rustification
It's country living around here, now. Much like where we lived in Santa Monica, the location of our new house offers many of the elements of a rural neighborhood without actually being out in the country; even more so in this case. Most of Bedford is plain old suburbs (considerably less urban than Arlington, but still suburbs), but all five houses on our dead-end street (or the land under them) used to be owned by the same family, so to this day there isn't much in the way of fences or plantings between the property: just alot of lawn and gardens. The street has something of a rustic character as well--public works doesn't make it out here a great deal, and so much the better--as do most of the houses, especially our own. And then, the clincher is that our mailbox is on a plank set atop two posts, along with three others. They used to keep pigs in the little woods behind our house, I'm told, and not so long ago neither.
So I'm taking full advantage of all this rural character, and not only with the garden I've planted (I seem to be suffering from an unbearable urge to bring forth the fruits of the earth, but that's a subject for another post). No, the true joys of country life are to be found while lying in a hammock on our extensive porch. It's also nice to have the sun streaming through the bathroom window in the morning when I take a shower; there wasn't any sun in Arlington, I seem to recall.