Disclaimer: the blog tools have changed and I no longer have the capability of putting the photos within a list. Maybe I’ll learn, or maybe that option has been completely removed. One never knows with these “updates” (read: “complications”.)

 

1. Repairs on the Mineral King Road had not begun as of Labor Day. A cabin neighbor said of the road, “Whenever we drive it, my dentures fall out and my wife has to tighten her bra straps”.
2. This is the fourth summer of not mowing our one lawn. It is the thickest and most beautiful it has ever been.
3. Deer Out kept the deer from eating the geraniums and most of the wild grapes; something ate the pomegranates.
4. My feeble attempts at gardening produced next to no food: the zucchini flowered but made no fruit and then it was ruined by aphids; six cucumber plants produced 3 small cucumbers; the basil is very good, the sweet potatoes aren’t ready yet, and the tomatoes were/are so-so.
5. Back in December (item #3 in that month’s Learned List) I tried a new method of composting, using a large diameter PVC pipe, about 12″ tall with holes drilled on the sides to attract worms. Didn’t work. I have returned to my normal method of simply burying the waste directly in the dirt.
6. The 6-year project of a book about tuberculosis is now at an indexer. (I am editor, book shepherd, illustrator, cheerleader, proofreader, list maker, and friend to the author.)
7. No new car. . . a sensible person would have begun looking, a fearful one would have raced to a car dealership, but a frugal one (me) will just keep driving Fernando, hoping the right car* appears at the right time.
8. The pistachio orchard that flooded in one area now has those dead trees pushed over. (Told you so—Trail Guy and I both shook our heads in disbelief when that area of traditional flooding got planted.)
9. Remember the rock in the bathtub gizmo? The stopper lever device broke, it was reinserted upside down, and a rock secured it from continuing to close by itself.
10. Tucker’s expensive boo-boo has healed.
11. My website got hacked earlier this summer and is (obviously) repaired now. I don’t know how it happened, but now I have to pay $300/year to keep it from happening again. (Doesn’t that sound sort of scammy??

*Honda or Toyota, less than 100,000 miles, stick shift (but could be persuaded to accept an automatic if it was a gift)