archives
categories
story collection
tags
- 12 Days of Christmas
- balls flying in my face
- Beg-A-Thon
- Bob
- book pile
- cats
- clip art
- dahlias
- digestive system
- enough about the roof already
- eternal overachiever
- everyone is stupid
- fukoladola
- getting stuff done
- Have you got a bad back?
- how to
- I hate shopping
- I made this
- leave me alone
- movies
- Ndns
- neighbors
- New Yorker
- nostalgia
- not writing
- other people's kids
- Percy
- pie
- plogic
- Priscilla Recipes
- pumpkins
- recipes
- revisiting old things
- soccer
- squirrels
- Star Wars
- things I hate
- things that aren't really free
- tomatoes
- tragedy
- travel
- wildlife
- wildlife cam
- World Cup
- writing
Tag Archives: pumpkins
Pumpkin Crop
I finally remembered to get all the squash and pumpkins together and take a photo.
This is quite a crop. At least three of those by themselves would be plenty to get us through the season.
Yet still, I mourned for a couple I had to compost already because they got a little rotten. So greedy.
Turned the Corner
This is now the third time I’ve caught the coyote on camera so I guess we’re part of his rotation. And smart move for him seeing how many animals we have running around back there. (Also, I think he left us a turd back there.)
Yesterday bunny showed up. I haven’t caught him on camera for awhile.
I do consistently get Stinky but haven’t seen the family. I put the water bucket away and I have some motion lights out there so maybe they are doing their job?
But also who knows what’s going on in the back half of the yard. Maybe I’ll put the camera back there again. I need to research other ways of mounting the camera. We don’t have anything to strap it to back there.
There’s always a moment in August when you realize that summer has turned the corner. The days are getting a teeny bit shorter. When the sun is down there is a coolness in the air.
When you’re young and in school, this is a sad moment because you can see summer is going to end soon. But now I like that moment.
My pumpkin/squash crop is incredible this year. I better check the freezer and see how much we have left from last year. Time to eat pumpkin.
Puny Crop
This is the current state of the garden. The cucumber shriveled up during the first sign of cold. There are some beets, carrots, and a few gourd-things. But it’s done.
Now that I’m writing more I’ve been reading less again. Since I finished Fates and Furies last month I haven’t been able to settle on a new book to read.
I don’t want to read anything too fat. I don’t want to start a series. I don’t want anything complicated with a lot of plot/world building to remember.
My one lone blue hubbard squash. Not sure if this is even enough for a pie.
I picked up one book but the front matter says that although it’s not a pure sequel, the events take place after the events of an earlier book and I would rather read that first. So I put it back.
I went through and picked and discarded several other books before finally decided that I wanted to try this one author that’s been on my list forever.
The book is fairly chubby and has tiny writing but I convinced myself the time was right.
I started reading and it opens something like “D’artaigna of the Clan Meash-Regal, Son of Ashtigous and Priest of the Temple Star-Desert walked through the Temple of the Turtle-Lemon, and its white-scarf wearing Priests bowing for their thrice daily prayers to the Gods of the W’thleta Lake. He savored the regithinia leaf under his tongue and considered the festival of the quinfinig’arnan blossoms and his promise to his Uncle Liet’momanta†… and so like that for several pages. I really tried to hang in there but after about 5 pages I threw the book across the room.
This is it for the pumpkins. Very skimpy crop this year. I’m going to buy a big old pumpkin at the farmer’s market.
I dug through my to-read shelf again and thought I’d read the second book by an author I read before. I read the first book in almost one sitting. This latest book is tragically terrible. I’m only going to finish it out of loyalty to the first book but this is a chore. Maybe the publisher rushed the author to get another book out and cash in on the success of the first. It’s a mess.
Introducing the 2015 Pumpkin Crop
I had one more the size of the biggest one but I gave it away. And look, two acorn squash volunteers. There were a couple more out there but they didn’t have enough time. Everything really came on at the end when it was too late.
Some of these guys are going to make the big sacrifice so we can have pie for Thanksgiving.
Crazy Late Garden Update
Pumpkins! You can practically see them pushing out of the dirt.
Yay, thanks for the update Photoshop. Just what I need, to set aside time to do a tutorial since apparently the three functions I use are now outdated and who knows what happened to them? I can’t wait until the kids today are old and start complaining about how everything changes so fast. (Kidding, I can wait.)
I am behind on everything. I have so many photos sitting here and notes for posts.
I’m not working on the same writing project that I was at the beginning of the year, but I am working on a different one. I spend so much time sitting at the computer that I now schedule breaks to keep my spine from fusing me into a hunchback.
Here’s the current project of forever which I have promised to first readers the first week in August so it’s actually the project of August:
I think I mentioned that my double whammy illness this spring destroyed my gardening mojo. I kept thinking next weekend I would get some work done and then I would go out and pull a few weeds and plan to do more the following weekend.
I finally found the tomato seeds I’d saved and planted them. And now it’s the end of June and all I have to show for myself are these tiny sproutlets. I have a volunteer in the garden that’s more impressive than this.
I went to the grocery store and picked out two plants labeled as fast growing and productive. Might as well get science behind me.
This morning I finally prepped the soil for tomatoes and pumpkins. So my pitiful little garden will be in. There are some greens sprouting, as well, although at this rate they will probably bolt before they do anything meaningful.
These are the pumpkins now and ready to go outside. I will sprout some cucumbers for my annual exercise in failing to grow cucumbers and set those out next.
I wasn’t even planning on digging potatoes today. But I was weeding and I pulled a weed and there was a potato, just the size to sit in my palm. I gently prodded the dirt and two more appeared. By the time I was done digging this one mound, I had all the potatoes you see in this basket.
For pure entertainment value, there is nothing better than potatoes in the garden. The things I planted were tiny and shriveled and didn’t look like they would amount to much. Potato salad coming in our future.
The Air at 4 o’clock in the Morning
While I was gone my mother-in-law gave my husband some stuff to take home in this cute dish. I baked her a pie in it for when we return. It came out pretty. I put it beside my regular pie dish to show the difference. It’s hard to tell but it’s much smaller.
UGH! Re-entry continues much more slowly that I would prefer. I am so tired at 8pm I have to go to bed and then I’m wide awake at 4am. And my brain wheels can barely turn by the end of the day. Sure, it could be worse but the day is coming, very soon, when I’ll need to keep my eyes open past 8.
I had to retire one pair of my garden pants. The denim has been disintegrating for some time but yesterday I felt a breeze on my bottom and realized it was time to trash them. I’m wearing one of my other pairs but it’s pretty close to being done, too. I’m going to have to buy some new jeans and move some older pairs to the work pile.
This is the pumpkin patch this year. A little disappointing. The vines did get a little cooked a couple of times. I keep promising I’ll do homework to improve my results.
Yesterday I did some major clean up out there. I haven’t been able to do yardwork in weeks. I would say that this summer I have been at least 50% less active in the garden and the results are much less than 50% worse so I expect I will use this information as an excuse to be more lazy in the future. I didn’t yank the tomatoes but I whacked them back. We’ll see if I can get a few more tomatoes before we’re finished.
Garden Update and What’s Been Going On
I did something today I haven’t done in a long time, I threw a fit in public.
The situation seems to happen on a regular basis. I’m waiting in line and some manager type person comes over and tells me to move to another checkstand and by the time I move all my crap and get over there, it takes longer than it would have taken if I just stood there. I’m guessing they get docked brownie points for too many people waiting but if you’re wasting my time moving me someplace else then you aren’t addressing the right problem.
This guy moved me way across the store the guest services and when I got over there, there was a lady with a giant cart filled with stuff and a long story. After 10 minutes I went back to the registers to start all over. And when manger type guy came back, I let him know how I felt.
I’m always mortified after I do that, but WTF?
This is my Stupice that my mother-in-law gave me. I put it in early with the walls of water and it’s been producing but the tomatoes are pretty small.
This is one I grew from seeds and these are the first ripe ones.
The clover is from my cover crop I tried last winter. I have little clover bits popping up here and there.
The birds are tearing apart the sunflowers. In my observation, based on no scientific knowledge, I’m going to guess that winter is coming early around here. All the animals are going crazy burying nuts or grabbing seeds and it feels earlier than normal to me.
I’ve been having some alone time at 3am lately and for the past two nights, just after 3am, we’ve had a family of raccoons in the front yard. Well, family, what do I know? There are three and they aren’t too big. I’m not positive what they’re eating since it’s hard to tell with your forehead pressed against the screen but I’m hoping it’s snails.
Here’s a flower that’s been cleaned out by the birds. There was a sparrow convention out there around noon today.
These are the cucumbers. Cucumbers hate me. I start them in the house and I assumed they always shriveled up on me when I put them out because it was too cold. This year it was plenty warm and they still never did anything. I’ve had some good cucumber crops but not for years. I’ll buy different seeds and try again next year. And maybe read something about cucumbers. Maybe they need names and extra encouragement or something.
Some potatoes just hanging out in the dirt.
I had a work trip to Reno this week. Poor Reno, it tries so hard but you get the sense it’s never going to be more than the pimple-faced less-sexy sibling of Las Vegas.
There was an interesting character in the airport when we were departing and Bob leaned over and said: Burning Man starts this week.
Burning Man was rained out right before opening. There was a whole group of guys loading coolers into the shuttle to the hotel. The driver said: It’s been like this all day, they’re rained out. The hotel was filled with Burning Man refugees. Colorful characters until the end of time. It was kind of fun to be on the fringe.
From the window at our side of the hotel I counted at least 50 RVs. I wanted to get a photo but when I woke up at 6:30am already a third were gone and I watched 8 pull out while I stood there.
A friend laughed that we were going to Reno in August but it was hotter in Portland.
This is another plant started from seeds. This is as far as it’s gotten but the tomatoes are decent sized.
Whoa. What’s going on here?
The pumpkin patch is looking great. It got a little cooked a couple of times but it’s still making tiny pumpkins. I think there are at least 7 good looking ones going right now.
I did finally go through my digital photos and I should be able to get some Montreal stuff up this weekend.
If you didn’t catch it, Daniel Shamaun wrote a piece about my story, Battle of Little Big Science. You can find it here.
Pumpkins
This is the crop. Photogenic, isn’t it? I weighed the two biggest ones and they’re about 8 lbs.
Most of the little ones are going to be worthless for anything except decoration.
It’s hard to tell in the photo but there’s a lumpy one that looks like a zucchini-pumpkin. I don’t know what happened. I think it’s a misshapen Baby Pam.
We’re probably going to eat one this weekend. Which one will be lucky?
Wander in the Garden
They’re facing the wrong way!
The tomato cages are wrapped in plastic to keep the plants from shivering at night.
First pumpkin.
I was wrong about no applegeddon this year. The tree is loaded.
It’s Everything I Wish I Didn’t Know
Hey, check out these little watermelon sproutlets, surging toward the window.
I keep promising myself that I’m not going to write about being busy because, d’oh! Everybody’s busy.
But holy avalanche of documents and activities, this week has been another crazy one. Lots of stuff going on and an unusual blip at the office that has resulted in a bunch of stuff needing to be happen at the same time. On separate occasions, both colleague and I stood in front of our desks and stared down at the piles and said: I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing right now.
But, I think we’ve got it under control. (Unless by writing that I just jinxed myself.) I still have plenty to do but all the pieces are in place.
Rainbow of Piquionne (name of our player who scored 4 goals in 45 minutes at this game. Yes, it was awesome to watch.)
On Wednesday my team played the first round of the U.S. Open Cup which is a competition among all the teams in the US Soccer Federation. Last year’s game was an abomination and a forbidden topic.
This year’s game was not. I have never seen my team score 5 goals in one game and I liked it very much. This is separate from Major League Soccer. I’m telling you, soccer is a part time job. The boys have the weekend off for the international break (That’s for competitions among national teams, so above and beyond the league and the US federation. There’s also a regional federation. No, I’m not messing with you.) so we only have a lady team match to go to this weekend.
Here are a couple other updates:
I still don’t have a shower door. I’d tell you all the missteps but it’s too exhausting. The latest snafu is that the glass was the wrong size.
Now they’re saying they can install next Wednesday. Everybody think good thoughts.
Our house is apparently a portal for giant hairy flies. There is always 1 giant hairy fly in the house. It lurks in the kitchen when I’m cooking, the bedroom when I’m trying to sleep or nap, my room when I’m on the computer or on the TV when I’m watching a show. If I follow it around with a fly swatter until I kill it, the next time I go into the kitchen there will be a giant hairy fly. Is there a way to monetize this?
Yesterday I participated in a rally for the Klamath salmon. Coverage here and here.
The power company has agreed to take down the dams but Congress needs to take action to make it happen. An Oregon senator is committed to the cause so the rally was to reiterate that there are still people who want this to happen.
A whole bunch of my family was up from California so it was fun to be with everybody and show our support.
Update on the windowsill sprouts. Look at these pumpkins growing like crazy. it’s warm and dry this weekend so everybody is going to be planted outside. I have a spot out front where historically, the pumpkins have done really well. I also am going to put some in back where I’ve had mixed results. I need to get out there and see what’s going on. It looks like there’s already some stuff bolting and the volunteer sunflowers are still coming on strong.
That’s the update for now.
Posted in doing it wrong, garden, TIMBERS!
Tagged eternal overachiever, pumpkins, soccer
Comments Off on It’s Everything I Wish I Didn’t Know
