climbing trees and shredding wheat

Today I learned that a retired engineer I know has bowed to the weight of his years and no longer shinnies up the tree in his front yard to shake the last of the leaves off so he can rake them up. Now he uses a step stool, but then it's business as usual.

In other news, I made edible rotation-diet friendly breakfast cereal out of quinoa flakes. Made into hot cereal, quinoa is just this side of revolting. Toasted like granola with some oil and agave syrup, it ends up tasting similar to shredded wheat. The thing is that the quinoa flakes come in a plastic bag inside one of those minions of the devil, a cardboard box, so we'll see how long I get pull this little stunt.