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The monster house under the huge oak tree, where the two little houses used to be, has been completed. It's an unusually pretty house, with a curve in the roof of the eave over the entrance - which is already collecting a gutter-clogging load of leaves. I'm worried for the oak tree. The house is too close, and they cut into the roots to lay the irrigation system for the tiny front yard. The groundcover plants are already getting kicked out in the strip next to the street.
Across from a futuristic bank building and the permanently arrested building site where downtown Sunnyvale once was, there was a well designed modern building housing a charity that instructed blind people so they could work - both general job-related skills and specific training for positions in association with the employers. When the economy fell apart, part of their funding vanished and the city didn't want to step up to fill the gap, so it closed. The building has now been demolished and the site is being cleared.
At some point during the winter the people round the corner removed the hay bale from their front garden after it started sprouting new grass. Now that the rain seems to have stopped, they've moved a small playhouse for their kids out there. It's made from an old chest of drawers or some other sort of cabinet, turned upside down and with a tall, narrow Gothic-arched doorway cut in one side and a matching Gothic window cut in one of the ends. There's a door painted to look like wood and attached with hinges, a window sill, and the walls are painted like grey stone with greenish mortar. What was the little strip of wood on which the cabinet stood has been cut away to make small battlements.
It looks like I've missed another bean growing season. I was hoping to grow runner beans again if the drought broke, but although that one soaking rainstorm is still showing its effects in the ground, there hasn't been enough since for me to feel good about the heavy daily watering. Meanwhile a couple of stray morning glories appear to have overwintered in sheltered spots against the fence.
They used to unroll a blue cover over the swimming pool in the park, but they stopped doing that a couple of winters ago and instead put an underwater Roomba in there. Roomba number one was blue and appears to have been retired. Roomba number two is yellow, and was either taken out because of the storm and not put back, or got sick. Swirls of leaves appeared on the bottom of the pool, even though it was at one point drained and scrubbed out. The Roomba is now back, making its slow, mindless gyrations; here and there small groups of leaves remain, and the drain is studded with them.
Apple blossom is appearing. The old tree that pokes out over the sidewalk has just a single spray of pink blossoms this year. Come on tree, open more buds. Across the street, the huge old gingko trees are studded with buds.
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