Diary

I haven't read a long novel in over nine years and will shortly be starting The Song of Stork and Dromedary, by Anjet Daanje. It was recommended to me by someone who knows my reading preferences, and it is a perfect fit for me because it is loosely based on the Brontës. It also helps that the author is not American and seems to be more serious than most novelists. In the U.S., "serious novel" has become an oxymoron, like "serious news." I haven't been impressed by recent British or French novelists, and this author is Danish. Somewhere in my family history I picked up some Danish genes.

The number of pageviews on this blog keeps rising for unknown reasons. This month isn't even over yet, and I'm already above 90,000. Apparently there are more bots circulating now than ever. I haven't done a deep dive into this, but I may be meeting some of the criteria for bot attraction. It probably helps that I've been posting regularly for over twelve years. Also, it seems likely that the bots are looking for revenue. Although I don't have my own revenue-generating ads, the YouTube videos that I post do, which would make me attractive to Google. I would rather have no advertising at all on this blog, but in this case it allows me to include content that I find interesting. Occasionally I find videos that are relevant to earlier posts that I've made and add them. I've just added this clip from Goldfinger to my earlier post on the subject. I enjoy Bond's wittiness. His dialogue with Goldfinger is quite sarcastic while Goldfinger is pointing his golden gun at him. Then, after the gun fires and Goldfinger gets sucked out, when Pussy Galore asks Bond where Goldfinger is, he replies "Playing his golden harp." Don't we all wish that someone we know would also by playing his golden harp.

On the home front, the weather is becoming increasingly autumnal, with overnight lows near 50º. The tomatoes are doing very well, and I should have a constant supply until early November. I've taken down the deer fencing, because the deer won't seriously damage them now, and they probably have other plants that they prefer. I figured out that my neighbor's tomatoes, which usually do very well, are determinates, which means that they all form at once at the end of the season. I grew them once but much prefer indeterminates, which supply a continuous stream for several months.

I can tell now that my mouse problems are over. At this time of year in 2023 and 2024 they were audible in the walls and could be seen crawling on the house at night. Since 2024, there haven't been any. When I read The Farm in the Green Mountains in 2020, I became a little concerned that there could also be rats around. Looking into this recently, there do seem to be rats in Vermont. However, rats dislike the cold winters and require a high caloric intake. There are rats in some towns and on some farms, but they don't generally inhabit the woods. So my main pest risks seem to be under control. Last fall there were a lot of carpenter bees, which make small holes in wood and lay eggs. Their damage was minimal. Occasionally, black bears can be a nuisance, but I haven't had any trouble with them since taking down bird feeders from April to December. My generator maintenance guy said that a bear got into his garage recently and made a mess, but they're usually harmless.

The weather is fantastic today, and I'm off for a hike on the Cadwell Trail.