janice_lester

How Courtyard Blocks Promote Social Connection

The courtyard block is one of the oldest and most successful urban forms we have. If you’ve walked through Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, Rome, Prague, Copenhagen, or almost any great European city, you have likely admired courtyard block neighborhoods without necessarily realizing what you were seeing. From the street, you see the continuous building wall: shops, doors, windows, balconies, cornices, stoops, and street life. What you often do not see is the second world inside the block: a protected green courtyard hidden behind the public face of the city.


America has few courtyard blocks that are solid walls of independently owned buildings. But it does have some things are that are related...

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Today is mostly cloudy and warm, but less sweltering than recent days.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I saw a gray catbird trying to break open a beetle.  Without direct sunlight, I couldn't tell for sure, but some sort of small scarab mostly likely a junebug or Japanese beetle.  This catbird had somehow figured out that, although the outside was armored, the inside was tender and delicious.  The bird mostly hurled the beetle at the pavement and pecked at it.  Sometimes it held onto the beetle and thrashed it against the ground.  This caused the beetle to bounce around a lot.  The catbird never lost track of its prey, even when the beetle bounced into a pile of leaves.  Impressive.  Eventually the beetle broke open enough for the bird to take a bite, then fly away with it.

It's intriguing to watch how predators learn.  Ten years so so back, when the Japanese beetles first arrived, nothing ate them and they devoured every green thing in sight.  I spent several years saying, "Dear insectivores, I know that these are unfamiliar to you, but I swear they are insects and therefore your food."  Then one summer several beautiful new types of wasps appeared in swarms on my sedum and garlic chive flowers.  Looking them up, I discovered they were parasitoids who all prey on scarab beetles.  The next year the junebugs and Japanese beetles were fewer, and their populations have fallen since. :D

EDIT 7/20/26 -- We hauled more rocks to the purple-and-white garden.

EDIT 7/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 7/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 7/20/26 -- I watered the new picnic table garden.




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These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Recipe: "Cucumber Lime Agua Fresca"
Communities
Birdfeeding
Today's Adventures
Space Exploration
Birdfeeding
Communities
Wildlife
Philosophical Questions: Humans
Creative Jam
Today's Adventures
History
Birdfeeding
Science
Friday Five
Today's Cooking
Robotics
Communities
Birdfeeding
Gender
Community Thursdays
Safety
Birdfeeding
Climate Change
Hard Things

LiveJournal has 38 comments. Poem: "Walnut Park" has 60 comments. Early Humans has 22 comments.


"Save All the Pieces" belongs to The Big One and needs $74 to be complete. Kenneth and Stylet discuss what to do about the mangled hedgerow.


The weather has been sweltering this past week, but we got a little rain recently. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, two mourning doves, a female cardinal, and a fox squirrel. I saw a hummingbird fly out of the barrel garden. :D Red-winged blackbirds have been singing. I've seen at least 4 bats flying around, plus some giant dragonflies. Fireflies are swarming. Cicadas are singing. Currently blooming: pansies, violas, sweet alyssum, marigolds, snapdragons, lantana, million bells, blue lobelia, petunias, portulaca, nemesia, fan flowers, firecracker plant, pineapple sage, yucca, Asiatic lilies, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, narrow-leaved mountain mint, garlic chives, blackberry lily, Queen Anne's lace, purple echinacea, yellow coneflower, frost aster, cosmos, sunflowers. Ripe fruit: mulberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers.