Hi, and welcome! If all goes well, you’re being met by my new website, created by the amazing Lamplight Creatives, who have been working with me to join my blog to a site for my books. Just hop on over, and catch up with what’s happening down on the Hundred Acre Wood.
Today in the mail, we received an anonymous note from an apparent reader of this blog, with the thoughtful suggestion that we research vole poisoning and raptors. This is so amazing and rewarding — help from the community in protecting the creatures sharing this landscape with us. Thanks to whomever you are!
Along these lines, today we got a response from Phoenix, the habitat restoration people we’d contacted, and they’re suggesting a “site-wide approach to ecological planning” which sounds exactly right. We’ll be meeting with them soon to learn what they can offer. I don’t suppose work can start tomorrow, but, in fact, look at what did start today:
Three ash trees which have failed to survive. A couple of diagnoses:
1. Sunburn. Question mark? In Oregon you practically have to work to achieve sunburn, but maybe. They were planted outside, in the open.
Second thought: dense acidic clay soil. Death by drowning or dehydration, either-or. In any case, they were pretty dead, all three, and replacements are planned. Maybe flowering cherry?
To prepare for the cherries, this little creature was put to work:
With the result:
This operation took approximately 45 minutes. Speaking of tools!
Changing the subject to a favorite of mine: the devices which apparently rule my life: first, my Apple watch. In the bathroom this morning, one of the strands of beaded band snapped and the little pellets careened around the tile floor, creating a hazard zone. As well as reducing the cling that secured the “time piece” to my arm. “Time piece” in quotes, but what even can’t it do, otherwise? It updated itself the other day, and has been busy since, bossing me around. But I feel, oddly, insecure without it on my arm. That’s probably bad.
My phone also updated itself and hasn’t been the same since. Apple keeps wanting to show me all the new tricks it offers, and won’t move on until click “continue” a sufficiency of times. I don’t want more tricks, as I’m basically unable to manage the ones we already have. My phone and I.
My computer, which supposes to know the other half of whatever word I’m typing, just before I type it. This is annoying. Just let me type. For a moment, I longed for the days of just an electric typewriter, but then reflected that there wasn’t a delete key on a typewriter, and whatever you typed showed up on that sheet of paper rolled onto the carriage. Okay, I don’t want to go back to electric typewriters.
I give up. I’m stuck with them. But what about electric cars that drive themselves? Dain, operator of the tree-razing operation above, arrived in one of those Tesla truck things. Setting aside my current opinion of all things Tesla, Dain showed us some of the magic operations the ugly thing can do. Here’s its photo:
It doesn’t look that bad, all handsome in the sunlight, right? Dain showed us how it can, for example, drive itself. To prove it, he turned around in the driveway and started down, waving both arms out the window. It can run 350 miles on a charge, though that is apparently not recommended — one should only push it 80% of its capability. Can be recharged overnight in the garage. (If one’s garage is big enough, of course.) And the truck part of the thing is, in fact, pretty admirable. He certainly likes it. Fine.
But now the chimes in the bedroom’s antique clock are singing 8:00, and it’s time to get this out into the world. See, sometimes all things analog have their charm. Analog, in reference to clocks, meaning “having hands.” Did you already know that?
I was not in fact met by your new website, just the blog post.
Who knows??