The Week In Pictures

[elfs]

Just to let you know, I went a little camera-crazy with these...

Earlier this week, Kouryou-chan and I went blackberry picking. We wandered down to the abandoned lot where we usually pick them about this time of year and found that the harvest was simply amazing this year.

Heavy blackberry vines.

They're like this everywhere on all of the vines. We also discovered an entire new wall of them on one side of the lot, which is nice because it's further away from the poison ivy.

Poison Ivy?.

Can someone confirm for us that those little, paler leaves are, in fact, poison ivy? Whatever it is, it itches for hours if it gets onto skin.

I also took Yamaarashi-chan out on a solo date where we went to a Chinese restaurant and then out to Kidopolis, an indoor playground that she

Yamaarashi-chan at Kidopolis.

really enjoys, as you can see.

There's a YMCA just down the road, across the street from the blackberry field, and Omaha and I decided that it would be a good idea for Yamaarashi-chan to have some structured interaction with other kids her age and not sit indoors all day. So Kouryou-chan, Omaha and I wandered over there to fill out the paperwork, and we discovered that the Y has a pool. Kouryou-chan got incredibly upset when we told her that we weren't there to go swimming, so we hiked back, grabbed our suits and towels, and went back to go swimming. This was all part of a plan, you see-- when Kouryou goes swimming, she conks out easily at night, and lets the parents sleep. Her close call at Wild Waves did nothing to slow her down, and by the end of the hour she was jumping in and insisting that we get out of the way and not try to catch her. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me to this one, so Kouryou-chan insists that I put up the traditional gratuitous photo of our cat, Dinah.

Dinah.

I have no idea why the picture shows her with one green eye and one blue eye; I didn't edit it and her eyes are normally just a plain black. Weird lighting, I guess.

I actually had to go to work Saturday. That sucked. I stayed only for about five hours, working on a weird problem where a patch I had wouldn't take, no matter how many variants I tried or permissions settings I altered on the file. But it's all in the name of getting the product out the door and into name recognition mode. I can only hope that my contribution helped.

I'm also getting a little worried that the development staff here is going to be regraded as superfluous by the venture capitalists once we have a product. That's sort-of what happened at Aventail; once the main thrust was done, rather than keep a working staff to push the product forward, they kept a maintenence-level staff and sold the hell out of the existing product. Any "version 2.0" is marketspeak. I hope that's not what's going on here; there's a lot of development that can be wrapped around the existing core.

,div style="clear: both;">Picked up Yamaarashi-chan a day earlier than I was originally scheduled; her mother had "something to do" Saturday night and I'll pretty much do what I can to have Yamaarashi-chan around. fallenpegasus showed up as I was putting together a cilantro, lime, tomato and avacado relish to go with grilled burgers and corn. The girls were like, "Veggies? We don't do veggies." Ah, well. We watched FallenPegasus show us his disastrous skydive-- it didn't look that bad to me, but then I don't jump out of airplanes just because the door is open. He made it to the ground in one piece, right?

Sunday was the Kent Canterbury Faire. What a let-down. It was half the size it traditionally is. The music was "worldly" rather than "medieval," the kitsch even kitschier than usual. The girls didn't seem to notice.

The girls at the Faire.

Still, they had a lot of fun, wandering around, playing with the poetry board. They were entranced by the Daiko drummers, who were quite loud, if not entirely quite polished. The day was hot, hot, hot.

Hiding in the shade.

We spent a lot of time just seeking shade, and after three hours Kouryou-chan was overheated enough that we went home, stopping for Slurpees.

We decided, now that we were home, to fill in the depression in our yard. Rumor has it that the contractor buried a '57 Chevy there; I certainly believe it, since he's got two more rotting hulks out on his property still. We had to cut loose the sod and pick it up, and were left with a pit.

The Pit. Kouryou-chan added for scale.

We filled it in with eighty pounds of compost mixed in with about three hundred pounds of dirt from the refuse pile left over from replacing out water main, wet it down and replaced the sod.

All done.

It looks pretty good now that it's finished, and hopefully it'll all even out properly and we'll be able to mow it without needing the weed-whacker to get at the center of the bowl.

FallenPegasus made his way up from another skydiving experience, again grumbling about his skill or lack of it. He seemed to be okay, though. He brought ears of corn fresh from a farm near his drop zone and I fired up the grill outside to roast them (Mmmm....). Omaha poached salmon with another kind of salsa relish, all to be eaten chilled.

Food Porn: Chilled Poached Salmon with Salsa.

I also learned how to make Shirley Temples for the girls-- we all had them, actually. Hey, if Vir Cotto likes them, I can approve. If you want the recipie, it's one can of ginger ale and a half-jigger of pomegranate syrup (also known as grenadine syrup), serve over ice. Makes 2 servings.

Comments

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

Those leaves look like new growth of the same plant they're set against. They also look a lot like morning glory.

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

I was thinking they're morning glory as well. Maybe you're just allergic? I've never heard of morning glory causing contact dermatitis, but there's a first time for everything... and as common as morning glory is around this area, it wouldn't surprise me.

Morning glory, blackberries... you guys may have your own local versions of kudzu, but at least it's a lot more attractive than just miles of leaves.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

One thing that doesn't seem to vary in the pictures of poison ivy, and I can tell you from experience doesn't vary in poison oak: it grows in three-leafed patterns. "Leaves of three, let it be" is what all Northern California kids learn sooner or later, whether at camp or from parents or park rangers.

You sure that's what got you, Elf? The reaction you described sounded much more like a reaction to stinging nettle than to poison oak.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Yup, they look like nettle to me.

If they get you again, take a look around and find the ferns that will almost certainly be growing nearby. There will be little brown podlike things (which contain the fern spores) on the backs of the ferns; if you rub those over the nettle sting, it should relieve the reaction somewhat.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the picture that Elf has is *not* what he brushed up against. I thought he knew which plant it was, but apparently not. That *is* morning glory ivy, luv. I'll show you which plant it was the you got hit by and you can take a picture of it and post it later.

[shadowfey.livejournal.com]

That relish sounds delicious. Share the recipe?

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Poison ivy pics:

http://www.poison-ivy.org/

(It has varied growth habits; I wouldn't have identified your example as poison ivy, but after looking at some of these ... maybe.)

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

The eye reflection is pretty common - nocturnal mammals have an inner membrane in their eyes that help them collect what available light there is like a dish and redirect it towards the retina. The upshot of this is since Dinah had her head half-turned, the right eye is reflecting the camera flash, but the left isn't. The actual name for the membrane is the tapetum lucidum. (If there was no flash, it might be light from a window - daytime light can easily be bright enough to do this.)

Why, yes, I'm a geek - why do you ask?

[(Anonymous)]

Give ME A WEEEEEEED WHACKER!