being not doing

One of our homemade ‘earth boxes.’
I’ve never really been a master of DIY projects. There are plenty of things I do for myself or the house, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I tend to learn to do the things I want to learn to do and leave the things I don’t […]

Rivers running through our basement.
The least pleasant discovery about our house has been the amount of water that comes into our basement during heavy rains. Least pleasant both because it makes the basement a dirty dank mold-growing hovel, as well as because it makes it hard to let go of our anger at the […]

Following the glowing recommendation of friends who used EasyClosets systems to maximize the storage space of their San Francisco condo, I ordered shelving to convert our small hall closet into a pantry. We have a larger closet in the family room that we use for coats, and the hall closet is directly across from […]

Last month we started the process of switching our DSL from Verizon to Speakeasy, with the intention of trying Speakeasy’s VOIP service. After a year of being harassed via evening calls by Verizon trying to sell us FIOS — each time being told by their customer service people that ‘it takes a while to […]

I’ve updated my lifelist to reflect the sightings of the past month or so. I still need to find usable photos (e.g. those in the public domain or licensed for non-commercial use) and enter a bunch of latin names, but the list of birds itself is now complete.
Through doing this update I’ve realized that […]

Blooming row of yellow daylilies at the top of the front bed.
We returned from our trip this week to the sight of our yellow daylilies in full riotous bloom. They had started to bloom before we left, but the five days of rain and sun did them good and they are magnificent now. […]

I spent most of this past week visiting family in the hospital on Western’s campus in London (Ontario). While there, I took the opportunity to walk along the Thames and check out the breeding birds. Many were familiar — Yellow Warblers, House Wrens, Grackles, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Catbirds, and a Great Blue Heron […]