rd floor level of the inner courtyard on Easter morning.


Our coffee in the morning.


My reflection in the armoire in Easter Sunday dress.

I'll try to do periodic updates to share what we're doing with the world, also to keep a record for myself. I'm taking lots of photos and hope to add them upon my return.

A Bird Chorus

One of the benefits of my job: I don't commute. So, whenever I'm out in rush hour it's pretty overwhelming to me. I can't believe how frenzied people become on their trips to work, especially in the morning. Yesterday I was almost bowled over by several cars passing on the right because they were too impatient to wait for someone making a left turn. So, I backed up on the curb and waited for the light.

I walked down the Avenue on an errand in late afternoon today. The frenzy of it all struck me as usual. There was a homeless man laying on the sidewalk outside the new administration building. I stopped to ask the group around him if things were alright and they answered "yes, the paramedics are on their way" so I carried on. As I walked past the Jesuit Residence I noticed something lovely - a giant bird chorus. The Jesuits have a secret little garden and patio behind their building that's walled off by a giant grouping of pine trees. There must have been hundreds of birds up in the pine wall tweeting away. It was a brief moment of peace in our crowded urban space and it made me happy.

Other things that have made me smile today:


A recent gift from our friend Alice that traveled to India. Elephants are good luck.


This drawing done by my secretary Nicole on a poster advertising an ice-skating excursion.


My new door decs - "decorations" for those of you not familiar with Res Life speak.


Ruby slipper by RA Kaellen. Pumpkin by RA Alice. I Love the 90's by RA Sarah.


Hungry Caterpillar by RA Alice.