From The Mommybot

I realized I'd forgotten to take my old monitor and the red muck bucket to the storage unit, so I went over to uncover my car, and met the neighbor who lives in #101, who pointed out some stuff I needed to know re: storing it over there and the snow plow, and invited me to park my car to the outside of his.  Apparently the snow plow does go down in that little gravel lot because he has to clear the way for the garbage truck, so the guy was going to talk to the plow guy and arrange for him to scoop out from behind the cars anyway.  Where I had it parked, tho, would have stopped the plow from clearing behind the rest of the cars, and most likely gotten my car buried under the tons of snow plowed from the gravel lot.  Its also okay with the neighbor if I leave the tarp on his front stoop during the times I'll need to use my car.  So I carred the stuff over to the storage unit then parked and tarped in the spot the guy asked me to.  Its also quite probable that the reason my hood rusted so quick over last winter after the paint was damaged was because the salt/chemical stuff used on the sidewalks was sprayed onto the hood.  The tarp will prevent that this year, tho I know it won't stop the rusting, just slow it a little.

With the muck bucket going to the unit, that meant the Purple Dragon carrots had to come out.  As I thought, they're less than half size, tho they did grow and are definitely useable.  Maybe I'll use them for part of Thanksgiving dinner.  They're drying on a towel out on the porch right now.  I'm pretty sure part of the problem was the fact that the bucket had no drainage hole, so judging when to water them was tricky and putting them where they could get rained on was out of the question (they'd have rotted).  I'll get one of those outdoor pot indicators next year.  I have no plans to put a hole in the muck bucket...its more useable all around without one, and it was Brawn's water bucket so it has sentimental value.  That's also why I put it in the storage unit, so it won't freeze and crack while holding slightly damp dirt.

Madeline is feeling better today, tho she's going to be on the echinacea for another day or two.  She also unbloated - she tends to swell up a bit when she's having a pancreatic problem.  She loves the giant  pink superball I got her at the beginning of the month, in the same store where I met that kitten.  Its too big to lose under things, but just small enough she can just barely grasp it with her teeth, and doing so doesn't cause it to lose pieces like the foam one she had before.

--Moony

Well, just a few days to November, and the broccoli and carrots as well as the strawberries and yarrow are still alive outside:And a President who doesn't support organic like his wife does.

--Moony

The Scarlet carrots...look exactly like the Minicors.  Tiny and orange.  They hadn't had a chance to fully mature, I'm guessing.  At least the Purples will be purple, since they are purple from the beginning.  The Scarlets are drying by the door now.

I turned out to be right about the drawers not lasting but one season, tho I might be able to use the fronts to build new beds next spring. As I was pulling them under cover the bottom came out of one.   I decided to let the broccoli keep going, but I dragged it under cover and stacked it on the other drawer, covering it back up with the plastic garbage bag and towels (also good for keeping cats out). 

--Moony

20% chance of snow this evening and tonight, and 40% chance tomorrow of sleet and snow, with freezing rain for Wednesday.  I still don't have anything to put the dirt from the red muckbucket and wooden drawers in.  Might just have to cover them up and put them in the storage unit like they are.  Eh...no not the drawers - if they break it would be a big mess in my storage unit.  Maybe I'll just toss them under the porch in a little bit.  My Scarlet Keeper carrots and the broccoli are still in it...but I guess I'll have to give up on getting any seeds from the broccoli, as they're still just green, and pick the carrots tonight.  The Purple Dragons in the muckbucket can probably hold out a bit longer.  Both are covered with towels and the broccoli a garbage bag, and the muckbucket is next to the door so it shouldn't freeze yet.

I picked some of the apples off the apple trees out front, as many as I could knock off with my 6 foot walking stick.  There are at least a dozen or more still on the tree but they'll have to be picked via ladder by the maintenance man.  I walked around to a few neighbors and gave them most of the apples.  They're red and yellow striped and kinda tart along with sweet in the way Granny Smiths are, but no one still knows what variety they are.

It doesn't look like my tarp is going to work for covering my car because its too small, but since I was out there trying it out, the new maintenance man (ex husband of the new manager) offered to bring a tarp he has that should be big enough to cover my entire car.  I'm also going to have to figure out where to park it off the street since there's a possibility it will break down.  I want to be able to get it out if needed, but I also don't want to make the transmission have to do as much work as it did the last two winters with having to be moved from one side of the street to the other every day so the snow plow could do its job.

--Moony

Got the mass cluster of comfrey cut down.  Most of the leaves are in a 5 gallon bucket getting crushed by a rock (had to sacrifice the dill seedlings for that, as they were using the bucket that had holes in the bottom.  No problem, tho, since there are 20 or 30 in other pots) - makes good liquid fertilizer I'm told, and I will certainly need that next year.  The flowers and seed heads I cut off and threw away, along with any roots I accidentally pulled up. The stems and leftover leaves were laid on the newspaper on the inground bed along with shovelfuls of green grass clippings and the carrot greens, then covered with a second layer of paper that I wetted down.  The dried up marigold was stripped of its flowers (which I sprinkled over by the compost heap - shhh, don't tell anyone!), cut up, and added to the green layer too, and its dirt provided a good place to plant 8 or 10 of the poetus daffodil bulbs, right next to the worm bucket and the patio.

I ended up going ahead and pulling up the thyme and rosemary and repotting them in some cast off plastic pots I found on the road.  The poor rosemary really was pathetic, the roots didn't grow at all from when I planted it.  Hopefully it will do better over the winter.  Removing them allowed me to fully cover that part of the garden tho with paper and greens.

I also cut the pepper off, after thanking it for its service, leaving the pot up for a while to let the roots rot and because I'm waiting to get some polyweave feed bags to put all my dirt in.  It also was added to the green layer.

Now I'm kinda pooped, but I've got graphics work to do...and a bath.

--Moony

If you ever get a chance to eat a Sweet Chocolate pepper, do so.  They have a distinctive, delicious fruity flavor.  Like green peppers cooked in sweet and sour sauce.

I picked the Minicor carrots today, got about a hundred.  None of them are full size, about half-size or more, and half of them are the size of large lima beans.

The tiny ones make an interesting stir fry. :)  The rest are still drying outside.

--Moony

I cut the non-flowering stalks off my oregano, and they're in the dryer right now.  My house is filled with the scent of oregano.

Creator led me to go do something in the local woods, up by a lake I already knew but had never visited. After getting some tobacco, I headed up into the pass. It was lovely and sunny, and when I couldn't find any cedar, yarrow volunteered to be buried with what I needed to bury, among some young wild strawberries and pines.  I also found an oddity, a fresh, empty pea pod in the middle of a trail, where there were no plants that produce such, and then an empty bird's nest.  As it was sitting on a picnic table where some ignorant hiker had left it, I returned it to the base of a tree.  Same with the pea pod, as it didn't want to be stepped on.  Said hello to the local sentry, a newbie young robin on the job, and a couple warblers.  I think that's what they were, I'm not sure.  There was a beaver house across the lake, too.  One of these days when I'm less fatigued, I'm going to take a longer walk up there.

I'm being led to think about Conquistador and his family a lot.  This usually means the Creator wants me to do something for him, something which may be sane according to most people, or radical and crazy...like adopt them.  That's how I got Brawn.  The BLM won't release them because they weren't on BLM land, for one, and the other the distinct possibility that they may also rule him 'old' and their regulations allow them to put down horses that are 'old, lame, or sick' - which could also mean they'll put down that foal THEY made lame.  Creator will make known to me what and make the resources needed available. 

Then I came home, stopped at the organic grocery to get bulk oats and a few herbs, took care of my plants, and harvested oregano.  I still haven't harvested the minicor carrots, nor have I covered the in-ground garden with newspaper yet.

--Zhora

It was sunny, and warm, and dry, but the nights are cold now, so it was time to harvest the sweet potatoes.

And I dug and I dug.

And...nothing. Awww!

Seems I probably put too much compost in, or something.  Lots of roots, no tubers.  Oh well.  I turned over the plant back into the pot along with the grass mulch and all the slugs within, and covered it with the black plastic for the last time this year.  Should cook those lil sluggies good when the temps go back up next weekend.  Its tobacco buddy didn't want to be left alone, so its now hanging next to the pepper.  It may be brought indoors for the winter.

I continued with taking down the black mesh fence so I could get to the chives and thyme.  And accidentally broke the stem of the one remaining living onion...only to find out it didn't grow an onion, just a stalk and then it flowered.  I left it, and cut the greens of the chives.  They weren't as numerous as I'd hoped, but its a good couple handfuls at least.  They and the thyme are drying in the dehydrator now.  I also chopped out all those columbines, and cut a bit of the comfrey.  The columbines went to the building compost heap, as they're full of seeds and I don't need anymore of them spreading (I did leave some, I'm not that heartless!), and the comfrey to laying on where the onions were.  The borage was also spent, and there was a new volunteer plant in the pot anyway, so I carefully harvested a few seeds and it joined the comfrey cuttings, only toward the back so they can reseed there if they do.

I have decided to put newspaper all over the in-ground bed, then layer the comfrey stems as greenstuff, and more newspaper...leaving holes only for the peonies, the thyme, and the rosemary.  That should take care of most of the annoying ivy things.  But that's for tomorrow.

The fox, the repurposed shelf supports that were the main fence supprts, and the pitchfork were all removed and hosed clean in preparation for going into storage.  I think the fox and the pitchfork will end up going to the unit instead of under the stairwell, since they'll be subjected to less extremes there.

After that, I went to the post office to pick up the package that had been waiting there since Saturday (they don't have Saturday pickup).  Remember that purchase I shouldn't have made?  It arrived!  All MIB/MOC except for Snarl but all in excellent condition with accessories.  And DAWWWWW! the TFA Dinobots are cuuuute!  'specially Snarly!  TFA 'Bee was also in there, along with Protoform Prime, a couple Clone Wars figures, and a Lego thingy.  Since the Prime was a movie figure and just ugly, I immediately taped him and 'bee ('cause I already have one) back in their packages and took them to the consignment store along with Lego Thingie and a bunch of knives I no longer have need of.  I don't know yet what I'm going to do with the Clone Wars figures (Grevious and Obi-Wan), I'll sell them somewhere.  Any offers?

And on the way home I stopped at a roadside farm stand just to look, after getting a big fat chocolate bar at the grocery.  And lo and behold, the person selling veggies had a single, proper Sweet Chocolate pepper.  I had a dollar, and she was selling 2 for that, so I brought home the Sweet Chocolate and a purple striped pepper.  I'll harvest the seeds from both once I decide what delicious dish to cook them in.  And after I take pictures to show you all what a proper Sweet Chocolate looks like, not my odd little 'jalapeno'! XD

--Moony

One of the few things I have the energy for lately is making sure my plants are watered, and eating some of them.  Like the Sweet Chocolate pepper.  It was nummy, and the seeds are currently drying on a paper towel. :)  I'm saving as many seeds as possible from everything I plant and pick out of the wild, partly because its a good idea to do so as you get plants in later generations that are acclimated to the climate, and because if things go down the tube like some people are predicting, seeds will be needed in the future.

The Lion King bag broke today, tho, just a second after I was done watering the marigold.  Its now sitting on the sweet potato's pot, and the flowering tobacco is hanging from both hangers by itself.  I need to deadhead the marigold anyway, so the rest of the blossoms will blossom.  It will be a bumper crop of seeds again, as this plant was the child of my really big marigold from a couple of years ago, and the pods are bursting with seeds - literally.  It did get spidermites, but those are gone now, and the cold nights have been turning its leaves purple, so it may not last too much longer anyway.

--Moony

Well, not entirely.  Its tied up on the wall continuing its bug attracting.  But otherwise it was at the end of its lifespan finally.  I harvested about half the seeds - the other half had bunches of tiny white worms on it, and aphids, and other things I have no idea what they're called.  But then I dropped the container, and only have about half of the half left. :(  Some of those fell in the pot I'd just cut the dill out of, so I watered them and hopefully will have more fresh dill in a few weeks.

My Sweet Chocolate pepper is a lovely red brown almost all over.  I should be able to eat it in a couple days.  Yum!  I'm just going to eat it right off the plant, no bothering with possibly screwing it up in a dish or something.

The broccoli/kale has decided to put out more heads while I'm waiting for it to flower.  Not a whole lot of heads, but I've gotta decide how I'm gonna eat 'em!  I also stuck a hose in my sweet potato's pot, as it had finally gotten dry in there...the slugs are what's been going to town on the leaves, too, so there's now a slug bar (saucer of beer) in the mulch.

The building manager still isn't around, still recovering from gall bladder surgery, so I put out one of the sprinklers for a few hours in one of the slightly brown areas of the lawn.  The rest seems to be doing pretty well, but then the rest of the areas have been watered more than this particular area. No mowing or weed whacking, as no one has access to the machinery, and HUD hasn't been paying the maintenance people, so they don't bother.  Maybe one of the other tenants with relatives in the area can get them to drive a mower down here if it gets really bad.

--Moony

I decided to cut down my broccoli today, and feed it to the worms.  With the heat the leaves turned very bitter, and the stems were pretty woody, so I left the one that I want to get seed from ('cause I'm really curious about whether its a crossbred or not) and one to shade the Scarlet Keeper carrots who'd be shocked by suddenly getting a lot of light.

I didn't cover the sweet potato and pepper last night, as the forecast was for a 51 degree low, but I looked at the history this morning and it went down to 38!  Argh!  The pepper was no worse for wear, but the sweet potato did have some burnt edges (along with all the holes from buggies!).  Since its not terribly hot today, I'm going to assume they'll need covering again tonight.

I may go out a bit later and plant some of the actual kale seeds I bought a couple weeks ago in the spot where the broccoli was...the same spot that still has the 'Kale' marker, even. XD  But I've been suffering from low energy, and do need to clean the kitchen finally, and might go to the post office again.

--Moony

Me at Walmart yesterday:

Hmmm, what a pretty little little pink flower that's saying 'BUY ME!'  And its only 25 cents?  Sold!  It will be happy in its new home pot as a replacement for the peas.

Me today:

*after repotting in the orange pot and hanging it next to the marigolds* I think I'll look up what a 'nicotiana' is.  Oh, a flowering tobacco.  They get up to 3 feet...and I put it in a small hanging pot.  Ooops.


Oh well, hopefully it will be happy in its tiny little pot for the next couple of months.  Its not very big yet anyway, and apparently they are frost-tender.  Tho maybe I can bring it in when it starts getting cold.

Spent a good few hours last night playing Crash Bandicoot: Warped!  'Cause it turns out that the disc that was in the Playstation when I dropped the honey jar on it was ALSO not broken, despite the huge deep scratch. :D  And I was able to tell my manager that the console works - her daughter was the one who sold it to me, and apparently she felt really bad about it breaking.

Trying to make some serviceberry syrup right now, but its not going that well.

--Moony

On that tiring Friday, I got home and looked out...and saw THIS!

--Moony

More later!

--Moony

I thought my attempt at worm composting was a failure, since I didn't do anything other than throw things in a bucket with a hole in the bottom, only took care of it a few times a month, mostly to throw some water in, or a worm, or some veggies, and when last I looked in, I thought I still saw peels and such.  So this morning I finally decided to dig in and see how it was going.  And to my surprise - I have half a bucket of nice dark worm poop and one very happy, healthy fat worm or two!  YAY!!!  I didn't accidentally kill 'em all!  So I dumped in some veggie bits and peels that I'd been keeping in the fridge and some water, and covered it up with fresh newspaper. :)  Since I'm thinking of harvesting carrots in the next day or so, I will probably add the worm poop for the remaining carrots.

--Moony

Its 80 outside already, but a nice comfortable 60 or so inside, even with windows open and the AC off.  I just closed the sliding door because the manager is about to start mowing.  Reminds me I need to go pull my plants back from the edge, too...brb...

Back.  Looks like the extra water has already been helping my pepper.  One of the small peppers is already half again as big as it was yesterday.  But of the 15 blossoms and buds I had, only 4 remain to become peppers, including the three that were already growing.  But again, that it produced any is an accomplishement over my last attempts, and maybe it will flower more later.

Madeline has been acting a bit funny since last night.  She's been wanting to lay on me and sleep, just like WAY back after she got spayed and all her health issues hadn't been diagnosed and alleviated.  And last night apparently she slept in or next to the bathroom sink instead of in her carrier.  Consequently she's still tired.  And she didn't want to snarf down her food like usual - but that could be because I let the slippery elm bark sit in water by itself a little too long and some of it gelled before I mixed in the Prowl, so her food looked and shook like gray Jell-O instead of the usual light brown slurry.  She did meow a lot last night after I put her to bed forgetting her Pepcid, but quieted down after it started working.  She's been off the Rescue Remedy since the beginning of the month, and there hasn't been a significant change in her behavior, but she did start losing weight.  Even when she's hyper now its a NORMAL cat hyper and doesn't last for more than an hour if that.

The wanting to lay on me brings up the most concerning thing, tho...she's doesn't feel warm to me, which she should since cats have a higher body temp than we hyoomans, plus the fur.  I'm going to have to dip into my tiny savings and see about getting a thermometer (I don't keep one about the house because I need it so infrequently that the batteries in digital ones die).  If that reveals what I suspect, that her temp is a few degrees low, I don't know what I'll be able to do. 

--Moony

GARDEN NEWS: The peas are clearly on their way out, except for the extra that I planted in the sweet potato pot 'cause I didn't want to kill it when I pulled it out of the hanging pot.  They're yellowing, and only produced a handful of peas.  Oh well, lesson learned - peas do not want to grow down from a small pot, even if you give them something downward to hang onto.

And there's a reason the pepper has halted growth on its peppers...I wasn't watering it enough.  Its not dying or anything, but watering more than every other day may not be enough to counter the fact that peppers also hate temps over 90.  It doesn't look like its going to die, not at all, but it is losing blooms and what peppers were starting and are growing have stopped.  I may harvest the big one in the next few days so it can concentrate on the rest. 

The carrots aren't liking the heat, either, but should be fine with more frequent watering.  I may have to go through and thin them finally to get any roots, but its not crucial.

I almost killed the feverfew by not watering it for a couple of days.  Its still going, tho. Whew.

Good News: The marigold is budding again, and the sweet potato has finally started growing, the oregano has doubled in size, and the strawberry is trying to send out runners.  The yarrow and pineapple weed are almost at harvesting size again.  The dill is huge, nicely smelly, and has a lot of flower heads, which mean lots of dill seeds.  The tiny bees around here love the dill and the feverfew.  The kale is also huge and starting to attract cabbage moths, one of which I thought I dispached with a clap, but it was only stunned.  But caught and eaten by Madeline several minutes later.  My new small spray bottle is working again, too, so I was able to spray the kale with a mixture of cayenne, water, and dishsoap, which will hopefully deter more moths.

--Moony

Madeline saw him first.  She wanted to invite him in for a snack.

I got him to eat thistle seed out of my hand, and then he hopped on it for a few minutes.  Then onto the pots on my white wire shelves, and then to the garden.  I didn't get the chance to put him up on the perch with the star, had I had a brain and thought of it while he was sitting on my hand anyway.  He could have slept there safely.

I missed a shot of Madeline's full body window press.  She really wanted to eat him.  I scattered some seed on the porch in case he comes back...when she's not out there.

--Moony

Apparently I was treated to an unusual if not rare sight when I returned home today from the veteran's stand-down (more on that in another post).  I don't remember why I went to look, but I found a handful of bees buzzing about my hanging peas, one of them carrying a leaf in her legs and trying to get into the holes underneath with it.  My peas had round holes in the dead leaves, tho the one bee with the leaf had a green one.  Since they were mostly working on the dead leaves, I'm fine with it.

Obviously they were some sort of 'cutter bees', so I looked up those words in Google.  I found out they are Leaf-cutter bees, important pollinators who use the leaves to line their individual holes into which they lay their eggs.  As one poster on the UBC forum put it, they're cutting out 'baby blankets'. :)  It was also noted that a lot of people who had their distinct round holes cut in the leaves of their plants, they're rarely seen actually doing the cutting - most people assume they do it during the night, and it doesn't really hurt the plant anyway, it just looks funny.  Rose keepers don't like them much, tho.

So getting to see them in action was a special moment, and when I went back outside an hour or so later, they were gone. 

--Moony