Hello, gee, sit down; been awhile

And, rather than any particular substance, this is mostly a post to say that after some reflection I think I've decided not to retire this habit after all.   In the future, I hope to tell you about Liam turning 5 and hosting his first kid birthday party.  And his last day of school for the year.  And Auntie Chris' visit.  And our new chicken, Daisy.

I might talk about how much I am enjoying eating baby artichokes these days, steamed and dipped in a mixture of (don't cringe) olive oil, tamari, and food yeast.  And my total failure to at the one crop I really wanted to grow this year -- green beans.  I'm on my third planting.  Damn slugs.  Of course, we're still harvesting peas since it was all mist and highs in the 40s until just two days ago when it decided to stop all that and turn on summer full force.   Or how I paid more than I ever dreamed for two espaliered apple trees to plant along the front fence, and how much I hope they will thrive even though I am unreliable at watering plants, it just is the way it is.  Or how the chickens have managed to destroy even the "chicken resistant" plant suggestions and natives.  Damn chickens.

I might talk about how I've been cooking my way through the Homemade Pantry and loving it so very much.  And how I have an ambitious and somewhat complicated schedule of canning and preserving planned, except I have yet to get anything in jars yet this year, I just keep slipping my "deadlines" forward.  At this rate I'll be making the strawberry jam from frozen berries alongside the apple sauce in September.  All good.

In the meantime, one of the things that has been happening around here is that Liam has been borrowing the camera.  Here's a sample of what shows up after a day of shooting on his part.

The cat one I really just love to death; I had a roommate in college who, except for the finger in front of the lens (which just makes this photo for me) used to take pictures with exactly this type of random subject matter and exactly this nutty depth of field.   She was/is/remains a super-talented artist, so, who knows where Liam's exploration will lead.  The first one, well, what can I say?  If I weren't wearing my typical baggy tee shirt I would think it had been taken by a teenage boy instead of a 5 year old.