Another roundup of odds and ends, big and small, no particular order.

- Betty is much, much bigger. As she learns to resist some temptations, others develop. Now she can jump up to inspect tables and countertops. Lisa (who technically co-owns her) is concerned that her ears are sticking up too much and insists that we keep them taped down till she's ( Read more... )

June is such a lovely month. It's light till nearly nine.

In no particular order:

Jon's office ordered in some supposedly famous mochi muffins from Third Culture bakery in Berkeley. I hadn't heard of them, and neither had he obviously, but his co-workers all thought that was a very big deal. Jon brought home a few of the leftovers. They were good, ( Read more... )

It's been chilly and grey here these last few days.

I miss my dad like blazes. He won't have his second vaccination till the end of June.

Now for the roundup.

Betty:

• Every time she wakes up from a nap, she is bigger. She still occasionally forgets herself and chomps on a sleeve or trouser leg, and she fails to generalize to "clothes" especially with ( Read more... )

Item Pro Con Human perspective Bluebells Attractive, can be pulled up and strung through teeth, chewy roots, fully edible None left in play enclosure Not found on North American plant safety lists because they're uncommon here, but tagged as toxic to dogs on every UK site. Bricks Readily ( Read more... )

Far too much driving this weekend: Saturday errands took me literally around the bay, all the way down one side and back up the other, with lots of stops in between. At one point along the way, I parked in front of Lace, which was right across the street from Lice.

Then yesterday after Dandash's class we drove out to Modesto and back to pick up ( Read more... )

Kitchen:

The sink is situated. It turns out there's only one place in the entire continent where you can get a cast-iron sink re-enamelled, and they have a multi-year waiting list, so that might or might not happen some day. That's okay. Cabinetry is gradually taking shape around it, but we can get it out again if we need to. Meanwhile its bottom ( Read more... )

Just a few things for now.

• We didn't know what all the bulbs around the garden were, but they're blooming now and it turns out they're bluebells, great drifts of them. They're mostly deep blue but a few are lighter blue, pinkish-mauve, or white. Apparently they're Spanish bluebells, which are invasive in the UK. Here, though, they're unusual and ( Read more... )

Back in 2015, Mariel's wedding attracted a great turnout from all the dispersed family. "This is probably the last big get-together before people start dying", I remember saying to one of the cousins. In fact there was one more: my own wedding, who'd have guessed? And almost immediately after that my mom died, followed last week by Ran. Elaine had ( Read more... )

I'm not going to read all the way back to figure out what, if anything, I might have mentioned earlier about black lady flapping up onto the enclosure fence, so I'll start from scratch and apologize for inadvertent duplication.

A month or two after moving in here we built a solid fence around the chicken enclosure. It's five feet high, a foot taller ( Read more... )

For Christmas we managed to roast a sensible little turkey*. We talked with lots of people, in some cases with video. There was a second round of mince pies, enough to last through New Year's Day, which was similar only with peas/greens/cornbread instead. Oh, and somewhere in there we also made a superb onion soup from the Thanksgiving duck stock.

( Read more... )