Weekend before last, I set up the hammock and slept outside because the nighttime lows were in the 50s. This last weekend, I tried to put my seedlings outside so that they could harden out but brought them back inside after an hour because the daytime temps were in the low 40s ( Read more... )

It got up to 89 yesterday. My swamp cooler isn't up and running, so it was a bit unpleasant inside (77°). I set up the hammock on Saturday and attempted to spend the night there. I lasted until about 4:30am, at which time I decided that I would rather sleep in a bed that doesn't require me to be perfectly balanced every time I turn over. The temps ( Read more... )

Today's bouquet contains, incredibly, a very fresh Easter Bonnet daffodil (blooming for the last 3-4 weeks), a sprig of dicentra, two unnamed tulips from the previous owner (red and red-on-yellow), leopard's bane, basket-o-gold, polychrome euphorbia (we'll see if it survives as a cut flower) Apricot Beauty tulip, the first little pink Darwin hybrid ( Read more... )

Birds and Blooms is the name of a tacky little magazine that shows cute little birdses near cute little birdhouses in the midwest. You'd think that it would be right up my alley, but it belongs with the crowd that likes cutsey things as opposed to merely cuteAnyway. When I drive home from work, I take I-80 eastbound, then take the exit for ( Read more... )

Over the winter, I fed the birds by scooping black-oil sunflower seeds onto the three hanging baskets I have by the patio. Underneath the baskets is a long cinderblock planter where I plant tulips and whatever will grow there (hint: not much ( Read more... )

On Sunday morning I awoke to see that both the purple baby irises in the raised planter and the blue-pearl crocuses had bloomed. Which means that this year they tied. Last year, the irises won, and they year before I think the blue-pearl crocuses did ( Read more... )

It was warm/dry enough for me to venture outside and see what I can see in the yard. I've been checking for the past few days to see if the Blue Pearl crocuses have nosed out of the ground, and today I found the first sign of them. Just one plant, mind you, and pale yellow under the mulch, but there, nonetheless. Last year, they were out before ( Read more... )

It's been kinda interesting at work for the past three weeks. I spend 8 hours here as usual, but I've had nothing to work on. The project I was hired for got suspended so that everyone could work on FDA recommendations that came down after a lengthy audit. But there's nothing for us to do yet, and I have no idea when there will be. So I surf the ( Read more... )

Thrice I have heard a flock of Canada geese honking overhead, rumbo al sur. It's only the 15th of August, way too early for signs of fall. They better be flying down from the Yukon, where I'm sure it's getting nippy ( Read more... )

Well. I just got my first pair of steel-toed shoes. We're supposed to wear them when going into lab areas, along with saftey glasses and these little hexagon thingers that you clip onto your nametag strap (lanyard?), which tells you if you've been exposed to too much x-ray radiation. They haven't issued me a hexagon yet. But then, I don't even ( Read more... )