New House Blog: Episode LCII - Year Two Begins

Year Two of owning our New House, and year two of the New House Blog.  In honor of this momentus occasion we visited the San Jose Flea Market.  We had not previously visited said Flea Market, despite living near it and driving past it several times a month.  Before we get to that, however, we must provide an update about our back yard garden.

Back Into The Garden

Most of our food crops did not survive the winter, and we did not actively do anything to help them out during the colder months of the year.  The peppers and tomatoes all died.  The lettuce never grew.  The stir-fry greens throve (thrived?), but we did not utilize them and they became wild and un-tamable.  The strawberries and catnip survived and are doing well.  The accursed shamrock plants took over most of the garden area, but with the arrival of spring and the cessation of the rainy season they have been dying out.  Their seeds/bulbs, however, remained in the ground, waiting for the next rainy season.  This picture shows the  garden after a bit of weed, shamrock bulb, and dead plant removal.

This next picture shows the garden after a lot more cleanup.  The foreground plant is catnip.  The background plant is strawberry.

We have planted, so far, potatoes, jewel-toned beets, Texas grand onions, red and yellow baby bell peppers, honeydew and lemon cucumber.

The garden looks pretty much the same post-planting as it did pre-planting, so there is not an additional picture of it.

As of this Episode, we are starting to see some sprouts coming up through the soil.

Garden Visitor

As we were working in our garden, cleaning it up and disposing of shamrock bulbs, we were visited by a little blue friend.  See for yourself.

The bird did not go after the ant bait.











The San Jose Flea Market

In honor of the first anniversary of owning our New House, we decided to walk down to the Flea Market and peruse the various wares.  We had heard rumors of the bountiful produce within, and we were not disappointed in this regard.  Fruts, nuts, and vegetables were in great supply, great price, great variety, and great price.  Many items, such as jack fruits, are not sold at all in our local Safeways or Luckys.  In addition to fresh produce, just about everything else is for sale by someone at the Flea Market.

 Seen on the way to the Flea Market.

 We walked by the location of a BART station that is under construction.

 More of the under-construction BART station.

This picture is looking down the track where the BART will someday run.  We don't know if it will be above or below ground at this point.

 This is the Flea Market entrance we used.

 This is Becky walking in to the Flea Market.

 A small park-like space deep inside the Flea Market.

One of many eating/snacking areas in the Flea Market.  Not seen in this view is the nearby snack shack.







Bonus Pictures

The first bonus picture is of a mysterious helicopter that flew past our New House recently.

The second bonus picture is of Becky among some weeds in our back yard.  This picture was taken to show how tall some of our back yard weeds have become.  No trick photography was used, and no photo manipulation was used.

The weeds really are as tall asBecky, as the photo shows.  The light shafts are also from the original picture, and not added in later.







Happy New House Year!
   bIsh