The morning started foggy. I was worried we weren’t going to see the eclipse too well because of the fog. And if the sun was eclipsed, would it be strong enough to burn off the fog? So I tested with the monocle before the eclipse started, and yes, I could see the sun’s full disc on my hand. So that was a relief. I was using Mark’s monocle to shine the sun onto a piece of white paper.

I’m getting really excited. This time tomorrow I’ll be outside with a pinhole box, a monocle, and a tripod attempting to watch the eclipse. #eclipse2017 This is the closest I’ve ever been to a total eclipse–we’re around 92-94%. Preparing for eclipse Mark prepared a pinhole viewer with a box. And set up his monocle on a tripod and showed me where to aim it. I’m all set. But I won’t be at work until it’s over.

[caption id=“attachment_1445” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024”] View from my Office[/caption] Summer is hot here, but at least I have flowers.

We were farming today. With a small tractor, a medium amount of mud, and a lot of manure, err, I mean compost.

Our fence was crushed in several places today when one of the big trees next door decided to end its vertical existence. No animals, children, or adults were harmed in the creation of these photos. But there was a lot of adrenaline spewing about. [caption id=“attachment_704” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] fence #1 taken out by the base of the tree[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_706” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] middle of the tree took out the fence on the other side of the pasture[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_705” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The top of the tree takes out the playset[/caption]

Every dog I’ve ever owned came from the pound or a rescue organization (okay, Homer might not have, but my parents got him before I was born, soI don’t think he counts). But wow, trying to get another dog now that I’m not likely to burst into tears at the though of Shasta has become, ahem, challenging. Some of the challenges: every rescue I’ve found lists their available animals on Petfinder.

I was hoping for a long morning alone with my writing. But instead I got to help clean up a flooded bathroom and attempt to fix the washing machine that hit it’s planned obsolescence date today. Mark thinks the pump cracked. We bought an expensive washer 3 years ago thinking naively that if we paid a lot for a good brand it would last longer than the cheaper model we’d bought 3 years before that.

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up. So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!

So I have a goal of getting our living room (and bedroom) rug cleaned by the end of March. And in order to accomplish that goal, I have a number of mini goals. These primarily revolve around tidying the bookshelves that I haven’t looked at in a while to make sure the books that are in it are ones that I want, need or haven’t read (so can’t decide). The sad part of this goal is that I discovered that some of the books in that case have not been looked at or touched in so long that there was a fine patina of dust covering them.

[caption id=“attachment_289” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“My First Sushi - Carrot Sushi”][/caption] For those who scoff at the idea of carrot sushi, well, I have nothing to say to you. I didn’t have any daikon or other more traditional veggie-sushi veggies. Maybe next week will bring more “real” sushi foods into the house. But really, carrot sushi was yummy. I debated trying celery sushi too. What about tomato sushi?

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order: Eat less junk food - ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day Bake my own bread Eat NO feedlot or factory meat.

So, I’ve watched the vegetarian sushi video a couple times, I’ve bought my sushi rice and sushi vinegar (wasabi and soy sauce are already staples in my home) oh and the nori. Now I have to do two things: finish my work for the day stop being a wimp/chicken and start my attempt at making sushi! Oh and we got a new 7-cup food processor (or “food robot” in my translation of the French) today.

So my two goals for the next week or so are to make: vegetarian sushi cheese I’ve been told before that making cheese isn’t terribly hard. Of course finding rennet could be challenging… but one step at a time. There is a beer and wine making supply company in Kirkland that also sells cheese making supplies. And I want to make some bread. I think I need to get my Laurel’s Kitchen bread book out again.

So, I read my previous blog post to Mark, and his first response was “Good luck!” And of course, I got a bit frustrated because that’s the sarcastic (for those playing along at home, yes, he was being sarcastic) response I dread when I talk about trying to be greener and eat more healthy. But after we talked for a while, we came up with an initial game plan: Salads for dinner – Three years ago we implemented the plan of having a pitcher of water on the table for dinner every night.

I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now. And at the same time, I have been regularly reading The Zero Waste Home (a blog). What’s interesting to me is that I started both of these reading projects by reading some reviews and comments about them. And the comments I read went along the lines of “this is impossible!”, “what you’re asking me/us to do is not possible except for crazy zealots,” and “I don’t believe that your kids are all that thrilled by this plan for (zero waste or growing all your own food) as you imply they are.

3" of rain in Seattle equals some flooding in our barn. And our creek has overflowed its banks. This is where there is a pipe under the road. It’s full. The overflow pond above the pipe is full too. And the water is flowing down from the neighbor’s property, and missing the creek entirely. P.S. It’s still raining.

So, I’ve started cooking again. I figure it’s not good karma for me to let Mark do all the cooking forever. ☺ But in order to facilitate this, I’ve started looking at online recipes. And I have two questions: Why does Cooks.com get listed so often when their recipes are all the same? I did a search for something the other day, and was excited to see that there were like 20 recipes listed on Cooks.

We are participating in a garage sale today and tomorrow, and it’s been interesting. In the morning you get all the people who look like they are searching for a Van Gogh hidden among our clothes. They glance at the stuff and sniff or if they are feeling sorry for us tell us they like our house/barn/dog/tree before they walk away. They do an awesome job making you look at the detritus of your life and think “wow, I bought a lot of crap!