6 September - Berkeley and Emeryville

The Museum of Modern Art was a must-see for us while we are in San Francisco. We were all set to go this morning until we found out, thankfully before we left, that it is closed on Wednesdays. It's also closed on Thursday mornings. It seems a little odd but that's what it is. There seemed little point going into SF if we were having to repeat it, so we opted to change the day trip to tomorrow. It's John's birthday tomorrow so it is perhaps makes for better timing anyway.

John has been busy installing an irrigation system throughout the garden and we still needed some specific connections and more piping. We turned our morning walk into an expedition to the nearest Home Depot, 6km away. Popping into Damask Rose at the start for a cortado/Gibraltar (a short black with a little frothed milk) and some Turkish delight to nibble, started the trek off well. 

Morning snack

We are covering quite a number of neighbourhoods on our walks, some less salubrious than others. We soon realised that the area near the Home Depot was home to many homeless people. The aroma of marijuana was very strong here, but it actually has been in all the neighbourhoods we have explored. 

Emeryville town council building 1903, and addition

It was with some relief we found that this branch of Home Depot actually stocked all the various parts we needed to complete the irrigation system. It was a long walk home and nice to finally sink into a chair for some lunch. We'd bought some lovely seeded bread from a bakery on the way back. Of course we could have taken the car for the expedition but we always prefer to walk when we can. 

Sophie was working at the dining table so we headed back outside and spent nearly two hours assembling the BBQ that Alastair had had delivered. There were 57 components not including all the nuts, bolts and screws. It was a mission, but it will certainly provide the finishing touch to the outdoor seating/terrace area. Once they buy a gas bottle we will even be able to have a BBQ!

Next step was to put together the new planter boxes. That was pretty simple and Sophie was super excited to fill them with soil and we set to planting out a variety of vegetables and herbs. The whole area is really starting to take shape.

Alastair was meeting us at a well-known taco spot, Cholita Linda, for dinner after work. He was very keen that we should experience what real Mexican-American tacos are all about. Indeed the meal was very tasty. I had anticipated the tacos would be hardshell like we get in NZ but they were small and soft-shell. You buy them based on the type of filling, e.g. fish, chicken, tofu (latter because we are in Berkeley!) etc. We followed up the meal with ice-creams from nearby. 

Tacos for dinner

Home by 8pm and we all still had some energy left, which has been unusual in the evening. A&S spent a happy hour nailing various pictures and art up on their walls. The whole place is starting to feel like theirs for the first time I think. 

5 September - Berkeley

Today we had plans to work on Ali and Sophie's apartment while they were out. Sophie only works in the office on Tuesday and Thursdays so as soon as she headed off (Ali had left earlier) we went into action. 

The walls and windows had all been newly painted just before they moved in, but the painting job around the windows was very sloppy, literally. I spent the day scraping paint off the edges of the window panes and cleaning the windows, both inside and outside. John spent his time stripping paint off cupboard, drawer, and window catches to reveal the original brass or similar metal. The effect on the house was miraculous. What had been shabby now looked much more crisp.

Apart from walking to the local supermarket to buy some ingredients for dinner and some bread for lunch, our day was a busy one. The big reward was the surprise and appreciation on the faces of A & S when they arrived home. We made dinner and had an easy night. There is no way they currently have the time to do these time-consuming projects.

4 September - Architecture Walk

I'd looked up some walks to do in Berkeley and had come across one which showcased the houses above Berkeley University. Ali and Sophie wanted to do it with us so we set off together for the upper end of the university after breakfast. The walk began with houses from the early 1900s and as we climbed up Panorama Hill the houses became more recent, up to the late 80s. 

Some lovely steps at the start of the walk

It was fascinating, starting with a Bernard Maybeck house from 9101, and including a nice modest Frank Lloyd Wright. It was an area of outstanding architecture - I suspect virtually all the houses were architect-designed. It is very steep, very well treed, and remarkably casual and low-scale. Nothing was too ostentatious although they are now no doubt extremely valuable, having superb views and being in walking distance to the university. House after house had us oohing and aahing.

Feldman House, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1939

Mark Mack 1987

View from Panorama Hill

It was quite a long walk in the end and very enjoyable. En route home we stopped off at a nursery (again) and picked up numbers of bags of bark and potting soil. By the time we made it home at 2.30pm we were pretty famished. After recharging ourselves we were back in the garden. So ended the long weekend -  we were pretty tuckered out but very happy with the transformation we were making in the garden.

3 September - Father's Day and Gardening

The morning started off with a special Father's Day breakfast Ali and Sophie had arranged for me. They had put together a lovely Mexican-style meal of burritos, beans, salsa and other goodies. Really delicious and a great start to the day.

Once we were replete we jumped in the car and headed towards Home Depot to start collecting the garden requirements. We began the trip with a visit to States Coffee. This was distinguished by also being a bread bakery, and we left with a superb crunchy olive-filled bread, which didn't survive more than a few minutes. As nice a piece of bread as we've ever had.

Home Depot wasn't easy. It apparently is notable for not having the items you want that day, and indeed some of the things we wanted were not there, but were available online. Ali was also after a BBQ, and of course the one he had his eye on wasn't in stock. We did come away with 8 or so plants and a small selection of necessary garden tools, then collected a few more plants at the local nursery.

The afternoon and early evening were dedicated to the garden. There were quite a few old plants that needed removal, and a pair of climbers that required a massive prune and tidy-up, and all the existing weed matting and irrigation system were in terrible shape. Even getting these first things done made a huge difference to the feel of the space. Next was the realignment of the path - achieved by moving one row of pavers across to the other side of the path. It had been incredibly dry and we had to water to soften the soil enough to dig holes, and there were countless huge roots to remove. The little pick we'd bought had a good sharp blade and could cut through smaller ones, but we also used Sophie's mum's mini electric chainsaw to cut out the larger roots.

Chopping, digging, paving and our helper Juni

By the end of the evening we'd moved the path, planted the 6 biggest trees, smoothed off the lumpy soil, and had ordered some more planters and equipment that we were not able to pick up instore.

Realigned path and new planting

Everyone was thoroughly stuffed but we'd made huge progress. Ali and Sophie were thrilled.

2 September - Mill Valley Visit and Nurseries

Alastair and Sophie had a long weekend with Labor Day on Monday. The main intention was to make some headway on redeveloping their nice little yard. We'd already done quite a bit of planning together on the planting requirements - a vege box, some herbs, a couple of feijoas, and a number of flowering and scented plants.

The "before" shot

We started off at a local nursery to see their range. Prices are high by New Zealand standards, but so are the plant sizes. Where NZ would have many plants in 4-6" containers, here they are sold in mainly 9-12" pots with matching larger prices. There's a good range of New Zealand plants with flax, cabbage trees, pittosporum and NZ grasses. With Ali and Sophie we made a note of some preferred options, then headed to Home Depot. 

Home Depot is a giant store with great high shelves and a somewhat restricted range of products - a little Pak-n-Save-like. By the time we had chosen a few specimens it was time to visit Rens, Ines and little Cosimo, relatives by marriage to a nephew, who we had met in Cortona last year and again at Xmas in NZ.

They live in Mill Valley, in Marin County to the north of San Francisco. We had a lovely time with them, meeting Cosimo's godfather too. We walked down into the Mill Valley township where we had a very nice lunch together, followed by a walk back and through a rather neighbourhood park close to their home. Amazing groves of cedars where the giant mother tree had died out leaving a very large ring of smaller, though now already huge, cedar trees.

A circular grove - large enough for  few tables to fit inside

After Mill Valley we went back to the plant stores to load up for planting tomorrow...

1st September - Berkeley - University of California Botanical Gardens

After our big walk yesterday we weren't necessarily contemplating another long one today, but that's how it turned out. It took a fair hike back to the university campus, and then onwards and upwards to reach the University of California Botanical Gardens. It was a little cold and windy when we reached there, and Sophie later told us that the climate on Panorama Hill can be significantly different from Berkeley central. However, we set off around the various tracks through the gardens, which featured plants from most of the continents in the world. The glasshouse containing succulents and cacti was particularly impressive.

Weird light for the succulents

Another little Jane Morgan building

The gardens were extensive and interesting, rather more casual than many others we've visited, which was nice. There was even an Australasian section with rimu, kauri, hebes and the tallest flax we've ever seen.

The four hour round trip back to A&S's place left us feeling a little hungry, though we'd taken sandwiches with us. We weren't keen on spending big money on coffees again, so opted for an ice-block instead. Nice but surprisingly pricey.

Our explorations over the last few days have given us some good ideas of what plants would suit and survive in A&S's garden. They are very keen to overhaul it. It's not a big space but there is very little in it. Their leasor says they can do anything they want. John spent quite a lot of time in the afternoon Googling plants and where to source them. There is a Tool Library here in Berkeley so we can loan a tree saw for the weekend along with any other tools we'll need. This weekend is promising to include a Garden Working Bee!

Dinner tonight was excellent. We were going to go to a pizza place again, but Sophie thought Ethiopian might be better. She had spent time there in her past and Ethiopian food is one of her favorites. It was indeed delicious. We ordered 4 mixed dishes to share - all finger food which you scoop up in injera, a slightly spongy pancake-like bread made from fermented teff flour. It was all really good, full of spices and each flavour different from the others.

A bonus was finding a lovely old oak swivel desk chair on the footpath with a "free" sign on it. Alastair tucked it away in the yard and on Googling it when we returned home found it was a 19th century banker's chair, worth about 1000USD! Amazing.

31 August - Berkeley Walking Tours

We had a very interesting day today, exploring the campus of Berkeley University and its outskirts. We set off about 10.30am and walked the 4km to Berkeley campus. Being one of the famous universities in America, and the world, we were keen to see how it looked and, predictably, the buildings and layout blew us away. The buildings for all the disciplines were amazing in size, design and quality. It was very obvious that the campus has developed through the endowment of huge amounts of money since its inception in 1868. The style of building hasn't changed since the first buildings went up, and even the latest ones are still in "Collegiate Gothic", despite being made in reinforced concrete, with modern materials and techniques.

Buildings on campus

Unfortunately we couldn't ascend the 8-storied bell tower (usually open, and the 3rd tallest in the world), nor the Greek Theatre (performance space), probably because we happened to strike Orientation Week. There were heaps of stalls on the campus, run by students and intended to attract the interest of new participants. 

The strike of noon saw hundreds of students pour out into the campus to find a spot to settle down for lunch. The mixed-cultural nature of the current student body was very obvious. We guess that perhaps 50% were Asian, 15% Indian, 15% Latino and the remainder odds and sods, including white Europeans. 

We explored the campus using John's GPSMyCity walking tour, with each of us having an earpiece in an ear. It was a great way to pick up the history of each building and the campus at large. After we finished this, he had another walking tour sorted, to view notable examples of architecture on the streets bordering the campus. Again, we saw some amazing structures.

Bernard Maybeck's Church of the First Christ (unfortunately closed)

On the way home we also discovered the Women's Club, designed by Jane Morgan, the first woman architect to come through the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and the first woman architect in California. 

Women's Club