We have a winner!

Congratulations MJ, it is a Eucalyptus seed pod. Anyone walking past Eucalyptus trees has seen / stepped on the little hershey kiss sized seed pods. In college in San Francisco I had to walk through a grove of Eucalyptus to get to where I parked my car. In San Diego I had to clean up countless mounds of bark and leaves from the huge Eucalyptus in the front yard. I was in San Diego that I picked up a seed pod and wondered what it would look like pressed into clay. Of course, Eucalyptus are not native to California, and are a huge fire hazard, but you see them all over the West Coast, in the drier inland areas especially.



Now, Californians, aren't you feeling silly?



OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming
Because of the election today, Michael had a rare Sunday off, and spent it helping me out. He had already built the frame for the vegetable garden ( pressure treated 2 x 6 boards, in a 8' x 3' frame, and I had bought the soil, so he dumped it all and mixed in the bale of peat. I planted the 3 tomatoes and one red pepper, caged and fenced the plot. It's looking very tidy, and is the envy of my neighbor, Erin, who is both fearful of poison ivy and worried her yard doesn't have enough sun. I love vegetable gardening for the wonderful anticipation of summer harvest.


Sabine helping in the garden by eating dirt.


Sabine is trying to crawl, especially in pursuit of Miro, our bowling ball disguised as a cat. Miro is much more patient with Sabine than she was with Arabella, I guess she has figured out that they grow up to feed and brush her. But Sabine is really crabby, and just wants to be held all the time. No teeth yet, but I keep expecting them every day.


I have started on the Pimlico Shrug, in garnet alpaca yarn. It's all curled up, but it's a diamond eyelet lace pattern, easy once I got the hang of it. I may be knitting this for a very. long. time.

Arabella is taking after me more every day. Yesterday, while I was feeding Sabine in the livingroom, she took the vitamin bottle out of the kitchen cabinet (I had moved it to a lower shelf while looking for something) and ate 4 orange brachiosaurus vitamins before I caught her. Yes, it is a child-proof bottle.

When I was about 7 or 8 I played a game with a friend where we opened a child-proof bottle of C vitamins, and each time we opened it we ate a vitamin. I probably ate about a dozen to twenty, and then had a stomach ache. My mother was ... unsympathetic.