today's working conditions

I love little Gramsci, without question.  But ever since he was a small kitten, he has made a point of positioning himself between me and my computer, and - well, being a presence.  No point in trying to interest him in the nineteenth century, or ecological art criticism, or even the university's budgetary precarity: his paws, he believes, are unarguably more compelling.

 

lemons

There is something almost ecclesiastical and ceremonial about these two yellow fruit, but they were just sitting there in front of me at breakfast time.  They are not awaiting sacrifice to the God of Citrus (indeed, they have remained unsqueezed all day); they have no symbolic valence.  But they were, indisputably, making their presence felt.

 

You can take a cat ...

For a start, I didn't buy this cat bed for Moth, but for Gramsci, who has otherwise been occupying an outdoor chair cushion that's somehow ended up on the living room floor. They are now both steadfastly ignoring it, despite my having put fresh catnip, a toy mouse, and a crinkle fish taco toy inside it.  Indeed Moth's look suggests that she wouldn't deign to tread in such a piece of crap, and she'll now go back to her woven straw bowl, thank you.  Grams has marched off to Alice's folded up yoga mat.  There's no pleasing some cats ...

 

she's out!

She's fully out! and as you can seen. co-existing happily with the MGs.  Very hot outside, though - but of course, since she's a sunflower, I guess that makes her fairly content.

On a day when yet more bad university financial news - or rather, some more precise details of cuts that will affect us all - start to trickle out, it's good to have some symbolic floral hopefulness.

 -

 

emerging

I have been curiously excited by this sunflower, because she is a volunteer - growing up in one of our pots, but not planted, and nor was there a sunflower there, or anywhere nearby, last summer.  Maybe a mouse hopefully hid a sunflower seed, and forgot where they'd put it?  She's made a great spurt over the past couple of days, and this morning was unfurling into a very hot day (during which I managed to write, and send off, a promotion letter twelve days early.  For anyone who's familiar with my habit of working to deadlines, you will be ... surprised?  Impressed?  Maybe I've turned a new leaf, or petal, in my old age: it certainly feels good).

 

august, market

We tend to go the Farmers Market on a Tuesday, not a Saturday, when it's quieter - but of course there isn't anything like the same variety of things on a weekday.  For a start, Gonzalez' potatoes (and fennel, and leeks) are there at weekends.  But there are also more flowers, and dried bundles, and things generally aimed at tourists rather than locals (there are also many more tourists).

Not, I suspect, that the tourists go for the composting redworms, which, I suspect, need more maintenance than we could give them - or at least much more compost than they would get when we weren't here and feeding them with the end parts of leek stalks.  Our own rotating compost bin is actually looking pretty good this year - we've been assiduous in watering and turning it.

And just to continue this week's bee theme: on a power supply box by the parking lot ...

 

a cogitating quail

This was pure luck - there was no way in which I could expect a quail, cleaning between their toes, to put the quaily crest in such perfect alignment with some sunlight shining between juniper tree branches that it seemed as though they had thought-bubbles coming out of the top of their head.  But there you are!  It's getting to the time of the year where there are quails everywhere, although I haven't seen any clutches of truly little ones yet...