This morning Steve got up to find Bertie had brought the spatula and other kitchen implements down off the kitchen bench and out into the “wasted space” (a nameless territory between the old part of the house and the kitchen) and he’d knocked over the vegetable oil while he was at it, and because I hadn’t tightened the lid of the vegetable oil, it had gone everywhere. And there was a bloody young mouse in the trap.

The Western Advocate didn’t use Steve’s photo of the mandala dissolution ceremony down at the river.