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Mostly food, some bikes
Jul. 8th, 2012 10:14 pmLet's see. On Saturday, I stumbled out of bed, ate some food, biked into the lab and took care of the crickets, all before meeting up with J and his son B to ride to the farmer's market.
The farmer's market felt like a feeding frenzy. After surveying the options, I came back to my favorite farmer's stand and bought up what was left of his tomatoes that were suitable for canning - probably around 2-3 pounds. Then I did the same for the farmer to the left of him. Still not quite enough tomatoes. So then I took the leftovers from the farmer to the left of farmer #2. They all sounded a little bit overwhelmed by the week's frenzy and kept reminding us that we didn't need to be in a big rush.
I also got some potatoes, habanero peppers, "frying peppers" (like poblanos but not hot), onions, and swiss chard. A decent haul.
From there, we rode up to the Producer's Co-op, which J had never visited before. He was entranced, of course. I got cat food, canning jars, and a jug of all-natural fertilizer. Oh, and some aged cheddar, preserved in wax. Then it was time to head home, as B had a birthday party to attend.
I spent the middle of the day prepping a section of the lawn out front for solarization. Hopefully it will work well - if it does, it would be much, much easier than all of the other methods I've ever tried for killing bermudagrass. I also thinned out the squash bed, as I suspect that most of the volunteer squashes that came up are cucumbers, and I don't really care to eat all that many cucumbers. I'm really hoping the "moon and stars" watermelon vine makes a couple of melons, even if they're small - the vine itself is quite pretty.
Then I went in to take a nap, and get started with prepping tomatoes to can them. Just as I began, there were thunderclaps and lightning, and the power went out. So much for canning. Instead, I took advantage of the cooler weather and worked on repotting a couple of plants. By the time I finished that project, the lights came back on. I canned tomatoes until 11 pm, and then went to bed.
Oh, at some point I also ordered a new bicycle, hopefully the last bicycle I'll ever have to buy.
This morning, I got up, ate breakfast, tended crickets, and met up with J and B for another bike ride. We'd intended to go for a longer ride, but J's wife was sick, and B can only handle being in the Burley trailer for so long. So instead we met up with another friend, G, and set out on a tour of the neighborhood around her house. I knew she was a cool person from the moment she started to describe how she and a couple of friends liked to start out on one of the local roadie rides, but then they would turn around and visit garage sales on the way back instead of worrying about training miles or garbage miles or anything of that sort. She also took us on a route that went past a nearby winery and told us about another ride that she and a group of friends liked to do, over to the winery for wine and snacks on the patio. Yep. My kind of ride, for sure.
I should mention that it had been raining, on and off, this morning. Shortly after we passed the winery, we turned onto a road that had large warning signs posted to inform us that the next stretch of road would be under construction for a couple of months. We consulted amongst ourselves about our feelings towards gravel/dirt, and decided to forge onward. A couple hundred yards into the gravel, J's chain snapped. Very shortly thereafter, my front tire/fender got so clogged with mud that I ground to a halt. J managed to repair his chain, so we attempted to forge onward. Let's just say that the mud gave us a good run for our money. We got quite lucky at the end of the unpaved stretch, though - a facility across the road happened to have a hose located conveniently outside. So we hosed down the bikes and hopped back on to finish the ride. It's so much easier to ride without mud wedged between the fender and the tire.
Let's see...after that, we had pancakes at G's house. Walking into G's house was almost the complete opposite of the house I described to you last week. It felt like home, like a personal space that was well lived-in and cared for. There were orchids and spider plants in a window and a beautiful garden and trellis in the backyard. G said she's originally from Vermont, and that Vermont upbringing gave her a different set of priorities from most of the Texans she knows, mostly with respect to caring for the environment. On the ride home, J and I both agreed that it's a relief to know that there are other people around us in B/CS who have values and perspectives that are similar to ours.
I'm not entirely sure what I did this afternoon. Bathed, at least. Oh, did two weeks' worth of laundry (boy was I getting spoiled by S doing my laundry all the time while he was here). Cooked a few things. Checked the crickets again. Yep, that's about it.
The farmer's market felt like a feeding frenzy. After surveying the options, I came back to my favorite farmer's stand and bought up what was left of his tomatoes that were suitable for canning - probably around 2-3 pounds. Then I did the same for the farmer to the left of him. Still not quite enough tomatoes. So then I took the leftovers from the farmer to the left of farmer #2. They all sounded a little bit overwhelmed by the week's frenzy and kept reminding us that we didn't need to be in a big rush.
I also got some potatoes, habanero peppers, "frying peppers" (like poblanos but not hot), onions, and swiss chard. A decent haul.
From there, we rode up to the Producer's Co-op, which J had never visited before. He was entranced, of course. I got cat food, canning jars, and a jug of all-natural fertilizer. Oh, and some aged cheddar, preserved in wax. Then it was time to head home, as B had a birthday party to attend.
I spent the middle of the day prepping a section of the lawn out front for solarization. Hopefully it will work well - if it does, it would be much, much easier than all of the other methods I've ever tried for killing bermudagrass. I also thinned out the squash bed, as I suspect that most of the volunteer squashes that came up are cucumbers, and I don't really care to eat all that many cucumbers. I'm really hoping the "moon and stars" watermelon vine makes a couple of melons, even if they're small - the vine itself is quite pretty.
Then I went in to take a nap, and get started with prepping tomatoes to can them. Just as I began, there were thunderclaps and lightning, and the power went out. So much for canning. Instead, I took advantage of the cooler weather and worked on repotting a couple of plants. By the time I finished that project, the lights came back on. I canned tomatoes until 11 pm, and then went to bed.
Oh, at some point I also ordered a new bicycle, hopefully the last bicycle I'll ever have to buy.
This morning, I got up, ate breakfast, tended crickets, and met up with J and B for another bike ride. We'd intended to go for a longer ride, but J's wife was sick, and B can only handle being in the Burley trailer for so long. So instead we met up with another friend, G, and set out on a tour of the neighborhood around her house. I knew she was a cool person from the moment she started to describe how she and a couple of friends liked to start out on one of the local roadie rides, but then they would turn around and visit garage sales on the way back instead of worrying about training miles or garbage miles or anything of that sort. She also took us on a route that went past a nearby winery and told us about another ride that she and a group of friends liked to do, over to the winery for wine and snacks on the patio. Yep. My kind of ride, for sure.
I should mention that it had been raining, on and off, this morning. Shortly after we passed the winery, we turned onto a road that had large warning signs posted to inform us that the next stretch of road would be under construction for a couple of months. We consulted amongst ourselves about our feelings towards gravel/dirt, and decided to forge onward. A couple hundred yards into the gravel, J's chain snapped. Very shortly thereafter, my front tire/fender got so clogged with mud that I ground to a halt. J managed to repair his chain, so we attempted to forge onward. Let's just say that the mud gave us a good run for our money. We got quite lucky at the end of the unpaved stretch, though - a facility across the road happened to have a hose located conveniently outside. So we hosed down the bikes and hopped back on to finish the ride. It's so much easier to ride without mud wedged between the fender and the tire.
Let's see...after that, we had pancakes at G's house. Walking into G's house was almost the complete opposite of the house I described to you last week. It felt like home, like a personal space that was well lived-in and cared for. There were orchids and spider plants in a window and a beautiful garden and trellis in the backyard. G said she's originally from Vermont, and that Vermont upbringing gave her a different set of priorities from most of the Texans she knows, mostly with respect to caring for the environment. On the ride home, J and I both agreed that it's a relief to know that there are other people around us in B/CS who have values and perspectives that are similar to ours.
I'm not entirely sure what I did this afternoon. Bathed, at least. Oh, did two weeks' worth of laundry (boy was I getting spoiled by S doing my laundry all the time while he was here). Cooked a few things. Checked the crickets again. Yep, that's about it.
