Lately I’ve thought of starting an “Only Murders on the Farm” podcast. I have enough material to make it a weekly thing. I’ll stumble on a crime scene on a path, some carcass ripped apart to the point of non recognition. “What happened here?” I’ll wonder.
The only thing is, a podcast like that should be a murder mystery that needs solving. With a detailed step by step process of how I solved the mystery. And that is where the whole point of a “Only Murders on the Farm” podcast falls apart. Because there is no mystery as to who the perpetrators of these grizzly murders on the farm are.
The idea of the podcast popped up when visiting teenage girls discovered a dead bobcat in the dog kennel several weeks ago. That was a shocker.
The dogs have dispatched rodents, possums, raccoons, and countless rabbits. Watching these dogs bring down a fighting raccoon in the middle of the night is as traumatic as watching hyenas and lions fight to the death at night on the Serengeti. Not something for the faint of heart, trust me. And I’ve seen them eat a freshly killed rabbit at the same time. Taku starting from the head. Ena from the rear. I didn’t stick around to see what happened when their snouts met in the middle.
But I never expected them to bring down a bobcat! So I need to post signs on the fencing, signs that creatures roaming around at night can read. Signs that say, “Death awaits all who climb over this fence!”
It is hard to reconcile that these two lovely dogs who like to cuddle on our bed, lick our faces, and beg for food, have murder on their minds 24/7. I have a suspicion that they dream in their sleep of bringing down an elephant. That would make their life complete.
So any traveling circuses which happen to pass through Bow, make sure your elephants stay in their trucks until they are a safe distance away. Or teach the elephants to read and heed the warning signs I will eventually put on our fencing.
Amazing Things Happen All the Time
Amazing things happen all the time. Even around the house. Stunning Spaghetti Squash flowers are eye popping amazing. They explode like super nova for just a short time and soon turn into cute, Spaghetti Squash babies.
The shiso I planted in spring is now an amazing bush of deep green and magenta leaves that turn plain dishes into amazing, culinary delights.
And as far as aromatic leaves, what is more amazing than Basil? They have charming, white flowers too.
And this time of year, late in August, the blackberries are ripening. I’ve wondered why I don’t see flocks of birds devouring the blackberries, and wondered if anything else eats them? Yesterday we saw a deer come by and graze on these berries. So now I know what eats them.
And every summer when the Sweet Alyssum forms fragrant white clouds of blossoms, I tell myself, “Plant more Sweet Alyssum next year.”
And yesterday I met an amazing man, Iino Wataru. His first name, Wataru 航, means to cross the skies and seas. His last name, Iino 飯野, means field of cooked rice. He started running when he was working in Germany to lose the weight he was packing on. And he kept running further and further. He is now one of the top long distance runners in the world. He’s won many ultra marathons all over the world.
The motto on his website is: ご飯をカロリー気にせず美味しく食べるために走る, which translates to, “I run so I can eat delicious foods without worrying how many calories they have.”
In June I saw an article about him on “Good Morning, Japan,” a Japanese News show broadcast by NHK. They showed this long distance runner who was starting a seven year long, round the world run, running from the northern tip of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay, down to Panama. From there he plans on running to the tip of South America. Followed by a run across Eurasia. A run across Africa. And making a circular run around Australia.
He started running from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in June. And I’ve been following his progress on his site, tabirun.run/world, watching him run 45 to 55 miles every day as he ran through Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, and into Washington state.
Yesterday afternoon I saw he was running down Old 99 which is very close to our place. We drove out to see him and caught him as he ran through the little town of Alger. He’s a wonderful, friendly, easy to talk to man, and you’d never guess that since June he’s run all the way from Alaska, over 2,800 miles! It was amazing and inspiring to meet him.
Rainy August Day
After morning showers, the Shasta Daisies are covered with raindrops. We made it into August without choking on forest fire smoke. Today’s rains should keep forest fires last year’s memories … fingers crossed.
August clouds drift by,
Cool whispers embrace the dawn,
Silence speaks of change.
I had fun this morning doing something impossible last year. Something previous generations could not imagine. I played with ChatGPT and asked it to write a number of haikus.
August sun warms earth,
Oregano blossoms rise,
Spice dances in breeze.
Wisteria sprig,
Blooming out of time's embrace,
Season's lone surprise.
I love the catmint when it blooms. And it blooms and blooms and blooms, all summer long. When we had our cat, Rusty, he loved rubbing his face in their leaves. Catmint makes a delicate, refined tea, very soothing.
The Hubei Anemone are blooming. I can count on these sending up their tall flower spikes each August. Eriocapitella hupehensis. I read that these were cultivated as far back as the Tang dynasty (618-907). And they are in the Buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. Unlike Buttercups which creep along the ground, Hubei Anemone reach for the summer sky.
And to close, a haiku about our dog sleeping in the picture window:
Dreams beneath glass pane,
Dog slumbers in soft sunbeams,
Outside world drifts by.
A New Way to Meditate
Last month our local coffee roaster retired. For years I enjoyed visiting her little roasting hut to watch the beans dance in her roasters, conversing with her, laughing together.
But with her retiring, it meant learning how to roast coffee beans myself. What I didn’t expect is that watching the beans dance in the glass roaster is a pleasing way to medidate, to let the thoughts that dance in my mind quiet and go away.
It doesn’t take long to roast green beans to a caramel brown hue, fourteen to fifteen minutes. And near the end you can hear them crack several times. Not loud, ear splitting cracks. Just gentle, soft, soothing cracks.
So once or twice a week I roast 9 ounces of coffee beans, 255 grams, to get 8 ounces of fresh roasted coffee beans for the hopper in our coffee grinder. Instead of conversing with Gilda, I converse with the dancing beans.
The tansies are in full bloom. A single tansy has spread over the years to many. The bees love them. So do I. Tall and colorful, tansies look wild and shaggy. Not quite graceful enough for a proper garden. Perhaps a bit too weedy looking. I’ll keep letting them spread. They suit me and the bees well.
I hadn’t considered hydrangeas as bee flowers, but why not? This bee’s pollen sacs are plump. When she flies home she’ll be greeted as a hero.
The sky is so summer like with wispy clouds. They look so frail and delicate, like they would tear if you could run your fingers through them. But the long, delicate streaks they make speak of fierce winds high aloft, winds strong enough to blow a house to bits. Better they blow up there than down here.
Much of the Northern Hemisphere is on fire, burning up in the hottest summer in recorded history. We’ve been spared the relentless heat. So far it’s been a pleasant summer, warm days, refreshingly chilling nights, a few rainy days here and there. And no smokey skies that make you hack and cough. So far. Every day the skies are blue and the air fresh is a day to be grateful.
A note to Comcast email users, last month Comcast banned my emails. Evidently someone with a Comcast email address marked an email from this site as spam and is blocking all email from here to Comcast email users. So if you have a Comcast email and wonder why you’re not hearing from me, this is why.
Nature Will Turn It Into a Work of Art
Leave something on the ground and nature will turn it into a work of art. While cleaning out the hoop house to plant tomatoes, I discovered delicate lace spheres. This is what happens if a tomatillo falls to the ground and lays on the ground all winter in a place out of the rain. The fruit dries up. Microbes eat them. The husk dries, microbes eat the soft bits, and all that remains is the delicate, lacy frame.
Aren’t they just lovely? I brought a few into the house to use as decoration. How many hours would it take me to weave such delicate mini orbs? How would I go about recreating them? I left most behind without thinking to save them.
But if I plant more tomatillos and at the end of fall let hundreds of little tomatillos fall to the ground, next spring I can gather many of them, string them together, and use them to decorate a Christmas Tree.
Quite the works of art, don’t you think?
While I cleaned out the hoop house, Taku enjoyed lying in a thick bed of mint. Nearby the Japanese iris are in full bloom. The Japanese name for this variety of iris is Ayame, pronounced Ah – ya – meh.
Happy Ending to Roomba Saga
I need to report that my saga with the bumbling, misbehaving iRobot Roomba i4 is over. Someone read my rant about the Roomba and recommended that I get a Roborock robot vacuum. “The Roborock is smart,” they said. So I ordered one, the midlevel Roborock Q7 Max.
It arrived Wednesday and I put it through its paces. Wow! Yes, this robot vacuum is smart. Equipped with lidar, the Roborock quickly mapped out our floor plan and created a 3d map of all the rooms. It knows how to get around without getting lost. It knows how to vacuum and mop in straight lines. Can go to any room of the house with ease, sliding gracefully between the door jambs to enter any room. You can program the vacuum strength and the amount of water to use for any room. And if you move it for any reason, it spins around, quickly figures out where it is, and proceeds on its merry way. The app for it shows where it is when it is out vacuuming and mopping. So you can see where it has cleaned and where it needs to clean.
You can look at the maps in 2d or 3d.
A big improvement over the Roomba i4 is that as it fills its dustbin, it compacts the dust so the dustbin can carry much more dust and debris than the Roomba i4 which I had to empty frequently as it cleaned. Never once has the Roborock stopped while vacuuming to make me empty the dustbin.
Roomba i4 Goes Merrily Home
More out of kindness than anything, I returned the Roomba i4. There was no need to keep it around and let it suffer the indignity of getting lost so often. No need to watch it whirl down a hallway and try to enter a room a foot too soon and bang into the wall. I felt sorry for it. It tried so hard. Often with confidence it approached a doorway, only to veer into the wall a foot too soon. And devastation clouded its face when it hit the wall instead of gliding through the doorway.
I suggest that you hire a robot therapist if you get a Roomba. It can talk to it after a cleaning job, ask it, “How did it go? … How did that make you feel when you missed the door? … It’s not you, it’s the coders who programmed you … You know, there’s always tomorrow,” and other things to soothe its hurt feelings.
Maybe if I was sadistic, I’d have kept it around and sent it out every so often just to torment it. But that’s not me. It looked relieved when I cleaned it all up, put it back in its box, and sent it on home. Perhaps it was just a delusion, but I thought it said with joy, “I’m going home? Yeah!”
I’m sure it’s very happy it made it back to iRobot in one piece. Other owners may have sent it back in pieces or riddled with bullet holes.
Maybe the next owner of the Roomba i4 will have a simple, one room, square apartment with no furniture that it can clean without much effort. I can only hope it finds a simple home where it can experience success.
Comcast Troubles
And speaking of success and failures, I had to remove readers with @comcast.net email addresses. Someone with a @comcast.net email marked one of my new post emails as spam and now Comcast is blocking everyone with a @comcast.net email from receiving any of my new post emails. If you have a @comcast.net email and want to keep receiving these posts, subscribe again without using a @comcast.net email.
