June 12th, 2008 nick
I stopped by the heron nest on my way to school today and snapped a few photos. Around midday the sun would be better I think, but there are still some good ones — it’s nice when the clouds went away and gave a nice blue backdrop. Just as I was about to leave, they started a little preening session like we had seen a few years ago where the parent elegantly preens by ducking and tucking its long neck against its body and the babies follow suit.
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June 9th, 2008 nick
The ad-man who held back no punches against Dukakis and the Clintons is on the prowl. These next few months are going to piss me off pretty good, I expect, once the nasty Republican ad machine gets going. I’m not looking forward to that piece of the election at all. Might just have to tune in the “yes we can” video to a continuous loop to keep my spirits high and my blood pressure down. Obama lawn signs? Ordered from BarackObama.com.
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June 5th, 2008 nick
Picked up the first set of CSA veggies today at the Mill Valley Garden Center. Some firm spinach, perky rainbow chard, full head of green-leaf lettuce and some strawberries! Also, picked up some odds and ends for the garden including a planter holder that fits on the railing of our back porch for added growing space that doesn’t involve having plants scattered across the back yard.
The rain barrel, which we installed just before the California trip, is working fine (although the over-flow isn’t quite working right) and has been getting a workout what with the reputed tornadoes that ripped through Maryland yesterday, but the water smells strongly of that icky tar stuff that they put on the roofs of all these row-houses. I guess that shouldn’t be all that surprising, but it’s still a little disappointing that it probably isn’t the best stuff to put on our vegetable plants. So, we’re probably going to use it mostly for the flowers and other non-edibles for now.
Both nests of herons that we’ve seen this year appear to have babies in them (the parents stay out of the nest and we see little puff balls occasionally) but no really clear sightings yet. Hopefully some pictures soon.
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June 2nd, 2008 nick
Thanks to one particular faithful reader for encouraging me to continue to update this blog. This post’s for you!
We arrived back home today from a week out in California: Alex and Wendy’s wedding, followed by a few days with friends in Tahoe and then a sweet road trip–just me and my honey–down sweet sweet route 395 on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. It was awesome, if brief: a few hot springs stops followed by a visit to Death Valley. I put some photos up online.
Also, I don’t know what kind of BALCO concoction Mike and Jamie fed our tomatoes but we came back to some seriously ass-kicking tomatoes — dozens of flowers, a few tiny tomatoes, and lots of good cucumber plants starting to creep. We took down the wilting pea plants and fed them to the worms (who were running out of food and crawling on the side of the bin in the hunt for new fuel) after having a nice serving of them (the peas) for dinner. Hooray for a better crop (still not great–it gets too hot too quickly) this year than the last two! The dwarf pea variety that I ordered this year seemed to do better than the older variety. Also, next year we may grow them more for the edible shoots than the peas themselves (sorry, wrigglers!).
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