Todays Pools Are A Sophisticated Blend Natural Beauty And Outdoor Living

A pool is one of the most calming and soothing design elements you can add to your home. A pool provides pleasure, a fun setting for children to play and splash, and an opportunity to entertain poolside and share a beautiful setting with friends and family. The sound of water is always inviting and today’s pools ensure there will be a water feature – a fountain, a waterfall – in almost every new pool.

While there are still many traditional rectangular pools in this area, particularly in older, established homes, the newest trend is to mimic the landscape and create pools in all sizes and curving shapes that present a softer look, surrounded by decks, patios, gazebos, even temple-like structures that serve as a sheltered area for poolside relaxing, dining and entertaining.

Many of the pools being built today are more than just a pool. They are an extension of the back of the home, featuring outdoor cooking, entertaining and dining areas and lush landscaping, appropriate to the region where the family lives with their pool.

These settings are an elaborate and functional addition to one’s back lawn. People are creating, with the help of pool builders, exterior designers and landscapers, their own island of nature’s paradise.

Creating a regal look

Beto Garcia moved to Oklahoma City from San Antonio 24 years ago to join Blue Haven Pools, which was established in 1954. As general manager of the company, he has designed and built more pools than he can remember. Today, he is very attuned to the changing trends in pools and the landscaping, the outdoor cooking and living areas and special water features, which people want today in and around their pools.

“People are now wanting natural looking pools or ponds – something that can give you that outdoorsy feeling like a spa or a retreat,” Garcia says.

He cites a new look in different interior finishes in pools and a new technology. “In the old days, we put colored dye into the final interior finish,” he says.

Now, Blue Haven and other companies are achieving a spectacular effect that involves miniscule glass beads or glass tiles that come in a range of nature’s water colors,” Garcia says, “These beads or tiles are not affected by the water chemistry or the sunlight, which often gives an iridescent glow when the sun hits them,” he says.

“Whatever color you have chosen to dress your pool will give you either absorbing (black) or refracting (white) light.

This magnificent color lets homeowners imagine they are in the Caribbean, the South Pacific or Mexico,” Garcia says,

A year-round pool

Caleb McCaleb is president of McCaleb Homes, a second generation company founded by his father, Neal. Caleb’s home, which backs up to Lake Arcadia, has one of the most spectacular pools in the area.

“We wanted to create a graceful flow of water and designed a waterfall at the top that flows into the pool, which has a free-flowing shape. The back of the pool has an infinity edge that flows into a lower pool area, which also has an infinity edge, which is one of the latest trends in pools. When McCaleb Homes hosted its Dream Home Tour last year, he said nine of the homes featured had an infinity-edge pool.

The McCalebs also added a creek so it looks like the water is coming through the creek into the pool. They also added a salt water filtration system – another trend – in place of the traditional chlorine. “It’s soft, like a comfortable bath and doesn’t burn your skin or eyes like chlorine,” McCaleb says.

Today’s pools are using more natural materials, especially a lot of flagstone around the edge of the pool, where people like to sit. His beach-entry pool also features a tiny rock from Australia – pebbletech – that is mixed in the plaster. It’s not a loose sand material, but rather a plaster for finishing the pool. A lot of stamped or stained concrete is also being used around today’s pools, he says.

Two years ago, the McCalebs added a fire pit on the back side near the pool and also added more evergreens and a lot of cypress trees. “We wanted a northwest style of landscaping to complement the pool, he says.

McCaleb never closes his pool, “I think pools are eyesores in the lawn when they are closed down and tarped over. I use my pool all year long. The pool is the focal point of the back lawn, along with the outdoor kitchen and comfortable seating and I like a year-round landscaping look around the pool.”.

Antonio Aparicio, owner of Aquascape Pools, designed the McCalebs’ pool. Aparicio’s forte is designing pools that are unusual and he always complements the setting nature has provided. He likes to give each custom pool “its own special touch.”

New pool cleaning devices

Guy Shipley of Cardinal Architect Pools has been building custom pools since 1959, so he’s seen many changes in pool design and construction. He likes the look of the new free-form pools, the popular water features and the endless look of the infinity or vanishing edge.

Creating unusual looks for pools is one of the favorite things he likes about the business. “Every pool we build also has an automatic-style cleaner. A lot of the people who have automatic cleaners wouldn’t even know how to vacuum. The old pool sweeps have definitely gone by the wayside,” Shipley says.

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Monday, May 12th, 2008

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Downtown Design Plans For Edmond Up For Discussion

The board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Planning and Public Works Building #104 at 10 S Littler.

Board Chairman David Forrest said the city’s plans for the way building exteriors, landscaping and streetscaping should look in the future needs to be obvious to potential developers of the downtown district.

That’s why the board plans to discuss how to make the downtown design guidelines more, as Forrest said, “user-friendly.”

To achieve this, Forrest said the board will discuss adding some diagrams to the guidelines to “more fully detail streetscape requirements.”

The board also plans to discuss two board suggestions made during an April 14 workshop with the city council and report whether the council chose to adopt the suggestions.

Forrest said the first suggestion was that a design group be asked to make more specific recommendations for the redevelopment of an area on S Broadway between Second and Ninth streets.

The other suggestion was for a design group to review recommendations made in the 1998 master plan regarding plans to develop a number of “sub areas” around downtown. A sub area, for example, would be similar to Oklahoma City’s Gasoline Ally, Forrest said.

One such sub area that the group should consider, Forrest said, would be plans for an arts district around the Rodkey Mill south of Second Street, west of Broadway.

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Friday, May 9th, 2008

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Seattle rejected 26M offer to let Sonics go

The city of Seattle last week rejected a $26.5 million offer from the Sonics’ ownership group to buy out the last two years of the KeyArena lease, continuing the ongoing battle over the NBA franchise.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, who revealed the offer Saturday during his annual address at the All-Star Game in New Orleans, said he supports Sonics Chairman Clay Bennett’s attempt to move the team to Oklahoma City and expects Seattle’s first major professional team to leave town either this year or in 2010.

“I accept that inevitability at this point,” he said. “There is no miracle here.”

Stern’s comments drew a strong response from Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.

“If Mr. Stern had any kind of integrity, he wouldn’t be trying to hijack this team out of Seattle,” Ceis said. “David Stern hasn’t lifted one finger since Clay Bennett bought this team to do anything to try and keep it in Seattle. It’s been an ongoing conspiracy between the league and Clay Bennett to hijack this franchise out of Seattle.”

Since purchasing the team from Howard Schultz on Oct. 31, 2006, Bennett unsuccessfully tried to gain support from city and state lawmakers on a $500 million arena in Renton before filing relocation papers with the NBA. The city filed suit June 16 to block the move.

Stern sounded extremely pessimistic about the Sonics staying in Seattle.

“It’s apparent to all who are watching that the Sonics are heading out of Seattle,” the commissioner said. “There’s not going to be a new arena. There’s not going to be a public contribution…. “

The Seattle Times obtained a document dated Thursday in which a law firm representing the Professional Basketball Club, which owns the Sonics, sent a letter to Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr offering to settle the lawsuit against the team.

In the document, attorney Bradley Keller states that if the city wins its case, it can expect no more than $4.1 million in revenue-sharing and rental payments and admission taxes during the 2008-09 season and $3.8 million the next, which would leave $26.5 million on the city’s outstanding debt to KeyArena from the $73.4 million bond used for renovation.

The Sonics offered to pay off the debt and gave the city a 5 p.m. Friday deadline to respond.

Carr declined the offer.

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Sunday, February 17th, 2008

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Notebook Cuban is not convinced that Sonics should move

DALLAS Sonics chairman Clay Bennett attended the Dallas game, but he declined to speak with media. So Mavericks owner Mark Cuban did all the talking while working out on the StairMaster. Cuban told reporters that he wasn’t convinced the Sonics were headed for Oklahoma City and, if NBA owners are presented a recommendation for relocation, he’ll vote against it if it’s not clearly better than the team being in Seattle.

But Cuban noted that if locals wanted the Sonics, people would be more vocal. His statement appears to support recent documents filed by Sonics ownership that Seattle would not miss its team economically or entertainment-wise.

“If the fans wanted them, there would have been a much bigger outcry,” Cuban said. “There would have been an uprising, as opposed to legal strategy. It should have never come to legal strategy.”

Durant upbeat

Kevin Durant has to reach back to another sport to remember the last time he has been through a stretch like this. The Sonics rookie once played offensive and defensive lineman in a youth football league and never won a game.

Otherwise he’s not sure how to handle this situation.

After Saturday’s game, the Sonics had lost 10 consecutive games, as many as Texas lost in Durant’s whole season there. Seattle fell to 9-31 after the matchup with Dallas, giving the Sonics more losses than rookie Jeff Green had in three years at Georgetown.

“It’s something every good player goes through in your career,” Green said. “I’m glad we’re getting ours out of the way. We still want to end off on a good note. You don’t want to be satisfied with just losing and already thinking ahead to the next season when we’re not even halfway through the regular season yet. We want to finish off strong.”

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Monday, January 21st, 2008

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Sonics City wouldn’t miss us

If the Sonics leave Seattle, the city’s economy won’t suffer and most people won’t care.

That’s not the tirade of some anti-arena activist; it’s the Sonics’ latest legal argument to try to get out of its KeyArena lease.

And it’s exactly the opposite of what the Sonics have claimed when asking for taxpayer help to build a new arena.

The team made the argument in papers filed in U.S. District Court this week, seeking mediation or a speedy trial to allow the team to abandon city-owned KeyArena before 2010. In the documents, Sonics’ attorneys dispute the city’s contention that the team’s departure would have a broad and hard-to-quantify impact.

“The financial issue is simple, and the city’s analysts agree, there will be no net economic loss if the Sonics leave Seattle. Entertainment dollars not spent on the Sonics will be spent on Seattle’s many other sports and entertainment options. Seattleites will not reduce their entertainment budget simply because the Sonics leave,” the Sonics said in the court brief.

The Sonics also said they would produce a survey showing that 66 percent of Seattleites say the team’s exit would make “no difference” in their lives, while only 12 percent said they’d be “much worse off.”

Those sentiments belie what Sonics’ boosters and sports teams in general have argued when asking for taxpayer help to build a new arena. Teams and their supporters generally portray professional sports as a boon, bringing a city millions in revenue, hundreds of jobs and immeasurable civic pride.

A spokesman for the Sonics’ owners declined to comment Thursday on the court filing.

Rodney Fort, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, who has criticized the economic-impact claims made by pro-sports teams, called the Sonics’ latest argument “the best chuckle” he’s had in a long time.

“It would seem that the value of the Sonics is a ‘contingent’ value contingent on the purposes of the Sonics ownership,” Fort said in an e-mail. “On the one hand, when the Sonics are trying to get the public to pitch in on a new arena, they are worth tens of millions to the Seattle area. On the other hand, when they are trying to beat their KeyArena lease, they are worth nothing to the Seattle area.”

From a standpoint of legal strategy, the Sonics’ argument makes perfect sense.

The team wants to convince U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman that its fight with Seattle is a run-of-the-mill landlord-tenant dispute that can be resolved quickly with a cash payment. The team has asked for a trial beginning on March 24 so the issue could be resolved in time for the NBA to approve relocation to Oklahoma City next season.

The Sonics also asked Pechman to order mediation to force a settlement.

Lawyers for the city say they need more time to gather evidence. They asked for an Oct. 27 trial date and said they’d be willing to participate in mediation if the Sonics agree to consider a renovated KeyArena as an option something that principal team owner Clay Bennett has ruled out.

Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr said he disagrees with the Sonics’ argument that the team has little or no value to the community.

“Don’t you wonder what the people in Oklahoma City think about that?” Carr asked, noting that city will vote in March on a $100 million tax package to spruce up its six-year-old Ford Center and build a practice facility to lure the team. “The impact of having a professional basketball team here is real, which is why Oklahoma City wants the Sonics, and why Seattle does, too.”

But the Sonics may be able to rely on other, less-flattering statements from Seattle leaders to buttress the team’s case. State and local politicians have been reluctant to support tax subsidies for a renovated KeyArena or a new arena elsewhere. Seattle voters passed an initiative two years ago forbidding city sweetheart deals for pro-sports teams.

In February 2006, Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata told Sports Illustrated the economic impact of the Sonics leaving would be “near zero.”

Now the Sonics are saying the same thing.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or %26#106;%26#98;%26#114;%26#117;%26#110;%26#110;%26#101;%26#114;%26#64;%26#115;%26#101;%26#97;%26#116;%26#116;%26#108;%26#101;%26#116;%26#105;%26#109;%26#101;%26#115;%26#46;%26#99;%26#111;%26#109;

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Saturday, January 19th, 2008

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widow fighting sale of book

LUBBOCK, Texas –Buddy Holly’s widow is trying to keep the woman whose name was made famous by the 1950s hit song “Peggy Sue” from selling a book about her friendship with the rocker.Maria Elena Holly says Peggy Sue Gerron’s “Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?” is unauthorized and will harm her late husband’s name, her own reputation and that of her company, Holly Properties.

“It’s very interesting that this woman makes up all these stories,” Maria Elena Holly said Friday from her home in Dallas. “He never, never considered Peggy Sue a friend.”

Gerron, who lives in Lubbock, said she and another woman wrote the 283-page book because 2008 is the 50th anniversary of the release of “Peggy Sue.” Buddy Holly also recorded “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

Gerron said material for the book came from about 150 diary entries she wrote during the time she knew the singer, she said.

“I wanted to give him his voice. It’s my book, my memoirs,” she said from Tyler, where her publishing company held a news conference Friday defending Gerron’s right to pen her biography. “We were very, very good friends. He was probably one of the best friends I ever had.”

Maria Elena Holly said she would sue if excerpts she’s read online appear in the book, which is due in bookstores later this month.

“I don’t understand why people do that, especially when she knows that people know the truth,” she said.

This week, her attorney, Richard Wallace, sent a cease-and-desist letter to TogiEntertainment Inc., an Oklahoma City-based publishing house. Wallace declined to comment Friday.

Buddy Holly died Feb. 3, 1959, in a plane crash that also killed singers Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. Holly was 22.

Maria Elena Holly, who married the singer just months before the crash, has for years owned the rights to her late husband’s name, image and related trademarks, and other intellectual properties, the letter said.

No one involved in the book’s publication sought consent to use Buddy Holly’s name or image - “his likeness will be featured prominently” on the book’s cover and the subtitle reads, “Memoirs of Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue,” according to the letter.

“Confusion and tarnishment of Buddy Holly’s name and Ms. Holly’s reputation are likely to result from this unauthorized book,” the letter states.

It demands the ceasing of promotion and sale of the book, removal of the subtitle and cancellation of all book orders. It also asks for refunds on any deposits for the book and for an accounting of revenues from any sales.

Mark Faulk, chief executive officer of TogiEntertainment, said the threat of a lawsuit won’t deter Gerron or his company.

“It’s obvious that they do not want the work released,” he said. “My feeling is that Maria Elena fears the truth will come out about Buddy Holly. If there is a lawsuit, our belief is that it will be totally frivolous.”

Buddy Holly’s brother, Larry Holley, said “Peggy Sue” was not the original name in the song. Buddy Holly initially intended to use “Cindy Lou,” his niece, Larry Holley said.

Maria Elena Holly said her husband changed the name after Crickets drummer Jerry Allison asked him to because he had a crush on Gerron. Allison and Gerron married in July 1958.

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Monday, January 14th, 2008

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Oklahoma City mayor puts city on a diet

OKLAHOMA CITY –With a button-popping spread of cornbread, sausage and gravy, chicken fried steak andA pecan pie designated as Oklahoma’s official state meal, it’s no surprise that Oklahoma City’s mayor wants to put the city on a diet. Mick Cornett has challenged the city to shed 1 million pounds as its New Year’s resolution.

Prompted in part by his own struggle to lose weight, Cornett wants to end Oklahoma City’s dubious distinction as one of America’s fattest cities.

“The message of this obesity initiative is that we’ve got to watch what we eat,” Cornett said Thursday. “Exercise is part of it and the city is trying to change into a city that is less sprawling, has more density and is more pedestrian friendly, but you’re not really going to take on obesity unless you acknowledge that we eat too much and don’t eat the right foods.”

As part of the initiative, residents can sign up and track their weight loss on a new Web site, http://www.thiscityisgoingonadiet.com. More than 2,600 people had registered by Thursday. They’ve lost more than 300 pounds.

Besides a body mass index calculator, the site includes recipes and links to metro-area fitness centers. Plans call for expanding the site to include the opportunity to blog and network with other participants, Cornett said.

“It’s always easier if you’re doing something hard if you have other people to do it with,” he said.

The mayor timed the start of the weight-loss program to the beginning of the new year, when many people begin exercise programs after holiday feasts.

Oklahoma City ranked 15th in a 2007 survey of America’s fattest cities conducted by Men’s Fitness magazine. The survey examined lifestyle factors in each city, including fast-food restaurants per capita and availability of city parks, gyms and bike paths.

“I can’t tell you exactly where you rank in our 2008 survey, but I can tell you that Oklahoma City is in the top 10,” magazine spokeswoman Jennifer Krosche said. “That’s not good.”

The Oklahoma Legislature designated an official state meal in 1988. The menu also includes fried okra, squash, barbecue pork, biscuits, grits, corn, strawberries and black-eyed peas.

Cornett, 49, stands about 5-foot-10 and weighs 183 pounds. He began a personal fitness initiative eight months ago when he weighed 217 pounds.

“I would like to get down to 175, so I’ve made a goal to lose 8 pounds over 8 weeks,” he said.

Carrie Snyder-Renfro, a 44-year-old teacher working out at a fitness center Thursday, said she made a resolution last month to eat healthier and exercise. While she was unaware of the mayor’s Web site, she said she would consider signing up.

“Last year I dieted and lost about 10 pounds a month for three months, but I left out a key component,” she said, huffing and puffing on an elliptical machine. “I didn’t exercise regularly. I ended up losing muscle mass instead of fat, and I ended up gaining almost all of it back.

“Now I’m making it more of a priority to put everything in balance. I have to get the eye of the tiger back.”

Cornett wants to make exercise more attractive to residents by increasing the number of bike trails and sidewalks in the sprawling city, where public transportation is minimal, most people are wedded to their cars and outdoor activities for some might be limited to watching a football game.

“In Colorado, you ski, you climb, you run … something,” said Karen Massey, community nutrition coordinator at Integris Baptist Medical Center. “In Oklahoma, we’re either involved in competitive sports or we do nothing. We’re spectators.”

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Sunday, January 6th, 2008

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Bennett is first in line for OKC, NBA says

WASHINGTON The Sonics have exclusive rights to the Oklahoma City market, according to the NBA constitution, which means New Orleans Hornets owner George Shinn can’t block Sonics chairman Clay Bennett’s relocation bid.

Shinn has been mentioned as having interest in returning to Oklahoma City, which hosted his Hornets after Hurricane Katrina.

“Any other team that has interest in moving to Oklahoma City would have had to apply within 45 days of the Sonics’ application,” league spokesman Tim Frank said in a telephone interview Friday. “So, therefore, we’re only reviewing the application submitted by Clay Bennett and the Sonics.”

The Sonics filed for relocation Nov. 2, which established a Dec. 17 deadline for counterproposals. Once that deadline passed, the Sonics were awarded exclusive rights to Oklahoma City until their application is decided.

The NBA formed a relocation committee of seven owners, which is expected to make a recommendation to the Board of Governors at an April meeting.

At issue is the city of Seattle’s lawsuit against the Bennett-led Professional Basketball Club, which owns the Sonics. The city wants the team to play at KeyArena for the duration of its lease, which expires after the 2009- 10 season. Bennett would like to buy out the lease and move to Oklahoma City next season.

The case has been reassigned to U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman.

The sides are expected to hold pretrial meetings in the next two weeks before Pechman sets a trial date. The case isn’t expected to be decided before the Board of Governors’ meeting.

The NBA would need Bennett to resolve his legal situation before the 2008-09 schedule is determined. Typically, the league completes scheduling in August.

Despite the potential hurdles, if any team plays in Oklahoma City next season, it will be the Sonics and not the Hornets, who spent two seasons there from 2005 through 2007.

Their return to New Orleans hasn’t been a smooth transition. Despite a surprising amount of corporate support, a 21-11 record and an All-Star candidate in guard Chris Paul, the Hornets rank last in the league in average home attendance at 11,871.

Twice the Hornets drew fewer than 9,000 fans. Even before Katrina and Rita slammed into the Gulf shores, the Hornets averaged 14,221 in 2004-05, about 4,000 fewer than their average during their stay in Oklahoma City.

Several other issues plague the Hornets. Games are not televised locally because of a dispute between the cable company that broadcasts games and the provider that carries them. Ground has not been broken on a $20 million downtown New Orleans practice facility, a promise from the state of Louisiana that helped lure the team from Charlotte. And Shinn’s relationship with local and state politicians has been described as “icy” in newspaper editorials.

Few optimists outside NBA commissioner David Stern’s office think the Hornets will remain in New Orleans once their lease expires in 2012. Recently there has been rampant speculation that Shinn would try to force a move back to Oklahoma City immediately following the Feb. 17 All-Star Game in New Orleans.

“That’s not going to happen,” Frank said. “The rules are very clear. That market belongs to Bennett and the Sonics, for now.”

Notes

%26#8226; X-rays of F Chris Wilcox’s dislocated right pinkie didn’t reveal any serious damage, but there is considerable swelling. He returned to Seattle on Friday and will remain there until the swelling subsides. He’s listed as doubtful for Sunday’s game against Washington and questionable for Tuesday’s game in Cleveland.

%26#8226; The Sonics flew to Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon. Sunday’s game is a homecoming for rookies Kevin Durant and Jeff Green and reserve guard Delonte West. Durant and West were born in the district; Green was born in nearby Cheverly, Md.

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Sunday, January 6th, 2008

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Full-frontal flora

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NEW YORK A dedicated group of vegetable gardeners is ripping out its front lawns and planting dinner.

Their front-yard kitchen gardens, with everything from vegetables to herbs and salad greens, are a source of food, a topic of conversation with the neighbors and a political statement.

Leigh Anders, who tore up about half her front lawn four years ago and planted vegetables, said her garden sends a message that anyone can grow at least some of their food. That task should shift from agribusiness back to individuals and their communities, said Anders, of Viroqua, Wis.

his movement can start with simply one tomato plant growing in one yard,she said.

While people have been growing food in their back yards forever, front-yard vegetable gardens are a growing outlet for people whose back yards are too shady or too small, as well as those who want to spread their beliefs one tomato at a time.

Many hope their gardens will revive the notion of victory gardens, which by some estimates provided 40 percent of America vegetables during World War II.

The topic has gotten more buzz nationally as bloggers chronicle their experiences and environmentalists have scrutinized the effects of chemicals and water used to grow lawns. A book called ood Not Lawns,published last year, inspired several offshoot groups.

Fritz Haeg, an artist and architect, has done yards in Kansas, California and New Jersey as part of a project called dible Estates.

Haeg, who is working on a book, due out in 2008, called dible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn,says he been overwhelmed by the response. He gets hundreds of e-mails every month from people who want to be next.

eople are obsessed with their homes, creating these cocoons that isolate them,he said. his project is about reaching out, getting them connected to their streets.

Some of the neighbors are less than thrilled. Some municipal codes limit the percentage of a yard that can be planted with anything other than trees and grass.

specially in the first three years, I got a lot of code violations,said Bob Waldrop of Oklahoma City. He planted his corner lot almost entirely with fruit trees, berry bushes and vegetables.

ow that the plantings have matured, it pretty,he said. t wasn so pretty the first couple years.

Shannon McBride, 47, of Huntsville, Ala., kept grass borders around her front-yard vegetable beds.

e promised our neighbor we wouldn grow corn, because that looks kind of tacky,she said.

The neighbor also thought tomatoes looked ntidy,so McBride and her husband are growing bell peppers, carrots, chives, herbs, two kinds of beans, beets, okra, lettuce and cucumbers. Her corn is off to the side of the house.

An anonymous complaint about Karen Baumann front-yard garden in Sacramento, Calif., led to a fight by local gardeners against the city landscaping code, which stated that gardens could take up no more than 30 percent of the front yard.

After a public hearing where Baumann 11-year-old twin sons testified, dressed as a carrot and a tomato, the city changed the law.

always asked, hat will it look like in the winter?€?said Rosalind Creasy, a landscape designer who has been writing about edible landscaping for 25 years. f you design it well and it has an herb garden, it will look fine. One of the dumbest things I see is dead lawns in the winter. Theye brown for six months of the year. How beautiful is that?/p>

Some front-yard gardeners say that ripping out the sod and putting in vegetables gave the neighbors their first-ever excuse to speak to them.

t kind of like having a dog,said Nat Zappia, 32, a graduate student. o one talked to us until we had a dog.

Zappia turned the front yard of the home he and his wife rent in Santa Monica, Calif., into a vegetable garden, with his landlord permission. He estimates it supplies 35 to 40 percent of the food they eat.

At the East Los Angeles University of California extension program, Zappia took a master gardening class that was focused on growing food. Other gardeners were inspired by books theye read, such as aia Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permacultureand he Year I Ate My Yard./p>

The gardens don cost much to plant. Zappia estimates he spent about $100 on the garden and says he and his wife save about $200 to $300 a year on their food costs.

Waldrop, in Oklahoma City, said the garden organic fruit allowed him to eat in a way he could never afford if he bought everything at the grocery store.

t like money growing in your yard,he said.

Creasy has a 1,000-square-foot edible garden that surrounds her Los Altos, Calif., home. Among the things she grows: wheat, sesame, paprika peppers and alpine strawberries.

Every July 4, as part of her neighborhood block party, she harvests wheat, lays it down on a tarp on her driveway, covers it with a cloth and has all the neighbors do what she calls he tennis-shoe twistto thresh it.

Next, she puts it in a deep wheelbarrow and blows off the chaff with an electric leaf blower. Then she grinds it with an attachment for her mixer, bakes bread and serves it to the neighbors, warm from the oven.

t like a sacrament,she said.

Creasy also keeps eight hens and one rooster in her yard and grows sorrel to feed them.

would say theye visited at least once a day by some child,she said. Her garden gives kids what grandparents gave children during a more rural time, Creasy said.

remember my grandfather slaughtering a chicken and showing me the insides where the egg was growing. I remember finding a potato,she said. here a reality to it that sitting and watching TV and watching videogames don have.

And it a reality people can plant and cultivate themselves, she said.

eople tell me they went to Tuscany and ate outside under a grape arbor,Creasy said. ell, they can grow their own grapes in their yard. People want meaning in their lives; you don have to go to Tuscany to get it.

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Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

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