(no subject)

Busy. Busy. Busy.

This is to say, I haven't quite fallen off the face of the planet. All arenas of my life appear to have conspired against me having even a moment to contemplate the minutiae in which they're burying me.

***

August continues apace. When I go out to walk in the mornings, the stars are once again visible in the pre-dawn sky. Orion hovers just over the tree line, competing for attention with Venus. Soon the less brilliant stars will also be displayed as the days grow shorter once more. All around me, insects and birds and vegetation whirl frantically through the late days of summer. My lemon tree still has five lemons swelling on their stems (still green, of course). Blackberry season is waning, and the birds have stolen all but a few of my blueberries, drat them.

***

My slow forward progress in Kith remains slow, but progresses. Recent research has included the rituals associated with the Roman festival of Saturnalia, the naming patterns of various early religions' church buildings, and certain minor languages and cultures of northern Europe (as buttressing for my decisions of the spring regarding the Skyedeki).

***

My son's little beagle has taught my dog, Kay, to bark. I'm not sure whether to bemoan this break in Kay's normal quiet behavior or laugh when she does bark and sounds so bizarre. *g*

***

In the new house, my workroom is going to have doors. Soundproof doors. That is all.

And a one, and a two, and....

Here's some of what's been keeping me busy the past week. I picked up these clients just before I went out of town in July. Then there was measuring, and thinking, and drawing, resulting first in this version of the converted driveway area:




And then we met, and they decided they'd rather not have any parking area behind the current gate, so I thought some more, and drew some more, and have now proposed this:




All of the major structures are the same; the car gate (lower right corner, horizontal line between the border and the house) goes from a ten-foot-wide, double width gate to one that's five feet wide (or perhaps four, but it has to stay wide enough to accommodate the big rolling trash bins on their journey to the end of the drive on trash days). The barbeque grill area now has co-located seating (that's those cup-shaped half circles about midway down the lefthand sidewalk).

I have some ideas for plants - that's why there are a couple of circles near the former car gate - but at this stage it's mostly about shapes. Once they confirm that the shapes are what they want to see, we'll move into selecting plants and siting them.