Feng Shui The Self Knowledge, Self-Cultivation and Wisdom area of a home or office is often overlooked but connected to our success in all aspects of our busy lives. The beginning of the school year is a great time to make adjustments in this area of your home, especially in ...By Michele Duffy
| ![](../archive/issue0914/images/low/0914-04601.jpg) |
|
|
On the Offense for Defensible Space Four years into the latest California drought, wildland fires present a nearly year-round threat. The same vegetation that allows Lamorinda to call itself "semi-rural" is now bone dry.
By Cathy Dausman
| ![](../archive/issue0914/images/low/0914-04401.jpg) |
|
|
Cynthia Brian's Gardening Guide for September "The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy" - Henry Ward Beecher
We have definitely experienced ample sunshine this season and as summer simmers ...By Cynthia Brian
| ![](../archive/issue0913/images/low/0913-05301.jpg) |
|
|
Drought Fells Orinda Cottonwood The California drought has claimed yet another victim - this one a decades-old 65-foot-tall cottonwood tree in a south Orinda yard. Richard Osborne and Leeann Brady were preparing to remove the tree, realizing that it had rotted from the inside out, when it suddenly ...
| ![](../archive/issue0913/images/low/0913-05201.jpg) |
|
|
Stylish Solutions Most of us would love lives that are picture perfect - happy families with kids nicely dressed enjoying family activities with mom and dad; good meaningful conversations happening in a beautiful room - but life is not a magazine shoot, even if we can orchestrate the ...By Ann McDonald
| ![](../archive/issue0913/images/low/0913-05101.jpg) |
|
|
Growing Vines, and More, In Time of Drought For Sal Captain, minimizing water usage is a culturally ingrained characteristic. "In the house in England where I was raised, you had to put in shillings to get hot water," he remembered fondly. Captain trained his kids to save water; if the kids showered too long, ...By Sophie Braccini
| ![](../archive/issue0913/images/low/0913-04901.jpg) |
|
|
Digging Deep - Gardening with Cynthia Brian "I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs." - Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)
Are you ...
| ![](../archive/issue0912/images/low/0912-05101.jpg) |
|
|
Kitchen Feng Shui Good kitchen feng shui is especially important to fuel all of our passionate adventures of exploring in life. Good feng shui for the kitchen begins with clean and tidy counters, floors, the refrigerator and especially the stove to prepare your foodie masterpieces. ...By Michele Duffy
| ![](../archive/issue0912/images/low/0912-05001.jpg) |
|
|
Giving Away the Store - Without the Store Just when you find you have too many salt shakers, the disposable ones left over from the camping trip that you added to the ones you recently unpacked from mama's nice antique things to the ordinary ones you had already, you find, well, you have too many salt shakers. ...By Chris Lavin
| ![](../archive/issue0912/images/low/0912-04801.jpg) |
|
|
Cynthia Brian's Gardening Guide For August "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
August is nearly upon us, the most traveled month of the ...By Cynthia Brian
| ![](../archive/issue0911/images/low/0911-05701.jpg) |
|
|
Lamorinda Landscapers Earn Beautification Awards Twelve local landscapers were recently honored with beautification awards "for excellence in landscape installation and maintenance," said the East Bay chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association. A total of 25 awards were presented in 15 categories ...By Cathy Dausman
| ![](../archive/issue0911/images/low/0911-05601.jpg) |
|
|
Stylish Solutions It's summer and that means people all over are cleaning out, dusting off and remodeling. Even businesses take time during the slower summer months to clear out storage areas, and tidy up. How do I know? We get called for design solutions during the summer months. It ...By Ann McDonald
| ![](../archive/issue0911/images/low/0911-05401.jpg) |
|
|
Digging Deep-Gardening with Cynthia Brian "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." ~ Albert Einstein
If 60 is the new 40, golden is the new green, and driving a dirty car is the sign of being ...By Cynthia Brian
| ![](../archive/issue0910/images/low/0910-05101.jpg) |
|
|
The Real Estate Quarter in Review The second quarter of 2015 continued with an ...By Conrad Bassett, CRP, GMS-T
| |
|
|
Acorn Woodpeckers Are Beauties The males' brilliant red heads are spectacularly beautiful - there is even a small patch of green feathers in the middle of their backs if you manage to get a close look - but there is a problem with acorn woodpeckers in Lamorinda. Their domain is spread throughout the ...By Chris Lavin
| ![](../archive/issue0910/images/low/0910-04801.jpg) |
|
|