fruits of the garden

There’s been an unexpected benefit to having gone out and chopped my way through the nettles and brambles in search of blackberries, which is that I tromped quite a path out there and unintentionally exposed the plants to quite a lot more sunlight than they’d been getting. That, combined with a couple of weeks of unseasonably sunny, warm weather (which is due to continue for another week!) netted a startling bounty of extra berries! I got about four more cups today! I need about two more cups and I’ll have…

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apple picking party!

We have, as I may have mentioned, several apple trees in the garden. The apples aren’t really ripe yet, but a lot of them are cooking apples that aren’t going to be any good to eat straight off the tree anyway, so yesterday we had an apple picking party and the family came out to play in the garden and pick apples and eat apple pie (made, yes, from garden apples. I forgot to take a picture but it was lovely and tasty!). Hail, hail, the gang’s all here! Indy…

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Picoreview: NCIS Season 10

Picoreview: NCIS Season 10 (and the first 2 eps of s11): …that was actually really, really good. I mean, NCIS is a solid show. It’s generally of reasonably high quality and consistency, with very few actively bad episodes and correspondingly few really *good* ones. The actors are all appealing and their interactions are terrific, and the whole thing lends itself to the sense of family that it’s supposed to. The season started out with plenty of AUGH, between the bombing and (much more alarmingly) Ducky’s heart attack, but every season…

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funny things with houseguests

Woe, our guest has had to return home, but she has left us with many smiles and funny memories. The other night she cleared her plate from the table, then returned to the dining room, where she picked up a napkin and wrung it as she gazed indecisively at our plates. Ted said, in the driest and most certain tone ever, “You’re procrastinating. Go work on your thesis.” She said, “I’m NOT! I’m trying to be a good guest!” Ted said, “I’m married to a writer and you’re procrastinating. Go…

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