conservation of biomass

We've had several days of lovely weather in which we dismembered the spruce that fell took our our power in the wind storm a couple weeks ago (on the property of someone who's currently in Boston & trying to sell, so had no problem with us taking as many tree bits as we wanted.) Many bits of my garden are now mulched and/or edged with green sprucy bits in time for it to maybe-snow for the next couple days. (whee...) Grauwulf got to muck about with the chain saw, and the Megatherium puttered in the garden bed we've adopted from the neighbor who's in Japan, pretending to be a merchant who was burying treasure for pirates to dig up. (5-year-old's grasp of economics??) I am sore, and having to think consciously about hydration levels in a way I haven't in ages, and quite pleased that my muscles still do this sort of thing; doing real things is the best kind of exercise.

I am reading The Clockwork Boys a fourth time. (I do not think I have *ever* read a non-picture-book 4 times in a row before.) I described it elsenet as a "book crush" but it took me most of the way through the third read to articulate that it could be framed as a high fantasy quest story about a cranky distracted depressive and a demon-haunted depressive with self-esteem & permission issues and something in there might be relevant to my life. Also there's a happy ending. It's very satisfying.

Also a whole bunch of book-related patterns from my Urban Threads wishlist are on sale this week, so now is clearly the time to go drool over them.


ETA: two books The Clockwork Boys & The Wonder Engine by T Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon's adult-book pen name.) Also recommended for people who are *not* me, two halves of the same book, so best to have both in hand before starting now that you can do that; I would not read this one to my child for various kinds of adult content, but nothing really in the standard trigger warning categories.