California knows how to garden

So it turns out we pretty much kicked ass at finding a place and getting settled. We've already signed a lease, moved in, and furnished our cottage. It's this little in-law cottage next to the house the landlords live in. A far cry from show-up-on-trash-day, underpaid "supers" who don't actually know how to fix anything. An even farther cry from having to make seven phone calls to get the simplest thing fixed. The whole apartment hunt made me realize just how crazy NYC is when it comes to renting.

The cottage has a bedroom, kitchen, and living room, plus a pretty huge storage closet. The kitchen has this amazing 40's-era gas stove that is gorgeous. The living room will also be the study and Guest Room (hint hint). It already has a futon! We managed to take the U-Haul to a Good Will after moving our own stuff and got a whole bunch of great furniture. Even the kitchen table + chairs that looked way too brown in the store are way better now that they're not surrounded by all the other brown.

More importantly (and more new and shiny for anyone coming from NYC), we have a BACK YARD! This is what attracted us to the East Bay rather than the more familiar urban environment of the city.* We share the back yard with our landlords, but they are entirely amenable to us growing vegetables and chickens in it. It even has a hot tub. We've already taken advantage of the hot tub and probably will again when I finish this post. Seeing as it's always hot, we figure it's more efficient to jump in there and warm up than to turn on the heat in the cottage.

I haven't taken pictures yet, but I have the plan we made this afternoon for the garden:



We're not sure where the chickens will go yet, but this plan is only for half the yard anyway.

* 'the city' means San Francisco here. Weird!