23 June 2019> Walked all the way to Friendship Village, Maryland in search of bamboo + horsetails + other monocots but wasn't so impressed w/ the nursery there so got nada. On the way passed thru nearby Meridian Hill (a.k.a. Malcolm X park) w/ the fountains now flowing, which guess it's been a while since they've worked. Makes our running/stairmaster park even cooler.

24 May 2019> We've been noticing a murder of crows on our street that make funny noises, specially whenever they see us. This morning we heard them out back + went to investigate + 1 was under our maple tree while the 2 others sat on the wires above squawking down. When the crow under the maple tree saw us, s/he flew towards us, right at the window we were looking out of + crashed into the wall + fell to the ground below. So we ran downstairs + the crow was right outside the glass door + kept trying to come into the house even tho we was right there, pecking at the glass. S/he didn't look like s/he was feeling so well, kind of just sat there not moving. Either stunned, poisoned, or a juvenile that hadn't quite learned to fly yet? We went outside + s/he wasn't afraid of us at all, so we picked her up (wrapped in a black towel) + set her further back in the yard, but the second we put her down she flew back tward the house + crashed into the white communications box on the wall. So we picked her up again + this time put her on top of the fence. S/he was precarious at 1st but then sat there. After a while 1 of the other crows (presumably the mom) came down + sat next to her on the fence + they squawked for a while then mama crow took off, but the juvenile remained on the fence. S/he sat there for over an hour, chirping intermittently. At 1 point a squirrel came along but the crow stood her ground so the annoyed squirrel had to climb around. We went outside to shoot the below video + right after the crow flew off into a nearby tree + the mother crow joined her. Seems okay now.

Even as we write this we can still hear them squakwing back there like they want to come into our house. We've also been having weird encounters w/ gray catbirds (that for sum reason we always call ladybirds). Like we were walking through Wangari gardens when a catbird kept swooping down + attacking our bedder-½. So yah, our bedder-½ is back from her U-row trip + guess u can say our casa on Swann is more or less finished, so we'll reveal her, starting w/ the ground floor, which is really ½ underground so piano -½ (to the music of Capt Beefheart)...

Bit unusual in that the kitchen is on the ground floor, but quite the command center where we spend most of our time, specially in the summer when it's the coolest place in the house. It gets good light even tho it's in the basement, south-facing exposure. Nice appliances + a 2nd mini-sink on the island. For refrence sake, here's the same shot at the time we bought the house... we added the table extension to make it easier to eat at the counter, replaced the pendant lights w/ mason jar edison lights + them big clunky stools we replaced w/ stools we got at Miss Pixies.

They had a fancy wide-angle so we can't totally line up our shots with theirs. Here it is from 2 other angles.

+ for refrence, here it is before we moved in below... wished they wd of left that old telephone, but they took it with them, leaving holes in the wall which dictated our art placement. They took the chicken too, but we replaced it w/ 2 chickens of our own which u probly can't see.

If u continue down the hall there's a "powder room" as they called it, a bathroom sans bath or shower.

+ if u keep going back, past the spiral stairs going up (we'll get to that next time), u get to the "palestra" where we get our fitness on.

The previous occupants used this room for a dining room (below), but we thought it was too dark + dungeony for that, so we replaced the chandelier with a light more suitable for swinging weights + arms around + put some weight-bearing hooks so we cd do lat pulldowns + mountain climbers or hang upside down doing vampire yoga.

+ from there u go out into the backyard, where we got a table + (gas) grill where last night we jerked sum chicken + roasted corn.

By next year we'll replace these bushy flowers w/ sumping like horsetails + ferns + citronella + catnip to keep the mosquitos down. And the patch below left is where we want to plant bamboo eventually, but seems we'll have to do that from seed. We also need to replace the fence as it's ½-falling apart in places.

Left is our chief chair we brought back from Africa, recently stained after 10 years of weathering. The other 2 floors we'll reveal in subsequent posts...