Welp, we have a pet duck in the backyard. Don't have a good photo of her yet -- it was storming last night when she was huddled on the nest Ruby found. But it looks like dogs chasing, humans throwing beach balls, and hoses squirting have exactly zero effect on the nesting instinct of the lady mallard.…

One can only hope! As I mentioned the other day, after my honored neighbor (winsomely known as Other Daughter) found a dead Maine Coon Cat behind our houses and concluded one of the coyotes had done it in, she was found trailing her cat up and down the alley.

This morning a new handyman came by to give me some estimates for several small jobs that need to be done. One of the things I hoped he might do is…

But whose call?

This afternoon the human had quite the little scare. I'd noticed a potted plant in the front courtyard was fricasseeing in the heat, and so I walked into the garage and dug out a couple of strange little glass watering gadgets that came my way some years ago. You fill up these globe things with water and poke the end in the ground; supposedly…

Other Daughter surfaced outside the back gate this morning, setting off a corgi barking frenzy. She was walking her cat in the alley.

"Other Daughter" is one of the Perp's two adult daughters, one of whom lives across the street to the east of me and the other two houses down to the west. He calls one of the women his "Pretty Daughter" and the other his "Other…