The Deck landscape project is proceeding apace and is expected to conclude before December.
Little Free Library slab
Kelly Fernandez, Chair of the Deck Landscaping Committee, explained that a new goal of increasing the percentage of native plants around the landscaping to 50% has been put in place thanks to the expertise of new garden member Eric Callow, who has also improved the irrigation plan tenfold.
Fountain flagstone work
Garden Programs Chair and Retired contractor, René Amy, expatiated effusively about the superb job the county has done in laying flagstones around the fountain.
Our new LFL 
The form for the slab to the West of the deck has been completed and the slab was poured on November 19. The location of the Little Free Library will be immediately to the South of the slab, facing North so that books will be sheltered from the sun.
Jared Burton, Chair of, and inspiration behind the Little Free Library (LFL) committee, has added a Garden Bookplate verse to those we had for decorating books that come through the Garden’s LFL:
Leave a book you’d love to share.
But note: it could go anywhere!
Take a book, return it never,
Or bring it back – it’s read forever!
– Jared Burton
Gardens and libraries have long shared a symbiotic relationship and the new LFL and convenient benches of the new Library Nook by the deck will no doubt encourage the communal experience of a jocund conflation of literature and horticulture in our Altadena Community Gardens. We hope that groups of members may stage and engage in many interesting creative artistic interchanges there.
Cicero’s claim that all one really needs in life is a garden and a library is often met with sage nods of approval by those who understand, appreciate and delight in the depth of wisdom and universal significance these icons embody, yet it has always seemed to ignore much that makes up life, much that we seniors, careening gently into a state of creeping decrepitude, seem so easily to forget.
Cicero’s Garden Library
Marcus Tullius 
Cicero
“A garden and a library!” That’s all we really need.
The Roman statesman’s words ring true for most of us indeed
But think back to the times of youth when slowly trudged the day
And minutes seemed like hours and days when she was far away.
A garden was scant solace then and books unread then lay.
Or when the noble cause took every unforgiving minute
Travail must change the world at last and all the evil in it
But when the world had wagged a bit and years slipped by too soon
Seeds and soil took over from the protest marcher’s tune
And books fadged better with the lean and slipper’d pantaloon.
– D. Titchenell
Thus, those of us who’ve clearly entered the penultimate, slipper’d pantaloon, stage of life seem so easily to allow contemplation and equanimity to supplant passion, deed and travail – to the point of forgetting them altogether. But we must remember, there’s still time to do so much before succumbing to second childishness and mere oblivion.
Think of words that have changed your life. Bring some bound on paper to share in the LFL, or request, organize, attend recitations/readings at our new garden library nook. There are so many fascinating people with widely ranging experience in the garden. René has organized themed potlucks to bring members together with great success; let’s also explore shared ideas, poetry, literature, history, science, music and art.
Another Garden LFL Bookplate Text:
To be read on a train or aloud by a brook,
‘Tis my hope to remain a Free Library Book.
‘Till my spine splits asunder and pages all fray,
Please don’t toss me nor sell me nor stow me away!
Ensconce me where books often help folks the most.
May my home again be a bookcase on a post!
– D. Titchenell