Finally Christmas!
This pyramid candle really helped to bridge the long wait for Christmas having tiny gifts embedded into it. The prospect of retrieving some “Pharaoh’s treasure” fueled her imagination for hours…okay 4.5 minutes.
“Daddy? How long do candles take to burn?”
“Hmmph?…Zzzz”
The first eardrum shattering 7am squeals started when they both ripped open some junior golf clubs from their grandparents in Scotland.
She could not wait to try them out on the range a couple of days later.
He got a retro post-apocalyptic phaser,
that made the most annoying obnoxious sounds imaginable. (The psychologically damaging part of the holidays)
What was I thinking? Oh yes…cool design.
This made him very happy.
She got her…
La La Loopsie doll,
a not-so-Easy Bake oven,
and her long awaited rock tumbler that has been tumbling a bunch of rocks since Christmas day. It takes a month to turn sharp raw stones into polished gems.
We took a sneak peak at them five days into the coarse abrasive phase (naturally), and already the stones were significantly smoother.
Even Kumo got a prime steak chop on Christmas day!
He devoured most of it before frantically running around with a really desperate expression on his face, looking for a place to bury the remainder. For dessert he apparently opted for a large chunk of plastic attached to a string, this gastronomic episode sadly landed him in hospital requiring an hour-long stomach operation.
Poor Kumo.
He is still in the hospital and doing a little better, we all have our fingers crossed that he will pull through and make a full recovery.
Moving Sadly On:
Rosemary is looking particularly healthy and festive after finally getting some rain,
and so are the weeds. This green clump seemed to spring up overnight.
I planted a couple more Plumosa Ferns at the base of my steel gate a few weeks back,
and they have almost doubled in size with the recent moisture.
A visually frosty and festive scene courtesy of a neighbors China-berry and my Blue Ice cypress
Cuppressus arizonica var. glabra ‘Blue Ice’
And now we are having clear crisp days,
days perfect for…
lighting large fires with my new
“Bear” knife and magnesium striker.
Fires that keep the wild ESP cats at bay.
It has been a busy two weeks off school for the halflings,
I immediately got them to work on gathering seeds from this year’s rather poor crop of celosia.
It is tedious work but the challenge of getting the emptied husks into a bucket on the floor helped relieve the monotony, or so I thought.
“I am Sooo tired of shelling celosia”?
“Me too sis, I am ready to annoy everyone with my phaser again”.
Hey you two…did I say we were on a break?!
Finally:
A new “visitor” dropped into the Patch pond cypress tree this week…
Oh stop it!…It is an owl…just an owl!
Stay Tuned for:
“Just Leaf it Alone”
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Happy New Year from us all in the Patch!
River Walk : San Antonio
And have a great “Bells” to all my family and friends in the Scottish borders:
The owl is so cute… We had a fox show up, sunning, atop our back yard fence a week or so ago. It was quite startling in a wonderful way to have such a visitor.
Ah- the post-gifting regret stage. Any/all toys with a noise making capability are liable to send humans with normal hearing (aka: parents) to that place where there develops such a longing for an extended visit to a quietly padded room. This is where grandparents, with their typically diminished hearing, are best able to step in and serve. At least until the batteries all run down.
Happiest New Year to you and yours!
Hi TD.
That owl gave me quite a fright, flying directly over the top of my head.
Lets just say that next year may be a jigsaw year :-)
Thanks TD, have a great New Year.
ESP.