first daffodil in the neighborhood

Elsewhere in the city I've seen daffodils (and crocus) blooming already, but on this street and nearby ones, nothing. Then yesterday, just in time for spring, the first daffodil bloomed in my neighbors' yard. I can seen this clump from the sink, and also from the deck where I took this picture.

pillow fight

The pillow lost:

The two large dogs staying in this suite had been there for several days without any trouble when this happened. The mattress was a bystander, not too severely injured. 

Cannibal mice?

WARNING: HIGH GRUESOME QUOTIENT BELOW. (No pictures, though.) 

I found a dead mouse under the sink in the glue trap when I got a new garbage bag out, which wasn’t there the last time, not longer ago than a day and a half. Do I have cannibal mice? Or worse? SOMETHING had eaten from it. It certainly hadn’t had time to decay in less than a day and a half, but most of its lower body was missing, certainly all the guts, and most of one leg, and there was a bite mark in the skull. I wait with interest to see what happens in the other three traps. The instructions said to check them after three days and if nothing was caught to move them to a new location, but the two in the kitchen were right where I had found mouse poop, so I waited, and a week later, here’s this guy, who really was incredibly long-haired, which I had doubted when I caught a glimpse. If I have mice, must they really be Persian mice?

yes, more orchids

In the eighteen months I've been working here, I don't think I've seen this orchid bloom before.

It's quite tiny.

The white one is a familiar one, although for the niece of a florist I can't remember very many variety names.

This one I could only shoot by holding the iPod out over the edge of the catwalk railing and praying I wouldn't drop it when I tapped where I hoped the shutter was, since I couldn't see what I was pointing at.

Best two of five.

Then there are these, which always grow facing across the open space, too far away for the iPod to focus on them. Some time I must take the real camera with me and take great care not to let it get damaged while I'm working.

We decorate again

We haven't gone quite as far for Valentine's as we did for Christmas, but we're ready.

pantry

I planned before I even bought the house to hang some shelves on the door to the upstairs and use it as a pantry. I bought this set of shelves back in October, I believe. I know it was taking up space in the living room before Christmas.

 

So by the middle of January I opened the box and tried to figure out the instructions, which were very brief, and the pictures...lacked detail, shall we say. I did manage to guess how it was supposed to go together, but attaching the hooks that were supposed to go over the door seemed to require three hands to hold the hooks in place while fastening the nut and bolt that held them to the uprights. At last I tried some duct tape and got them together.

They are not hanging parallel because the top of the door is uneven, but attaching the shelves fixed that.

Then I looked in vain for the screw or bolt that was supposed to hold the fastener in place to attach the next two pieces of upright. After going back to the instructions the next day, I realized that the tiny round object in the drawing was actually the rectangular thing that hooked the two pieces of upright end to end. No extra part needed.

So I attached them, only to discover that the door wouldn't close because there wasn't enough clearance between the edge of the bottom step and the door to fit the hanging strip in. I took the bottom pieces off, and screwed the second pieces to the door to stabilize them.

Then I proceeded to add the shelves, and fill them.

Despite the shorter shelves, I was able to fit all the canned goods into them, leaving nothing in the base cabinet just left of the sink except the mixing bowls, flour, sugar, and other baking materials, and room to reach them.

I am delighted, and if they don't fall apart after a month or so, I intend to buy something similar for the bedroom closets.

plant stand

I brought up the plant stand my father made for a particular corner in my parents' house and found a corner for it here near the door to the porch. The east-facing porch, and the glass has been treated with fake "etching" (for some much needed privacy, I'm sure) but these aren't plants that need a great deal of light. They've all survived five months on top of the refrigerator in the darkest part of the kitchen.

This plant stand was created during what I think of as my father's Dowel Period, when he made a lot of shelves by drilling holes in plywood to fit dowels through, but this was one of his earliest, when he hadn't quite mastered a method of keeping the shelves from sliding up and down. It's a good thing the plants tend to hide a lot.

I put a basket with pruning shears and gloves on the bottom shelf, even though it looks like the door will light the bottom pretty well.

Here's the corner of the mantel right next to the porch door. (All my wood is on the porch, since I haven't got the stove installed and haven't bought more.)

The planter this plant is in belonged to my grandmother, who is the left-hand lady in the photograph behind it. (The enormous sugar bowl with roses belonged to her much longer than the planter; I keep firestarters in it.)

I must learn not to believe my camera in certain lighting situations, and to trust its stabilization. The first two shots I took handheld at 1/30 at f2.7, before switching to auto so I could use the flash. The color is much more accurate without the flash, and the two repeat shots I took of the plant stand were horribly washed out.