Author: doug

This juvenile house finch is not quite done moulting. It’s OK, friend, nobody’s hair looks good right now.

Doesn’t look fragile to me.

Lis and I spent this cool, cloudy Sunday spreading 4 yards of mulch on our garden beds. 4 cubic yards of mulch seems like a lot (and it is — literally a ton, and about 30 loads of my little garden cart). But we have a lot of garden beds, some of which are new and needed a better layer of mulch to keep the weeds down. It’s a lot of work, but the end result looks great.

 

I ordered some spices from Penzeys. I usually go to their store, but, well, you know. Anyway, they included a free trial size of one of their seasonings, which is a nice touch. And a bumper sticker, and a hug (in coin form). Because we all need a hug these days.

Here’s an example of the kind of damage done to the wiring of our solar panels by squirrels. Click through for a worse picture of a more extreme case. The solar company was out today to fix it and install critter guards around the edges. Surprisingly, the solar array worked fine throughout, except for a few wet mornings.

You may recall that Lis posted about a baby robin in the middle of our yard last week. Well, it has survived the neighborhood cats and is still with us. It’s still pretty scruffy-looking, but is being cared for by 2 adults and is able to fly short distances.

As malformed foodstuffs go, this double-long spaghetti is pretty inconsequential.

Muenster, smoked lamb, and kale grilled cheese. Not quite a mutton, lettuce, and tomato (when the mutton is nice and lean), but close.

My office mates and I are very close.

I smoked a small lamb leg roast today, It came in at about the time I expected, around 2 hrs at 250-300F, meat at 140F. First time I’ve smoked over live charcoal, and it went fine with my new probe thermometer. The result was good, but I think next time lamb leg belongs in the sous vide and it’s fattier cuts like lamb shoulder that should be smoked.