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LAURA'S COMFORT MUSHROOMS: Ingredients: Cut washed mushrooms in half along their equators so that each mushroom yields two flat discs. Put oil, garlic, and spices in a bowl. Dip each mushroom disc in the oil so that it's covered. Put 2 layers of mushroom in an oven-safe dish. Add a layer of thin slices of cheese. Add remaining dipped mushrooms. Top with remaining cheese. Drizzle remaining oil over mushrooms. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or till mushrooms are tender when fork-poked. Mmmmm. Ah, so good. Yes, the mushrooms will be swimming in oil--don't worry, olive oil is good for you. The dog will happily lap up the remaining ultra-tasty oil once it's cooled a bit. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-30-8:47 p.m.: A KIND READER has flattered Ypsidixit with a much-appreciated gardening question, way down there on the gardening post. Since that post will soon slide into the primordial ooze that is my archives, Ypsidixit's chain-smoking staff members voted to transform this question into our regular mailbag feature, "ASK YPSIDIXIT".[Dear Ypsidixit]: Dear Boxwood: I won't hedge on your answer. You are right on target to suggest pruning the boxwood now. Two thoughts on pruning: "It's always better to prune than not to prune," and "When pruning, be a barber, not a butcher." The latter saying means that the wrong way to prune is to shear off a hedge with hedge clippers. This encourages leaves at the branch tips, which soon shade & choke off interior leaves. The right way is to use hand pruners and remove limbs at ground level or where the limb meets the trunk, and unclutter the plant. Make it airier so that sun can penetrate. You can trim down the length of some limbs, too, but just don't shear off the top. Ypsidixit shudders when spotting a hedge, such as the one on Huron near the Ladies' Library, that has been trimmed into a cup shape, with a big flat top and a narrow bottom. This is a good way to kill the hedge. The top should always be narrower than the bottom. Think upside-down bread pan. That way sun can get to all parts of the plant. Boxwoods are shallow-rooted plants that can easily be injured if flowers are planted near them, since the root system is relatively frail and near the surface. Better to cover the earth under them with 2-3" of mulch, out to a foot beyond the foliage. Wood chips are easy and decorative and will make the whole hedge look neat and tidy, especially if contained in something like a border of rocks or decorative concrete edge-blocks. The mulch will help the plants conserve moisture. Although boxwoods like dry feet (don't soak them in a puddle) they dislike hot dryness. Ypsidixit is flattered and very grateful for all gardening questions--thank you to the people who ask! --YPSIDIXIT ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-30-5:05 p.m.: ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-11:30 p.m.: EVERY HOUSE HAS ITS QUIRKS. What are the quirks in your apartment, condo, or house? In my case I have to do the dishes before taking a shower. I have an arthritic old water heater that needs to be "primed" before showers so that it can build up enough hot water. Yes, I should get a new water heater. But, dangit, it'll have to wait till my bank account is primed with enough moolah. I also have a furnace that has gotten temperamental over the past month and needs to be coaxed into action by manually re-setting the switch...open the crawl space...switch the thing with my foot...gahhh...it's close enough to spring that I lazily haven't had a furnace person in to figure out what's wrong, plus I work about five million hours a week--who's got the time? So I blog while wearing about ten bathrobes. Well, a sweater, anyways. Pathetic. Prince Charming with toolbelt, where are you? People--tell me your quirks please. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-10:37 p.m.: IF YOU'RE A CONTROL FREAK WHO LOVES FOOD, like me, you'll probably appreciate this site that lets you check out menus from local restaurants before visiting, including Aubree's, The Bomber, Dalat, Fleetwood Diner, Hidden Dragon, Jersey Giant Subs, Michigan BBQ King, Quizno's Subs [bah! Depot Town infiltrator!], Schramm's Deli, Sidetrack,Tio's, and more! (thanks to nerdtech (check out nerdtech's ypsicam if you visit: shows intersection of Huron & Michigan Ave.) via leighton rhymes with satan ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-9:56 p.m.: AMERICANS SHUT DOWN IRAQI NEWSPAPER:"BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 � American soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper on Sunday and tightened chains across the doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence. "Thousands of outraged Iraqis protested the closing as an act of American hypocrisy, laying bare the hostility many feel toward the United States a year after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. "No, no, America!" and "Where is democracy now?" screamed protesters who hoisted banners and shook clenched fists in a hastily organized rally against the closing of the newspaper, Al Hawza, a radical Shiite weekly." Excerpt from a New York Times story via left i on the news via bob goodsell via ypsidixit (whew!) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-7:58 p.m.: ACLU HELPS BLOGGER: THE MARCH ACLU BULLETIN contains some interesting cases in its last-page legal roundup. In Oakland County, a high school kid was suspended for blogging (non-threateningly but unflatteringly) about his teacher. With the ACLU's help, the family "resolved the situation."In Washtenaw County, the ACLU is currently involved with "community college officials prohibiting the endorsement of candidates in local elections in an independent student newspaper" and "complaints about sexual orientation at a local bar." Here's another legal question. If a blogwriter has a Personal Protection Order against someone who then comments on the blog, would it be considered as prosecutable a trespass as it would if he entered her property? A blog is one's "turf" of a sort. I've never heard of that happening, but wonder. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-7:01 p.m.: GARDEN ROUNDUP: I spent most of the weekend working the cabin fever out of my system by puttering around outside and raking up no fewer then 3 big yardwaste bags of leaves, old stalks, &c. Garden report: lots of pretty crocuses now in full bloom like dainty little yellow, white, violet, and purple cups all over the lawn. Tulips on south side of yard 6". Tulips on stony north side of yard by driveway: 3". Daylilies on Daylily Hill an amazingly early 4"--the hill is drenched in sun all day, though. Forsythia getting ready to explode in a week or so. Magnolia tree will bloom shortly after that. Thuja greening up a bit. Hyacinths a stubby little 3". Tough little azalea admirably scraped through winter; it's in a sheltered spot, though.Note: Meijer garden center has some amazingly healthy and strong-looking roses for sale, plus nice-looking pansy flats ($10.99), but that's about it. if you're a regular there and are pleasant to the main guy (who loves plants) he will probably let you fish out goodies from the throwaway bin, perfectly good plants. He hates to see them go to waste too. I have happily dumpster-dived for dianthus and phlox and some little firs and other stuff. END OF GARDEN REPORT. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-6:54 p.m.: MOTHER'S DAY CARD idea: for a $10 donation to SAFE House, you can get a card designed by one of the kids currently living at the shelter. 100% of the proceeds support survivors of domestic violence. Checks may be sent to DVPSH, PO Box 7052, Ann Arbor, MI, 48107. More info SAFE House site, [email protected], 973-7188. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-12:38 p.m.: EARLY MICHIGAN EXPLORER La Salle (see former post, below) in late March 1680 actually passed through what's now Washtenaw County, on his way east in the first European overland crossing of the southern lower peninsula. Turns out he canoed from Portage Lake down the Huron to Lake Erie, which I think is pretty interesting. I would love to be in one of the canoes and see how different MI looked back then. Other early-Michigan tidbits. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-29-12:16 p.m.: DURING THE DRONING fundraising chatter on WUOM one comment stood out: that WUOM is "the last locally-owned local radio station." Surely that can't be true! Disappointing if it is. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-27-8:32 p.m.: HEY! YOU WITH THE PRUNERS! Thought you'd just "tidy up" your lilac bush on a sunny March spring day? STOP! That would be one of the biggest--well, medium-sized, anyways--mistakes you could make. Lilacs bloom on "old wood," the wood they grew last summer. If you prune now, you'll effectively prune off any part that could bloom. Result: no blooms. What fun is that? And stay away from the forsythia, too. They also bloom on old wood. If you must prune something--it's a little early for pruning, anyways, calm down!--you can prune the maple in the back. That's about it. Save the lilac- and forsythia-pruning till early summer--then you can prune AND take softwood currings to root in pots at the same time, as I did last summer to great success--I got about a dozen new forsythia plants from my cuttings which made it through the winter and are now budding out! Major excitement! At any rate, put the pruners away for now.A public service message brought to you by Ypsidixit. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-26-9:23 p.m.: RED ALERT: Noam Chomsky is blogging! Repeat! Noam Chomsky is blogging! Citizens! Go read his blog and memorize it immediately!np: Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate" from "Blood on the Tracks"...(why do I, a non-Boomer, find this song almost unbearably poignant and moving?) "Simple Twist of Fate" lyrics. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-26-7:58 p.m.: MOVIE ALERT: Called "the evil twin of Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town'," Lars Von Trier's new movie "Dogville" sounds like a must-see. Filmed in the arty austere Scandinavian Dogma 95 style and seething with suggestive symbolism, it's the grim tale of an outlaw woman who hides out in a small town. She offers to do work in exchange for the townspeople's hiding her. Well and good. But when resentment builds among the townfolk, let's just say her social status is degraded. This gripping parable of human venality opens at the Michigan Theater at the end of April. See you there. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-26-7:17 p.m.: MATCH THE MANDARIN TERMS FOR THE PLANETS with their English equivalents. Write it down. Quiz yourself. Answers in Comments.1. Taiyang (The Brightest) a. Moon More planetary linguistics: a huge table. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-26-5:50 p.m.:  HEY ART PEOPLE! ENTER MY CONTEST! I got a postcard in the mail at work today for the new paperback version of a book I'm dying to read, Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake." My birthday is August 7, incidentally (a mere six days after Melville's!). At any rate, try to ID the painting on the cover. I need artist's name and painting's name. But wait--there's more! There's a fabulous super bonus fun prize--a set of Korean-language mailing labels. You know, a picture of a wineglass with a crack and the word "fragile" in Korean. And other designs. They're really cool. I kind of hate to part with them. But I'll mail them to you if you win. Note: "Mr. H." is not allowed to enter this contest, since he (naturally) knows the answer. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-26-12:27 p.m.: CAR 84, WHERE ARE YOU? My efforts to find out what happened to Howard Dean�s inspired $2.5 million sponsorship of the red, white, and blue, star-spangled �Team Dean� NASCAR car, #84, have been fruitless. It was to race in the ongoing NASCAR �Busch� series, driven by Brian Weber, a graduate of �Duke Southard�s School of Oval Track Racing.�Maybe the car has been donated to the Girl Scouts or something. But doesn�t it strike you as odd that the relatively cash-strapped Dean would have had a NASCAR car and GWB does not? I mean, the latter gentleman is swimming in cash and you�d think he�d have a lot of �NASCAR dad� supporters. Seems like it�d be a natural. Maybe I�m missing something here. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-25-10:54 p.m.:  WHILE READING THE LATEST "FOUND" MAGAZINE I came across a set of found computer printouts about the effects of the bite of the brown recluse spider. ***shudder*** This is no little old spider bite. The bite of the brown recluse can lead to necrosis, wounds up to 10 inches in diameter, and surgery and skin grafts. Later I found the site [warning: extremely graphic and disturbing photos] that generated the printouts in FOUND magazine. The reason I bothered to look at all is because one fine morning I found a giant brown recluse trapped in a slippery measuring cup on my kitchen counter. Lord have mercy. With the utmost gingerlyness I picked up the cup and tossed the spider outside. Guess I should have killed it. These are some seriously life-threatening animals. Not common in MI but there are some that live here. The site's advice: pull beds away from walls, don't store stuff under the bed, eliminate piles of sticks, &c., from around the outside of the house, be careful with moving boxes stored in out-of-the-way nooks, shake out towels/gloves/shoes before using. Ugh! ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-25-8:23 p.m.:  BRAWNY GUY: Deep within the filthy product-icon smog that fogs God-given lives we should be spending contemplating the clear sunlight on Walden Pond, the Brawny paper towel hunk has undergone an alarming change. Formerly a shaggy blond roughneck who looked as though he lived in a log cabin and was no stranger to Jack Daniels, �Brawny� is now a sleek yuppie with a pager on his belt and bottled water in his SUV�s cupholder. Or so I surmise. Judge for yourself. This burp from the collective pop culture unconscious offers a troublingly sanitized interpretation of masculinity. Examine the evolution of this icon on this page, which contains fun facts such as �The [former] Brawny man carries what many assume to be an ax. It is actually a "peavey"--a wooden lever with a metal point and hinged hook near the end used by lumbermen to handle logs.� To this dispassionate analyst, the strained (Prozac?) cheer in the new, now toolless, Brawny�s gaze hints at peavey envy. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-25-12:05 a.m.: NPR CANS BOB EDWARDS FROM MORNING EDITION, reported the Freep this morning. They want to move the show in "new direction." Stupid. When they moved "Sound Money" in a "new direction" a few weeks ago, it instantly sucked. They aimed for "hip money program" but now come off as "square snide whitebread fluffheads." Now this. Who am I gonna listen to while prying open my eyelids and drinking tea? Smug little sunbeam Charity Nebbe? Ugh. Don't make me shoot my radio. Monotone android Nichelle Norris? Gah. I need someone human, NPR, someone seasoned and sage and fatherly and wry...like, you know, Bob Edwards!Winters are half the damn year long in Michigan. That's why we all care so much about NPR. It's either that or watch the icicles lengthen. Oh, Bob isn't going to be exiled completely from NPR. He's gonna be a "senior correspondent." Translation: put 'im in the back pasture. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-24-11:43 p.m.: SEVERED SEAL'S HEAD not allowed to accompany man onto plane at Boston's Logan Airport. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-24-9:38 p.m.: FIELD REPORT: LEIGHTON'S NEW MERCH (see post below) isn't available yet at Henrietta Fahrenheit's. Stopped by today between buses. I was told that it's still in the back room and that "we have to put them into the computer"---it'll be around midweek next week when the goodies are on the shelves, soon to fly off. I bought a back issue of Crimewave and the new issue of FOUND magazine as poultices for my wounded disappointment. But I'll be back.H.F. also has a new line of khaki green T's and baby T's with "ypsilanti" in gothic script that look very cool. A paltry $15. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-24-7:58 p.m.: SPEAKING OF PARTIES, I just got a love note from the White House announcing that April 29 is "Party for the President" day. Copying the Dean campaign, belatedly, this venture asks people to gather in homes, diners, whatever, and have an informal party. The part that worries me is that each party of 5 or more who RSVPs to GeorgeWBush.com will get a special conference phone call from a government official who will do Q&A and maybe tell jokes. Now, is this really a good idea? Can we as a nation afford to have our entire government tied up chatting on the phone to beered-up guys at BBQs? Who's going to man the homeland security color alert thing in the meantime? Maybe I can do my part by volunteering to cover that for a day. OK, I hereby declare the official April 29 color to be green. "Green" means "citizens are advised to turn off the TV and radio and go outside and garden for at least two hours." Sounds peaceful and maybe a tad more productive to me.Note excerpt: "A Party for the President is a simple, volunteer event that brings together local friends and neighbors who support the President.� Plus, all party hosts receive a special package from the campaign with an exclusive Bush-Cheney '04 video, bumper stickers, other campaign materials and a letter from President Bush. These fun, informal events will help grow the President's strong base of support in local communities...bla, bla, bla...." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-24-6:59 p.m.: IT'S NOT TOO EARLY to start planning your Happy 185th Birthday Herman Melville party on Aug. 1.Feel like you've run out of festive whaling-theme ideas? How about firing up the chafing dish as an evocation of shipboard blubber-rendering cauldrons (try-pots)? Put a little blubbery bacon in there and you've not only decorated, you've supplied refreshments. Make a flensing-saw from a bread knife duct-taped to a stick. Instant atmosphere. Nail a doubloon to your cat's scratching post, or, failing that, at least stick on a gold seal. Be yourself. Use your imagination. Ypsidixit has heard of a centerpiece made out of a mashed-up model ship tossed in a bowl of water, but we don't find that particularly festive. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-24-12:32 p.m.: "HISTORY IS WRITTEN in a rear view mirror, but it unfolds in a foggy windshield."--one of the officials being grilled by the 9/11 Commission. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-23-9:47 p.m.: CD REVIEW: Yay! In the mail today I got my super bonus prize for shelling out a pledge to WCBN during its last fundraiser. It's "The Two O'Clock Cowboy's Ultimate Breakup Mix," created by Dan Moray, one of the hosts of the Saturday midday "Down Home Show."Before listening, I checked to make sure no straight razors were lying around--Moray had taken pains to instruct listeners to do so. With good reason. By the second song, the agonized "As Soon as I Hang Up The Phone" by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, I was already depressed. Johnny Paycheck singing about "Joe Pain and Sam Teardrop--they're all I've got to keep me company" only made things inkier. Then I caught my breath at Steve Earle's unbearably bleak and beautiful, not-a-glimmer-of-light pain-poem "Lonelier Than This." My God. I put it on repeat play and cranked it till my walls were thrumming. Lord have mercy. Next minute my mascara was history and I was rummaging madly in the medicine cabinet. Damn lucky I'm a Nair girl. "Lonelier Than This" lyrics. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-23-8:23 p.m.: HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION: While waiting 15 minutes for my connector bus at the Pearl Street stop this evening, I decided to make an historical investigation. I walked down to Congdon�s Ace Hardware on Pearl. Wow. My God. How had I not fully appreciated this castle-like jewel of a building? I drank in the big boxy squares of pink, peach, and grey stone on its fa�ade and examined the huge boxy window set in from the street. This elegant stone confection used to be the nation�s second-largest box factory from 1890 till its demise in 1918, making boxes for an Ypsi �perspiration-free dress stay� company and the Ypsi underwear factory. I got up close and examined a little carved plaque that said �1890.� Backing away, I admired the three elaborate carved crenellations along its roof and the rows of intricate multicolored decoration. O, beautiful Ace Hardware building, lovely former box factory, you do my heart good just by sitting there on Pearl Street with the peachy-pink sunset washing your sculpted fa�ade in rosy light.  FORD ROUGE PLANT TOURS SET TO OPEN in May. Wow!--that would be interesting! Gushes the website, "GO behind the scenes inside one of the world's largest automotive complexes. EXPERIENCE a virtual reality theater adventure [whatever that is]. SEE the world�s largest living roof [living roof?]. WITNESS the new factory where the Ford F-150 will be made [new factory?]" Sign me up!(photo by Michael Kenna) ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-22-6:53 p.m.: DULL-SOUNDING HISTORIC TOURS PLANNED: As a joint venture between the Convention and Visitor's Bureau and EMU, some students in the historic-preservation program are designing a self-guided walking tour that highlights local architecture and history.This is being promoted as an idea to boost tourism. It will boost tourism by exactly zero. Even I, who love local history, wouldn't bother with this tour. It sounds boring. It's going to be written by students, so I perhaps unfairly imagine it will have a dry academic tone. Plus the vast majority of EMU students are commuters, people with no real stake in the community. I think what we need here is a spellbinding local storyteller to lead monthly guided tours--someone like Ann Arbor's Wystan Stevens. Someone who knows all the old scandals and murders and gripping bits of history, who can bring history alive with a storyteller's skill to a rapt audience. I'd go to that. But this self-guided tour is ok in theory, lousy in practice. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-22-12:18 p.m.: YPSIDIXIT IS SADDENED to learn that there will be no Civil War Muster this year. Apparently the whole Muster was for many years organized by one dedicated gentleman, John Delcamp, who not only undertook the considerable logistics single-handedly, but also, it's said, covered financial shortfalls numerous times with his own money. Last year the Muster, in the past a stand-alone April event, was blended into the Heritage Festival. Now it's gone, and the Convention and Visitor's Bureau is scrambling to remove the many mentions of the Muster from its website. I went the year before last and enjoyed it very much, as an amateur Civil War buff. Sorry to see it go. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-22-12:05 a.m.: BOOKS READ: "The Ugly American" by Eugene Burdick & William Lederer.This 1958 novel about inept American foreign policy in the imaginary Asian country of Sarkhan caused a sensation when it came out in the Cold War era. It depicts American ambassadors as completely out of touch with the locals, in contrast to Russian ambassadors. In the background are several absorbing portraits of unassuming American entrepreneurs who, with their small projects of chicken farming and rice paddy water pumps, do more for the locals than the diplomats do. Yet these unassuming folk are either ignored or quashed by the powerful. Given the comments I've read made by our current representatives in Iraq, I'd say this book is every bit as relevant today as it was half a century ago. A current foreign official agrees with me in his or her review of the book at this site: "As someone currently serving at a US Embassy in Asia, I found this book as an excellent (and highly accurate) appraisal of contemporary ground truth. Despite an earlier reviewers obvious political bias, the problems outlined in the book, and that still persist today, have operated independently from the vagaries of the political choices of the US population for well over half a century. This book helped me with a framework (albeit fictional) to examine my own training, continuing education and behavior vis-a-vis the culture I am now participating in. Am I in fact an active participant or simply a passive observer? This book is a quick and thought provoking piece and should be required reading for all US personnel assigned to an overseas capacity." ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-21-10:38 p.m.: E-SCRABBLE UPDATE: After making the fatal mistake of exchanging letters, thereby losing her turn (Laurel had stupidly forgotten the losing-the-turn part--God help her) Laurel seemed doomed. Yet she's made an astonishing comeback with her last formidable play of "becap" on a triple word score square, and now the three competitors are once again locked in a close race to the death!Alez - 116 Turns:  THIS WEEK IN 1680, intrepid French explorer Robert LaSalle gave up waiting for his boat, the Griffin, at Fort Miami (now St. Joseph, on the west coast of MI). He decided to journey overland to Lake Erie. Taking 4 other Europeans and a Native American hunter/tracker, he left on March 25, 1680 and trekked through the wild southern half of the Lower Peninsula, passing through modern-day Kalamazoo and reaching the Detroit River in 10 days despite freezing temperatures and miserable weather. It was the first crossing of the southern Lower Peninsula by a European.In 1976 an Illinois French teacher decided to recreate one of LaSalle's later epic journeys, from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico. Using only 17th-century clothing and equipment, his group of adults and students successfully completed the trip. Picture at right is of two group members portaging through downtown Toronto. More on the reenactment. ____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-21-7:23 p.m.: Leighton has some new "ypsi-obnoxious" items for sale at Henrietta Fahrenheit. Coasters, shot glasses, magnets, other goodies.I particularly like the "Ypsi Attack" logo. An Ypsi Attack shot glass or ashtray is the perfect present to tuck into an Ypster's Easter basket. So stock up, people.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-21-6:28 p.m.: CELLPHONE RADIATION ROTS YOUR BRAIN, or at least it did for 32 mice in a Swedish laboratory who were exposed to normal cell phone radiation for 2 hours. 50 days later, cross-sections of the control rats' brains look normal, but the cell-phone rats' brains show numerous lesions and serious shrinkage. Popular Science article with pictures.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-20-8:23 p.m.: LOCK YOUR DOORS, YPSTERS: some nutcase in the Washtenaw/W. Cross/Olive St. area whom police think is connected to recent EMU problems is going around and testing doors...he's unpleasantly surprised at least 3 honest, hard-working Ypsilantians by appearing inside their homes already, according to this news story.
____________________________________________________________________________________________2004-03-20-7:25 p.m.: THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING'S big blue sky drew me outdoors after work and for the first time since last fall I did some yardwork--it was great. Prepared 2 flowerbeds, noted hyacinths' yellow-green buds pushing up under leaf mould, trimmed off old stalks, edged the walk to the garage and back door. Pruner and hatchet are AWOL in the tide of winter junk piled on the workbench but since tomorrow I plan to be outside all day they'll turn up. It was great to smell and grub around in the damp earth and see the fishpond unfrozen, with ten trillion leaves in its depths to scoop out tomorrow.
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