Odds and Ends

No recent updates on my niece and the consequences of the accident.  News could come tomorrow or in months.

I basically solved my confusion about the EU GDPR notice requiring even foreigners to post about cookie use.  I found a brief one elsewhere and stole it.  It seems to say enough.  Feel free to steal it yourself from here (right under the header).  I think that, after a month, I will move it to the bottom of the blog, and later, somewhere barely findable.  Eventually, it will become nearly meaningless like "This site complies with all international laws applicable in the United States Courts to the best of our understanding. 

I do NOT like that Blogger has eliminated forwarding of comments to email account.  There was no reason given.  If it saved them money, they should say so.  If they polled the community and got a positive response to the idea, they should say so. 

The change is a real inconvenience to me.  I mean, no complaint to Blogger if they had a good reason, but none was given.

I'm also annoyed about the end to Open ID commenters.  I have enough of them who are frustrated and they are long-time commenters who don't want to establish Google accounts.  Its not up to ME if they should or should not.

The rain as been amazing this Spring.  Starting in early May, it has rained about 16-20" total.  I didn't keep track (at the start, who knew it would be a lot?).  But I have a good rain gauge and a general idea of how many times I have seen 1/4" to 3".

And the hardest thing is that it has been rather steady.  3" was a LOT at once.  But most times it is 1/2" every day or so.  The problem is that it keeps the soil soaked.  You plant seeds in soaked soil and they just rot.

Joke:  "I planted rice in early May and they have all drowned".

Seriously, I have lost a month of planting.  I planted 4 square feet of Spinach and got only 4 seedlings.  There should have been 4 dozen.  And I can't plant my deck pots when they are all mud.  Squishing around the wet soil creates little tubs that dry out and form hard layers later that flower roots don't penetrate well.

I have molehills EVERYWHERE!  The soft soil is like Heaven to them.  They are even in the front lawn and I've never had them there before; it is usually too hard for them to dig through.  And the voles use the mole tunnels to get at plant roots.  I'm going to have to spray carol oil over the yard.  That doesn't bother the earthworms the moles feed on, but apparently, it gives them  an awful taste to the moles, so they go elsewhere.  and if there are no mole tunnels, the voles are forced aboveground where nearly everything wants to eat them. 

Their are mole poisons, but I can't use them.  A poisoned mole can mean a poisoned predator (like my cats).  And I've never found a mole trap that had any meaningful affect.  You spike or whatever an few adult moles and it makes little difference.  There are always a few fertile adults left and that means more mole babies.  You have to make the adult moles actually LEAVE!

I've started unclutterring the house.  Well, you have to unclutter before you can clean, and I've let that go for too long.  And no matter what you want to do, something else seems to have to be done first.  So I looked around for "first things". 

I tend to save interesting home maintenance, gardening articles and recipes out of the newspaper and stack them on a corner of the dining table.  I went through the stack and threw most of them away.  I'm not really ever going to make those fancy chocolate truffles or hazelnut cookies, I'm not going to make those "tandoori/honey/duck burritos", and I really don't need a 13th way to BBQ a chicken...

And really, if I ever need to refinish a water-spot on a table top or re-grout a tile, I'll just look it up on the internet. It is time to stop saving information when it it so easily available online!

What I DO need to do is collect all the random stuff off the living room bookcases.  There are aquarium supplies sitting there.  So I need to enclose the existing aquarium stand with wall panel wood and make doors so the stuff has a place to be altogether and out of sight. 

And move some kitchen appliances I seldom use out of the cat-stuff closet to above the cabinets, making room for the 2 shelves of cat toys so THEY are out of sight (but surely not forgotten). 

And then move some stacked books INTO the bookcases, etc...  Figuring out the FIRST thing to do is very important, or else I just end up shifting the clutter around...

And then there is the Cat Room.  Which doubles as a storage room.  My Xmas decorations are still out loose.  I could spend a whole day just in there!  I would like to store them up in the attic, but I had some energy-saving contractor in there a few years ago insulating the place 12' deep (and have never noticed any reduction in my electric bill).  So it is time to put down some plywood flooring (like I used to have there).  And I still have the plywood I originally installed and then removed for the increased insulation in my basement.  But that has to be done before I can move the seldom-used Xmas decorations up there.

There is always something that has to be dome first...