Here is hoping we get a break from this insane heat! Alas as of right now, it’s supposed to be in the upper 90s, with two days at 99. I think I’m gunna have to go hit up Old Navy to buy some very cheap, very light weight t-shirts!

My garden has been giving me a headache this week. It took forever, but I finally started getting red tomatoes off my Topsy Turvy Tree. I have a million green ones though.

Unfortunately two of the ones I put in large planters, have gotten too large. One toppled over night, and the other toppled today in the heat. Yes I had staked and roped them, they still grew too big! I had to cut a lot off, and lost a lot of green tomatoes, but hopefully saved more. We’ll see.

Next year I think I’m just sticking with just the Topsy Turvys, lots of them. They don’t seem to grow as big as my planter ones did, but they are the ones not giving me a headache right now.

(Left) My Topsy Turvery planter has three seedlings John brought me. One is of the Ramapo variety, a classic Jersey Tomato. The other two are 589s and Tie-Dye Tomatoes . . . which I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted.

(Right) I also have several tomato plants in planters that I grew from seedlings and transplanted. These are just your run of the mill Burpee seeds, i.e. beefsteaks, cherry tomatoes and whatever else I had bought (I forget!)

My sunflowers are coming in. I planted them on all three sides of the garden this year. Unfortunately at first only two came in (the ones in the right photo). I found that odd, since these were the ones most in the shade! I think animals might have eaten the others. I did not give up and kept planting though, and the others are all slowly coming in.

Today I’m cooking Easter dinner. Ham steak slices with maple glaze and pineapple rings in the crock-pot. I hope it’s yummy! A bunch of side dishes to reheat, and then some biscuits to make. Did I mention I got an ice cream maker? Yum! John especially loves the cheesecake ice cream I made (but it was a bit of work honestly). Strawberry season at the farm is in a few months, so we’ll be having fresh strawberry ice cream then.

Otherwise, not much else to report. I’m getting my tomato planters ready for this year. I cleaned the old ones out, and just started seedlings in my house. John called me all sorts of mean names, because they only have 700 tomato plants across the street and I’m planting them from scratch like a goober. I said it was “funner” this way. Truth be told I’ll probably use ones from a nursery for my Topsy Turvy and put the seedlings in pots to see if they will grow.

Over-N-Out!

The winter knocked a bunch of branches down all over the place, which need to be picked up. Actually some are so large they need to be cut up first. I don’t know where I’ll put these things. My compost pile from last year did decompose some over the winter, but not enough. It’s probably going to get built up as big as it was before! Oh and it would seem something is living in it too . . . .

I never did get to the back side of our house last summer, so it’s still covered in ivy and all sorts of tree saplings are growing where they aren’t wanted. That will probably be this summers challenge.

I am totally going to grow topsy turvey tomatoes again, and I think I’ll add in peppers this year. I was not in love with the eggplant last year. I don’t like it THAT much and I still have some in my freezer (which I guess I should toss).

I think I’m going to plant a bunch of sunflowers in the garden area this year, they were pretty last year. As for out front, I’m being easy . . . I’m just going to get some pre-planted hanging baskets to put up!

Oh and another reason I’m ready for spring . . . grilling! I am ready to BBQ again and try some new recipes out on my grill. I also just bought a small smoker as well, so that should be fun.

SPRING! Get here NOW!

I don’t know why my photos keep getting turned sideways, but tilt your head to the left

I’m now getting lots of sunflowers. Unfortunately they are attracting a lot of bees too. Within a few days my pretty sunflowers have been torn apart by bees it seems. Grrrr! I am still hoping to grow them again next year though. Next year I’ll make sure to start a lot of seedlings inside in the spring.

I’m also finally getting some red tomatoes. I have two almost ripe, and many on the way. I only picked medium sized ones for the Topsy Turvys, so nothing too huge (like beefsteaks).

Let’s see . . . it looks like Sunday will be a fun night out on the town! I did get out last Tuesday too with some friends. We just bar hopped. As it was mid week, it was dead . . . and odd in most places. Lots of Karaoke . . . bad Karaoke! Sunday however is 80s night at a local club. Ooo Ooo! So I’ll hopefully get some good photos. It almost makes me wanna revive Twitter and Facebook.

BTW, I’m still on a break from those two social services. I get emails every other day from people wondering where my profile has gone to. It’s vanished, like David Copperfield into the Great Wall of China! I tried going back on Twitter a few times, but then read things that made me pissy and left quickly. Again, maybe one day in the future I’ll be back, we’ll see. I’m shocked I’ve made it this long actually!

The Zinnias have really come around out front . . . and no more evil garden muncher either!

The sunflowers need water and are drooping a bit. I hadn’t watered them much because every day it’s been looking like rain. I finally watered them today though.

My tomatoes are getting big and green, I just wish they’d turn red. I don’t want to be making fried green tomatoes for the rest of the season. The eggplants however are exploding to the point I’m having to freeze them because I’m getting more than I care to eat.

Yeah I know I was gunna post something other than garden updates I’ve been getting a lot of email and comments as to where facebook/twitter went. I’ve been taking a break from both. I’ve just been VERY stressed out, and probably will continue be for the next month as I race to get a lot of work done. So I just decided I didn’t need Twitter/Facebook around right now where it is far to easy to send out bitchfest tweets/updates. With the blog I actually have to log in, compose, then publish. However I have been neglecting the blog, not on purpose though. I’ve just been busy.

Oh I did get my brand new 26 dollar La Tar Jay bookshelf fully filled with all my games and DVDs.

P.S. Monster Mania in about 2 weeks! I’m not going to skip this one either like I did with the one in March. A good time will be had!

Taken a few days ago. I now have two flowers opened!

I had originally planned/tried to grow these all along the border/fence of the barnyard. They only seemed to take in a few areas, and others started to grow but died in our heat wave. A few days ago I finally got a flower though.

I keep meaning to post a real post. I have watched a few good movies recently I wanted to recommend, and talk about other things. Every time I start . . . I get distracted. A bigger post tomorrow, I’ll find something to talk about

The front porch, which you can see has been stripped of ivy, and the ivy stripped the paint. Also the front bushes, the bricks I’m gunna eventually use to line the garden area then mulch.

Thanks to the heatwave, the sixth one we are on now, I basically stopped doing yard work. It was just too nasty. I figured let the heat kill all the weeds, overgrowth and crud; it will make it somewhat easier for me. I’ve sense moved my focus indoors. Most people never realize unless I show them that we actually have a second bedroom downstairs, aside from the Wonder Woman room. It however has become a storage nightmare. The Wonder Woman room is too honestly. I can make it look nice, just don’t open the drawers or look in the closet

Even opening the door to the room is a nightmare . . . . don’t because the cats like to rush in here and then it’s a bitch to get them out!

I have wanted to organize it and the other room for YEARS now. In fact I had told John over the winter we were to get things in order . . . it didn’t happen. So I went out and bought a second bookshelf. I had wanted, and blogged, about a book shelf for the living room/dining room corner for awhile. Especially during the Christmas season to put the never ending nativity on. I never got around to it, and never wanted to make the purchase. I had been eyeing a nice looking one at Le Tar Jay for a year, but then I saw the cheap 26 dollar version. 120 dollars for the exact same thing, just with molding to make it look pretty . . . or 26 dollars for the plane jane version. Hmmmmm. Yeah if I’m paying over 100 dollars for furniture then assembly should not be required! I went cheap.

John of course did not like the cheap. Ewwwww pressed wood! Ewwwww! Well the 120 dollar one was pressed wood too, just like anything from the Swedish Superstore would be. I told him he was welcome to go out and buy something nice and fancy if he wanted. He also complained that I wanted to stack it with DVDs and videogames. Currently they are separated and either on an bookshelf in the Wonder Woman room, or in several different drawers in the TV cabinet. It can be a bitch to go searching for what I want, but John’s point is “they are hidden away rather than on display, which makes us look like grown ups.”

Well first, the only people who see inside our house are my friends. They look through these same things as much as I do, so I feel they’d appreciate the organization Second, who cares what the inside looks like when the outside looks the way it has for years Third, John is the King of Clutter and has no room to talk here really, cause I know I’ve blogged about his mountain sized piles of unopened mail that cover his desk. They get so bad that I end up having to go through it all and throw out (sorry recycle) countless dollars worth of unread magazines he subscribes to. I just glanced over there right this minute and their are packages on the floor and stacks on the desk I can see. Pfffft!

I told him that I would eventually move the book case out of the living room (though I might need another for Christmas!) and into one of the other rooms. However before those rooms can be cleaned, shit needs to be put in order! I want to put the DVDs/Videogames in the living room, use the Wonder Woman Room bookshelf for actual books, and the TV cabinet for CDs (which again are ALL over this house). From there I can begin dealing with the closets and drawers (which ALSO have CDs, videogames, old computer components). I’ve bought a few plastic bins for some of this stuff. The drawers which hold a good number of my clothes are actually collapsing. I need a new set of drawers honestly and soon. The ones I’m using now? “Pressed wood furniture” from Ikea . . . that belonged to John . . . yeah . . . . grown up stuff

My eventual goals for the two rooms, probably not to be fully realized till next year cause I only work on them in spare time, are to use the cluttered room as a guest room and turn the Wonder Woman room into an office and if needed a guest room. There is a pull out couch bed in the cluttered room I’d move into there.

As for other stuff, the second boot camp begins in four weeks and runs two weeks up until the start of the fall semester, when I go back to teaching. It’s my last hurrah of getting a bunch of stuff done and in order. The jobs for fall look good, 2 classes, both the same class, both I’ve taught before. I had tooled with changing the books, but killed that idea. I have the lectures and class done as is, I don’t have the time or desire at this point to change it and all the lectures. Yeah I’ll tweak them, but I don’t have to rewrite them. Then 2 classes at least in the spring, hoping to get one more.