The devil is in the alternate text.
Here is the CSA box for this week:
As you can see, it includes:
So far, I have used up everything from last week’s box except the celery, which I put in a freezer bag with other veggie bits for stock. Oh, and there is one potato left. But I’m going to cook it up with my own recent harvest, and we’ll have them with dinner tonight.
Here’s an idea that took care of at least two of the 9,320,235,412 pieces of art the kids have generated thus far:
1. We started off with a watercolor painting that the girls did on regular old copy paper. I laminated each painting with laminating sheets, cut the laminated pages in half, and creased each half to make a “cover” for a book.
2. I cut some more copy paper – about four sheets for each book – just slightly smaller than the cover, then creased and stapled them inside the cover to make the “pages”.
3. Since the girls were using these particular ones, I covered the staples with clear packing tape to help prevent them from getting scratched. Et voila! A sweet little book for them to write in or give away as a gift.
They each gave one to Grandma for her birthday. I am still patting myself on the back for (a) coming up with such a clever gift that is both sentimental and functional, and (b) getting rid of some of the kids’ artwork without feeling guilty about it. Score!
Right… so, remember that nasturtium plant that was all infested with black aphids? The one I was going to rip out and burn because it was so bad?
This one?
Well, I am proud to report that it is aphid-less.
Not aphid-free, mind you. But definitely aphid-less.
I do believe it has something to do with a very exciting recent discovery, which happened totally by accident while browsing some online garden site for information on marsh mallows. The reason I was looking for information on marsh mallows is because I’ve started some from seed, but what I thought was a marsh mallow seedling has now also mysteriously appeared in two other locations (important to note that I did not plant marsh mallow seeds in those locations), which leads me to question whether the thing I think is a marsh mallow seedling is, indeed, such a thing. I’m beginning to think it is not. But that’s not my important discovery (although it is useful, since I can now give up hope on growing a marsh mallow plant this year and concentrate my efforts on something else).
No, my very exciting discovery was what, exactly (or approximately), ladybug larvae looks like. (Whoa, how’s that for some alliteration?!)
This is important because, as we all know, ladybugs or lady beetles are excellent companions to have in one’s garden. They rank up there with earthworms and mulch and fish emulsion in terms of garden usefulness, really. And having ladybug larvae in my garden means that soon, I’m going to have ladybugs. And this means we will likely not be totally infested with aphids on our nasturtium plants next year. And I am so excited about this that I have already started looking around for nasturtium seed sources because, next year, I am going to grow so many damn nasturtium plants that people will think I’m nuts.
As proof that my dastardly plan theory is already at work, please note the (very bad) (hey, it was windy today) shot of a ladybug larva hanging out on a nasturtium leaf.
I swear, I heard it belch.
*even if it is out of sheer laziness
Today was an absolutely fabulous day.
This was the first day out of the past 16 days where I did not have anything scheduled to do. No where to be. It is only the 2nd day this month where nothing was written on the calendar (today and July 6). And for a home-body (with hermit tendencies), that was perfectly fine. More than fine, in fact. And to top it off, it rained, which worked out very well since I am in the middle of clearing out my office/studio. And we all know there’s nothing better to do on a rainy day than drink a hot mug of something and go through old pictures, papers and stuff. I actually made some progress. Perhaps tomorrow, there might even be a photograph of my shiny clean space.
Perhaps. I don’t want to put it on the calendar, of course.
Sometimes, I happen to be on the computer at the exact moment that an email is sent, but delay replying to it for a while so that the sender doesn’t think I am constantly online.
We did not make it back to the islands this weekend, but DH and I managed to sneak away for a little short weekender up at Lake Erie. We drove up to Geneva-On-The-Lake, which is a quaint and curious little town (and it’s right on the lake, can you imagine? Truth in advertising is so rare these days.). Maybe I will put up some photos when I get around to clearing off the camera card, but honestly, there isn’t much to show you. The most interesting thing we saw was the drawbridge in Ashtabula Harbor, about 10 miles away. And really, the only interesting thing about that is we do not have a Bascule lift bridge anywhere near us (Ashtabula Harbor is the closest one) which meant that we were endlessly fascinated by it. Tourists.
However, what our mini-trip lacked in fascinating scenery, it more than made up for in relaxation.
I really should stop now. This is getting rather depressing.
What I realize, of course, is that I am something of a home-body. Travelling and sightseeing and getting out-and-about are all well and good, but I am rarely impressed by it all anymore. Home is infinitely more appealing.
Hopefully this is not sign of being snotty and cynical (or worse, prosaic), but rather that I am content with the things I have. Besides: what is the purpose of travelling, anyway, if not to come back home again?
Some things are definitely worth waiting for. Vacation. Christmas morning. Turkey that’s been roasting in the oven all day long.
And acidanthera blooms.
You know things are not going well in NaBloPoMo land when your post titles go from “Faltering” to “Devastation”. But life- and mundane blogs- need a little drama now and then.
I, however, am not particularly fond of drama in my life, unless it’s the kind that comes in a red envelope.
Some drama is good. This red lily that finally bloomed is an example of good drama:
as are the cascading tendrils and cheerful blooms of the volunteer nasturtium plant:
But there is a dark underbelly to the garden’s beautiful facade. All is not as it seems. In fact, the nasturtium plant is actually a crack-house for black aphids.
It was quite disturbing to see just how many of these icky things are all over my once-beautiful plant. I’m about ready to rip it out and burn it.
But that’s not the worst of the drama, friends. It gets uglier. Much, much uglier. As I scanned the back garden, my eyes were met with a horrific sight:
That is supposed to be a hosta. It was a hosta yesterday, before I went to bed. So were these:
And this was a beautiful double impatiens:
Do you see any beautiful red double impatiens blooms in that picture? No, you do not. This is because the deer ate them during their midnight all-you-can-eat buffet in my back yard.
I sulked about the deer all day. They had already whacked my kids’ bean teepee, which still has not recovered, and trampled all the garlic. This was just one more in a long, long list of deer-related transgressions. But the deer were instantly forgotten when I stepped outside later this afternoon and glanced at the basil planter box.
Yep, that would be a Japanese beetle orgy going on in the basil mix.
Fortunately (relatively speaking), beetles tend to feed in big obnoxious gastronomic orgies. So only one plant was victimized here, which is small relief when I’ve already had a whole series of agricultural failures so far this season. I did feel slightly vindicated when DH volunteered to smash them for me.
With pliers.
After that, I had to look for signs of hope in the garden. And lo, there were my acidanthera about to bloom. Bless them.
On top of it all, I saw some flower buds on the overwintered fuschia today.
So maybe all is not lost.
Yet.
Okay, I have to admit that, were it not for the fact that I’d have to eat a whole lot of crow, I really would not be posting tonight. I have nothing to say. Normally, I don’t have anything to say anyway. But tonight I mean it.
There is the happy possibility that DH and I may be going back to the islands this weekend. But now, I’ve probably gone and jinxed it, so nevermind.
Well, there is also the happy fact that I walked yesterday and today, about a mile each day, which is approximately .997 of a mile more than I walked the previous two days. On those days I was still recovering from soccer, though, so I really don’t feel too badly about being lame then. And I have been taking my vitamin so faithfully that I really don’t even think about it anymore, which means that I probably won’t re-bore the internet with that trivial and inane accomplishment again (after this sentence finally ends, of course).
The rain gauge has proven to be rather underwhelming. We had a very wet June, but July has seen only .20″ of rain so far, and that all fell in the same 24-hour window, so I’ve been recording a lot of these:
And this is disappointing, because if you’re going to get up at … how was that phrase… the asscrack of dawn, then it ought to really count for something. I ought to have more than just a dumb “zero” to type into my little online measurable precipitation form. Really. I’m not so good with dutiful repetition, you see.
The, um, eating better thing is going okay. I have cut waaaaaayyy back on coffee, which took quite a bit of getting used to (including a three-day headache), and then I drank a lot of coffee after my caffeine fast, which created other problems. This whole see-saw thing is just awful. I think we’re under control now, though. We’ll see.
Maybe tomorrow there will be something more meaningful, more significant, to drone on about. At the moment, though, I’m going to do some stretches and go to bed.
Every summer since 2001, except the year S5 was born, I have had a garage sale. One year I had more than one, since I helped my mom with hers. It’s become a sort of summer routine to clear things out of the house/attic/garage/basement and try to pawn them off sell them to someone else who might get some use out of them. It’s part of that whole “reduce, reuse, recycle” thing. You understand.
I really didn’t have much fodder for snarky commentary this year. Folks did not line up like vultures hours before the sale began. No one showed up hours after the sign went down in the afternoon. No one really had much to say except annoyingly nice things like “thank you”, “good morning”, “boy, it’s a hot one” and “good luck with your sale”. I sold a lot of things that had been accumulating, made a little bit of money, and that was that. Ho, hum.
S5 really got into the garage sale thing today, though. While I was setting up the tables, she went into the girls’ room and brought out some items of her own, and then proceeded to mark them for sale.
And then, without any prompting or actually any involvement at all on my part, she proceeded to set them out on the table. She was so confident and purposeful that I made it a point to give her full rein on this little project.
Of course I couldn’t help but sneak out afterwards to see what she had come up with. It was very clever. Very clever, indeed.
In case you’re not sure, that says “5 CENTS DOOLL”. A bargain, apparently due to the fact that she is without clothes.
Next she brought out this fella:
followed by a little giraffe:
and, finally, this guy:
Yeah, I’m not completely sure what her pricing strategy was, but she was so proud of her garage sale contribution that I left everything exactly as she had it. And, when someone came and offered to buy her giraffe and DOOLL and pup (for approximately twenty five cents, or whatever this very kind, indulgent woman had in her pocket at the time), S5 handled the transaction all on her own, and seemed very satisfied at having entered and mastered the realm of casual retail.
I may just put her in charge of the whole damn thing next year.
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