tree, construction, Griffith Park

It's a good thing that there's no heavy rain in the forecast - what was our terrace is becoming more of a mound of soil by the hour.  However, when all this is completed, we should be able to sit down there and enjoy the view ... This is what it looked like from one of the upstairs balconies this evening: the vantage point gives a particularly good sense of the challenges thrown down by the slope of the hill.

 

by night, too

The Asian Pear is too wonderful to leave unilluminated in the evening - this is the view from the bedroom... One of the plans for the new garden landscaping will be to have subtly positioned lights - non-owl-scaring lights - that will show off the trees, although right now, as the workers dig away and produce yet more rubble and some mounds of surprisingly fertile looking earth, this all seems a very distant dream ...

 

February dawn

We had a band of rain move through overnight - nothing dramatic; just enough to encourage the grass and the wildflowers - and to give a pale apricot tint to the dawn.  The hills of Griffith Park behind us were in cloud - and there's a band of cloud here, too, hiding the snowy mountains beyond. This really is the most beautiful time of the year here.

 

annual tree celebration

We love our Asian pear so much ... This is the view from the bedroom window this morning.  We were so surprised, when the cracked concrete on the terrace was pounded up, not to see any roots breaking the surface - so many people had told us that the large cracks were due to the tree's activity, but, seemingly, not a bit of it - all we can see is soil.  All the same, we will treat her very gently when we come to do the landscaping - there will be a large circle with bark around the base of the trunk, because we want her to carry on looking like this for many years to come.

The workers were here all day again today, moving the rubble off and away on a very rudimentary conveyer belt (watched by a fascinated Gramsci).  You'll see planks in the background, which doubtless will shore up something next week.  I really can't believe that this transformation is slowly taking place ...

 

feline geometry

It's true - they really are getting on better than they used to.  This evening I caught Moth giving Gramsci's pretty head a fairly robust wash.  They may not be quite as inter-twined as this picture suggests, though - this represents Gram's head firmly in a bowl of kibble, whilst Moth waits as close by as she can.  Anyone thinking "oh, poor Mothy," though, should bear in mind that she has the physique, these days, of a very solid bolster.

 

how's my work going?

Thank you for asking.

Quite apart from any other recent interruptions or impediments, I think this picture tells you all that you need to know.  

 

the tower

Here's our campus carillon - all 167 feet of it - and its reflection.  I didn't really think anything more about it than usual this morning (which is to say, not much) - I was more concerned with feeling happy that we still have a Wednesday Farmer's Market on campus, although it's a shadow of its former pre-Covid self.

But walking back to the carpark after dinner with today's job candidate in Art History, he asked ... what's inside the tower?  A perfectly reasonable question that I'd never before thought of posing.  Errrrr - steps?  The mechanism for the (electronic) bells?  I felt more than a little sheepish that I'd never previously given a thought to the bell tower's innards.