Rock on, Hyde Park (Get warmer, Chicago)
Every once in a while someone will find it necessary to ask me "Why don't you move out of Hyde Park?" People just don't seem to understand the charm of this neighborhood (when you ignore everything having to do with the University...) I never really had a good summation of why I feel so at home here. I pretend that it has to do with it being a
( Read more... )
That "Lucky Day" shelf sounds awesome... but I can't finish anything other than pulpy sci-fi/fantasy in a week, and those aren't exactly hard to get your hands on. The $1.00 fee is also very clever. I'm terrible about getting my library books back on time, and have decided to just think of the overdue fines as a use fee. I mean, usually I'm reading things no one else is after anyway, so the library profits, right? (-;
Potatoes don't really do very well in pots, production-wise. I've never gotten any actual potatoes out of the ones I've grown, but I don't follow the rules either. I just put my sprouting potato in a pot (you're supposed to cut slips so one potato turns into a bunch of separate plants), because I have this weird thing where I feel like if it's spent all that energy sprouting in my pantry where it had no hope of actually finding dirt it earned a potful and a summer outside. (Guess who personifies her plants like a crazy woman?)
Ugh, I'm trying not to think of the bugs. I managed to get aphids on my tomatoes one year. Aphids. I was out every day with a spray bottle, trying to beat them back, and they still killed a third of my tomato plants and all of my lettuce. I didn't even think aphids liked lettuce.
What sort of Drastic Action do you suggest? I think they're used to us eating them, and right now that's the meanest thing I can think of that I'm willing to carry out myself.
Reply
(Guess who personifies her plants like a crazy woman?)
*raises hand* I'm glad to see other people do this! We have a stretch of woods behind our house, and it is filled with plants that had to be moved from our garden. I just can't stand to see them thrown away, so I move them back to the 'retirement home' in the woods where they can live out their natural life. :P
As for Drastic Action--I was thinking some sort of smart bomb technology, but unfortunately, I don't know that we can scrounge up the resources between us. Hmm...well, back to the drawing board! (In the meantime, I will continue letting my cat loose on the birds that are stealing my strawberries. She's not fast enough to catch them, but at least she's putting the fear of God back into them.)
Reply
I'm hoping they accidentally eat some of the peppers and never come back. In the meantime, I'm drawing up plans for a sort of scarecrow (actually, I was thinking about building a machine that'd literally kick them off the porch, and the thought of them being sent flying across the back yard was pretty awesome until I remembered that it'd be kicking them into my neighbor's children all the time. And while that's still funny, it's probably not something my landlord or my neighbors would appreciate. (Those kids are such a source of guilt for me. It's so awful to have them say friendly cute things to me in Spanish when I have no idea how to respond to them. It's the only reason I've ever regretted taking French.))
Reply
My mother is always trying to root branches she breaks off plants. We have half-full glasses of water with half-dead plant limbs in them stashed all over the house. (Apparently this sort of crazy is genetic!)
Who won't forgive you? The tree, or...?
I like this machine idea of yours: I'm picturing somethig Rube Goldbergian, with pulleys, levers, and a comically large boot! I think the children would enjoy the excitement, and it would be a good bonding experience. (BTW: "Cuidado! L'ardilla!" is "Watch out! Squirrel!" in Spanish.)
Reply
The trees won't forgive me. I'm directly responsible for it being reduced to a third its former size, and if I let it die completely, well... its pot-mate is going to finish climbing into my bed to attack me in my sleep. Either that or it's coming up there to tell me it forgives me (it hasn't seen the limbs in the window).
The chances of me saying "ardill-a" instead of "ardeea" are very high... even though I know better, things still come out that way. Maybe the kids will think it's funny, though.
Reply
Leave a comment