Flowers at the conservatory

As usual, there is a lot in bloom at the conservatory. This time of year there are even wildflowers blooming outside. Here are some California popies which are red on the outside and orange on the inside. The purple flowers are columbines. It's been rainy these days and the windows inside are dripping with condensation.

Next month's flower is the Fuscia. These are Nile's favorite - Flying Saucers. We also like this dessert rose because it reminds us of Africa. It grew near the lakes where we saw hippos.


This month the seasonal house is filled with hydrangia and fuscia.

Moving the stove

Our stove sticks out into the kitchen about four inches more than it needs to. The reason is that there is a conduit box mounted on the wall behind the stove. By moving the box down about a foot, it would allow the stove to fit back against the wall. Matt estimated that it would take about 30 minutes to move the box down if all went well. After pulling out the breakers, with pliers, Matt disassembled the conduit box and realized that we'd need some parts from the home improvement store.

About 6 hours later, Matt had rewired the electrical and moved the box down. Nile pointed out that Hofstader's law, (It takes twice as long as you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstader's law), was not quite accurate in this case. It took much more than twice Matt's estimate. Our stove moved back about three inches. Unfortunatly, the drawer can't close all the way because it hits the conduit box when we pushed the stove back.

Napa Valley

We left San Francisco by the Golden Gate bridge and headed North to visit Jon and Marcy who live in Napa. We drove through Nile's favorite tunnel. She likes the rainbow they painted on the edge.


We arrived in beautiful Napa Valley a little over an hour later and went tasting at a few wineries. It was almost a family reunion for Matt. Pictured here are: Nile, Matt, Deanna, Walter, Steve, Jon, Marcy, and Claire. This was the first time that Nile actually met Walter in person. She used to joke that he was "Imaginary Walter". It was also our first time to meet Claire, Jon and Marcy's 2 month old daughter.

San Francisco Conservatory

We drove north to San Francisco to visit our friend Kenneth. Nile really wanted to see the conservatory there. It's a lot like the one that Nile works at here in Seattle, except that it's about 4 times as big.

Inside they have a conservatory-shaped money box which you can stuff with donations to help support the conservatory.



Inside there are a lot of very impressive plants. Here is a banana. The purple part is the banana flower and above it are banana fruits. Next to it was a varigated banana. Even the bananas themselves are striped.

If you've been following our blog, you'll remember the odd looking seed that they were trying to sprout at the University of Washington greenhouse. They had a seed that looked very similar here; aparently, it's a double coconut.


We'll leave you with pictures of some pretty hibiscus flowers.