My parsley has been growing all winter. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying.
This is a test post, really. A lot has happened to me technologically speaking since I took a break from blogging. The hard drive on my laptop crashed and I lost a lot of stuff, like Windows Live, which is a free blogging software program I’ve used ever since Little Miss, aka Claire from Cadence of Life introduced me to it way back in the day. I just downloaded it again this morning and wanted to test it out. I lost a lot of other stuff when my hard drive crashed, so my son-in-law, Paul, introduced me to Mozy, which backs up my computer throughout the day so I never lose anything again. He also introduced me to Skype Recorder. Now when I’m interviewing people for my articles I use a headset and call them from my computer, which is way cheaper than any land line phone plan (it’s $2.99 a month), and the free Skype Recorder automatically records everything in crystal clear sound. Plus, with Mozy backing everything up, I don’t have to worry about losing my interview. Basically, Paul has made my job a lot less stressful. Maybe my hard drive crashing wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
And in weather news, although the winters in El Paso are mild compared to most parts of the country we do get snow. Nothing much, a dusting really, and certainly not enough to shovel. We don’t own a snow shovel, but I think we should buy a window scraper. We got some snow a few weeks ago so I took these photos of it on the truck
When I was a nail tech I had a client come in with her hand bandaged up. She’d been to the hospital. She told me she’d seen this big “interestingly prehistoric” bird in her backyard just sitting on her picnic table so she went outside, walked right up to it, and tried to feed it some lettuce. Turned out the thing was a Great Blue Heron and it nearly took her hand off.
Yes, her freaking hand. By the way, herons look like this
Nice, huh? Well my nail client was understandably upset about it and angry at the bird, but I couldn’t feel all that bad for her because I mean, c’mon. You see this giant bird and you try to feed it? I’m not a fan of big birds anyway, I prefer chickadees and robins over giant birds. I got dive bombed by a pair of osprey once when I was walking my dogs through a marsh in Sandwich and I actually had to run for my life. I was running in my LL Bean Wellies (it was a marsh after all) screaming my head off, my dogs were barking, the birds were out for blood…Oh it was a scene, man. What’s an osprey you ask? Think giant eagles on crystal meth.
Yeah yeah yeah, they were defending their nest. But I say hey, nobody said raising kids is easy. Don’t take your bird rage out on me. I’ve never met an osprey I liked. I wouldn’t have gone near their nest even if I was in an Army tank.
So when I saw the news about the latest discovery by scientists that they believe they’ve discovered the true color of this hideous dinosaur bird, Anchiornis huxleyi, I took one look and shuddered from the mental image in my head of my client trying to feed it lettuce.
Longtime comedy writer Merrill Markoe is still hilarious. I just got her book, It’s My F—ing Birthday: A Noveland happened to find this video she made with her dogs. (If you recall, Merrill came up with “Stupid Pet Tricks” when she was David Letterman’s writer.) I love this, because my dogs would react exactly like this in an emergency. Come to think of it, they have.
I think it’s very hot this afternoon, just about 100 in the shade according to the Acu-Rite. Nearly a year’s gone by and we still haven’t taken the Acu-Rite out of the box. I think Buck is afraid if I take it out of the box I’ll want to hang it up using a cup hook. Men hate it when you hang things up, particularly with a cup hook.
Stargail sent us this photo of the “Border Patrol” that we thought was adorable. (I hope no one interprets this as negative or anything, because it was not meant in that vein.) All those little Chihuahuas look like our Stella, and Lily (who belongs to Little Miss), so I couldn’t resist. Thanks, Stargail!
I love kitchen gadgets. I have a drawer full of stuff like a strawberry huller and a calzone mold…you know, stuff that you can live without but it is kinda handy when you use it that one time a year. Most of it I’ve picked up at yard sales, but this new gadget by Heinz has got to be the king of all kitchen gadgets: The Beansawave. Yes! It’s a mini microwave you keep at your desk for heating up your beans!
This is not a joke, it’s an actual gadget that plugs into the USB drive of your computer and will retail for $160. And you just know no one in the office will ever make fun of you. You’ll be the envy the cubicle crowd! Just look at this dedicated guy enjoying his beans without even taking his eyes off his spreadsheet! And that Miss Slyboots over there across from him pretending not to notice…you know she’s dying with envy.
I’m always whining about gardening in El Paso and how difficult it’s been for me. So this year I resolved to have container gardens. Since money is tight I’m planting seeds. But I’m also looking for instant color, so I’m buying mostly annuals, which pretty much goes against everything I’ve ever believed in. I believe perennials give you more bang for your buck, like years worth of bang. But I can’t afford to spend $12.99 or more on a plant that might die in a week. So I’m going with annuals and a few veggies.
Because I’m spending money on annuals, I can’t really afford to go out and buy the beautiful pots I’d like to get. But I need deep containers so my plants will think they’re in the ground. So I’m trash can and bucket gardening. No one can see the garden but us, because it’s inside our courtyard where I can keep an eye on it 24/7. I’ve gone around and collected all the unused trash cans we’ve got, and I’ve been buying buckets. The cheapest buckets I’ve found are the Home Depot utility buckets for $2.79. I drill holes in the bottom, drop in some newspaper and rocks for drainage, then add my special soil mixture. And of course (the most important part) I’m turning the bucket so the giant Home Depot ad doesn’t show.
Here’s a pepper plant and his friends oregano, snap dragon, and the petunia gang. I took this shot about a week ago.
And here it is this morning. So far, so good.
Here’s some lovely bucket salvia.
Here’s some bucket petunias below:
And here’s my one big perennial splurge, trash can Rudbeckia and a hollyhock.
I went to the store yesterday with a specific “bucket list” of what I wanted and here they are below. I’ve got to plant these today. They’re already well on the way to looking good (unlike the half-dead marked down K-Mart plants I bought weeks ago), so hopefully they’ll keep on keeping on and encourage the rest of the garden to do the same.
I’ll keep playing chakra music to my bucket garden and talking to it, and I just know the garden will cooperate. OR I WILL FLIP OUT.
I’m not really supposed to on here right now, taking photos and blogging, because I’ve got too much work to do so I’m gonna run. Happy gardening, everyone!
