Shelburne Bay

Independence Day 2024

Book Corner 2024.33

by Chris Van Tulleken

(Re-Read)

I read this just last year, but re-read because I am newly resolved to stop eating UPF, no little exceptions here and there which then let the big exceptions sneak in. No more diet juice, sugar-free hard candies, weird bottled drinks.

Gardening Gratitude

Gardening teaches me gratitude! Because although the rabbits may have eaten all my spring vegetables, I still have a jungle of tomatoes.

What to Eat Next…

I put electric netting fence around my garden. The bunnies go right through it. But bright side at all times – it keeps the goats out, so I can let them graze semi-attended.

Orange You Glad

Twas a dyeing day. My colors came out more orange than I’d intended because I accidentally used Flame Red rather than Ruby Red. Arghhhhhh! Good thing I don’t vend anymore – orange never sells!

Book Corner 2024.32

by Bill Maher

Laughed out loud super-frequently. What great therapy.

All the Things! Magazine Edition

Occasionally I still work on my “Inventory of Everything” project. Today I learned I have exactly 100 issues of Spin-Off, fondly dating back to Summer 1998 – when we first got angora goats. I also have 24 Wild Fibers – that was a good one, now defunct. And 35 Ply. I don’t like the vibe of Ply as much as Spin-Off somehow.

Burke

Yesterday was rain off and on, mostly on. We did not bike. We went driving. Between rain, sometimes during rain, we saw people on bikes, which made me feel slothful. This is a lovely picture of a store in Burke, Vermont. I am up to 143 Vermont towns on my extremely lackadaisical mission of capturing all 251.

Ramona in Various Forms

The rare Albino Mohair from Wiseacres Farm.

And Batts of Blue. Ya know, I had three days off this past week in addition to the weekend, and I washed and dyed exactly zero mohair. It was too freaking hot.

Book Corner 2024.31

by Cixin Liu

(As far as I can tell, it’s pronounced “Tsih shin loo”.)

I don’t usually read science fiction, and I have no recollection what brought me to this story. I do enjoy reading Chinese authors; so I probably came across some tempting description, like “futuristic Chinese Lord of the Flies.”

The premise is – well, a futuristic, Chinese “Lord of the Flies”, caused by a supernova that destroys the chromosomes of everyone over 13, gradually killing them, leaving Earth in the hands of children.

I was most swept up in the first third or so of the book that focused on China, and the immediate aftermath of leaving the children in charge. An extremely brief period of normalcy, followed by chaos, more normalcy, then laziness, rebellion, and giving up… just when the 13-year-old leaders think they’ve hit upon a way out, we switch focus from China to the global arena.

Then things get nightmarish and violent. I thought the book gave short shrift to the role of girls in the Supernova Era. They would be half the population and I can’t see them going along with the war games and such. I also didn’t get how the ending jumped from Point A to Point B.