Tomatoes

The tomato seedlings are up, and with attitude.
These are the strongest seedlings I've ever seen.
But the absolute earliest I can put them out is May 1,
preferably May 15. That's a long time to keep them in pots.

They will get big. They will hate me for transplanting them.

I will plant them in a new raised bed where everything I have
ever planted there did horribly. But no tomatoes or potatoes
have every been grown there, so hopefully they will be
disease free and healthy unless the cat lays upon them.

June 3 is apple bagging day. YOU ARE ALL INVITED!
Come on up and bag the baby apples on the tree so
that they are safe from
MAGGOTS (pretend this is a superscript 1 for footnote) and moths and
grow up to be super apples.

I guess the bad news is, is the maggots get frustrated
and will in desperation attack the pears.

Howsomever, it's only a day's work, and perfect
pears are worth it if I must bag them. Might
keep the birds and squirrels off them too.

Might try it on some of the peaches too.

It's gonna be a strange looking yard this year.


1. Maggots are gregarious animals and travel around in 'maggot masses'. Their digestive activities are so intense that the corpse heats up in the vicinity of a maggot mass, sometimes reaching 53 celsius. It can get so hot inside a maggot mass, that centrally located maggots have to migrate to the edge to cool down. However, the heat is a bonus, because it increases the rate of putrefaction, and the rate of digestion.

I'm confoosed

President Bush says the Iraq situation will have to be taken
care of by future presidents and Iraqi administrations.
Now that's lameduckedness at it's finest.

The President is paying for the Iraq war by
borrowing money, so we as taxpayers don't pay now.
It comes due on our childrens' and grandchildrens' dime.

Oh dear, it's going to be pretty funny when his daughters
throw him and Laura out of their house because they are
buried in debt to the rest of the world.

Hopefully all our illegal immigrants will be producing enough
extra cash to solve the problem.

If not, well, maybe India will outsource some of their
online support jobs to us. Boy, would that be funny!

Indians calling us for online support! But those crazy Americans,
I can not be understanding their accentables! How can they
be helping me to be fixing my hard drives?

No offense to any India people out there. We all gotta make a living.

Another day in oblivion

Although a small amount of work was accomplished
in the garden, I am no Chauncey ( 2pts if you know the reference).

I was hoping to get a bit of sun, vitamin D from sunshine is good for us.
Fifteen minutes per day. But it's a working Monday and windy so a little too cold to expose my flatulent body to the pod people in the business building next door.

Lost several cacti this winter, important ones. Sad. Had one day
of very cold temps in the greenhouse, that probably did it. Must rebuild supposed greenhouse because it's godawful ugly and finally falling apart enough that it isn't holding heat well.

Hopefully the wife's grant applications will bring in millions!

She returns Thursday unless she's been kidnapped by Honduran rebels.

Which reminds me, Gruff Ducks website is slowly being updated AND
THE EDITORS OF THE NOOSEPAPER HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED!

www.gruffducks.com

It's never very up-to-date but do you know how hard it is for ducks to type?

JAMES BOND

The new James Bond guy not only had an accident, and
knocked out some teeth but
but
but
but
but
but
this dude can't drive a stick shift!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello! Hello?




speechless

Juggling cats

Ok, nobody's juggling cats.
Check this out, see his Finale, Chris Bliss.
Juggling to a Beattle's song, absolutely marvelous.
http://www.chrisbliss.com/videopresskit.html

Y'all are probably late nighters and already know this guy,
but I'm just a simple websurfer, happening
upon the flotsam and jetsam of life.

Actually, removing the cat from the house in the morning
when it's time to go to work
is very much like juggling.
He weighs 15+ pounds, and he's not fat!
But he can become extremely limp.
Making moving him, holding him, much like
holding melting jello.

I think a juggler who had a jello juggling
routine would be quite the attraction.
Alas, it's not me. I have
trouble not falling off the piano bench these days.

My Skin doesn't Love mE

I hate youNg PunKs who put raNDOm cAPs in their POSts.

I bought a mango. I think it's a mango. I think they are good for us.
Unless it's a papaya, which I think is also good for us.

My car has only one fully functional door. Hello. I paid money to
have them fixed. We'll see.

On top of all that, I'm turning into a fungus!
Some itchy skin, sure, I'm old, but mushrooms!
Give me a break.

I shall try the non-ingestible methods.
If those fail, I will do battle with my doctor,
as to what internal ingestibles I would be willing to take.

Good news: mushrooms go away, I lose 40 pounds
Bad news: Ack BEER! sob

Good news: non-ingestible methods, cheap, known to work usually
Bad news: I'll smell foofy for a bit, and I don't like it

OR and i say OR usInG RaNDOM caps,
I can just be ME!!! muhahahahahahaha
FUNGUS MAN!

Aren't you glad you ARE or ARE NOT related to me?

It's a sign, but what?

Here I am, converting WAV files to MP3 and back because I taped a lecture series at our church given by Tom Ham from Earlham College about the history of Quakers.
Absolutely fascinating. You'd think this would be dry stuff, but
he is a very interesting speaker.

So I normally use my 10 key pad for number entry, which is a good thing,
because I looked at my keyboard and my number seven above the qwerty was
sideways.

I think it's broken.
It must be a broken heart from lack of use, because
I surely have not worn it out.

I found out two months ago that the computer mouse does not
like beer. Had to buy a new mouse.
The computer had a veritable snit, but has finally
come to accept the new critter.

If I have to get a new keyboard, oh woe, oh woe.
See what a horrific and sad life I lead.

Oh, 13 tomato seedlings have sprung up.
If you need some, put in your order now.
I'll be starting more in April.

I think the varieties this year are:

Stupice, nobody knows how to pronounce it, very early and sturdy producer

Big Hunk-a-Beef I'll Whoop Yer Ass, a tomato with attitude, hope it keeps the
diseases away

Sweet Phoophie Baby Tomatoes, did these last year, good cherry tomato that
resists splitting when it rains

I here thumps upstairs. The cat may have brought in a critter.
Must leave now and hope there's no bloody remains in the futon.

Time to get creepy

I do not think the few fickly people who might in passing read this blog
are taking it seriously enough.

texas triplets

If you are a true Texan, you will check this out.
If you live somewhere else, well,

THANK GOD ALMIGHTY!

Bloggers or boogers

I am a good typist. I learned it from my high school Latin teacher, who's wife was the town's mayor at one point.

Nonetheless, Google or is it Goggle, keeps asking me if I meant boogers when I type blogger.

I have a vast experience with boogers, as most of you have also, no doubt.
They are more versatile than some people think.
They can be used as emergency glue.
They can be a source of entertainment or at least ennui lessening.

One mistake some of us superbooger users make is mining a
nice juicy thick mucousy sticky booger and getting and inner ear
itch and quickly attacking, oops, with the booger laden finger.

I have searched the internet and have not found one medical instance
of a doctor or nurse having to extract a booger from someone's ear.
Docs and nurses have had to extract some pretty strange objects
from various parts of peoples' bodies.

But I'm thinking that extracting a superbooger from any body orifice
is a supersecret no no. So I want you all to confess!

Because I know you've put boogers places they shouldn't go!

Home Alone 3

Miss Patty leaves tonight for Guatemala.
She's barely back from Burundi, good grief.
She needs a manager. Once she gets lots of grant money,
maybe she can hire me.

Meanwhile, it's me and the cat. The big cat.
The whiney cat. The cat who shreds paper.

Last summer he killed the squirrel that was
sneaking into the house and eating my peanuts.

A new squirrel is in the neighborhood and
sits on the wooden railing at the top of the steps
and leaves mass quantities of nut shells and
pieces which get disgusting quickly in all this rain.

Finding the bottom half of a squirrel
at 6AM is off putting from a breakfast standpoint
for humans. But we have to pretend we love
it, that he brought us a present.
What a good boy.
But next time don't leave it on the clean clothes!

Garden and depressing art

I've turning over my raised beds,
getting ready for spring. It's a lovely day.

I came inside to order the mrs an ironing
board cover using my Amazon dollars which
I get free from Earthlink because I'm on
their advisory board. I'm not sure if I
should put that on my resume.

I googled floating boobs, yes, there was
a nonperverse reason for that. What I got
was:

THE MUSEUM OF DEPRESSIONIST ART
http://www.dearauntnettie.com/museum/

Wander around Aunt Nettie's site:
http://www.dearauntnettie.com/



I think I'm in love.

Who really invented 'The Twist"

"Come on, baby, let's do the twist."
Chubby Checkers may have made it famous but the moves of the dance came before that.

We grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. Our father worked in a canning factory just two blocks down the street and across the railroad tracks.
Hiding in the bushes and running out with rakes in our hands to pull fresh pea vines off the passing trucks was great summer entertainment.

A long driveway separated us from the big white house immediately to our east which housed a strange family who had chickens in their backyard, and we did get to watch when they chopped of a chicken's head and then the body would run around the yard.

One of their daughters, about my age, liked me to sit on her and pinch her nose and cover her mouth until she nearly passed out. They moved away before we could fall in love.

Midway down the driveway, hornets would build a nest in the ground near their oiltank input pipe. One day some friends ran down the driveway, quickly to avoid being stung.
I lagged behind. They urged me on. I finally ran fast, but I could see the line of hornets exiting the hole coming right for me.

Damn that hurts. These days I swell up like a balloon when I'm stung.

One summer day, early evening, we're in the front yard, and my little sister comes out and she's about 4?, and wearing one of mom's dresses, way too big of course, and she was infinitely cute.

We're all having a lovely time and she suddenly starts dancing. Something small kids sometimes do, they just love life. She's dancing, really making some cool moves.
We're all commenting on how agile and groovy she is.

She was doing some serious dancing, not just twist, but she probably invented
break dancing that day too.

It suddenly became apparent that something was wrong. A wasp had flown into the big floppy dress and was stinging her and she couldn't get it out, and had been too hysterical to tell us what was happening.

She survived and moved to Houston. I skipped the inbetween parts.

Next, more family life, how we ripped holey pajamas off of my older sister.

Undernourished Vegetables

It's no surprise that a Texas researcher (they grow things big in Texas) discovered that our fruits and vegetables contain significantly fewer nutrients than they used to.

Apparently due to growing faster, bigger, more shelf stable produce, the plants pick up fewer nutrients. The exception is carrots, which are being grown to be more orangey, improving their vitamin A content.

You could buy organic but that can be significantly more expensive.
Personally, even though I live in the city, I grow my own apples and potatoes (two crops that are way too heavily pesticided), and home grown potatoes (like tomatoes) are 100x tastier than store bought.

I just put in two new apple trees. We have apple maggot so I will spend two days in late June putting plastic bags over the maturing apples. Time intensive but the result is supposed to be spectacular and no pesticides at all.

For those of you who can't garden or even do container planting, well,
but the smallest withered produce you can find because the
nutrients should be more concentrated!

Remember, you are what you eat.
So you can be large and fluffy, with dementia, berberi and dandruff,
or you can be small and withered and stinky, but without odd disease, just odd appearance,
or,
you can quit your job and go live in the south sea islands.

But do not even think of coming into my yard and stealing my apples.
Don't even think about my strawberries.
Do not ponder my tomatoes.
I have an attack cat, and he's strong and mean, and will kill
to protect his organic rats which feast on my apples, and potatoes,
and tomatoes, and...