feuer_flammenlos

The world is dark and terrible, and I am frankly afraid of what shall come, but an undisclosed number of years ago, on this very day, falena  was Born.
And she is still here to give us hope, that not all in the world is dark and terrible.
Thank you for existing.
Also Happy Birthday !

So, after a mere eleven years I come back with a post.
And the amusing/despairing thing is that SO MUCH has happened that I do not think I could make a summary (a summary that makes sense, at least) of this silent time.
So I'll go on with what goes on in the present:
My child will start pre-kindergarten next week. Today I'll meet the teachers and other parents and pretend to be a funtional adult parent.
Wish me lusck (I'm already doig so!).

I've been largely absent from here in the last ...uh...month.. due to things like work, and brain-deadness (the Zombie Apocalypse happened, just to my brain), and the beauty of all things sunny and summer-y and outdoors-ly, so abundant in this time of the year.

A link to an article about the awesome of the Night Witches, Soviet aviatrixes during WWII. marina , here, makes a few observations about how the choice of this subject for this article - part of a serie about "Unsung Heroes" (women who get ignored by the masses, despite having been several levels of Awesome) - is quite misleading, given that those women aren't so much ignored by/unknown to the masses as unknown to us because we're ignoring most of every culture/history beside the Western one.
The only mention of the Night Witches that I remember reading was in an Alternate History SF serie by Turtledove, who is pretty much a history buff, and given that 1)WWII history was covered very sketchily in my contemporary history courses, both in high school & at Uni; 2)the detail of which units did what are, as far as I'm concerned, not a very interesting issue unless you're focusing on strategy (or sociology); 3)English language sources are scarce; I think the subject fits very well into the "unsung" theme.


There's a redstart nestling in one of our buildings! The parents are frenetically catching insects, while the little ones chirp madly for MORE FOOD, NOW! I know it means nothing - the redstart isn't an endangered species and one nest means very little - but it's still an insectivore, living and (one hopes) prospering in the middle of very tended-to fields. It gives me hope that the biological diversity in my place isn't hopelessly lost.
This corroborated by a shock of fireflies under the olive trees, renewed presence of grey heron and talks about birds of prey nestling - about the latter, I can confirm that the ones I see more often (the ones that could be either common buzzards or black kites) seem to be ravenous All The Time, so maybe there is a little fuzzy ravenous chick in the nest, heh?

(mostly unrelated: I don't know what your experiences or living places are like, but there's something enchanting to an olive orchard filled with fireflies, at dusk. Colours have been dismissed like day-clothes and all that's left is the blue and black shadows - and before your eyes adjust and say "oh, boring!" the neon lights blink and make of blandness a romance.)


There are about a zillion things I'm excited about, but I have a feeling that most of them would fall right in the middle of the Too Gross To Read Where People Can See My Grossed-Out Face land, so I leave with a picture of a recipe to come soon and promises of garden pictures. :)

Most beautiful it is when at the end of the day there is the egret like a shadow in the quarter of sky still light, and dark follows.


I need to find sources to ID the birds of prey - I cannot stand to look up and wonder whether it is hawk or eagle or kite.

The cake that went to the freezer and came back.

I've found this recipe most useful for large parties (and consequent disposal of leftovers) as the cake presents itself well after defrosting: neither crumbly nor soggy.

( Here there be recipe & semi-relevant photo )

No picture (yet).
Same old, same old.

( Recipe here, you know the drill. )

(to say nothing of "too distant from recipe library")

( Recipe to come up tomorrow )

Hence, cookies.

( Fiorentine )