“He’s Checking it twice”

Guess what I got from Santa this year?

Now all I need is a new camera operator.

These smallpipes are a little more decibel-friendly for playing inside the house than the larger highland bagpipes. The latter had a tendency to crack glassware and perforate eardrums, even Kumo tolerates these smallpipes…well almost, he still facially grimaces and physically trembles as do other members of my family whenever I approach the instrument’s case.

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Our house-elf got some stinky presents of his own in his rather unpleasant “paw” stocking.

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To his delight he received some physical Minecraft artifacts before getting the full virtual game from Santa on the computer.

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I have the feeling some serious gaming rules may have to be enforced when school is back in session.

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There were screams and squeals when she opened her long anticipated American Girl doll,

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she has been dressing her up and making clothes for her ever since.

She is also the star in a new hobby: stop-motion photography:

Here is a link to some of her other YouTube videos…it would make her day to have some subscribers and comments about her squishes, squinkies, moshies / whatever:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv8kTZPPajnjTfiWmhlFMlA/videos

And for my wife?

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A rather Gothic ring.

Moving along:

Lots of cold winter evenings

Austin

has meant lots of hot fires in the Patch.

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“Wait, those look like chemtrails…

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those ARE chemtrails…

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CHEMTRAILS!”

Quiet Alex.

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We ushered in the new year with

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sparkling swords of fire, slaying 2013 behind us.

Along with the new year came my most hated of gardening activities…

“Get these infernal leaves off my face”

…the dreaded leaf clean-up, and this year is a monster, it is going to take me a few weeks to get the mess ship-shape.

Urgh!

Between my post oaks and pecan trees I am waist-deep in leaves,

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not to mention the foliage that needs to be chopped back on grasses,

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papyrus and canna.

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I have already started chopping the cattails.

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They burst,

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they stuck to eyebrows, clothes,

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and cheeks, and I spent about an hour

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netting them out of my fish-tank.

I must say this impromptu cattail frenzy was a welcome reprieve from the monotony of cleaning up the leaves.

download-download-happy-new-year-2013-2-hd-with

From us all here in the ESPatch!

 

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Meet the Author

A Central Texas Garden Blog. Zone: 8b. Welcome to the East Side Patch. This site tracks the inhabitants of a house and garden on the east side of Austin. All material © 2021 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Les Jan 3, 2014, 6:53 pm

    Happy new year to you and your family as well, and good luck with those gaming rules.

  • Katina Jan 3, 2014, 7:59 pm

    In college, I found it easier to install parental controls on the computer that would log how long the computer would be on and kick the user off after a specified amount of time. Yes, I had to resort to parental controls because my roomie was always using my computer.

    Happy New Year! Maybe it’s just the angles you show, but your yard looks amazing, even without any of the clean up.

  • ESP Jan 25, 2014, 6:51 pm

    Thanks Les…the gaming rules are in full effect :-)

  • ESP Jan 25, 2014, 6:56 pm

    Thanks Katina…there are certain areas that definitely require some extensive clean up as you can see in my latest post :-)