Look who's three!

Birthday dress and birthday hairdo!

What's under the blanket??? 

A box! With a bed frame. All three are now sleeping on the same beds, dormitory-style. It's very cute and Edie doesn't roam around at bedtime nearly so much.

Her very own princess

A permanent birthday cake

But what's this?

A chloclolate cake of course! 

Happy birthday Edie!

That Boy Oscar!

One day when I was walking the halls of my building (pre-covid) an old lady in furs approached me and said to me with a demanding voice: "I am looking for that Boy PETER". She was referring to my colleague, who is a full grown professor: Dr. Peter Lundquist. I have no idea who she was or what she wanted from "that boy Peter". I pointed her the right direction and ran downstairs to tell Margaret right away. Since that day, we have been calling every one "that boy" or "that girl"

Here are pictures of that boy Oscar.

That boy Oscar loves to read! Especially Popeye and other comic books.

That boy Oscar loves that cat Pocky.  She thinks he is a lunatic but keeps coming back for more.  They have a special relationship.

That boy Oscar and that cat Garage also get along swimmingly, when Garage is in the mood.

"Ahhhhhhh....."

".....Phloo-ey"

That boy Oscar also loves running like a lifeguard from Baywatch.

One month later...

Here's our pollinator garden today! I even found two flowers in there this morning!

Tortoise Town

With the addition of Genuine Drexel and the formation of our Tortoise Creep, things were getting a little crowded for our two growing dudes, or gals, or dude and gal (Hermann's Tortoises are not easy to sex, especially ones so young).  I used Margaret's impending birthday as an excuse to spend money on lumber and tools and build her a tortoise table (we all know I did it for the Torts but Margaret likes it too). Here is the process:

 4' x 4' box

 A "small" hide box

Non-toxic water proofing rubber (Thanks Flex-seal [as seen on tv])

Access doors attached

In its final location and with legs attached

 With substrate, decorations, and torts in:

Final trimmings:  Brackets to hold the doors when opened, my idea, patent pending.

 Interior UVB lighting with holes for the cords to exit.

Two UVB lights and 1 infrared basking lamp.  (That's right! We got lights falling off both ends of the spectrum! Dont be jealous of our tortoises sweet digs.)

 Here it is all opened up!

I know that was a lot of pictures of a wooden box, but I am a very proud man.

Here is GB practicing to be the world turtle.  His head often emerges half an hour before the rest of him so he can get a good look around and see if anyone has brought him plantains or dandelions yet.

The inspirational poster on GBs wall:

They also have an outdoor enclosure now.  Who knew tortoises would (and enjoy?) climbing vertical pieces of wood?

"Sharing" a strawberry top

Me: What sound does a tortoise make?

Edie: Yomp! Yomp!

Summer fun!

Everyone helped plant seeds in the new garden bed, so we also have an auxiliary vegetable garden in the sidewalk cracks.

Boy scout...up to no good!

OMZ what could be better than chilling in the pool!?!

That's right, Edie's holding a bucket o' torts. We now have a creep of tortoises, and Eric has been working hard making them happy. The paler one is our old friend, Golden Beans Skates, and the darker one is the newcomer: Genuine ("jen-you-wine") Drexel. 

And here she is, happily watching them catch some rays themselves. Can you spot them both?

Oscar and I walked over to the library to pick up our box of books about turtles and pandas, and a deer was wandering through the parking lot! Deer can't read, silly!

I made a fancy salad for the solstice. Everyone ate it all = big success!

Edie now thinks she is the master of the hose, and if you try to water instead of her, well, you're in for a world of screams. She likes to change the water setting to "jet" or "clean" so there's often a lot of yelling by all parties. It's better to water once she's asleep...

Building the first picnic table.

The brickworks. Oscar and Eric watched some Primitive Technology videos and were inspired. Their goal: 200 bricks. They've already improved their technique from these first bricks by adding some ash from our ash stash.

Edie supervised from a safe distance. So far there's only been one invasion of mud monsters after brick-making, but you never know when they might return - or if the invasion will spread!!!

Yes there's half a watermelon rind floating in the pool. I made watermelon balls and served them inside the rind. I told the children that I smacked the watermelon very hard in a special way and Bam! the insides got turned into balls. They liked this story, so the leftover rind has been floating around to remind them of my powers.

A special package of dress-up clothes arrived from Baba Yaga, and John immediately became a ninja superhero, while Edie is a princess.

After grilling some veggies one night we toasted some marshmallows. John likes his black, of course, and Edie likes hers melty and falling off the stick, and refuses to eat any of it because it's too hot, and then crying when it falls on the ground. She's got a whole routine. Oscar made a very nice one and was so excited to show it to me that he waved the stick around in the air and wheee! another marshmallow down. Good thing marshmallows are sold in large bags. Then we put some bricks on the coals overnight to dry them extra-fast.

Daredevil.