This is the first year that our climbing rose bush has blossomed in the winter.

Since I grew up in the Midwest it is a real thrill to look out the window and see big, beautiful roses in the middle of winter. It makes almost makes up for never having a white Christmas.

People escaping the East coast and Midwestern winters spent time in California in the early 1900s. They mailed postcards overflowing with flowers and lush vegetation to winterbound friends and family back home.

This card from 1910 reads “California Bungalow in Winter” with so many palm trees and plants that you can barely see the bungalow.

Thousands of postcards like these were printed and mailed back East.

Here is an interesting little bungalow featured on a postcard mailed in 1912.

All these postcards (and available, affordable land) proved very effective. Southern California experienced a significant population boom between the early 1900s – 1920s.

When we purchased our house we also become the proud owners of
one yard plant.

Exhibit A) This is one of the earliest photos of our new-to-us house.
When I look at the asbestos siding, vinyl windows, less than stellar
paint job and collapsing front porch I have to wonder, “WHAT were
we thinking?! Why did we agree to pay the full asking price?”
Oh, that’s right, we live in Los Angeles…

The photo captures the lone plant that came with our house (outlined
in pink). I had brought over some pink azaleas and a hanging plant
from our apartment, not that they made a big improvement.

Exhibit B) This is our house today. Boy, what a difference some
paint, our life savings and a few plants can make! I am training a
passion vine to grow up over the open beams at the end of the
porch.

I have been completely surprised by these $3.99 climbing roses
from Home Depot. I was never a “rose person” and probably
wouldn’t have picked these up if they hadn’t been priced to sell
on triple mark down. I’m now a full fledged rose convert.

I wish I knew the name of this yellow rose. The blooms are huge!

This nameless pink rose is starting to intertwine with the purple
flowered passion vine. The result should be lovely.

My solution to our ugly, rusting chain-link fence until we can
afford to replace it. This vine was also on sale at Home Depot.

Living Doghouse Update
I think I might be building another one of these houses very soon!
They are fighting over who gets to sit inside.

Guess who won?

The star jasmine is starting to fill in on the back of the dog house.

Hmmmmmm, this may just be a fluke…
Or, maybe I’m getting into the “working on the house again” mood?
The other day I found myself standing on my office chair picking loose
wallpaper off the ceiling with a nail file while talking on the phone. The
chair is on castors so I would talk, pick the ceiling, pull down the loose
wallpaper and roll along to the next spot of loose wallpaper.

Talk, pick and roll…talk, pick and roll…

Not until I had rolled myself to the other side of the room and saw the
trail of destruction behind me did I pause to wonder what I was doing?
I slowly sat down in the chair and gently laid the nail file down.

Later in the day I complained to David about how our pocket doors
aren’t completely flush with the wall when they are open. They stick
out a few inches from the wall and that has always bothered me.

David and I took the doors out and cleaned all the loose debris
and 93 years worth of dirt blocking their tracks. The doors are
now completely hidden in the wall.

I found a harmonica inside the crevice that holds the pocket door.
It matches one I found in the wall of the other pocket door last year.

Twin boys, the grandsons of our home’s original owner, grew up
in this house. Was this some sort of mischief on their part or
are harmonicas in the wall some type of symbol for good luck,
like a horse shoe?