Boshe moi, the pollen vortex is frackin' killing me ( Read more... )

Wow, after weeks of mostly hot and stiflingly humid, the weather has been wonderful this week, sunny, clear, and right around seventy. I took advantage Monday to plant some azaleas to replace the enormous junipers I'd removed from the front of the house back in July. Not only should they provide more color than just dull green, but I planted then ( Read more... )

Labor Day is the end of summer, or so my garden apparently thinks as it seems to have packed it in for the year. Mind, I had only planted tomatoes, pickling cukes, and spaghetti squash, all warm weather plants, but we've also had weather that wouldn't be out of place in August in Louisiana, so it's not likely death from frostbite ( Read more... )

1 four-pack cucumber seedlings - $2.75
1 onion - $ 0.66
spices, salt, sugar, vinegar - $2.00
1 dozen Mason jars (pints) - $12.83
1 canner and utensils - $27.76

3 pint jars of bread and butter pickles - priceless $15.33 a frelling jar for pickles ( Read more... )

Previously on LiveJournal, our hero managed to dump a glass of milk into his wireless keyboard ( Read more... )

Two more cherry tomatoes and even a plum tomato. Even better, there were two full-sized pickling cukes hidden down under the foliage, which is exactly the number needed to make Alton Brown's refrigerator B&Bs, so I did that ( Read more... )

Picked my first cherry tomato of the season today. Just the one, but it's the principle of the thing.

Today is the 4th of July, which means it was time for the 11th annual Casa Machina shrub trimming extravaganza. The spring growth surge is over, and it's time to do some hacking. Of course, I decided to wait until the hottest day of the weekend to do it...

( Shrubs and tomatoes... )

The Machinamobile needed some serious engine repairs, so I've been driving a rental for the past couple of weeks. I got the truck back Thursday, and I returned the Ford Fusion to Enterprise yesterday. Nice car, although it felt weird driving a sedan. OTOH, it had a six cylinder engine, so it had way more zip than I'm used to. It also had a stick ( Read more... )

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