2013 in Review Part I

before and after: straw bale garden

Straw bale garden: before and after.

One of the side benefits of blogging is having a record of ideas and projects going back for years. I thought I’d spend the next two days looking at what happened, month by month, in 2013.

January
The main topic was how to deal with patellafemoral syndrome, aka bad knees. In May I did what I should have done 20 years ago: hire a personal trainer to set up a gym program tailored to my needs and weaknesses. After many hours at the YMCA I’ve got PT syndrome under control but I’ve still got a lot of work to do. Thankfully, I’m back to running and fencing.

February
In February in Los Angeles it should rain. It didn’t. The year was the driest on record: 3.6 inches, making it a desert not the Mediterranean climate it should be. It seems to be a dry winter again this year and I’m worried.

March
A texting music video producer totaled our car and thus began a six month experiment in living without a car in Los Angeles. That experiment ended in September when we bought a car. Living in LA without a car was easier than I thought it would be thought thanks to the expansion of the rail network. It was a tough decision, but we decided to burn dino juice again.

April
I began what was to be the most successful experiment of the year, a straw bale garden. It was the perfect solution to our lead soil problem–grow in bales temporarily and generate a lot of compost with which to use in permanent raised beds that I’ll build this winter. I’m still harvesting squash from those bales!

May
We attend the Age of Limits conference along with our friend John Zapf. Kelly and I blogged about our initial reaction to this doomy event but we never told the whole story–deciding instead to move on and focus on positive action.

June
Good news and bad news. The amazing folks at Honey Love continued their efforts to legalize beekeeping in Los Angeles. Those efforts are beginning to pay off–the legalization efforts moved forwards this month and I predict we’ll see success in the coming year. In other political news the LA city council caved in to movie industry pressure and made LA the first city to remove green bike lanes. I was at the City Council meeting and got to see film industry and union lobbyists work the room. Those of who came to speak on behalf of the lanes were not allowed to speak. You win some, you lose some.

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2 Comments

    • Hey Molly–thanks for tipping me off to this. It’s a very strange new world of marketing out on the interwebs. Home Depot must have a professional Pintrest person–what a job that must be. I know someone who works for a very popular home decor website. She told me that marketers pay to have their products placed in the background of images on their website so that people will pin the images.

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