July 2023

• Clockwise from upper left: Sunday dirt dessert with edible candy butterflies; Monday corn in community garden; Tuesday sunflowers; Thursday apples; Wednesday plums

• Urban Wilderness / City Paradise Lectionary Project for July

• No interesting outings this month, but July featured the annual Sunday evening through Thursday evening Camp Central. From the dozens of pics I took, here's some of creation's bounty for each day.

• Peaches on Sunday

• Conversation place on Monday

• Seeds waiting to sprout and bloom from Tuesday

• Best and juiciest watermelon snacks from Wednesday and continuing into Thursday

• Flowering beauty and golden apples on Thursday

• Intriguing urban desert flora on Wednesday afternoon the 26^th

June 2022 Happenings

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project for June on my other "main blog."

• Mid-afternoon lunch with Shadi at Chio's Peruvian Grill on Friday 03 June.

• "I Voted" on Tuesday 07 June, although I actually voted on Monday, the day before.

• There are so many gorgeous hibiscus flowers around here! "The proper yellow" of anything always is my fave, and this one deserves to be its own line item.

• Strawberry Supermoon on Tuesday 14 June. The moon was huge a couple days before and a couple of days after!

• Another Worship Planning Retreat—this one on Wednesday 15 June.

• Helpful Honda stopped by again on Monday 20 June in time for summer solstice on Tuesday the 21st.

• This year's Camp @ Central happened Sunday through Thursday, June 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. The color palette of this pineapple, grapes, and blueberries snack gets showcased by itself.

• Camp @ Central dessert on Wednesday: watermelon; dirt, seeds, and worms pudding cups; strawberries; lemon and chocolate pudding cakes. Whipped cream, too!

July 2021 • Here There Everywhere

• Header collage of fresh berries and North Hollywood retro tiles.

• Lectionary Project for July; I still need to update and republish July 10^th (with a different name).



• Fourth of July Sunday Roses from St John's Gardena



• The revitalized North Hollywood Lankershim Train Depot now houses a Groundwork Coffee

• Here's the Groundwork Coffee NoHo Page



• Sideview of the Lankershim Southern Pacific Train Depot



• Most Los Angeles Metro Subway stations have a unique style; North Hollywood is very mid-[twentieth]century. Here's only one of my many pics (recently and over the years) of NoHo tiles; this is one of the Lankershim farm. Isaac Lankershim was Isaac Van Nuys' Father-in-Law.



• COVID protocols compliance sign at the Camp Central site—I was the main kitchen person. They gave me the menu and told me I'd make it happen. A really great week!



• "Life is Better at Camp Central" tote bag



• Van Nuys Garden Cow



• Van Nuys Garden Hen



• Van Nuys Garden Peacock



• Campers had artistic craft and musical activities that included making their own masks. Being in the kitchen most of the time, I didn't get many pictures.



• Except for the few weeks last spring the nearby Subway totally closed, I've been getting Subway takeaway—even after they opened up for indoor dining. Camp Central week included a COVID milestone: lunch inside the restaurant.



• Supper-Dinner-Evening Meal on the last day of camp was burgers and hotdogs. How do you like the firepit?



• Staff and campers all got "Life is Better at Camp Central" shirts on the last day.



• My almost-annual design for Utah's National Holiday, Pioneer Day, also known as Pie and Beer Day: Days of '47 because This Is The Place



• A second COVID milestone! Here's the leafy skylight at the restaurant where J treated me to Al Fresco lunch at (but not inside) the restaurant. We'd enjoyed this mostly vegan establishment before COVID.



• Garden greenery tall plant from the restaurant



• Our lunch table – they had 6 or 8 on the Al Fresco patio, though some braved their meal inside.



• Such a delicious lunch bowl



• Succulent One from Van Nuys



• Succulent Two from Van Nuys


# # #

Porch Story :: Summer 2019

• Porch Stories host Kristin writes about an August that sounds almost enviable.

• With August concluding meteorological summer, Emily P Freeman hosts her quarterly linkup.

June

• Day Camp in the San Fernando Valley easily was the high point of June, possibly of the summer so far. Check out pictures here!

July

• Reading and reviewing I See You by Terence Lester qualifies as a highlight of this year.

• For the first month in a long time, I didn't blog about July—no interesting outing or activities or pictures, but I did accomplish the amazement of retrieving my belongings, all of those everythings, out of South Central where they'd spent four years in storage. Despite downsizing and donating a lot of mostly furniture along with some other effects before leaving Previous City, like many or most, I couldn't Marie Kondo as thoroughly as might have been ideal. Almost everyone knows about items that don't necessarily occupy a whole lot of space, items you have three or four or more of that are similar but deciding which one to hang onto is too major at the moment, etc.

August

• No August pictures at this time, though I may add a few later. Continuing the sorting and donating theme because most of it has happened this month, everyone knows about donation regrets that frequently happen because sorting and unloading generates such an emotional high... Chances are I'll schedule a few more pickups (with Vietnam Vets of America) and waiting until I better could assess what to keep and what not has been freeing and satisfying. Due to different box sizes ranging from standard small through medium to quite a few large, blogging a number doesn't say much, but twenty five (25) is the current count.

Watch This Space!

1. For a review of another launch team book, Start With Your People, about gathering your tribe and being a supporter;

2. For a serious blog about Previous City friend Markus Watson's fabulous Spirit Life and Leadership podcast. It's not only for pastors, teachers, deacons, elders, and seminary types (professors and students). It's for everyone because if we are alive, we are spiritual so we have a spiritual life!

Porch Story :: June 2019

• Summer's been in session with the fun and randomness that come with the season, so I'm linking my June summary to Porch Stories host Kristin's July.

• My end of the month summary blog for June 2019 covers less than a week, but those five days were good ones. Sometimes I sit on my actual porch, at other times it's a virtual veranda in a different time and clime, yet everywhere I'm still doing whatever I can to imagine my next move. Months became years became decades, and now?

• And now? I spent the last week of June helping with summer day camp in the San Fernando Valley. Besides mostly doing line chef-type dicing, slicing, chopping, and mincing in the kitchen, I enjoyed good conversations and glorious gardens. Snacks were yummy—one day we even had ice cream cones with our choice among five or six flavors of award-winning Thrifty Ice Cream! Dinner menus were varied and well-prepared. As usual, I've tried to be selective about the pictures I blog, so I chose color-filled ones to represent the venue well.



• With Day Camp sessions from 3 to 9, on Tuesday I got there just as all volunteer, LA-based The Rescue Train wrapped up a day of feline Trap-Neuter-Release, partly sponsored by the church that sponsored the onsite day camp. I have the impression Feral Fix LA also welcomed household pets who needed neutering.