here we see ben, finally having had his fill of being overrun by vines (and this prescient decision to clear some out was made HOURS before he saw war of the worlds). we did a heavy-duty haircut on the garden this morning.





sadly, this little guy was on a diseased vine that we cut away. he had already started to go a bit wrinkly and spongy at the bottom. we will never forget him.







the BIG news is that, although the rabbit's foot fern that lisa mailed me is barely clinging to life where i "planted" it, the little "dead" bits of root that i merely tossed into the planter as compost are doing GREAT!!! who would have thought?!




again, we have a cricket! this is a big one. he was acting very natural but got very nervous as soon as we got quiet and started looking at him.

please note the higher resolution of our photos, due to a very nice gift of a new camera and photo printer from ben's work! you will see literally TWICE the detail of our lives now (and we can print those details out at FOURTEEN times the resolution we used to!)