From Sunday

Fasten your seat belts.
Secure your seat back tray tables.
Soon, I will be home!

--== ∞ ==--

Mount Diablo is shrouded in haze as we take off. I have enjoyed being here , both delighting in the embraces with which I have been I received, and in the climate & landscape.

MDS, LHJ & PDC all were at MDS's house last night for movie night. The first 20 minutes I will share with you all, too, once it is uploaded. We have fly over drone footage of our house from Thanksgiving. And I walked around the yard and house on Monday, before i left, filming with the iPad (and periodically putting my hand over the mic)

Then we watched D's movie about Christine and their family. It was warmly received and I think people appreciate all the vulnerability that everyone exhibits. We had plenty of nibbles and since I was using a lightning adapter to HDMI, we had the grandmother in the room share videos of her grandson singing ( adorably enthusiastic and out of tune).

[At this point i just watched the western landscape go by. And then I bought internet connection for an hour and used google maps to know what i was looking at.]

Tuesday's Post

So, very busy and intense week. Then a somewhat burnt out mindset as i flew home, requiring very little in the way of entertainment. I read a few stories in "Finnish Weird" (Tut, i don't have a note as to who introduced me to the online journal: http://www.finnishweird.net/ ), but mostly I looked out the window. I recognized Pittsboro from the air at night, which delighted me. It's home.

I saw deer as Christine drove me home near midnight, and then as we settled in, Carrie started barking. Christine went to check out what was up, and said she could see the shadow of a deer in the moonlight. They clearly wanted to harvest the peas before i got at them.

Lunch was delightful yesterday, with steamed-then-chilled peas (that were left), a tiny beet, and broccolini mixed in with the salad greens. I will try digging up some potatoes soon. The garden review revealed the deer have also finally decided to eat the corn plants. This was expected: i've plenty of extra plants. What wasn't expected was the number of bean plants that were stripped of leaves.

The septic dudes came out to install a port where we can add copper sulfate to the drain field and to mark out the drain field. The drain field is even larger than we expected. The fellow who was spending time talking to me pointed out that the cluster of Tree of Heaven is at the first turn of the drain field -- and likely is completely blocking the flow at that point. I feel my distrust of people selling me stuff as he explained how soon we should get this taken care of ASAP. Christine, however, simply saluted Major Maintenance, and said schedule ASAP.

Unfortunately, we have folks working under the house today through Thursday, at least. The work to clear the blockage requires heavy machinery to get the tree out. It's not sufficient to simply cut down the tree as we have been as we cleared most of the field. Thus, so that they have room to maneuver the big equipment, the guys will come back next week when i'm gone. There's a hand-wavy agreement that they'll clear some other trees while they're here. We might have the roots and trees cleared for the orchard by the time i return! I am disappointed though, envisioning the tractor treads smashing the places where i have already planted things, and tearing up the ground where i have been slowly observing the occasional emergence of native plants.

On the other hand, i have watched for months. I can go through and dig out the ferns and the plants i purchased weeks ago. I transplanted the native wildflower "Spring Beauty" i found to the front courtyard.