Clong Bong Doyoyoing

I have, of course, been drawn to novelty music since my older brother Jeff introduced me to Weird Al Yankovic and my mother introduced me to Spike Jones.

Since those young days, though, I've gone through several odd sound rabbit holes and found something fun today: A collection of odd noises from the BBC.

Now we Americans have our fair share of odd noises, but to hear the odd noises of a different culture is fun.

The "clong bong doyoyoing" is, if I'm honest, a little disasppointing, but you don't want to miss the "Irish Nightingale."

"Several Men Coughing," however, is downright disturbing.

Porch Rail

When I rebuilt the porch steps a few years ago, I pondered whether I should build a rail. I decided at the time a rail wasn't necessary, though a few people suggested I might want one in the future.

Well, today was the day.

This is mainly in place so when Michelle's Dad comes to let the dogs out when we're gone he has a rail to help get him up and down the stairs. Fair enough; he's approaching 90 and is still mobile, so we should do what we can to keep that mobility going as much as possible.

I used some redwood I had left over from the steps project, but had to go to Ace Hardware to buy $30 worth of fasteners. Eight carriage bolts at just shy of $3 each; not cheap.

And I managed the typical flaw -- one of the nuts I brought home was a fine-thread out of the course-thread bin and wouldn't work with the carriage bolts I had. But luckily enough I found a nut that would work in the garage, so I didn't have to go to the store again.

It does make it a little bit harder for Dottie to go exploring - and pooping - under the stairs, so maybe that's a good thing.

It's sturdier than I dared hope. Behold, as my meaty hand and pimply voice demonstrate:

I hope it passes muster when Michelle gets home, but I feel good about it.

I Have Several Problems with This

Who on God's green earth decided that several means more than one, but even more ludicrously "more than two but fewer than many"?

What does that even mean?

Where, pray tell, is many's lower limit, and while we're at it, where is the upper limit of several?

I'm still grappling with the difference in meaning between will and shall (hint: there is none, and I cannot be convinced otherwise), and now you're shoving this several malarkey in my face?

Terry Pratchett's trolls have a better grip on numbers: One, two, many, lots. At least their system - and that is their nomenclature in total - makes more sense than this "more than two but fewer than many" business.

Anyway, this is what fills my mind as a distraction from my real task of standardising how dates appear in the reference section of a document, my latest effort in protecting the Snake River Plain Aquifer from democracy.

And lest you think I'm not properly anal, I pointed out as I rectified the dates in this particular voldrani that 2025 was not a leap year; thus the date of February 29 had to be an error.

This is what it feels like:

Not Quite 24 Hours Later

 

Critter No More

Critter in the craft room window well tonight. Whether a mole or a vole or a mouse, I can't tell.

But it's chewing into the sill board underneath the window.

Or at least it was. We put in some ramps to see if it would climb out, then thought better of it and started to get a bucket trap set up, but then I saw where he was - I was already in the well - so I stomped him flat.

I'm sorry, little critter. I deliberately took a life, and I feel like an ogre. But maybe that's better than dying - drowning, really - in the bucket trap.

I'm going to bed now. And then probably to hell.

AI Truck? [Chef's Kiss]

Found this in the wild today.

AI, of course, abounds.

But the best part is the truck. In the video linked above, it's backing up.

Behold:

Anything Fun?

My sister came over yesterday so she could print some stuff for her teaching job, and afterward we chatted for a bit. We got to talking, of course, about the fact that most of my family is in Island Park at scout camp, finishing up staff week and preparing for scouts to come in a few weeks.

That talk included her asking what I'd been up to, and I went through the ordinary litany of weekend chores, which this weekend included fixing a leak in the sprinkler system, trimming and burning branches from a few trees, and weeding the raspberries.

She asked the question: So, are you doing anything for you, for fun?

Honestly, I didn't have an answer.

I realized I've turned into Dad. The chores were actually pretty entertaining.

As of now, I've got most of the raspberries done -- I'm running the sprinklers for an hour to give them some water and to soften the ground up where I've got a patch of thistles growing.

I can run the water because I fixed the sprinkler system leak -- it feeds a spigot we use in the garden for watering.

And while I don't have all the tree branches trimmed, I have cut up and torched all of the branches I've felled along with all the old raspberry canes Michelle yoinked out of the garden a few weeks ago.

I have been taking breaks, intermittently working on a lesson for Sunday School tomorrow, and watching a little YouTube and playing a few games. Altogether, a relaxing and productive weekend, which is always good.

Yes, it's work. But it's work I want to do, and work I regard as valuable, So it's relaxing and important to see it done.

A University of Idaho Connection in Idaho Falls

This week I've really enjoyed reading Connie B. Otteson's "Unsung Heroes and Settlers of Bonneville County, Idaho," a local history book published in 2005.

It was a lucky find at a local thrift store, where I've found a good number of local history books. Now around here, we don't have a lot of history at least for whitey, going back if we're lucky only about 150 years.

Today's reading started out with a familiar story of the city's Village Improvement Society (which still exists, I found out) and a drive to import hardwood trees from back east and plant them all over town, notably on the numbered streets and in a park that would come to be known as Kate Curley Park, after one of the VIS' prominent boosters who was really tired of dragging the hems of her dresses in mud and horse doots.

While the VIS imported the trees from Iowa and Illinois, they wanted to find a more local expert to help them arrange and plant things, particularly in the park.

They found Charles Huston Shattuck, late of the University of Idaho's College of Forestry, where he was dean, and where he'd laid the groundwork for the tree cover and landscaping at that campus, including the Shattuck Arboretum, which of course bears his name.

I went to the university of Idaho and spent some time wandering through the arboretum, as it was between my first residence hall (the building in the lower right corner of the photo above) and the campus. It was crisscrossed with trails. Honestly, I thought it was just a bit of forest that the campus had preserved, it looked so natural. Come to find out it was just a weedy patch of bare ground before Shattuck started his work on it.

As much as I don't want to live on the numbered streets in Idaho Falls, I do love that the VIS had the foresight to bring in hardwoods and take the effort to plant trees in what was otherwise a sandy, wind-blown desert. And I'm glad they found an expert who produced the prettiest university campus in the state to help with the effort.

We came close when I was a kid at living in a house kitty-corner to Kate Curley Park, but it never came to fruition. I don't know why. But it's certainly a pretty neighborhood.

FOOD

One of our weenie dogs might be just a tad motivated by food.

Greener Pastries

It pays to self-edit fast in our family group chat, because if you don't, they'll jump on ya.

To be honest, I'm not sure what greener pastries might be either. Maybe something for St. Patrick's Day?