It Goes By In A Blur

The days, I mean. There I was, sitting on the edge of the end of August a few seconds ago and now it's the middle of September. Fleet of foot, time is.

The days are oddly hot right now, causing my garden to think that it's early August. Barring the cool wet nights. Those wet nights remind us all that it's NOT early August in the Pacific Northwest, no matter what the days are doing.

Do I sigh now? Or later? Not sure.

Whatever the weather, we're back to lots of plastic covers over tender annual vegetables, copious watering during the baking hot days, and lots of canning and freezing. I'm picking the tomatoes as soon as they get a slightly overall red so as to give the others a chance to ripen on the vine a bit. I know, I know, I can hang the plant and let it ripen that way. Everyone tells me that. I just don't like doing it that way, is all. I prefer my method.

 That's a gratuitous shot of some sushi we had the other night. I made a Fast Pickle because we had a deluge of cukes, and it was so fresh and crunchy we ate it in everything, including sushi.











We're now, like it or not, in Official School Mode these days, particularly with teen-agers doing high school courses and having to submit assignments and things like that. We're busy trying to figure out DL assignments, trying to retool our Activities Calendar (so some of us don't feel overwhelmed with all the action, ahem) and cleaning up the Family Room, which functions as the school room. The FM is rather a tip: bits and pieces from 4-H fairs lying about, binders and books and erasers and papers and even the odd scarecrow litter the floor. Don't even get me started on all those photographs everywhere.

We read about the city of Venice this week, and noticed a lion on all the online articles. So we looked him up (the lion) and I found this beautiful flag. I won't tell you what it means. Just google "lion + Venice" and you'll get your answer. It's very charming. At least, I found it very charming. And who doesn't like a red and gold flag like this?

In other news, we are the new owners of some chickens. That's right, you heard me. Chickens. Three of them. I might have responded a wee bit too quickly to an advert on a local listserv. Or maybe I was the only one responding to the advert. Anyhow, I bagged me some chickens. Three of them. Oh, right, I already said that. They came with a coop. Which is now in our backyard. With the chickens. 

Here is one of them. I don't think this shot does her justice, really, because she's a good deal fluffier and chunkier than this.

Would that I took such slimming shots. 

This one is Pip. In her former life she was called Dusty. I feel rather bad saying this but we were not a fan of the name Dusty. (Okay, so I wasn't and no one else cared) I admit, I have Dusty Baggage. That name was a bit too 70's for my liking. The rest of us had no idea what was going on in the 70's so they didn't give a damn but me, I grew up in the 70's. I remember way too many floral pantsuits. Way too many thick manly moustaches. Weird wide belts. Menthol cigarettes. Don't even get me started on those unisex names. 

But I digress. A bit.

Dusty personifies the 70's to me. And that, as they say, is not a good thing. So it had to go. Pip she is.

The other two were known as Trixie and Fern. We kept Fern because of two reasons: a) she was named after the character in the series Arthur. We love Arthur. We love Fern. b) it's cute and short, just like Fern.

Trixie, despite her connections to a literary heroine of my childhood, morphed into Prunella, to go with Fern. The only trouble with Prunella is that I keep calling her Stella. And I keep wanting to shriek her name, like Brando did. Leaning back on my heels and wailing, even. 

Steeeeeellllllllaaaaaaa!

Needless to say, no one here gets my references. Sigh. It's a cultural wasteland here. I tell you.

Feeeerrrrrrrrrn!

Ppppppppiiiiiiippppppp!