Garden Update II

Where we last left off in July, my garden was going crazy growing cucumber and watermelon plants. They bloomed, but they never produced any fruit. Below is a picture of the cucumber plants in July, they ended up climbing all the way up the trellis, but all died a month later. You can also see in the lower left some of the pepper plants that I started indoors and transplanted outside.

I previously mentioned that the pepper plant I bought from Home Depot had flowered but also did not produce any fruit. When the cucumber and watermelon plants died, I basically gave up for this season.

I haven't checked on the plants at all over the past few months and figured everything would eventually die. This afternoon I allowed my cat to have some supervised outdoor time in the backyard, and during this I noticed that the pepper plants not only have not died, they have produced some peppers! The Home Depot plant has two small bell peppers. Another bell pepper plant has a smaller bell pepper growing, and a jalapeno plant has one full sized jalapeno as well as a couple smaller ones. So, after only FIVE months (the packages say it should only take 70 days), I may have produced some edible vegetables!

The bell peppers
The jalapeno

Now I just need to decide when to pick and eat 'em. And dig up the carrots to see how they are doing.

Going to ACL festival today!

Going to ACL Festival today!

Franken Wins

I guess I can finally go to sleep, since the November election appears to be over now. Though maybe I should wait until Al takes office, just to be sure.

Good Kitty

I picked up the cat after work on Monday. She is underweight and had a cough, and wasn't eating much, so I was worried. I didn't sleep well the first night, but that's mostly because I figured I left something dangerous lying around in the house that she was going to get into.

I think she just needs a little time to recover from being at the shelter. She started eating all of her food yesterday and her cough has gone away. The shelter tells everyone to take their new pets to a vet during the first few weeks regardless of their condition, so I took her in this morning. The vet said that everything looks great except for being a little underweight. He was particularly impressed with her confidence. She's not shy and once she's scoped out a place makes herself at home. When she was being poked and prodded she made her displeasure known by meowing (not hissing), but didn't fight to get away.

I have to think of giving her a new name. Her shelter given name is "Sassy" but that doesn't sound like a name a guy would give his cat.

Cat

I think I may get a cat soon (tomorrow?). Maybe this one:

Garden Update

I guess it's been five or six weeks since I decided to start a vegetable garden. Well, not everything is dead yet, but it's well on its way. You may remember the picture of the seedlings I started indoors, and how I didn't feel like thinning them out. I've learned my lesson now. A few weeks ago, they all started dying off, so I did two things. I took the stronger looking ones and planted them in the outdoor garden. The rest, I thinned out so that there was only one or two seedlings per pot. Two weeks later, the ones I put in the outdoor garden are barely hanging on (but still alive), and everything that I left inside is dead.

One nice thing is that the plants I planted outdoors initially due to laziness are still alive. There are a ton of cucumber plants and many watermelon plants. I can't tell what's going on with the carrots. I'm not optimistic, because while they are half a foot tall now, they haven't grown hardly at all in the last few weeks. But at least there's still something green.

The pepper plant I bought is still alive, and did something very exciting the other day as it produced a flower. But, the very next day the pedals had fallen off and what's left doesn't look like it's going to turn into a pepper.

Like I said earlier, I'm glad anything grew at all, and didn't put much effort into it. I have enjoyed it though and am a little embarrassed at how much time I've spent looking at the plants after I get home from work. Even if it doesn't work out this season, I'm thinking I will try harder next year.

Trivia

I somewhat randomly joined up with the old trivia team a week last Wednesday. I just felt the urge to go, and when I showed up the whole old team was there. Everyone had quit some time ago and only one of us was still going on a regular basis, but this night everyone was there. Weird! I wasn't much help at all, but we did manage to kick serious ass, winning both the first round by a few points and the second round by over ten. The beer prices had annoyingly gone up since I played their last, but our $110 in winnings was enough to cover everyone's tab, so I was happy. I went back this last Wednesday but we got humbled... severely.

Storm

I'm writing a blog post finally because I've got nothing better to do. The power is out due to a thunderstorm so I can't waste my time on all that stimulating educational TV I watch every night. I can't do the other needed stuff around the house because it's dark. So, I am typing away on the laptop.

Right before the power went out, I was checking Twitter to see what people had to say about the weather. I've gotta say, even though I've been on Twitter since 2007, it's only recently that it's become, unexpectedly, useful. I find out things first through twitter than anywhere else now, it seems. For instance, a few weekends ago, I found out about the twenty something inning UT game (only at 18 when I found out) through Twitter and paid attention to it the rest of the night. Now I browse local tweets all the time to see what everyone's up to around here. Tonight, right before the power went out, I used it to check where the tornadoes were. Apparently, I'm being surrounded by them (and hail), but the wind at my house really hasn't picked up and I haven't heard any hail, so I guess it missed me.

I have AT&T U-verse for TV & Internet. The wireless modem plugs into the wall via RJ-11, but needs AC power. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could get online while the power was out, so I ran an extention cord from the modem to the AC inverter in the car. That powered up the modem, but AT&T must also go out in a power outage because it wouldn't connect. It was a fun exercise though. I think I'll try it again right now... nope, still out! No life line for me!

Well, the storm has passed now but the power is still out. I guess I'll work on a few more entries so you'll have something to read for a couple of days.