12.17 It's been a difficult day

Brandon

2000 - 17 December 2009

12.3 Back from Thanksgiving

... and running hard. I appreciate all of your good thoughts about Brandon the dog. He's on something which is diminishing his symptoms at the moment, although it's only a stopgap and it's obvious the end can't be pushed off very long. He tires easily, but is still interested in food, going outside, and stopping cat squabbles. He howls at the telephone ringing and barks at the mailman. Life still seems to be ok.

I seem to be thrashing around. I haven't spun anything since two days after I last mentioned it on the blog (a month ago? I don't want to look.) I haven't knit consistently on anything. I've started an SOA, but quit for vacation because the double balls of yarn were too cumbersome to take. I didn't finish the corner-to-corner on vacation because while I thought I had the Next Ball of yarn, when I checked the bag, I really didn't, that was some other yarn. In the fifteen minutes I had before we left the house, I tore apart the stash, but didn't find it. I now have to put the stash back together before the cats are allowed back in the spare room. I also still need to find the Next Ball. Where is it?

In a huff I started a new shawl on the trip, which was fun, but now I have another shawl to keep working on when I really wanted to finish up corner-to-corner and concentrate on SOA.

Like I said. Thrashing around.

11.25 Drive by blogging

Things have been a little interesting for a while and aren't going to calm down yet.

1. I have a part time temporary job, filling in for a one person office whose one person has disappeared in the time suck of Family Emergencies (not 1, not 2, but 3 simultaneous emergencies). This will keep me busy for at least another week after the holiday.

2. The play went well. Really, really well.

3. The guests who came to see the play have come and gone.

4. The sickies are all well again. The sickest has almost finished catching up on the week of homework/schoolwork/tests she missed.

5. The dog has lymphoma and has been given "a few weeks". He "might make it through New Year's." Merry Christmas.

6. It's going to rain all the way to our Thanksgiving destination. It's supposed to be sunny on the way back.

7. I have the Never-Ending-Ball of Yarn to take with me, and the next ball of yarn, just in case I actually finish up the NEBoY. I also need to get the pattern for the last corner of the Corner-to-Corner, just in case, etc. (I knit the first ball of yarn, then started into the NEBoY and decided that when I got to the end of the NEBoY it would be time to start the last corner. That decision hasn't changed in the last two months while I've been working on the NEBoY.)

Have a good Thanksgiving.

11.12 Thankful Thursday

Today's edition of Thankful Thursday is brought to you by Family:

1. I'm thankful for the good relationship I have with both my sibs. We did the obligatory bickering as teenagers, but we get along really well as adults. We puzzle those in-laws who don't have the benefit of getting along with their sibs, but over the past twenty-odd years they have gotten over most of their bewilderment and like hanging with us as well.

2. I'm thankful for the fact that all four of my kids' grandparents have been interested in making good relationships with their grandchildren, without having an overwhelming desire to tell us we were doing it all wrong.

3. I'm thankful for my husband and my kids, who are pretty fun people to hang around with. Our kids keep us on the run, being interested in doing all kinds of things, but it's probably good for us.

Speaking of being on the run, the play starts tonight and goes for four performances (Thursday, Friday, Saturday mat, Saturday night). I'm helping in the box office for most of those - I will be thankful when all of that is over!

11.10 Foods

A bit ago Claudia asked what people liked about November and many of the answers came back as food, which apparently surprised her, as she doesn't associate any month with a given food.

I mentioned foods in my answer to her, but really, I would probably have mentioned foods associated with almost any month mentioned. It's not that I eat more at any one time of the year than at any other, it's just that I grew up, and have continued, a yearly cycle of menus. My cycle as chief cook differs from my mother's to some extent, but she and I both depend a great deal on "what's in season". Additionally, while we definitely have some "holiday foods", these are in substitution for other foods, not in addition to those foods.

So, herewith is my list of foods by month in which we eat them. If you ask me what I like about these months, these foods will come up!

January: New Year's Day we have tamales, because that's an easy going day where all the hands are available for fixings!

February: Artichokes: my mother's b'day is in Feb and she always requested them for her birthday; February is when they first showed in the grocery stores on the east coast. Also, Angel food cake and strawberries (frozen), ditto.

March: I don't care for corned beef, my family does. I fix it once a year, in March.

April: Crown roast of pork for Easter dinner. I fix it then because it is sometimes available then without having to special order one.

May: My birthday - Pecan pie. I don't bother much with b'day cake; b'day pie is another matter! Also, if I can get them, fresh spargeln.

June: Strawberries. Bacon Lettuce sandwiches (don't ask me why this one - It's Traditional. Maybe because that's when the early lettuce is ready?)

July: Blueberries. Grilled items. Lettuce salads.

August: Watermelon and fresh corn. Cantelope. Maple syrup we get when we go to Canada. More grilled items.

September: Fresh corn. Squashes. Grapes.

October: Winter squashes in casserole.

November: Sourdough bread - bread season starts in November when the house is cool enough to bake again. Pumpkin pie. Turkey?

December: Turkey?* Waldorf salad (the kind with mustard dressing not mayo), and butterhorns.

Obviously we eat a lot of other things, but these are the main seasonal ones, and they belong in their own time of the year. What things do you associate with a given month or season?

* Turkey is a toss-up between Thanksgiving and Christmas - once we've had one turkey a year, we're done for another year. Which makes S ever so sad as it is one of his favorites. Last year, he learned to roast a turkey himself so that we would have it twice in a year.

11.9 Missing day...

Yesterday completely disappeared. What happened to Sunday? I dunno.

Monday has been ok. The house is quiet - J & S are off to the school Soccer Banquet. I like the way this school district does things: Scholastic awards are presented at the school, in an evening event to which parents are invited via an invitation mailed to the home*. Music and sports awards are presented at an off-campus event, sponsored by the parents group associated with the particular extracurricular activity, to which parents are invited by somebody running off copies and handing them to the students so they can lose them followed by somebody running off more copies and running around at the last event (three days after the deadline to turn them in) and asking anxiously - have you gotten one of these yet?

K is mostly over her flu - just an ear infection left, which will, with any luck, succumb immediately to the antibiotics.

*While this is a good example of the difference in emphasis and I appreciate the heck out of the difference, I deeply resent the wastage of paper, envelopes, ink, time and postage, of all of the mailings sent home by the schools here. As a parent I was trained in the stern halls of a poor elementary school in California, where only one paper was sent home for each family, sent with the oldest child in the family, and volunteers made the copies and carefully counted out just enough copies for each classroom. Parents knew things came home with their kids and expected to get them.

Here in NY, students are apparently considered incapable of handling such higher responsibilities and the amount of wastage is amazing. The worst case was when the school sent me a letter to tell me that they were going to send me another letter and I should expect it. I kept turning the first letter over and looking in the envelope to try to figure out what I was missing.

11.7 Swatching

The red became a swatch:

Wash, blocked and dried. Moss stitch, meant for a filler in an SOA.

11.6 Dyeing again

This time I dyed some fiber. Using the same basic technique, but allowing the temperature to go a bit higher, I wound up having to rinse only twice before it ran clear. A significant improvement over the dyeing with yarn and red dye earlier. This was a pound of Dunnose Head Farm white and will probably get spun up soon as I have the itch to play with it.

11.5 Thankful Thursday

Three things I'm thankful for?

1. Cats: Despite the fact that I grumble when they annoy me (really, a wet cold nose in the armpit at 4:30 am?) they are soft, cuddly, better than a hot water bottle when I'm sick, and it's incredibly soothing to pat one when I'm stressed.

2. Gardens: Despite the fact that I grumble when I have to weed or water or mulch them, I adore watching them grow and develop, changing from season to season, and particularly when they are in bloom.

3. Pumpkin pie: There is no "despite" associated with pumpkin pie.

11.4 Lentil soup

The ick list has been lengthening - J seems to be developing a sinus infection and K came home from school early with a headache and sore throat. She took a nap, and awoke with a temperature which was rapidly rising. No play practice for her tonight.

Lentil Soup was on the menu for the sick and ailing:

in a 3 quart crock pot:

2 cups lentils

1.5 cups sliced carrots

1 cup sliced celery

8 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsp Italian herb mix (Penzey's)

64 oz chicken broth

Cook on high for 2 hours, (add more liquid if needed) then cook on low for 3 hours more. I added 1.5 cups diced ham in the last hour.

Sourdough bread on the side!

11.3 Proof of spinning

Pics or it didn't happen?

Here you go.

This is the second bobbin. The first bobbin is hidden from the cat - I'll have to fish it out and get a pic of that one too.

11.2 He does.

He has the flu. He's feeling better.

The rest of us? The jury is still out.

I'm getting some spinning done: Purple BFL from High Bid Farm, acquired at Fingerlakes Fiber Festival.

11.1 Does he or doesn't he?

J isn't feeling well. Sore throat, runny nose, cough, achy all over, little bit of a fever.

He sat in a conference room three days this week with someone who went home early the third day with a "fever and flu-like symptoms".

Does he or doesn't he have the flu? Only time will tell.

Will or won't the rest of us? Ditto.

10.28 Why?

I'm feeling crabby. I want someone to tell me what the magic words are, since I don't seem to be able to figure them out myself.

I patronize a grocery store that has gone to selling reusable grocery bags. I have purchased a large stash of said bags. I even mostly remember to take the bags with me when I go shopping.

Will someone please explain why the same checkers who cannot seem to pack more than 2 items per plastic bag take great glee in packing everything into two bags (generally with the bananas on the bottom) and handing me back the "extra" three bags I gave them?

I have tried reminding them that there are more bags available, asking them to consider using the other bags, and telling them outright that I want all the bags used, not just some of them. Nothing seems to work; it doesn't matter which checker, the age of the checker or when in the process that I make my pleas.

I'm feeling crabby.

10.21 Dyeing results

It's been annoying, but now I am merely apathetic. I've tried varying the water temp, adding more vinegar, length of time for soaking... Nothing seems to make a difference except just continuing to rinse. Eventually, it rinses clean. Fortunately, I don't seem to be felting it.

I do like the way it's turning out.

10.20 Dyeing

(Q. how on earth is it more than a week later?)

Having finally found my dye pot (I've been looking for more than six weeks), I got round to doing some dyeing that I've been planning for a year or so. I had dyed 7 skeins, but disliked the color so much, they've been sitting about looking ugly at me. I'd finally decided on Magenta as the color for overdyeing and am very happy with the way it turned out. The only thing I don't like is the rinsing and rinsing and rinsing that red dye requires. The skeins don't seem to change color, but the water is still red.

24 hours later:
Skein 1: 15 rinses to run clear. Hanging to dry.
Skein 2: 8 rinses: still red.
Skein 3: 5 rinses: still red.
Skeins 4-7: Waiting for their turn.

This is going to take forever. ::le sigh::

10.12 Time for soup

Anyone who knew me while I was growing up would be astounded to hear me say that Fall means Time for Soup. Growing up, I hated soup, just as growing up, my sister hated cheese. As each of us went out into the world of Being the Grown-up, we discovered we were wrong. Rather than disliking an entire category of food, we simply disliked that portion of the category we had been exposed to so far.

Each set of parents presents their children with those food they themselves like, rationally enough. One doesn't usually get up in the morning and say - I think today I'll buy some food I hate eating and make let the kids try it. For one thing, my experience with kids is that it takes between 3 and 7 exposures to a new food before they like it (fewer if it's similar enough to something they already like).* The wider that parents' tastes in food, the wider the children's exposure will be, but it still doesn't usually cover the entire possible gamut. My parents ate a lot of different things, but...

Anyway. Back to soup.

One of my favorites is my version of Mushroom Parmesan Soup, modified from Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Soups and Stews (this is a book I've enjoyed very much in trying new soups out).

1.5 pounds mushrooms (This time I used a mix of Maitake (Hen of the Woods), Oyster, Crimini and a small package of dried Morels, reconstituted. - previously I've also used Shitake, Chanterelle and Enoki mushrooms in the mix - each different combination gives a slightly different end product. I haven't decided on the definitive combination yet, and may never!)
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped.
2 cups scallions, chopped.
3 T butter
2 T flour
4 cups stock (beef or chicken. If beef, I use red wine; if chicken, white.)
1/2 c wine
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
4 egg yolks
2 T chopped fresh parsley
3/4 c grated parmesan cheese

Chop the stems off the mushrooms and roughly cut. Slice mushrooms thinly.
Heat oil in soup pot. Add mushroom stems, garlic and scallions. Steam, covered, for about ten minutes, stirring frequently. Put this into a food processor and turn into a chunky paste (don't overdo the processing). Put the paste back into the soup pot, add the butter and flour, stir until melted and merged together.

Stir in the stock and the sliced mushroom caps. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the wine and stir.

Mix the egg yolks, parsley and parmesan cheese in a separate bowl. Stir into the soup mix. Serve immediately, usually with fresh bread. (Note: This was a taste 5 for K & S - everyone had some and I didn't have to listen to any whining!)

This leaves you with 4 egg whites (usually). After dinner, heat the oven to 350F. Beat the egg whites and 1/4 tsp salt on high to stiff peaks. Add 1 tsp almond extract. On a medium speed, gradually add (1 T at a time) 1 cup granulated sugar. When the sugar is all mixed in, measure out 1 T batter at a time onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. These won't expand, so you can put your batter dabs quite close together. Put cookie sheet in the oven and turn off the heat. Leave the oven closed until morning. Enjoy your Forgotten Cookies the next day.

*Our conversations go something like this:
Taste 1: Ew xyz is awful.
Taste 2: Yuk.
Taste 3: Why do you always make xyz?
Many months later, why don't you ever make xyz?
Taste 4: This is great!

10.8 dye day

While I was running around trying not to dip my shawl in the indigo, I managed to come up with this:



being Jaggerspun Zephyr (wool/silk laceweight), dyed with (mordant)tin+goldenrod+indigo

and this: (the skein on the right)



These are both alpaca lacweight. The ball on the left was done at the last dye day with (mordant)alum + cochineal + indigo. This day's skein was (mordant)tin+cochineal+indigo.

The tin tends to strike on unevenly, and we had a full dye pot, so the yellow achieved with the goldenrod was quite variegated, from pale yellow to full on gold. This then went from blue to full on green and I really like it. The red from the cochineal wasn't quite so strikingly variegated, but you can see where the indigo left some bluer bits.

Both of these are destined to be shawls (what a surprise!). I'm thinking the tin/cochineal/indigo will form the stripe of one of the striped Icelandic shawls from the Triangle and Long Shawls book.

10.7 Hyrna finished

Quite a while ago, I started Hyrna Herborgar. I ran out of yarn and ripped it all out. A while ago (two years and a bit?) I started Hyrna Herborgar again. I got to the part where the fans start, and got stalled because I had a mistake and no time to figure out where I'd goofed. I picked it up again and guess what?

It's done.




I actually wore it to Dye Day, and had many compliments, and worried like crazy that I'd get indigo dye splashed on it (didn't, but i worried). It looks all lacy and fragile, but it's alpaca laceweight and I was warm outside (57 degrees F) all day.

9.29 end of the yarn

Hyrna Herborgar is coming along again (at last). One of the projects that K unearthed for me, it's been waiting for two years for me to figure out why I had two extra stitches appear over the most recently knit two rows. I had gone from 437 stitches (expected) to 445 stitches rather than 443 stitches. I set it down until I had some Attention to give to it, and there it sat.

It's moving along again - having identified and fixed the problem, I've now gotten from 22 rows to go to 13 stitches, one row and a bind off to finish.


Unfortunately, I need to find the other ball of yarn first.

9.26 End of the harvest

The garden has had a hard time this year. First it got too much cold and damp, then it got too little water as I was out of the habit of watering. My neighbor lost almost all of his tomatoes to black spots that I have tentatively diagnosed as Tomato Spotted Wilt. Mine are much farther out in the sun than his and did not succumb until right at the end. (Thrips, untreatable? lovely). It sounds like the plants need to stay out of the compost pile, which is annoying.

However, while my plants were slow to produce and the harvest was about half what I expected, I did have a month's worth of lovely tomatoes to munch on.

9.24 Progress

K did a sweep through the family room a couple of weeks ago, and asked what she should do with my knitting. "Oh, just put it in a pile and I'll take care of it."

Famous last words.

Out of the resulting pile, I have dismantled four projects as being Done. They were projects started for the purpose of learning some new technique, and technique mastered, they were no longer of interest. Their yarns are being recycled.

Then we have the projects that were cruising along, but got to the point where they needed Attention, not just Knitting. Not having time to give them Attention, they were set aside until I had time. And there they sat.

Ruby is just such a project. I got the fronts and backs done, and needed to spend some time sewing up shoulders and sides, picking up stitches for bands...



All done.

Fingerlakes fiber fest

This past weekend was the Fingerlakes Fiber Festival, in Hemlock NY. K, a friend Linda, and I went down on Sunday. We wandered around happily for a couple of hours, meeting friends and admiring goods, before we sat down to Artichokes French (K only went for the food, she claimed).

I bought a few things:
The yarn was from previous years' purchases, but I had decided I needed a nice semi-solid brown to frame it with. Voila!

I think it will work nicely.

Also, I picked up some High Bid Farm BFL in purple dots. Bob Geiger has taken over the dye duties. He's using the same colorways, but the technique is dottier. I really think I'm going to like it.

9.19 Still here...

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, it's just been very weird around here. K & S are back to school. I have a dozen pics on the camera I need to upload. Tomorrow I'm going to Fingerlakes Fiber Fest and I will have more pics to upload. Someday I will get them all on the computer.

9.6 Banana waffles

I promised Sylvia a recipe, so (only a month later) here it is:

Banana Waffles

4 eggs, divided
2 cups milk
4 T melted butter
2.5 c flour
.5 c nut flour (I usually use almond or walnut)
2.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp salt
2 large or 3 small bananas, coarsely mashed

Mix eggs yolks, milk and melted butter together. Stir together dry ingredients, then add gradually to wet ingredients. Add bananas when the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated. Stir just until blended.

Whip egg whites to moderately stiff peaks. Fold into batter.

Bake in waffle iron until golden brown.

This is the version I currently make, with two teenagers (one being a boy). We have two waffle irons: one takes .5 c batter, the other takes 1.5 c batter. This recipe makes three large waffles and three or four small waffles. The recipe scales well down to either 2 or 3 eggs.

After many years of making waffles, the irons are still good, but the non-stick coating is not quite as non-stick as it used to be. A small touch of spray oil works wonders.

Correction: Sorry - baking powder not baking soda. You could possibly use baking soda with the bananas in the recipe, but then it probably should be about 1.25 tsp soda and I've not tried it that way.

8.26 Hmmm....

You know how when you read something that strikes a chord, you suddenly notice everyone talking about the same thing? At this point, I don't even remember where I saw the comment first, so I can't point you back to where the idea germinated for me. But I am trying to be mindful of which things I do because I enjoy them, and which I do out of habit. Enjoying them is a good thing; habit is a time sink.

When I came home from vacation, I jumped back into Ravelry. I picked up Distributed Proofreaders again right away. I'm working through the 473 blog posts I was behind, although slowly. I haven't turned on my email lists yet. I haven't looked at facebook yet.

To be honest, the facebook thing isn't a big hit with me. I usually only check it every week or two, to keep up with people I don't keep up with in any other way.

DP is a lot of fun and it's my new toy.

Ravelry is where I keep up with some other people I don't keep up with in any other way, and where I've started chatting about the fiber things that my email lists don't discuss any more.

The blogs are still interesting, although I've picked up some new ones and am slowly dropping ones I don't have anything in common with any more.

The email lists? There's the hmmm.... I've been on some of those lists for almost ten years, but most of them are mere shadows of their former selves, and honestly? I think I'm just reading them for old times sake, not because I find them interesting. So why bother? I don't know. I had noticed I was dumping more than half the messages unread, I probably haven't posted in months, and I feel no urge at all to turn them on again. A time sink I don't really need?

8.24 Back from vacation

We got back from vacation Saturday night - it was (mostly) fun.

(A recycled picture, but really, it looks just the same!)

The boat broke, the trailer broke, the car broke, J's brother's car broke, the caretaker broke, the trailer broke again, and when we got home, the computer broke. Other than that, we had a great time (no particular sarcasm intended). The boat seems to be fixed, the car seems to be fixed, to the best of our knowledge J's brother's car is fixed, the caretaker is out of the hospital and we hope is fixed, the trailer body is fixed and J will replace the winch next season. I hope I have the computer fixed - it seems to be working now.

8.6 Summer rolls on...

K is home after being gone 3.5 weeks. S is leaving on Sunday for two weeks. Gotta get cracking.

7.28 Keeping going...

Next up on the spinning scene is this mulberry sliver. It's been marinating in stash for a couple of years and I decided it was time.

It's sort of like spinning silk, but only sort of. Spinning from the fold seems to be the way to go. It has no give at all, so I'm seriously thinking of plying it with wool. Two ply or three? Dunno yet. Still waffling on that point.

7.27 Spinning results

The merino/firestar is all plied up. I'll measure yardage when it finishes drying. With all the humidity in the air right now, that may take a while, although I put the skein through the salad spinner to help.

The thunderstorms on Saturday brought tornadoes to the area. I had just answered the phone when K called from MD when J walked in the door on his way back from Big Rockets and said: There was just an emergency broadcast announcement - tornado watch. Go take a look at the radar.

My conversation with K went sort of like this: Hi, sweetie, how's... Oops just a minute...I'll call you back later, bye!

There were two tornadoes, one in the town north of us and one to the west 30 miles away, the first in 25+ years. Fortunately, it seems to have been property damage only, no injuries. Hard enough on the people involved, but it could have been worse.

The radio announcers today (on all stations I've listened to) all are giving the weather report something like this: Monday, blah blah, Tuesday blah blah, Wednesday - Thunderstorms! but no tornadoes forecast at this time!!

7.25 More daylilies

The daylilies are all blooming now:






and these last three are from the babies that Cathy sent me two years ago:

7.21 Daylily time

When the pink Dot Com Tango lilies start blooming, they signal the end of the Asiatic bloom for the year.

You can see that the white Cappucino are all but done and the orange ones whose name I never remember.

The red Olinas are taller than I am, although they do have the advantage of about a foot boost with the raised bed.


The end of the Asiatics is the beginning of the daylilies and the Orientals will follow very shortly.

7.19 Marketing tool: Temptation

I bought the black/pink/firestar batts from Corgi Hill Farms (on etsy). She has a neat little marketing trick: With the order (I got four batts), she included a cute little mini batt of a completely different colorway:
Now I ask you.

I had to go check out the store just to figure out what the colorway was, since it wasn't labeled. Fortunately she has so many different reds and different fiber combos available right now that I was paralyzed by indecision and consequently didn't spend any more money I didn't intend to right now.

But I have finished the first two batts and am ready to start on the second singles.

7.17 Spinning for a week...

You'd think a week's worth of spinning would look like more, wouldn't you?
I have spun every day, although some days have been on the spindle.

7.9 And on the knitting front...

I've started one of the Eugen Beugler stoles from Best of Shawls and Scarves, the Corner to Corner one. I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr. The corner went pretty quickly, but now I'm on the full length side-to-side on a diagonal and the rows are longer.

7.8 Spinning on the wheel and spindles

On the wheel is a batt of merino and angelina.

(the batt)


The red is tussah silk from Just Our Yarn (the neverending 3.5 oz I bought almost a year ago - this is what's left of the first half of it.)



And the blackberry English longwool from Freyalyn, which I misplaced months ago and just recently found again.

7.6 Lily forest stage 3

The lily forest is moving along through the bloom cycles. The Asiatics are all blooming now, both in the front bed and in the window bed. The ones in the front bed are the "pastel Asiatic mix", while the ones in the window bed are all Tango lilies.

Some of the pastels up close:

And a closer look at the Tango bed:

Cathy, this is the first of your babies to bloom this year:

7.5 Wheel spinning

Autumn fiber from Cloverleaf Farms:

Spun up to be:

Giving me two bobbins:

One bobbin to go.

7.4 spindlespun

Today's spindle spinning comes via the LDRS 28 rocket launch. We drove down to a farm in Potter where we got to watch all sorts of hi-power model rockets going off. Most of them went up and came down as planned which was fun. Some of them went up and came down not as planned, which was sometimes more fun.

I got a bunch of spindle spinning done while I watched.

6.29 Red lilies

Red Carpet Lily


Not Red Carpet Lily


They're both nice lilies, just not the same.

We have deer here, but by the time the lilies are up and vulnerable, the woods are green and attractive. You notice all of my lily pictures are at the front of the house. The garden at the back of the house is surrounded by a low fence which any deer would laugh at except that it smells like Dog inside (and often has a noisy pesky dog inside). Not quite attractive enough to come into the yard, except in the winter with lots of snow covering everything. Two years ago they pruned my weeping willow, pinched off all the ends of my red twig dogwood (both of which are outside the fence) and just about killed several of the neighbor's arbor vitae hedge which he had just put in.