My lone bedraggled sunflower survived the deadly storm that blew through town yesterday, but the next door neighbors' picnic table did not.

We were very very lucky, and lost power for just about 15 hours. But there are more storms heading our way.

"Forward"??

The last time I thought I'd found a typo I quickly learned that I was wrong, as you can see if you go here.  Recently I came across another apparent typo (in the May 14th New Yorker) but maybe I'm wrong again. But I'm not, right? It should be "Foreword," right?

The article is a good one. About geoengineering. Depressing of course but what's new. The link is here.

How great is this? SF Friend M. becomes a foster beekeeper.

It's a long story, which I'll report later. Margo lives in San Francisco in a really old house. Details to follow.

[note: I'm trying to type using only one space between sentences; mostly I'm forgetting, so I have to go back and delete one space -- very annoying]

One space or two? How did I miss this debate?

This is wrong.  Because there are two spaces before the word "Because."

This is correct. Because there is only one space before the word "Because."


At least according to this January 2011 article from Slate.com.  Very interesting little history of typography, and I feel like I should have known this long before 2012.  I guess I could start using only one space but it would be hard.

About 15 years ago, maybe more like 18?, a smart, talented, polite young writer came to work with me, and after a few months she smilingly and casually told me that, in a previous job, she had learned that one space was the more appropriate style.  I smilingly thanked her for telling me about her former employer's interesting thoughts on spaces but I also told her that we would stick with the two-space rule.  My boss agreed with me so that was that.

Now, all these years later, I want to apologize to Natalie.  She was right, I was wrong.  I wonder if I would care about this at all if I still worked?

Daughter on a rooftop somewhere in Brooklyn. Last week, before the heat arrived.

Two weeks more or less in the life of my lone sunflower. He's in a pot on the back deck and he stares in the dining room window at us.

Bambi, unfortunately, loves my back yard--my so-called fenced back yard. Top picture shows her under the deck. Love those eyelashes!

 I spotted her yesterday morning and escorted her out of the back yard.  She left via one of her secret entrances, then trotted around to the front yard, where I got this shaky video of her.  The back yard is so full of deer treats that I know she'll find her way back inside again.  Here's how the yard looks now.  At least the ferns and the astilbe will survive.

Cardinal climber seedlings. From 2009 seeds.

I'm overly proud of these little plantlets.  Three years ago I bought and planted one small cardinal creeper plant and it had a successful summer in my vegetable garden, growing up, over, around, and  through lots of other plants in my garden. I saved some seeds and finally got around to planting them this year. They did very well which shows that seeds can linger a few years and still be viable.  The hummingbirds like the flowers and deer will only occasionally nip at the plant. 

A nice healthy what? [Locust? Kat's guess. Sounds right.]

I don't think it's wisteria but I can't be sure.  Any ideas what it is?

A wedding next June!

The home that became this Inn (top picture) was built in1829 and is about 50 miles west of Washington, DC, and just east (and maybe a little north?) of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.

Up until the 1930s the building in the second picture was a one-room school house in this tiny town of about 65 people. 

Third picture from the bottom shows Becca, clipboard in hand, and Sean, camera in hand, and the Innkeeper.

I may be getting excited but it's a very, very low-key excitement.  And I keep telling Becca that I will do whatever she wants, in terms of planning, but she has to give me specific instructions.  I'm not in any way at all interested in events planning.  Sounds too much like work.  In fact, I hope to be the reverse of an interfering mother of the bride (or mother-in-law-to-be).  Maybe a little too much as a matter of fact.

My wooly thyme continues to spread oh-so slowly.

 

Top picture is from mid-July 2011. So the  bottom shows the growth in the past 11 months. My job is to keep its path cleared of violets and other healthy opportunists.  That's a good alternative word for "weed."  Opportunists.