Wednesdaily with more bravery and very tall flowers...

I cold-called this morning - literally with a phone call - and will be bringing my coloring books to an exciting new local venue for review. Cross your fingers for me. This could be awesome.

In other fabulous news, the test packages I sent to Amazon for fulfillment have sold 8/12 coloring books in just over 2 weeks. Worth doing, and I shall ship some larger boxes that will save me a little on per-item postage next time.

In other, OTHER fabulous news, I got a spot at the UWA bazaar the first week of November. I will be sharing a downstairs spot with laylalawlor both Saturday and Sunday. We have spot #43, on the middle aisle. (I will not be able to offer coloring books I am not actually IN, but if you are a local interested in purchasing any not-me titles, I can have them available for pickup.)

Yesterday was the Tuesday with No Nap, so I got very little done. Today, I have childcare, and have already (in one hour) done more than I accomplished all of yesterday.

You may recall that my delphiniums last year were a total bust. Not so, this year:



I dispatched two of the voles that were eating my lettuce (and decimated my strawberries and lilies over the winter), but three times in a row now, the live trap was triggered and cleaned out, and left in pieces by the garden. I need a better trap. This was a tiny, plastic mousetrap I wasn't sure was up to voles anyway. I'm resisting the kill-traps because the snap traps caught a bird last year, and I don't like the use of poison. Also, I'd like to keep danger to dog noses and child fingers to a minimum.

Tomorrow is $1 ice cream at the Wood Center. I'll be paying twice that because of parking, but it will still be worth it. Cross fingers for sunny skies!

The mystery of the mysterious missing strawberry

I was talking with our CSA gardener about our vole problem when she came over, and pointed out my chewed open trap.

"Where's the strawberry?" Guppy asked me, all innocence.

A strawberry had been ripening in my garden over the last few days. I was very excited for it, and went to point it out to her... and it was gone.

"ARGH!" I said, or something similarly coherent. "Those darn voles! They did it again!"

We commiserated a bit, and Guppy tugged on my pants. "I pickt the strawberry."

"ARGH! You picked my strawberry? What did you do with it?"

"I dunnano."

A few moments later, she pulled me towards a bucket of water at the end of the garden. A squishy, half-eaten strawberry floated in with the moths and spiders.

"You drowned my strawberry?!"

Mystery solved.