My friends feed now only goes three pages back and then there's only the void.

I wish I could say that I was an active poster, but that would be a lie. I'm slightly more active on DW, and a bit more active on FB.

Still healthy, still mostly focused on my garden, and therefore really quite dull.

I really have posted since the November post. Apparently, LJ has decided not to show posts from DW. Sad, but what can you do?

Should you be interested in keeping up on my dull life, you can try loup_noir over on the DW platform.

Checking books out from the library means that I usually read them.  The last book finished, the one that I'm still mulling over, was Craig Johnson's newest Longmire mystery, Daughter of the Morning Star.  Everything about this particular novel was very, very good.  Boy, howdy was it good.  For anyone who just watched the television show and wondered if the entire thing was about problems with the rez, nope.  The series, what I watched of it, which wasn't very much because the television Walt Longmire is not the book Longmire, nor is the television Vic the novel Vic, was kind of boring.  I much prefer the novel Longmire, an aging sheriff of a huge area, who gets shot or has a stupid stumble or has the combination of age and physical mishaps that slow him down and make him think.  That Longmire keeps trying to understand how life has changed, tries very hard to keep in touch with his friends, doesn't understand a lot and admits it, and has one of the best secondary characters ever, Henry Standing Bear, and, of course, Dog.  How can I not love a series where a big old mutt gets serious page time?  This novel features basketball, tribal sports rivalries, and Cheyenne mysticism.  Johnson ends this novel cruelly.  While the main part of the mystery has been solved, the background one hasn't, and it's clear that we have to wait another year. 

Also read Murder, She Knit by Peggy Ehrhart, a "knit and nibble" mystery.  This was for a Facebook book club sponsored by a yarn store.  Like many first novels, the writing is rough; however, what sold this book to me was the author did a lot of work to make all the clues knitting related.  There are actual friendships of varying levels.  The protagonist guesses wrong several times.  It takes the kind of amateur legwork that I expect from an interested but not law enforcement character to do.  She sold six novels in the series, or at least that's how many my library system has, and it was enough fun that I asked for the next two.  As an added plus, at the end of the book, sort of as an afterward, she includes a knitting pattern for a scarf and a recipe. 

Still having fun writing.  How wonderful that, when I can't find the answer online, I know real life professionals who are willing to answer weird questions.  Maritime shipping questions, if you were curious. 

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

My increasingly aging gut has decided that alliums are evil.  It will tolerate the occasional meal with onions, but leeks and garlic are not good.  I feel sorry for the WBH, because he loves to cook and a lot of the recipes he's really fond of have a lot of alliums.  Today I am paying for a fantastic salsa he made yesterday.  There was about a cup or so left over, so I made a very California thing: scrambled eggs with salsa burrito style.  Very tasty, but apparently the last straw.  Well, not feeling up to running errands today gave me time to work on my current knitting project.

One of the very few down sides of knitting is running into techniques required for a project that you have to relearn regularly.  I picked a fairly easy project, www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/big-crush as a way to relearn stranded knitting.  Two colors and aran weight yarn made for a project that's just ripped along.  But this designer likes short rows.  I use a version of short rows all the time when I turn a heel for socks, but that method isn't what the designer wanted.  I blew a stupid amount of time researching the classic "wrap and turn" and then trying to figure out if German short rows would be better....  In short, I stopped working on my project for a couple of weeks, until I got tired of staring at the almost finished body and made myself get on with it.  Since my guts were not happy today, I rummaged through various books until I found the most understandable instructions and finished the section. 

For the first time in a very long time, I have the beginning of a story in my head.  I have about 90% of Yuri 3 plotted out, but I've never had the opening scene for it.  I should thank Guy_Grolit over on LJ for getting me to rethink several things.  No idea how far the story will get, but I'm excited that I've got an opening scene at all.  I know I'm excited since there's a line of open tabs across my browser with all sorts of intriguing research.
Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

About every six months to a year, I get an email about my Durmstrang Chronicles series.  It makes me very happy to know my old fanfic is still being read and enjoyed.  So, I did a vanity search and discovered that there's a FictionAlley Archive that launched this year.  www.fictionalley-archive.org/ 

The vanity search revealed, not to my surprise, that there are other writers using Loup Noir as a pseudonym.  I think at least one of them might be writing Durmstrang stories, as the very nice email referenced a title I didn't write.  Hmm, I say, hmmm. 

And speaking of writing, the Fabulous Connie is having a book launch!  If you live around the Denver area, you might reserve November 10th to support one of the loveliest people around.  www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launch-for-the-wolfs-den-by-connie-senior-tickets-190606177207 

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

Beautiful nowhere is getting too interesting and not in a good way.  Months ago, a guy started breaking into houses, ransacking them, and living there until he either moved on of his own accord or the sheriff deputies chased him away.  Game cams and security systems get shots of him.  You'd think a big guy like that, with multiple large tattoos, wild red hair and beard would be more conspicuous.  He's traveling by foot, apparently wandering quite a long way south but returning up our way.  Beautiful nowhere has a lot of second and third homes, semi-deserted farms, ramshackle outbuildings, etc. that are easy to break into.  The man is supposed to be considered armed and dangerous, and he just showed up on my long, rural road this week.  A neighbor, who apparently never reads any news or looks at any of the many photos posted all over the place, had a nice chat with him.  She mostly stopped because he had his shirt stuffed with beets and lettuce he'd just stolen from a garden. 

Since we have a couple of outbuildings that are rarely used, we did a tour of our place.  No scary guy, just a lot of bear scat and mangled fruit trees, courtesy of the bear or bears visiting our orchard. 

Tuesday, after an afternoon of garden clean-up during a brief hot spell, I came inside to find that the coffee grinder wouldn't work.  In my world view, that's about as horrible as it gets.  I settled in at my computer to check my email and my desktop's on button was yellow, not green.  We were in the midst of a brown out.  We get a lot of these here, but mostly during the winter storms.  I'd just turned my machine off when Trouble began barking.  Our lovely neighbor came by to let us know that a tree had come down on the power lines and had set a number of fires, including a couple in front of our fence line.  We packed our go bags, I put Trouble into one of the cars, and we headed out to see what was going on.  My guy used his tractor to clear the area on our side of the fence, while the power company slowly plodded through turning off the power.  Everything moves in slow motion when there's a fire, except for the fire, of course.  Once our volunteer fire department was allowed to go to work, they put it out in less than an hour.  The power was out for around eleven hours. 

Our well can probably be declared dry as of now.  Every time we turn on a faucet, I get a bowl underneath to catch water.  My beautiful garden is going to get the few drops we can spare.  My guy called the two -- count 'em -- two well drillers in our area.  We might get a driller out as soon as seven months from now.  Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch, a Rivers of London tale. 
A more complex than usual Peter Grant story that couples magic with technology in an excellent funny and complex story.  This made up for October Man.  Charming when the tale focuses on Peter's relationship with Bev, fun when he's infiltrating a company, and made me want more whenever the Nightingale comes onto the page.  The only problem is my library doesn't have any more.  I'm all caught up via the system, but I know there are more books.  Might have to break my promise to no one to not buy more fiction.  The shelves are stuffed full, double shelved at many points, and there are boxes waiting to be donated. 

Going back to the Expanse series is going to be a let down.  This was way too much fun.

Late summer means lots of harvesting.  Today was blueberry day.  We picked a lot of berries, way more than I expected, and left the door to the berry enclosure open for the birds.  I'm counting on them to eat all the leftover fruit and hunt down those pesky moths and beetles.  I expect my new exercise regime to center on chasing birds out of the place.

Who ordered real summer?  I certainly did not.  My beloved fog has retreated to the ocean, and the terrible sunshine is blinding.  We hit mid-seventies today!  You're not feeling much sympathy, are you?

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

If I were better about keeping an eye on my library holds, the books in the Rivers of London series would show up in order. Alas, I put in requests and walk away. Books arrive as they're available.

The October Man by Ben Aaronovich, which I think is the newest in the series, is like reading fan fiction. Now, I loved Peter Grant, Nightingale, Molly etc in the original series.  This?  This feels like a retread.  Nightingale is replaced by the Director; Peter has a German variant, and Vanessa was Lesley.  There are rivers, there is some magic, but it just wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. 

I did like the bits of history tied back to the story.  I'll give the next one, assuming there is another, a go when it comes out.

In the real world, the most frightening thing I've heard recently was the very hollow sound of our water tank a few days ago.  The WBH estimated we had maybe a quarter of the tank left.  That was not good news.  Our wonderful neighbors said to fill our tank using their well, and we did, a bit too much, but our very shallow well eventually topped off the tank.  Before doing much of anything that uses water now, I walk down to the tank, give it a hard slap, and listen carefully to the sound.  It's still August.  NOAA says we're going to have below normal rainfall for at least six months.  There are lots of neighbors who routinely run out of water here.  Late summer/early fall, you see the water trucks parked next to their tanks.  This year, the trucks are everywhere.  I'd say the people running the water companies are going to make money, but they have to find places that will let them fill their trucks up and that's getting hard. 

I am now trying to figure out which of my planting beds are going to get water and which will be left to dry out.  Canning season is still on, the tomatoes are still coming on, and let's not forget all of the apple trees that will need the fruit pressed to cider.  Everything needs water. 

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

My newest fashion accessory is tomato seeds splatted all over my t-shirt.  Yes, it's canning season.  Unlike last year's tomato failure (shakes fist at tomato mites, a new pest we wish we had never heard of), this year we've got tomatoes.  A lot of tomatoes.  Thus far, I've made four huge batches of greenhouse glop (homegrown tomatoes, homegrown eggplant, and whatever else gets tossed into the mix, all cooked down to where you can stand a spoon in the roasted mass) and a dozen quarts of canned tomatoes.  We're good for a bit, but yet the tomatoes continue ripening.  I had envisioned gorging on Caprese salads for the rest of the summer, but the WBH seems to want to share the wealth.  I know, how dare he?

The blueberries need to be gleaned and the door to the blueberry house left open so the birds can come in and eat the leftovers and the insects.  The berry enclosure 2.whatever worked much better this year, except for where a fox gnawed a hole.  This explains a couple weird holes that someone blamed me for last year.  The WBH was enjoying the first sips of his coffee, when a blueberry bush in the first row started shaking and soon afterward a fox popped up, busily chewing away.  Reynard escaped after bouncing off the walls, and we've started encircling the structure with chicken wire.  Since foxes can climb almost as well as cats, this may not keep him out. 

A bear ambled by our greenhouses last week.  HUGE footprints.  The only damage I could find was broken plum branches, which are brittle and could have been broken by a fox, raccoon, opossum, or too much fruit.  Our neighbors had their hives destroyed, and our closest neighbors had only part of a row of lettuce munched.  While we've found bear hair on our fences occasionally, this is the first time we've seen tracks.  I just hope it doesn't like tomatoes and decide to tear its way into a greenhouse.

Next worry is water.  When you run into someone you know, the first question isn't "How are you?"; it's "How's your well doing?"  So far, we've still got water.  The long range forecast says we're going to have less than usual rain for at least six months.  I sure hope NOAA is wrong.  Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

It's late July and all of my knitting sites are talking about Christmas.  *headdesk* 

In other news, here it's still mid summer and my world revolves around my garden.  And putting up stuff.  Last week it was peaches.  
Since it's still difficult to get canning lids, and yes, please insert a "grrrr," instead of using the usual pints, I used quart jars.  Thirteen of those beauties are now on the shelves.  The tomatoes have just begun to really come on.  Last year or so, I learned about freezing tomatoes.  Now, the texture isn't right due to the freezing, but summer ripe tomatoes, even in February, still make killer ceviche and they also easily turn into sauce.  Bag number two is in the inside freezer, and I believe the first two bags will soon make the journey to the big freezer in the garage.  Every tomato must be used!  Next month will be purchased pears.  Our pears won't be ready until September at the earliest, and most of them are autumn varieties. 

The garden would be a lot more fun, if California wasn't in the midst of a drought.  Again.  Our well is doing fine so far; however, i see water delivery trucks refilling tanks all over the place.  Our neighbors are farmers, and they've declared this current crop as the season's last.  The local rivers are really low.  The old saying that "whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting" is starting to come true locally.  The places the water trucks usually fill up at are now coming under those locality's scrutiny.  Won't even start ranting about all the illegal "grows" that are taking water.  Crossing everything that we make it until the rainy season. 

Assuming I get both time and non-swollen knuckles, there's a sweater ready to cast-on.  I'm having problems getting the yarn I want to do the next, true sweater project.  That one requires a lot of color work.  It's been years since my last Fair Isle project.  The practice sweater has all of sixteen or so rows and is two colors only, plus it's an aran weight project.  Of course, I'm lacking the proper shade for the contrast color, but as that's all of one skein, I can hurl money in a small amount to the aether and get a reasonable yarn this week. 

Currently reading "Cibola Burn" in the Expanse series.
Currently watching "Wild Wild Country" on Netflix.  Can't believe that I don't remember anything about this, but hey, it was the eighties and I was either just getting out of college or just starting my career around the time this happened.
And currently waiting out the headache caused by the smoke from some fire somewhere from Oregon to Redding or so.  C'mon Ibuprofen!

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org