Seeking Ferret

Went on a work trip and just got back. I do prefer working remotely, but it's nice to see people I'm collaborating with in person once in a while. I also helped my parents pull a bunch of weeds, then came home and had to pull some of those same weeds out of our yard. These durn invasive thistles >(

Z and I had to replace our mailbox recently as it was falling over, and while we temporarily taped the old box itself onto a new pole, it looked ugly, so we sprung for one of those cute ones that looks like a little house. After three attempts, we figured out how to install it onto the mounting arm the right way. It's so much better! Our mail carrier even wrote us a note saying that it was a lovely replacement :)

After that, we started getting the garden set up. Had some issues with driving in the poles to put the chicken wire on - I think it doesn't help that soil in the area we are using is heavy on the clay - but there are plants in the ground and protected from our deer (and hopefully the rabbits and whatnot). Next is to plant the flowers out front, though it's hard to get much done when the air is so hot during the day and full of mosquitos in the evening. Then we need to get some woodchips delivered to go with those, and sooner or later we're supposed to be receiving our plans for the septic system. Once we have that estimate, we can see what else we can get fixed up this summer. We had to tape over a set of front windows because they were letting in awful drafts in winter, then retape some spots again this week because they were letting in those annoying, tiny beetles that are attracted to light, so it'd be nice to go for those next if we can afford it soon.

The heat pump we installed last year is making us quite happy, though - we feel so spoiled having central AC now that summer is firmly here.

I recently finished a big writing project for work, so till the next one starts, I have some writing energy left for fic again. I want to get around to doing some of those Every Strand side stories and wrap up that mostly finished YOI fic sitting on my hard drive. Also want to go skating more! My boots do seem to be stretching out - they still hurt, but certainly not as much as before. Hopefully I'll get them to zero pain.

A couple of random recs:
All Worlds Left Behind by Iona Datt Sharma, a portal fantasy short story about diaspora.

Castle in the Sands, a short VN that I bought for the Vibes and pretty art. To be honest, the story is not much to write home about, and it clearly wasn't edited by a native speaker, but it's the dev's first published game so I was feeling forgiving about that. Hopefully they can work on the writing more in future games. The art and UI customization is very pretty and delivers the Vibes - much nicer than the usual This Is Clearly A Ren'Py Game (or the Unity equivalent) - and the dev seems to have actually done some research about North African cultures (not that I am an expert).