After hauling more rock and more soil and constructing three low stone walls, the result is good. Here’s what one of the three new beds looked like right after the soil was placed and roughly leveled.

Natalie worked for a couple of hours the other evening to start planting the beds. This one got a nice low-growing variegated Ceanothus in the middle. She put bunches of crocus, which had come out to make room for the wall, around some of the edges. There’s still more planting to do, but we’re making progress. We’re thinking of mostly low-growing plants in this bed, with some dwarf conifers in the other two corners. We spent a bunch of money on plants the other day, but still need to do more shopping. We haven’t been plant shopping together for a while, so it’s a fun thing to do.

Now that the heavy lifting is done, we can move a little more slowly to get things in the ground. I wanted to do all the moving at once because it’s a hassle to take the canopy off my truck and put it back on. Thus, work really hard over a short period of time to get all the hauling done.

This photo was taken in part as a camera test. I had a studio shoot last Friday and my main camera, a Canon 1Ds Mk II, gave intermittent Error 99 codes and failed to trigger the studio flash. I managed to get the job done, with a very cooperative portrait client, but the camera was definitely acting flaky. It did the same thing shooting outside, so I shipped it off to Canon Professional Service for repair. Then I ordered a Canon 5D for a high-res backup. I’m preparing to be on the road photographing a new book much of the spring and summer and can’t be without reliable tools. When equipment breaks it’s really frustrating. I suppose I could go back to film, since I still have two great 35mm bodies, but that seems to 20th century at this point.

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