Thursday, June 27, 2013

Summer Days


The past weeks have been quiet.  Some tarot readings for guidance, writing for cover letters and a zine, finishing the first two seasons of Buffy, and a lot of animal cuddles.  The two dogs in the first picture (Pancakes and Buffy) live with me, and the blue-eyed kitten is my little fluff muffin, Hedwig.  I've been stealing herbs such as lemon balm, pineapple sage, lavender, santolina, and camomile for tea and baths.  I can't wait for our garden to be producing plants that I can use for natural dye as well as herbs.  But there's so much work left to do.

This weekend I'll be going to Trans March in San Francisco, but aside from that will be hiding from the Pride festivities happening in the Bay Area.  I'll talk about that more some other day.  Tonight I'm going to A Verb for Keeping Warm for a talk by Stephen West.  Ysolda Teague will also be there to sign books!  Of course, the only people I fangirl over are knitting designers and trans* reality tv stars (that story is also for another day).

Take Care,
Mckenzie

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Keeping Busy

I keep wanting to say that I'm having a hard time keeping myself busy, but then as I'm reflecting I realize that it's not that I'm not keeping myself busy, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I'm being productive while I'm not making money.  I'm privileged to have some time to think about what I want to do, because even though I walked in graduation, I still have one class to take next semester.  Not having my degree yet puts me in an odd place and limits what jobs I can apply for.  So I'm going to keep taking pictures, writing, reading, knitting, and gardening while I can and hope that I start to get some responses from some of these applications I keep sending out!

The first couple pictures are from Donut Farm which is a brilliant vegan donut/weekend brunch place in Oakland.  I got biscuits and gravy that were to die for, but they also have chick'n and waffles, breakfast burritos, and tofu scrambles!  There pictures of some SCOBY and the preparation of some kombucha, which is fermenting perfectly.  There are some pictures of Hedwig, my little cream puff, and my qt housemates.  My Ravelry page is linked in the sidebar if you want more info about my knitting projects.  I'm planning on filming another episode of the Double Chin Knitting podcast later today or tomorrow, too!

Thursday, June 6, 2013

The Beginning


About a month ago I moved into a beautiful old house in West Oakland.  The only thing I know about it at this point is that it used to be a sober-living/transition house and that it'd been empty for some time before any of us moved in.  After living primarily in San Francisco for three years, I was STOKED to find out that I would have access to my own little green space!  As lovely as community gardens have been for me, building a garden from scratch has been a dream of mine!  Above is what the backyard looked like initially: overgrown weeds, an overgrown tree (I had already chopped it down by the time this was taken, it's that pile of twigs!), and some weird oddly spaced rosebushes and sticks.


But here's what we've done so far!  The plan at this point is for my housemates and I to re-fresh the soil with some compost and build three planter boxes on the left side, tear up that granite walkway, plant fruit trees around the perimeter, and some grass for the doggies living here.  It's going to be a lot of work, but look at it already!  I hope that summer won't be over before we can start having some yummy veg growing out here.  The front yard is also going to be a lot of work, and I'm hoping to plant herbs out there as well as plants that create good natural dye like euphorbia and marigolds!