Need to return to library, but placing on hold again to continue reading later.

This is a cookbook to read all the way through, as much about history and culture and how foodways tie everything together as it is a gathering of recipes

Past Log Updates

DATE :

Resources

105 / 415

Standalone post link: Reading Log: Turtle Island

I saw several fish swimming in the creek¹ this morning, as many as eight to twelve. A grey ghostly shadowed slow shimmering of fins and scales in a protected pocket of murky water beneath the rough old rock wall, across on the neighbor’s side.² I didn’t think I could capture them sufficiently in a photograph or video, especially at that distance.

They looked a little sickly or diseased to me, but perhaps I am projecting that onto them because the creek smells foul these days, and I understand it to be somewhat polluted, both from readings (see link in¹ below) and past personal observations³. In actuality I guess these fish are flourishing? I’ll check on them again soon.

Standalone post link: Murky Shimmer | Picture Not Taken

I want to learn how to take honest photographs with my phone.¹ Until then, I just have quick snapshots that I feel inclined to share for some reason.²

This was my walking destination and writing spot yesterday morning.

Here were the geese making a lunch stop in the softball field again.³

This was my writing spot and conditions this morning and right now.

Standalone post link: Writing Spot Snapshots 2025-12-31 and 2026-01-01

Started almost immediately upon finishing A Study in Drowning. I guess I like the vibes and the fake literature excerpts? Don’t mind the characters? Not sure why I feel pre-emptively defensive, like someone is going to give me grief for reading these books…

Past Log Updates

DATE :

Resources

Standalone post link: Reading Log: A Theory of Dreaming

Continuing in re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia with my son.

Past Log Updates

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210 - 135
202-135
67/75

Standalone post link: Reading Log: The Horse and His Boy

I’m hooked after starting this on a whim one day while browsing Apple Arcade for the first time on my laptop. I’d wanted to play something on the Switch but not enough to kick my kids off the Switch.

Standalone post link: Playing Log: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

More notes and thoughts on this book and Vuong perhaps forthcoming…

Past Log Updates

DATE : 2025-12-31 (1 AM) - 65%

DATE : 2025-12-29

Started reading - 38%

I have no hate for Ocean Vuong. I am known to be impressionable and I reserve the right to change my opinion, but as of now I think most of the Substack haters are just being mean and petty, and/or have sadly circumscribed tastes in writing.

Resources

Standalone post link: Reading Log: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

I’ve left this site derelict but at the end of the year now I’m wishing I had kept up a comprehensive reading log and music log here, (my own personal ad hoc ‘wrapped’), so I might retroactively populate my site and feed with a bunch of backdated posts, mostly reading log updates. Just a heads up if you are out there somehow following this feed.

Standalone post link: ''joshuawxyzmetaupdate20251231''

I updated my now page today. This post snapshots the current version.

Now

• continuing to “INST TECH LIBRARY MEDIA” all over ‘em +

  a couple of recent notable artifacts: Sora collection development - ‘New Books in Granite’s Sora’, library circulation stats (physical and digital combined)

• rewilding my front yard +

  I am an official grant recipient of the Utah Pollinator Habitat Program and I actually picked up my 150-ish little baby native plants yesterday! Need to get them in the ground soon. I should post more about this.

• started biking, mostly just around town, and I’m actually enjoying it +
  I have a lot of thoughts about this, such as why this is suddenly do-able for me after decades away, what I’m discovering about my city by exploring it this way, whether I will start actually mountain biking and realizing maybe I actually don’t like mountain biking and hiking, I like walking through the woods and deserts but not climbing mountains or rushing down mountains, but these should be their own post or posts, so I’ll refrain from an endless note here.
• new owner of an iPhone Air, preorderd and obtained day of release +
  I’m not usually an early purchaser/adopter and I was actually still quite content with my existing phone (an iPhone 13 mini). My daughter needs a phone, though, so I’m passing the 13 mini to her, but I made her wait until these new 17 phones came out. Decided to go for the somewhat ridiculous Air because it just looked like it would be nice to have and fun to use, something different and new. I don’t have a tablet/iPad/ereader or anything like that and I like to read and do tablet-y stuff on my phone so that helped me justify it - yet another thing I could probably explore more thoroughly and post
• finishing up a CSA subscription - its one of the New Roots CSAs and I pick it up right at their Redwood Farm every Tuesday. +
  This has been equal parts fun to try and exceedingly stressful. By my hopes and designs It forced me to try cooking and eating a lot of new-to-me things, many of which I liked, but now I have a secondary fridge full of specific, weird vegetables (beets, chard, kale) at varying levels of freshness to rottenness that I can’t deal with because though I like them I don’t always want to cook these particular things and no one else in my family really likes vegetables like I do - I should write and post about this experience as well.

Next

• get those baby native plants into the ground in the next week or so
• remember this website
  • start logging my listening, reading, playing, etc. here again, writing book reviews, etc.
  • start writing about other stuff here, too
  • cultivate a thriving digital garden
• figure out how to keep my phone primarily as a tool for learning, creativity, positive communication
• stop ignoring all the things wrong with my house and get some things working and decent
• ChatGLP-1?

This reflects my ‘now’ page update of September 21, 2025. Please visit that main now page to see my dynamic log galleries, as well as an archive of prior and newer ‘now’ updates.¹

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by calling it ‘now and next.’

Standalone post link: Now and Next (September 21, 2025)

cute little peaches from this cute little peach tree I planted in my backyard two years ago

They taste pretty good, and they didn’t really have any bugs or problems, though I did no pesticides or really anything special beyond deep watering the tree once or twice a week starting mid-May. And though they are small, the pits are small, too, so there still is a good amount of fruit in each one for their diminutive size. They are little plum-sized peaches. And thankfully freestone.

I planted this as a small, bare root in April 2023. The variety is either New Haven Peach (according to my planting notes) or Red Haven Peach (according to the original order invoice), sourced from Burnt Ridge Nursery in Onalaska, Washington.

Additional updates on my backyard mini-orchard

In April 2023 I also planted a nectarine tree that was initially larger than this peach tree. While the peach tree thrives the nectarine just gets along. It has a few fruits growing on it that are still hard. Birds or squirrels have already taken nips at some of them, but left the rest behind. I’m not super confident that they will be a good harvest this year, if even edible.

I also planted two pear trees in April 2023. They blossomed for the first time this year, and one of them has a single pear growing on the very end of a branch, hanging down close to the ground. I think pears are supposed to take 3-5 years before they start truly bearing fruit, so we are on track with the pears.

This spring I planted four apple trees, all bare root whips, boosting my backyard mini-orchard to a total of eight trees. They all leafed out but a couple seem to be struggling in this endless dry heat. I need to nurse them through it and hopefully from the fall to spring they can establish themselves better. I planted one each of Kidd’s Orange Red, Black Oxford, Rubinette, and Ozark Gold.

My daughter requested today that we plant a pomengranate tree. This is irregular for northern Utah, but I understand from certain posts in the Utah Rare Fruit Growers group on Facebook it is entirely possible with certain cultivars and certain interventions, so perhaps I will explore that for next year. If I’m going to try a pomengranate I will probably try a fig as well.

Standalone post link: cute little peaches from this cute little peach tree I planted in my backyard two years ago