When I was a kid, every Sears catalog in my Grandma Veva’s house had the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine circled as a desirable Christmas gift. I never got one. And now, NOW, somebody is selling them? I can buy one for my very own? My inner 8-year-old is cheering. (Link courtesy of Gael, who rightly describes it as “the toy we all wanted, but never got.”)

Garden Update: I hope you guys don’t mind that I’ve been a little garden-obsessed lately. It’s just something about the increasing sunlight and warm weather, not to mention that my usual obsessions – knitting and running – have been off the boil for a while. Anyway, on Tuesday morning I put down mulch on all four beds. On two of them I used lucerne, and on the other two I tried out something new: dried coffee parchment. This is the papery membrane that surrounds the coffee cherries, and Michael was given bags of it from one of the local coffee roasters. So we’re trying it out. Thursday we noticed tiny green specks in the square where we scattered rocket seed. Our first sprouting! Friday I spotted some slug trails on top of the mulch, so I put down Blitzem pellets. This morning I was gratified to find three slugs in their death throes (which I promptly squished on the pavement). Our cauliflower seeds have also sprouted! It’s all happening. I took some macro pics to document the fecundity. (Some people post pictures of their kids. I post pictures of my garden.)

Rocket seedlings after three days.
Cauliflower seedlings, just poking their heads up today. (The weird green stuff is the slug bait.)

My snow peas are starting to look a bit more vigorous.

Jalapeno and tomatoes, enjoying the sun.

Sweet corn. If I manage to get actual edible corn off this, no one will be more surprised than me.

Petunias and lettuce. (This one has the coffee mulch.)

Tree #3
I came around the corner tonight and stopped dead in my tracks. Remember the second tree, the one I planted after the first one was stolen? The one with the passionfruit vine and the grass planted with it? GONE. This time the culprit appears to have been the Council, who replaced it with an admittedly nice six-foot-high tree held up with sturdy stakes. I like Tree #3, but why couldn’t they have done that nine months ago and saved me two trees and many hours of wasted effort?

Needle felting meets World of Warcraft. Prediction: Tia will be all over this.

Barack Obama, Jedi Knight. Sweeeeeet.