Early June
7:18 a.m. - 2004-06-06


There is still a neighbor's cat pawing up our yard and garden. I wonder where my slingshot is. I used to keep it in with the instant mashed potato packets in the basket by the freezer, but now it is not there. Don't worry, in my decade-long history of shooting at animals in the yard, I have never ever hit anything, or even come close. The object is to scare them. I will also have to sprinkle some hot hot pepper powder across his path.

I have discovered that it is more difficult to play hangman with someone who has a science major. Jellie, Abby, and I were playing after they got home from watching the new Harry Potter, and one of the words Abby did was "pentadactyl". This means something about 5 fingers, but for a long time Jellie and I were wracking our brains trying to think of what dinosaur it could be, having gotten only the "p" and the "dactyl". You know how they have changed the names of the dinosaurs since we were kids. They made cupcakes and put Harry Potter sprinkles on them (hats, lightening bolts, brooms, and moons) and we had taquitos for dinner, one of the few meats the Bean will eat.

He has whipped the yard into nice shape over the last few weekends, and is now digging up the patch by the fence, in front of the lemon tree. I tried to turn my drum composter for the first time this year, and everything fell out. Now, this makes a big mess, but allowed me to see that the compost in it was in good shape. He used this unexpected bounty to improve the soil in the new garden patch. He is planting pole beans and eenies and winter squash. We have been twenty years putting compost and other good stuff into the soil, and have improved our packed clay beyond all measure.

I am now sewing the afghan together. I suppose this would be easier if I just sewed the squares into rows, then sewed the rows together, but in typical unorganized fashion, I started sewing every which-a-way, but realized my error and have now changed my strategy. I have a three square by nine square section done now with more than half of the rest of the afghan to go. Then on to the border. As soon as I finish this experiment, I go on to the Patons sweater (on the cover of the Street Smart booklet).

I just remembered that I was going to put up the shade cloth hangings this weekend. Since the two trees went down, I have to resort to artificial shade during the hot months. Speaking of which, since we had hot weather starting in March (!) we are going to end up having summer for six months this year. Bummer.