A New Beginning

After five years living a quasi-urban loft experience in downtown LA - five years of fun, excitement, being part of something new, and living over an alley - we decided we needed to get some elbow room, a yard, and eventually a pet for that yard. We looked for a year. Starting our search in Echo Park, we slowly shifted to North East LA after every house we put an offer on went unreasonably over asking price. Ultimately we landed in Highland Park, more specifically Garvanza, on the Western edge of Pasadena. That was 2004.

The home we purchased was a 2 bedroom 1957 stucco on a 8250sf steeply sloping lot that was an unruly mess. The land was raw, weed strewn, overgrown, with collapsing terraces, rotting trees, and what seemed to be an old burn pile. But the bones were good and the yard had tons of potential and we set out to (slowly) make the house and yard into our home. Five years of blood, sweat, and tears. (No, seriously, there were tears.)

Fast forward five years. We have made a ton of progress: we now have a functioning vegetable garden; we have planted the first batch of fruit trees; we have an actual patio that we can hang out on. It is encouraging to see how far we've come and sometimes depressing to see how far we have to go...we still have half of our yard to plant....and then there is the house itself. Rancho Garbonzo can be a mixed bag. We're keeping our chins up!

We had always planned to start a blog to document our experiences but could never get it together. Mainly we couldn't think of a name. Well here's to a new beginning. We hope that this blog will serve as an inspiration to some (maybe to turn that weed patch into some juicy tomatoes?), perhaps an education to others (we are FULL of the what-not-to-dos!), a way to keep up with what we are up to, and a fun way for us to document our own progress. Stay tuned.