Assorted Randomness
Summary: Allergies are mean, caffeine is a double edged sword, and maybe the garden will finally start growing.
The heat in northwest Ohio has been, like many parts of the U.S., rather higher than usual. We went from rainrainrain to drydrydry, so hours of watering the garden most nights has been the routine. I can't just turn on a sprinkler to help supplement either since the black plastic would keep most of it from going where it actually needs to go. We have a very healthy water table so the water use isn't a problem at this point, it's just the time expenditure. That and the fact the watering efforts are keeping everything alive, but most things have been growing very slowly, if at all. Last night the weather finally broke though and we had 1 1/4" of rain! The forecast looks like we're going right back to hot and dry, but we really needed that ground soaking, so it's a relief. I did a round of fertilizing earlier in the week and, between the two, I hope to see the growth finally picking up.
What I really need this year is drip lines under the plastic but that needs to be done before it's put down and we have water with a high mineral content so I'm pretty sure I'd be lucky if the lines and connectors lasted a whole season. I keep reminding myself that, at this point, hot and dry summers aren't the rule, but the longer this one goes on, the better and better experimenting with that kind of irrigation sounds.
On the other hand, the flowers and herbs in planters with fresh potting soil and daily waterings are all doing quite well. Back at the greenhouse, one side of the door has a planter that includes a couple borage plants that are out of control while the one on the other side has some mint plants - and we probably all know mint's reputation. I'm not sure whether they're going to duke it out or just team up and try to take everything over, but at least they're on the far side of the property. We'll have more time to make a run for it that way. (The size difference between the borage in the planter and the borage in the garden is stark - the planter borage is easily 3x larger than it's fellows with numerous blooming clusters.)
Far more well-behaved is the surprise success of the summer so far: the black-eyed susan vine. Round about planting out time, I read it was apparently a bit fussy as a plant, and then I put 4-5 plants each in a couple hanging baskets with their own stands that were originally designed to go inside and therefore didn't have drain holes. Which seemed like a surefire recipe for drowning them if I didn't forget to water them in the first place. Right now, however, they're vining all over their little stands and apparently happy as clams with the hot weather and are covered in flowers.
Amidst all this is a great deal of drowsiness as it's a hell of an allergies year around here. My allergist is wildly high tech compared to the old one and has his own app that, among other things, sends out daily pollen alerts with readings from the pollen counting station he runs. I'm under the impressions that a) pollen counting stations are surprisingly few and far between and b) most pollen apps calculate levels based on previous years readings and weather forecasts, so it's pretty sweet we have one here giving the daily numbers of doom and despair and letting me know why my eyes can only half open in the morning and afternoon naps have become non-optional. I tried running outside last week. THAT was funny. Well, after I could breathe again it was funny.
It's probably not shocking this has led to increased caffeine intake, but I think I need to cut out that second 16oz of morning coffee. A majority of the time anyway since It's making me tense up and my heart race without actually clearing out the brain fog. Siiiigh.
In other news entirely, my old laptop - Sam - has finally passed on with a fried motherboard. It was 9 years old and spent the last 3-4 of it with my MiL, which is largely retirement duty albeit not under ideal environmental conditions. MiL has a minor need for a computer but isn't willing to part with the cash for a new system. I'm planning on building a desktop at the end of the year to house the business database, run photo editing software, and juggle some light media center tasks, but even if I were prepared to do that now, my current laptop will still be doing all the mobile tasks rather than being retired. So, in payment for all space D is taking up of her barn/house/property, I ordered her a Chromebook. If it were actually about that, then honestly, given D's hoarding issues, we're getting off cheap, but he inherited those issues from her, so... I guess it works out okay?
The one I picked out - Acer's current Chromebook 15 model - seems to have decent specs and it's only major drawback that I can tell is that it's heavy (4.8 pounds!! still a pound lighter than Sam) but that's not an issue here. Small would have been a problem in this case, but the 15.6" screen is similar to Sam's, so that should be fine. I mean, she's guaranteed to be wailing at me that it hates her at least once a month, but that's S.O.P. Wailing aside, she's more or less learned her iPhone, and generally I'm hoping this will actually be easier for her to use than a full blown laptop. Whether it will be easier for me to set-up or not remains to be seen. I was able to get it via Costco with 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage with bonus mouse and including tax for slightly less than the Acer site's 2 GB/16 GB base model price, so that was nice.
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)
The heat in northwest Ohio has been, like many parts of the U.S., rather higher than usual. We went from rainrainrain to drydrydry, so hours of watering the garden most nights has been the routine. I can't just turn on a sprinkler to help supplement either since the black plastic would keep most of it from going where it actually needs to go. We have a very healthy water table so the water use isn't a problem at this point, it's just the time expenditure. That and the fact the watering efforts are keeping everything alive, but most things have been growing very slowly, if at all. Last night the weather finally broke though and we had 1 1/4" of rain! The forecast looks like we're going right back to hot and dry, but we really needed that ground soaking, so it's a relief. I did a round of fertilizing earlier in the week and, between the two, I hope to see the growth finally picking up.
What I really need this year is drip lines under the plastic but that needs to be done before it's put down and we have water with a high mineral content so I'm pretty sure I'd be lucky if the lines and connectors lasted a whole season. I keep reminding myself that, at this point, hot and dry summers aren't the rule, but the longer this one goes on, the better and better experimenting with that kind of irrigation sounds.
On the other hand, the flowers and herbs in planters with fresh potting soil and daily waterings are all doing quite well. Back at the greenhouse, one side of the door has a planter that includes a couple borage plants that are out of control while the one on the other side has some mint plants - and we probably all know mint's reputation. I'm not sure whether they're going to duke it out or just team up and try to take everything over, but at least they're on the far side of the property. We'll have more time to make a run for it that way. (The size difference between the borage in the planter and the borage in the garden is stark - the planter borage is easily 3x larger than it's fellows with numerous blooming clusters.)
Far more well-behaved is the surprise success of the summer so far: the black-eyed susan vine. Round about planting out time, I read it was apparently a bit fussy as a plant, and then I put 4-5 plants each in a couple hanging baskets with their own stands that were originally designed to go inside and therefore didn't have drain holes. Which seemed like a surefire recipe for drowning them if I didn't forget to water them in the first place. Right now, however, they're vining all over their little stands and apparently happy as clams with the hot weather and are covered in flowers.
Amidst all this is a great deal of drowsiness as it's a hell of an allergies year around here. My allergist is wildly high tech compared to the old one and has his own app that, among other things, sends out daily pollen alerts with readings from the pollen counting station he runs. I'm under the impressions that a) pollen counting stations are surprisingly few and far between and b) most pollen apps calculate levels based on previous years readings and weather forecasts, so it's pretty sweet we have one here giving the daily numbers of doom and despair and letting me know why my eyes can only half open in the morning and afternoon naps have become non-optional. I tried running outside last week. THAT was funny. Well, after I could breathe again it was funny.
It's probably not shocking this has led to increased caffeine intake, but I think I need to cut out that second 16oz of morning coffee. A majority of the time anyway since It's making me tense up and my heart race without actually clearing out the brain fog. Siiiigh.
In other news entirely, my old laptop - Sam - has finally passed on with a fried motherboard. It was 9 years old and spent the last 3-4 of it with my MiL, which is largely retirement duty albeit not under ideal environmental conditions. MiL has a minor need for a computer but isn't willing to part with the cash for a new system. I'm planning on building a desktop at the end of the year to house the business database, run photo editing software, and juggle some light media center tasks, but even if I were prepared to do that now, my current laptop will still be doing all the mobile tasks rather than being retired. So, in payment for all space D is taking up of her barn/house/property, I ordered her a Chromebook. If it were actually about that, then honestly, given D's hoarding issues, we're getting off cheap, but he inherited those issues from her, so... I guess it works out okay?
The one I picked out - Acer's current Chromebook 15 model - seems to have decent specs and it's only major drawback that I can tell is that it's heavy (4.8 pounds!! still a pound lighter than Sam) but that's not an issue here. Small would have been a problem in this case, but the 15.6" screen is similar to Sam's, so that should be fine. I mean, she's guaranteed to be wailing at me that it hates her at least once a month, but that's S.O.P. Wailing aside, she's more or less learned her iPhone, and generally I'm hoping this will actually be easier for her to use than a full blown laptop. Whether it will be easier for me to set-up or not remains to be seen. I was able to get it via Costco with 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage with bonus mouse and including tax for slightly less than the Acer site's 2 GB/16 GB base model price, so that was nice.
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)