Still Having Thoughts

Having already made apologies for the the scarcity of posts lately, I can assure my several readers that I’m still having thoughts. Really. They just don’t seem to flower into blog posts so much any more. If the days of personal blogs have peaked, subsumed by the more immediate feedback loops of Facebook, Twitter and the like, then so be it. Not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, at least not before washing, drying and folding it. The real problem is that I don’t even know where the towel is. Or if there even is one.

Meeting a friend for a bike ride at the local Post Office one recent Sunday morning, this unsecured mailbox presented itself.

So this strange cat has been hanging around our house for the last few months. We don’t really know whether it’s male or female, but we’re thinking it’s a girl. It’s skittish and runs away when it sees us. But we haven’t smelled any cat spray odors. Our cat Hunter has gotten into a couple shouting matches with it, but mostly it seems to hang around and stalk the plentiful chipmunks, baby squirrels, and of course the birds under our feeders. Maybe the hunting is not as good at her house. She looks a little ratty but not too bad, and she’s dispatched a fair number of rodents, leaving a few of their tails in the garden near the blueberry bush. One of these days we’ll show our neighbors the pictures for ID check.

She looks a little bit feral, no?

We think a few baby squirrels like this one became cat food.

It’s been over a month since the last post so the garden’s progress is significant. The weather has been just about perfect so far. Some hot days with nice timely rain. The slugs and bugs have had their fun in the garden too, and the deer have been nibbling at the jerusalem artichoke plants. The blueberries are just ripening and the bird netting that I draped over the bush is helping a little, but we’ve had to release a few trapped birds and one trapped chipmunk.

Bed 1- fall-planted garlic bulbils (upper frame)- perfect miniatures of the other fall-planted garlic (left)- with their own mini-scapes. Spring-planted bulbils are smaller and not making scapes.

The garlic leaves are starting to yellow. In a couple more weeks it will be ready to pull up and hang up to dry.

Most of the garden is doing well. Corn got planted in two stages, first an enhanced sugar variety called Kandy Korn that we’ve had good luck with in the past. And the second planting a couple weeks later is a bi-color variety. Tomatoes and peppers were slow to start but seem established now. We’ve had a lot of insects chewing on our plants, so I tried diatomaceous earth this year. Along with the usual rotenone, pyrethrins, etc.

See the fancy new sprinkler? We don’t use it much, but it’s very adjustable.

There is crazy construction going on at work this summer as previously mentioned. It’s exciting to see the big crane lifting steel girders into place. Though I’ve yet to find the opportunity, this activity allows one to use the word “erection” and hope that hilarity ensues. Plus, the guys who clamber over the girders with giant wrenches and arc welders are fun to watch. All this activity will make the summer fly by even faster than it usually does. And this fall we’ll be welcoming more students than ever before in the college’s 175-year history.

The back of Ware Center, which is getting a major expansion and renovation. 

The aloe vera plant in the library is also under construction. Second time this year.

Two more photos for you. One of a restored Volvo engine. I should have noted what year this vehicle was but I failed. The restoration job was lovingly performed by a gent who needed some help with his computer. He said it’s be OK if I took a few photos of the Volvo.  He also told me about a website called Zenni Optical where you can get astounding deals on prescription eyeglasses. No name-brand designer frames here, but he showed me the 4 pairs of spectacles he’d purchased for just over $200 and they were of very high quality. Gotta check that out.

The final photo is paired with the first. Being a responsible citizen, I locked the mailbox back up, admiring the ancient brass padlock in so doing. I’ve also been meaning to tell you about some music that a coworker turned me on to. Bon Iver. I’m still overdosing on their eponymous album. I just love the first 5 tracks.