…the koi have been up and about all fall, not going to sleep yet. They’re uncommonly nervy: I wonder if they don’t perceive our near water level lines as some sort of protection. They’ve never been so out and about. But that’s about to change: Wednesday will be in the 50’s. Wednesday night a cold air mass arrives, with moisture, and snow and freezing rain are possible, not to mention fog.
Our new trees and bushes are being quite pretty: the magnolia and birch and weeping cherry have gone bright yellow, the hawthorne is gold, the new cherry tree (sakura) is bronze with hints of red. the dogwood is reddening, our red Japanese maples are brilliant, and the burning bushes are raspberry red to brighter red, and the Virginia creeper is going red along the front stonework. We are very happy with our fall color: we didn’t know how they’d all go in fall, but the placement and look is very nice.
We lost one of our Japanese maples, the green one, to verticillum wilt, which is a soil fungus very common up here: most Japanese maples sold in the PNW have the problem, according to one horticultural site. And there’s no cure for it but to plant something that ignores it, like an apple, or such. Except—cauliflower growers in California also fight this pest, and one discovered—wait for it—that it hates broccoli. Apparently broccoli has something in it that verticillum can’t abide; and they chop up broccoli and use it as a soil treatment.
Well…so we got a lot of broccoli from Costco and chopped it up, and dug it in around all our Japanese maples, for starters. We also dug it into the place where we had to take the green maple out. Next spring we are going to plant a new green Japanese maple with a lot of broccoli, and if it lives and thrives there in soil we know was infected, we’ll go on broccolizing our trees.
With Winter Icummen In, here’s something fun to read (and maybe even get some ideas?)
http://www.iusedtobelieve.com/
BTW, have we found a cat toy!!!!!! THIS…………is the most crazy-making toy we have ever found with any cat. We have to ration it, because if allowed to keep it, they will take it everywhere and ultimately lose it in the basement. It’s at Petsmart, probably Petco, and it is very like chasing a live cicada: it has a jerky movement because of the wire: just be careful of pulling on it when kitty has got it! If you want holiday fun with Teh Kitteh—check this out!
http://www.amazon.com/Da-Bird-Catcher-Feather-Toys/dp/B000LPOUNW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352243080&sr=8-2&keywords=da+bird+cat+toy
PS: ours no longer has a tail. WE have no idea which of our lads ate it. It has been played with SO much the wire has started to come out, so we took the end cap off, duct-taped it and put the cap back on. It works as well as before.
Another favorite in my household is a faux mousie sewn onto the end of a Popeil Pocket Fisherman. I can cast across the room and reel them back in. Unfortunately, one cat ‘flosses’ on the fishing line as it goes by rather than actually jostle to try to get the mouse. I have to restitch the mousie fairly often.
Very similar to my old standby (on the bottom of that product page) the Cat Dancer…on a stiffer wire and with tasty twisted paper on the end. Highly om-nom-able, so I have had to buy them several at once. I shall have to check this one out too!
Maggie absolutely loves it…..Sophie tries, but Maggie seems to shoulder her out of the way to get to it. She even shoulders Sydney out of the way, and she’s only half Sydney’s size. Go figure the mindset of a fixated kitten.
Thanksgiving dinner. Check some of your local restraunts. Cracker Barrel has had a nice special in the past. I go with a book in mid-afternoon and enjoy a hot meal with no leftovers and no clean up. And no dealing with family. I get to spend time around people and out of the house. A different place is open on Christmas. I get a hot meal and leave a generous tip.
@ CJ — Thank you. I will probably be checking in over the holidays. 🙂 Very sweet of you both. I’ll be checking in on people/places to see how things are going.
I’ll be avoiding things that put me off, and I’ll try doing what brings happiness instead. (The wassail and stuffing are favorites. Any melancholy attached should be outdone by the good involved.)
@ Joe — Haha, I started reading that: “Oh, I haven’t read that since college English lit.” Then, of course, I read further. Hahahah, that’s marvelous, thanks!
I love fried okra, but I also like it in okra and tomatoes with a bit of onion, and of course, in any Cajun/Creole dishes. Gosh, I haven’t fixed fried okra in months. (At least I do vary my menu, but I’m trying to get back to more veggies and sensible eating, so when I splurge, I can splurge guilt-free.)
We had our first freeze this morning. Little skim of ice on the dog’s water.
Hey Ben, I will posting at my blog around all the holidays….starting with Thanksgiving! So come on over…it’s mostly about pottery with gardening, pond and pool thrown in. Do a round robin of blogs and tell us who you visit.
Smartcat, others who have blogs, go right ahead and post your own blog addys for others who’d like to have them: no problem with that.
Friends of mine have a cat that will hunt light spots on the floor. We found out by accident when sunlight reflected off a wristwatch made a bright splash on the carpet. The cat pounced on it. This works without fail with any light source, including laser pointers, that makes a visible bright spot on the floor. If you move it around, the cat will hunt it in a maniacal frenzy, which is, actually, a little unsettling, as that particular cat otherwise moves very sedately and deliberately.
Lol—evidently she’s found a happy thing!
My cat is absolutely fanatical about her laser dot… All I have to do is rattle something on the counter where the pointer lives and she’s instantly at my feet, a quivering spring ready to pounce. She thinks running pell-mell across the house and back, again and again, chasing a little red dot is the most fun possible.
When Sadie was still alive, I only needed to push the on button to the pointer, and no matter where she was, she somehow knew I had activated it. I didn’t even point it anywhere but in my palm. I wonder if the pointers put out a high frequency sound that we can’t hear, but cats being obviously superior creatures, can identify. Sounds like a can opener, rustling a bag of food, laser pointer buttons, the like….
Smartcat and others, I’d be happy to visit your blogs, and thanks!
Looking at the topic title again, “Winter is about to arrive….” Hmm, were you perhaps suggesting that “Winter Is Coming” ? :laughs: 😉
I just found out last night, the book on EPUB3 I’ve been looking forward to, and the book on SVG, have both had their publication release dates delayed (again) until the end of February, instead of between Christmas and New Year’s, as previous. This means I will start in with a test project in EPUB2 soon. I want the practice, and I want to be ready to do things in EPUB3 once I’ve read that new book. I’m disappointed the books won’t be out for the holidays, but maybe they’ll be here before my birthday. Heh. And this may be a blessing in disguise, to get me going sooner. More practice. Trying to look at it that way.
(I know XHTML 1.1 and most of HTML5, and CSS2 and CSS3, so I know what EPUB2 and EPUB3 are based on. What I’ve seen of EPUB2 looks like I’ll be fine, but what I still see from ereaders means there are limits placed on the format by the ereaders. Well, anyway, we’ll see how it goes. It’s likely I will ask friends/associates to check out my results when I’m at a stage where I’m ready for someone else to see it.)
@BCS.
I’d be happy to look the results over for you. My workload is winding down. I finished writing my last Statistics (sadistics) test case for presentation to students at the local Community College (I’ll be instructor for the day). My last work for the government will be coming to an end next month, and I will have more time on my hands. Spousal unit and I will be taking a prolonged vacation driving from Arizona to Florida and North Carolina, possibly even to the DC area, before coming home. The long drive will give me plenty of time to review files on my laptop. In 30+ years I’ve reviewed hundreds of documents for content, format, grammar, and punctuation. I do have an attention to detail because I was a data Analyst. Let me know and I’ll send my contact info through CJ or Jane.
Back on the subject of Okra…
Made the absolute best okra pickles this year. Similar to dill cucumber pickes, but with half a slice of hot banana pepper, garlic clove and 2 dill “heads” per jar. Alas, I’m on my last jar.