New gardens. Plans for this type of deck, and then plans for a different type. The back yard hasn't changed much in the past year, but our ideas for it keep changing. We have priced out concrete slabs, but just this morning Marcela said she thought a wood deck would do just fine. We have strung a clothes line and keep threatening to put up a hammock. Marcela has planted beans and squash, and we have dispersed seeds from a colorful native flower and transplanted a few butterfly bushes. In the clay pots I gave her for her birthday, Marcela has started tomatoes and broccoli and wild flowers. The rains came in January and intermittently in February, and things are sprouting and starting to grow. The past week has been cold, which seems to have slowed everything. Something eats the plants. We don't know what, but it has an appetite. On the east side we have a fern started and an orchid (if it lives!). In back we have started a small yard waste compost and I am growing worried that we have to do some expensive trimming of the Eucalyptus. The kids play out here a lot, as do the cats. Maxim still loves her pretend kitchen and Noah builds blocks on the linoleum surface, pretend towns where his matchbox cars can drive and race. It has been busy, but the spring warmth is upon us.