Suzy Says

Monday was one of those semi holidays that only the US of A seems to specialize in. The banks are closed, the post office is closed, but you still have to work. People who live in other countries equipped with better vacation policies will be shocked to their relaxed cores to learn that most of us don’t get a single public holiday between New Year’s Day on January 1 and Memorial Day at the end of May.

When I worked at Big Company years ago, it offended me to no end that if you wanted the day off after Thanksgiving, you had to take it as a vacation day. It seemed really petty to me, you know? Especially since Thanksgiving is the biggest travel occasion of the year.

In stark contrast, I was the only one at work on Monday’s fake holiday. As I opened the gate and unlocked the front door, it occurred to me what a surprising (and flattering) level of trust my employers seemed to have developed in me after a mere two weeks (actually, six days) of work. I have to wonder if this kind of thing ever happens in the city. Maybe it’s the kind of thing that comes out of living where you don’t lock your doors.

The cat next door was the only one to check in on me, gazing at me through the window with his big blue eyes.

When I left work today, I was transported back to Oakland with the appearance of four or five police cars in the mall-ette across the street (liquor store; cafe; laundromat; Mexican restaurant – all the necessities of life). Needless to say, this stopped passers-by in their tracks, as people started asking each other what happened (sorry, but I have no idea). I imagine that law enforcement was happy to have something to do for a change.

Come on over and set a spell

While my cookie baking skills may be lacking, my shopping skills are unparalleled.

I managed to shop while not being at the store (or online), with no money, and I didn’t even have to bring the purchases home! In fact, the purchases arrived at my house before I paid for them.

How about that?

Yesterday, Megan took our hard-won Rice Krispie Treats to the sneak peek pre-sale Purge Party. It’s an elite event and only the A list is invited, which is why I wasn’t there. That, and my tiara was at the cleaner’s. Megan noticed that were some Adirondack chairs at a ridiculously low price. She called me, and by the time I had made up my mind – a matter of minutes – there were only two left.

Monica agreed to reserve them for me, and I’ll pay her today. Or maybe tomorrow. Rob offered to pick them up and deliver them for me in his trusty truck. So I didn’t have to do a thing, and I’m already “working” on my resolution to improve my outdoor space this year.

Speaking of which: there are now ten sprouts in the pots of tulips!

Spot the kitty, Thursday edition

It’s been a wild weather trip this week, my friends. Yesterday featured rain, wind, hail, sunshine, and thunder. It actually snowed on the higher elevations. My neighbor Jim was driving back to Hooterville from a shopping expedition to Santa Rosa when it started to snow. He took the opportunity to pull over, set up his camera on the dashboard, and take this movie of snow on highway 128 yesterday afternoon.

Oddly, on the way home last night I was thinking of how I’d like to do the same thing so you could enjoy my commute with me, beside the ocean, through the redwoods and quaint villages. Great minds think alike!

Snow seems to be on everyone’s minds lately here in Northern California, probably because it’s such a rarity. This morning, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article with some truly delightful photos of snow in the city from the past century.

As for me, I’m still in my pajamas in the late morning gloom, glad I don’t have to drive to town in the pouring rain. It will be nice to curl up with the kitties and read with the rain pattering against the roof/walls.

Volunteer daffodil in my garden

I did move the orchids and tulips before I went to work yesterday morning. I pulled on my cute rain boots, a hat Lu made me (for some reason, it’s the hat I usually wear when it rains), and my coat over my kitty PJs and ventured out into the rainy darkness to move the plants. Mission accomplished!

After that, I worked on Job 1 for a while before heading out to Job 2, making sure the kitties were all safe inside on a blustery day.

By working on Job 1 last night and earlier this morning, I have met the deadline early, and all I have to is finish up Job 2 for the week (i.e., today and tomorrow).

I’d feel like Super Girl if I hadn’t left my umbrella at the office yesterday. It’s still rainy, windy, and deleterious to hair and make-up.

Yesterday, a famous canine joined our weekly staff meeting. You have to love a job where dogs sit up at the table during meetings. And a county which has an official dog ambassador.

Later, I called to confirm a meeting and was told that the person I wanted to talk to couldn’t come to the phone because she was tying balloons to the mailbox.

On my way home, I saw a Fed Ex truck pull into a completely deserted beach parking lot. This particular beach is almost never deserted, being a favorite of divers, kayakers, and abalone hunters, so it was particularly noticeable. I couldn’t help but wonder if some seals had ordered more kelp than they could handle, or one of the returning migratory whales a case of champagne, perhaps.

Sunday afternoon spider

The halcyon days of sunny days and starry nights are over. I think it’s been three weeks since it rained, and I believe we have another foot of rain due to us. After all, it is winter.

The rain woke me up this morning, clattering on the roof. I have been up before the alarm clock every day I’ve been working, and the only day I had off was Tuesday. I spent the sunny weekend working on my regular job, and now it’s time to start the other one. This week, it’s Monday-Wednesday, so that will get it out of the way, as it were. The only problem is that I have two projects from my regular job which are due on Wednesday. Can she do it?

Before I head to the shower for the lengthy grooming routine, I should probably venture into the rainy darkness to retrieve the orchids and tulips so they don’t get flooded by the rain’s generosity. It’s not an appealing prospect, though, especially since I just did my nails last night (Color: the appropriate Naked Ambition). Is anyone enthusiastic on Mondays?

Yesterday was my first day at the new job (well, jobette, since it’s only about 20 hours a week).

I got up around 6:30 in order to start work at 9:00. Some of this is my fault (I need half an hour to caffeinate and fully accept the horror of being awake in the darkness), and some of it is the commute (45 minutes each way). Then there’s the time it takes to get pretty, a time which lengthens as a girl becomes more vintage.

It’s been so long since I’ve worked in an office that my getting pretty skills have rusted. It took me a while to do hair and make-up. Fortunately, my parents’ insistence on setting out clothes the night before when we were kids came in useful, since I’d gotten everything ready, right down to the accessories.

Speaking of wardrobe, mine definitely needs some additions. I think I can come up with three acceptable outfits this week, but that’s about it. Working at home and walking the dogs doesn’t require much elegance. Fortunately, the new job isn’t formal, but as I have noted here before, “business casual” can be confusing and difficult to put together. Especially when you have to either buy clothes on line, or drive two hours each way to try them on.

So, as suitably attired as I could be, I headed out into the sunny day a little after 8:00.

We spent most of the morning on paperwork and a class on social media, which seems like a great business tool. Then, a delightful lunch at the Wharf (aka the official home of the Hooterville Girls’ Night Out), where I didn’t try to resist the crab cakes, but did resist the pomegranate martini. First impressions are so important. They’ll find out the Awful Truth soon enough.

The afternoon included a meeting with a local TV station and brainstorming about a focus group, as well as picking up proofs at the printer’s down the street and ordering a (très expensive) drum unit for the temperamental printer. And voilà! It was time to go home.

So far, so good!

While I was getting a new job and falling off a log (amazingly, the Horror Hand still hurts, though it has deflated), Jonathan and Rob were making a windmill.

Yes, making it. Mostly out of spare parts and found things, as is the Way of Rob. It’s seated firmly in cement, set three feet deep into the ground.

The welder came in handy when they welded the hinges and attached the pole they used to raise it. It’s about 20 feet high, and there are plans afoot to make it even higher and take advantage of the wind that is supposed to be up there. The sunny weather continues, and needless to say, the wind has been uncooperatively calm lately.

But when it starts up again, my brother will have an extra power source in addition to the solar panels. If it gets too windy, they can tilt the windmill’s blades back and fasten them there so there isn’t too much strain on it. All in all, a great design and a great job. I have to admit I’m kind of in awe of their abilities and ingenuity.

Yesterday, Megan and I took Schatzi to the vet. They wanted to take some blood to make sure that her medication isn’t affecting her liver too much. The test results were complete in about ten minutes, and Schatzi’s liver is fine, though her kidneys were showing on the high end of normal.

Dr. Karen said that if we brought her a urine sample, she could run another test to make sure it wasn’t something bad (all the medi-chat and charts went way over my head). She then handed Megan a ladle.

I had thought that “ladle” was medi-chat for something, but it was, in fact, the type you’d use to distribute soup to the deserving poor or your undeserving family. You can imagine the lovely picture we made walking around the village, me with Schatzi on a leash and Megan with the ladle poised under Schatzi’s underpinnings.

Needless to say, this was the one time in Schatzi’s entire life when she didn’t stop every two minutes to pee. She was prancing around in the sunlight as if she were a puppy. You’d never know that her hips and spine look like cheap Swiss cheese inside.

Finally, Megan was successful and the test revealed nothing untoward. Yay! Apparently cats and dogs tend to get tired kidneys as they age, and since Schatzi is 11 now, it’s not too surprising, just something we need to keep an eye on.

After all that, we felt Schatzi deserved a real, ladle-free walk, so we headed to the headlands.

I love how the wind-swept trees frame the ocean here:

And the path:

The headlands jut out into the rocky ocean:

It was a beautiful day, and Schatzi trotted along happily on the narrow path, enjoying the sun on her fur as we enjoyed being with her in this lovely place.

The kittens have been enjoying the sunny weather as much as I have. Maybe more. I often don’t see them for hours at a time. But when I do, they’re usually doing something funny. Or at least photogenic.

The rare Tree Clyde in his natural habitat:

This is the best picture I could get before he shimmied down the tree. His claws kind of scared me as they dug into the bark. The boys are armed and dangerous!

Logging road Roscoe:

On Sunday, Roscoe came bouncing out of the bushes by the logging road to meet me. He was joined by Clyde. Then they chased each other somewhere. Just another day in the life of kittens!

A bucket o’ Clyde:

I discovered Clyde relaxing in the bucket of sawdust we used to plant the tulips. He seemed perfectly comfortable and hung out there for quite a while.

Rooftop Roscoe:

I went out to water (!) the tulips, and felt a claw on my head. This happens often when I clean out the litterbox, since it’s under a shelf, but I didn’t expect it on the side deck. I looked up, and there was Roscoe. You just never know where those kittens will be.

Not surprisingly, they are sleepy in the evenings. It’s the perfect time to cuddle by the heater:

Tulips beginning to sprout

OK, peeps, brace yourselves for a downpour of excellent news! Are you sitting down? Smelling salts at the ready? Phone poised to call 911? Good. Here we go:

• A month after her arrival in the Intensive Care Unit, A is finally breathing on her own! Yes, she still has a fever and is mostly unconscious, and the hospital is considering charging her rent, but it’s a huge step forward. The most recent email from C, who, bless his heart, has somehow found the time to call or email me every single day of this ordeal, reads as follows:

  “A her breathing is going well, she breathes all by herself now, just gets some extra oxygen.
  Still unconscious most of the time, but I do get a big, big smile every once in a while when she wakes up!
  Also still moving a lot, caused most likely by not getting all those drugs anymore, still fever too. Physiotherapist had her sitting on the edge of the bed again this morning, if she wouldn’t move so much, they would have put her in a chair, but they found it too risky. Love, C”

  So I think she’s pretty much out of the woods now, though she faces a long, hard road of recovery. The worst has to be behind her now. So, yay! And thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts and emails. It really helped.

• I have a new part-time job! It starts on Monday! It’s at a local tourism office. The people are really nice, and I think it will be fun. I’m not exactly looking forward to driving to town three days a week, but after work, I can run errands, meet up with Monica, and maybe even go to the fancy pool. I’ll probably learn about lots of new places and fun things to do. And finally, I can use my make-up and handbag collections!

  On Monday, I’ll get to work at 9:00. At 10:00, we’re all going to a hotel for a social networking class, followed by lunch, a return to the office, and a meeting with a local TV station who is considering partnering with us. Sounds like fun, no?

• The tulips are beginning to sprout! See above. And I keep having to water them, because it has only rained once in the past month. A check of the weather shows a forecast of sunny with highs ranging from 58 to 70 degrees during the day, lows in the 30s (so the orchid is sheltering inside again) for the next ten days. I feel a little guilty when seeing the horrible weather the rest of the country has been having, especially since we’re considering having a barbecue on the weekend.

So there you have it. Things are looking up!

You may remember that the landline phone quit suddenly, walking out on me with no explanation or apology. In keeping with this theme, AT&T did not show up to fix it on the appointed date. Despite the fact that they presumably do know how to use a phone, they didn’t call me. After being on hold for 45 years minutes, I hung up in frustration.

I called them the next day and canceled the service.

After a couple of weeks, it became clear that cell phone only was not going to work for me. My phone is from one area code and living in another, and no amount of *228 is going to stop it from constantly searching for service, which means that the battery gets tired faster than a 100 year old running a marathon in mid-summer heat.

Cell phone service here is spotty at best, and there are various parts of the house which get no service, a definite drawback for a habitual pacer like Self. And there is essentially no service between Casa di Kitties and the village, several miles away.

And don’t get me started on the difficulties of being on a conference call on a cell phone. The sound is terrible, and it’s really hard for me to take notes while holding the phone with one hand. If use the headset I used to use on the landline, the sound is exponentially worse.

So, to my chagrin, I called AT&T back and asked them to restore the service. Unsurprisingly, my number hadn’t been taken, so I could get the old number back. Unsurprisingly, the repairman did not appear on the scheduled date. Another frustrating call and more than a month after the original problem reared its ugly head, and the repairman arrived! Two hours early!

He fixed it right up, telling me that the phone box is actually located several miles away and it was the longest connection he had ever seen. He was really nice, and I felt sorry that he had to drive all the way here from Santa Rosa, but I’m glad that I’m communicado again.

Yesterday was a busy work day. One of the great things about working at home, besides the decided casualness of dress, is being able to throw in a load of laundry while you do it. Or take a break and go for a walk, which is what I did yesterday. It’s supposed to be good for your mental health.

Why don’t you come along with me? Then you won’t feel quite so trapped at your desk, even if you are.

It was a lovely morning on the Ridge:

We had rain on Saturday and through Sunday morning, when it departed in a glory of blue skies. It looks like there are two inches of rain in the gauge, but I’m not sure if I emptied it out the last time it rained, which was probably a month ago.

A stand of eucalyptus trees among pines. Note the distinctive bare trunks:

I literally bent over backwards to show you how tall the trees are:

Anything for my adoring fans.

I liked the look of the black winter trees, festooned with Old Man’s Beard, against the cool, clear blue of the sky:

And this little spiderweb in a huckleberry bush:

The manzanita are beginning to bud:

All of the six cars which passed me on the walk, coming and going, were pick-ups. Country living.

It’s no secret that I’m not handy. I can hardly wrap a Christmas present, let alone put up a shelf or do anything with the car other than put gas in it while simultaneously wincing at the price ($3.69 a gallon in San Francisco! It’s a mere $3.23 out here in the boonies). And even then I sometimes forget to put the cap back on.

Before I ventured to the city, I thought the car had better have a quick check-up, since I couldn’t remember the last time anyone did that and I’d be driving hundreds of miles. Megan and Rob obligingly came over and peeked inside. It didn’t take them long to notice that the oil was practically empty (eek) and that all the tires needed air. The power steering fluid and coolant were fine, though.

Fortunately, I had a quart of oil on hand, but the car needed another one, so I stopped at the store on the way out of town and bought another, which I put in. Then I attempted to put air in the tires. It seemed that nothing was happening, even though there were lots of air noises. I finally went inside the store and asked if there was some secret I didn’t know. It turned out that for once there actually was a magic secret and it wasn’t my usual incompetence. Yay.

The secret is – in case you ever visit and are the kind of person who lets their car tires get low on air – that you have to press your key inside the air nozzle until the generator starts up. It can be hard to hear over the wind and the cars, but listen carefully at the (locked) door and you’ll hear it all right. Then air will actually begin to fill your tires instead of just pretending to.

The catch – and we all know there always is one – is that the generator stops after about a minute and a half, and you have to repeat the process. It took me about seven restarts to get the tires filled, but I triumphed in the end. I also noted the date of the refill and check up on the calendar, so hopefully I will remember to check it again before it’s almost too late. I may do a convincing impersonation of a grown-up one of these days after all. Or not.

Clyde takes a sunny bath in the garden

I was on the Golden Gate Bridge by 3:30 yesterday afternoon, leaving the city behind in a blaze of sunshine. The Bay looked like a postcard, with Alcatraz presiding grimly over blue water dotted with white sailboats. Traffic was fine, except for a minor slowdown near Santa Rosa. They’re adding a lane to the freeway there, so it’s a bottleneck during the construction phase.

The green hills of Sonoma were aglow in the sunset, touched with pink and gold as the sun left them behind. By the time I reached the majestic stands of redwoods, it was very nearly dark, and deep in the trees, it was dark enough to make me think uneasily of horror movies and things that go bump in the night. By the time I got to the ocean, though, I could see that it was still just barely pink at the very horizon.

When I got home, I discovered that Rob was there, working on another project. He was apparently more pleased to see me than the kitties were. Audrey seized the opportunity to run out the door, and the boys acted like they’d never seen me before and they weren’t too thrilled to be seeing me now. Rob told me that he’d had to wait hours for Audrey to come home the night before – she finally showed up around 9:00 pm. And one of the boys caught a mole and kept bringing it into the house. Both the kittens wanted lots of fussing and attention from their sitters, whereas Audrey barely tolerated their presence.

The usual.

I woke up this morning to still more sunshine and cloudless blue skies. At 3:00 in the afternoon, I’m still not wearing a sweater. Time to go and water the tulips!

Big River Beach

The beautiful weather has made walking the dogs even more of a pleasure. So far I’ve done pretty well at my “walk the dogs more often” resolution (though not as well at the “worry less about the cats” part. You can’t have everything). A couple of days ago, we met up with Lu and her dogs, Harlow and Marco, at Big River.

Patterns in the sand

Megan has been working with Star to teach her to heel and not pull so much on the leash. She’s planning to enroll Star in a Canine Good Citizen class this spring, all in the hopes of finally finding an adoptive family for her. Megan says that if we can’t find a home for Star this summer, she’ll stop looking. It’s going to take a special family to adopt Star. She’s so sensitive and nervous, needs constant care in her diet (her nails break off unless she gets enough Omega-3s and protein), and lots of exercise and attention. In the meantime, though, Megan is working hard to make Star the best and happiest dog she can be.

We stopped at our brother’s place on the way home to check in on the boys and their latest projects. They have a new – really new, not just new to us – welder, and are working on making a windmill to join the solar panels.

Imagine our surprise when we were met by none other than Miss Jessica!

Erica had to take her car in to be repaired, so Jonathan had picked Jessica up from school. She was wearing a pink pom pom scarf her mother had made her, which I immediately tried on. It was a little small on me, and Jessica, fearing that I’d want to keep it anyway, said, “And PS, it doesn’t look too good on you,” which made me laugh so hard I almost cried.

I gave Jessica her scarf back and went to visit Henry. I found some flowers to put on her grave and talked to her as I always do, while Jessica brushed away leaves and then, sweetly, patted the ground as if petting Henry. “I think she’s happy here,” she said. Then she gathered flowers for the other occupants of the ground under the tree. She really is a sweet girl.

We brought Jessica back to my house to wait for her mother, and she set about making a fairy house in my garden. Here you see her picking rhododendron leaves for fairy beds:

When I took the picture, I said, “You look so serious, ” to which she replied, “I’m trying to look glamorous.” After a pause she added, “I can be both, you know.” And she can.

The latest news on A is that she is improving slowly. “Improving” in this case means “still breathing on a ventilator, 102 degree fever, and still sedated”, but at least she is off dialysis. C says she still doesn’t recognize him through all the drugs, but is hopeful that she will be able to breathe on her own soon. It’s A’s 16th day in the ICU. It still seems kind of surreal to me. I’ll keep you posted on A’s progress.

Back here in Hooterville, the spectacular weather remains in full force. The nights are cold and starry, and the moonlight, especially when the moon was full, is like a floodlight, bathing the black woods in a silver glow. The days are sunny and warm up into the 60s from the morning’s 30s. What’s not to love?

Megan met a fellow Daisy Davis volunteer in the village a couple of days ago. While they were meeting, I went for a stroll around the village. Come with me and have a look around.

This house looks kind of secret:

I like the shadow on this one:

Red and green aren’t only for Christmas:

I think we know who was here first:

Little yellow flowers by a white picket fence:

At Dr. Karen’s:

These look like little torches to me:

I love this flowering tree:

And here’s a close-up:

Yes, I’m five.

During our errand running extravaganza last week, we stopped in at the Cute Store. The Cute Store is a valuable source of stocking stuffers during the holiday season, and the rest of the year, you can get all kinds of cute things to gladden a girl’s heart. Such as a purple Hello Kitty bag with matching charm, Pop Rocks, and a pack of clove gum. You have to love being able to buy candy at the same place you buy your Hello Kitty bag.

The bag came within a bag, something I had previously only experienced when buying my one and only Louis Vuitton bag at a consignment shop, back in the days when I had a tiara for competitive shopping. And even though my Christmas stocking mood ring* said I had mixed emotions:

but I really didn’t.

*It’s a little rainbow and a cloud. I love it!

Reflections

First, an update on A…

Last week, she was transferred to a different hospital. This was touch and go and the doctors, according to her husband, were “preparing him for the worst.” She has improved since arriving at Hospital B, and is off dialysis. However, she is still unconscious and on a ventilator, so she’s not out of the woods yet. But she is stable and we are all hoping for the best. I’ll let you know when I have more news.

And now back to our irregularly scheduled program…

The magical t-shirt weather continued through the weekend. We met Lu at Big River, and for once, we got there first. It was so funny to see her car coming toward us with Marco’s head hanging out of one window and Harlow’s head out of the other. It looked like her car had ears.

The picture above is at the halfway point of our usual three mile walk. It is a pond in the winter and just a big hole in the summer. It was full of peeping frogs and frogs-to-be. I liked the reflection of the evil pampas grass in the water. We all enjoyed the sunshine and sea breezes (Big River is an estuary and ends at the ocean) and meeting new dogs. Schatzi was particularly taken with a handsome Australian Shepherd named Oliver, and watched him disappear into the distance.

After the walk, we left all the dogs at Lu’s and did our in-town errands for the week. Then we returned to Lu’s and hung out for a while, watching a TV show about real ER cases. It was fun watching it with the two EMTs, who pointed out all the technical errors, and inevitably led to Tales from the Ambulance, which I always enjoy, though this week’s episode was a little gross. On the amusing side, though, I learned that Lu told Woody Harrelson to knock it off when he was racing wheelchairs up and down the hospital hallways*. He did, too. I wouldn’t say no to Lu, either.

It was time to meet Monica. We had a change of venue to the Wharf, which is where we all met the last time. That was more than six months ago! We have to make a newish year resolution to meet more often.

We enjoyed pomegranate martinis and Caesar salad with crab cakes. The crab cakes won the top award at last year’s Crab and Wine Days festival, and I’m pretty sure they’ll win again this year. It was wonderful to sit with the girls and watch the fishing boats come home as the sun set over the ocean. The perfect end to a perfect day.
*He was shooting a movie up here and accompanied someone who got injured on the set to the ER. He wasn’t hurt himself, unless Lu bruised his ego.

Flowering tree in the village

Yesterday was one of those magical days we sometimes get in the winter. The frogs were chirping away like crazy and the robins were taking merry little baths in the puddles on the driveway.

It was sunny and so warm that when Megan and I walked the dogs at Big River, we didn’t need a sweater or a jacket. It was wonderful to feel the sun on our skin and watch the dogs frolic under the blue sky. We kept saying, “Can you believe it’s the middle of January?”

After we walked the dogs, we went to village to do some shopping and use the free wi-fi so Megan could order a new cell phone. Hers is four years old and the battery dies almost instantly, and a new battery costs almost the same as a new phone, so new phone it is.

Unfortunately, my iBook did not seem to enjoy the Verizon page, so we hopped in the car and went to Lu’s, where there is actual broadband internet and the Verizon page finally worked. Star and Schatzi played with their friends Harlow and Marco outside while Megan (finally!) bought her phone inside. We chatted for a while and somehow, by the time we got home, it was time to make dinner.

How did that happen?

Today looks like another beautiful day, so Lu, Megan, and I are planning to meet up with the dogs for a long walk. And this evening, we’re meeting Monica for a glass of wine at the Stanford Inn by the Sea. How’s that for a good start to the weekend?

A moss river

Even though winter temperatures in Hooterville can (and do) flirt with the freezing mark, sometimes slumming it in the south of 32 neighborhood, there’s usually something in bloom.

My neighbors down the Ridge have camellias in full bloom, much as I did in Oakland this time of year.

Here, the manzanitas are budding, the blooms-to-be looking like little lily of the valley bells:

One of the things that mystifies me about the huckleberry bushes which proliferate around here is that they bloom really early, but don’t fruit until the summer. They’re already budding:

But we probably can’t eat them until July. And they last into November. Usually, we pick a lot to freeze and make into pies in the depths of the berry-free winter, but we slacked last year and didn’t get around to it. I’ll make sure we do this year. Another huckleberry mystery is how they are always full of tiny spiders and other things when you wash them and pick through them before use, even though you didn’t notice it when picking them.

Yesterday, while checking on the tulips, I noticed that the daisy-ish bush in the middle of the garden has begun to bloom. I don’t know what the plant is called, but its sunny flowers are very welcome in the middle of January: