Category: life

Time to Get Planting! Spring Garden 2011

Down among the seedlings

It’s been a little iffy these past few weeks but I think it is safe to say Spring is finally here! Spring is the herald of many things (one of the best being Easter candy; I’m looking at you Cadbury egg) what it means in our household is spring cleaning and spring planting. The cleaning is all mostly done (I’ve just got to steam clean the carpets) so, that means it’s time to get our hands dirty in the garden.

Before we could plant we had to take everything else out. The winter garden still had celery, spinach, chard, arugula, and carrots in it; they all had to go:

After harvesting, all the greens had to be cleaned
Tiny carrots are yummy. I think we grew them too close to each other
Once cooked all this spinach will fit in a one measuring cup
Arugula is delicious. This was previously unknown to me

We kept the celery in the garden because it seemed so happy and I have no idea what to do with 4 heads of celery… Once the winter plants were out  all the ready compost out of our composter and went in, along with a bag of manure fertilizer, and soil to revitalize the plot. Then we laid out where we were going to put everything. Learning from last year we picked up fewer tomatoes and zucchini plants and got more cucumbers. We’re also attempting beans again this year to see if we can do better than the single green bean pod we got last year.

 

tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplants, basil, parsley, peppers

 

Everything in its place.
I swear I helped put this garden in. It wasn't all D.

 

 

Beer traps in Sluggo spread. It begins!

I’m hoping that we do get a lot of produce this year. D and I are both looking forward to learning how to can and pickle vegetables! I’m still trying to figure out what to do with all the celery. As it is we’re putting it in absolutely everything.

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Give This to Help Japan!

The above animation can be yours as a program or screensaver for either Macs or Windows if you give absolutely anything to the Americares Foundation which is raising money right now to help those caught in the on-going disaster in Japan.

This is a really nice piece of pixel art and you can proudly show it off on your desktop and do something nice for those in need!

via Ted Martens’ Blog

 

So This is a Smartphone?

old, broken shiny

Here in California it is finally spring; and, since it is I dusted off the bicycle and took a quick 36 mile ride to next town over. It was a lovely ride and I’m really excited about cycling this year through summer and into fall. As you can tell by the picture at the top though, this isn’t a post about cycling.

The ride was good but uneventful. All the way until the end when while stopped at a stop sign in town. I leaned the wrong way with my foot clipped in and fell, SMACK, right onto the curb and right onto my phone. That is what you see up top there. That old LG Shine (I think that’s what it was) wasn’t a very fancy phone. It couldn’t do the Twitters, or the Facebooks, or the Foursquares. It could accept phone calls and send texts and that is really all I needed it to do. With the cracks on the screen it can’t even do those simple tasks.

So, I ended up getting a new phone:

new, complicated shiny

That is a HTC Inspire 4G, and Android phone. It is apparently capable of many, many things. I’m not really quite sure how it all works, it didn’t come with a manual. I can find tutorials for it on-line though! So that is nice. The Inspire does do the Twitter, and the Facebook, and the Foursquare, and a lot of other stuff too, I think.

Like, I said it I’m not quite sure how it all works. I’ll figure it out, I hope.

Don’t forget that I’m giving a book away this week! You can find all the details here.

DiMortuiSunt April Book Giveaway! #1

My review for Sacramento Book Review:

I found it troubling and eerie at how much of today I see in the world Jackson Lears relates in his newest book Rebirth of a Nation, which chronicles the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction to the end of World War I. Lears makes the similarities between then and now a theme throughout the book, pointing them out when they are especially telling. Rebirth of a Nation is not an important book because it paints a vivid picture of early modern American culture; it is a brilliant book because it reminds of how and why we have the federal government we do and the headaches and troubles earlier Americans faced to get us here. Various government institutions and policies (the FDA, for example) which we take for granted today, or worse denigrate, are explained in the context of which they were created, enlightening such issues as modern banking and its regulation, the Federal Reserve, the eight-hour workday, unions, a mixed economy, and more. Lears wraps all of that radical change in an American desire, both individual and societal, for a rebirth into a state akin to grace whether through war, social justice, or labor. Rebirth of a Nation is a must-read for lovers of American history.

If you’re a fan of history or the United States this is a great book that covers a pivotal period in US History as the country shifted from its original rural agrarian base to a urban industrial one.

So, if you’d like a free book. Just make a comment down below and you’ll be entered. One person, chosen at random, will win it next Friday.

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