No worries dear readers. It’s just been one of the busiest summers in memory. My memory anyway. Not going to bore you with the details of this busy-ness. It would just seem like I was making excuses. Which I’m not. At all. And I don’t want to apologize for not posting in over a month, so I’m sorry.
My 1996 Toyota Camry reached the 150,000 mile mark … as I posted on Facebook with a slightly different image.
In the previous post there was great garlic news, and in the final report for the season the yield was two bushels. It’s been possible to raise the garlic rations of all my friends and family. This should improve overall Friend Health and cause most vampires living in the region to consider relocating. I imagine the vampires perceive my immense garlic crop as a general malaise with intermittent periods of agitation and insomnia. Not that vampires sleep all that well anyway.
I love working at a college. This is the floor in a storage closet next to a painting classroom.
Speaking of the college, there is much excitement there as we approach our most populated fall semester in our 175 year history. In the final week before we welcome about 500 first-year students, the activities of construction, painting, paving, happening outside in the August sun mirror those happening indoors with faculty preparing their course materials, athletic trainers tending to pre-season athletes already here, and the final group of Gordon Research Conference scientists walking from auditorium to lunch in that way that only scientists can do in a large group, like a great herd of, um, humans?
This deer family appeared in July. Usually we see these in the late spring.
This summer has been hot, but we’ve been spared the awful drought conditions happening elsewhere. We’ve had some pretty good gardening this year. A favorite thing that happened was a result of spreading a large load of manure and bedding under the single blueberry bush in the yard. Apparently that manure was harboring seeds from the ginormous yellow cucumbers we’d pitched into the pile late last summer. There sprouted under said bush a nicely spaced set of pickling cucumber plants looking very much like they’d been planted there on purpose. These volunteer plants have been producing copious quantities of pickle sized cukes. The vines are climbing the bush, and seeing the cukes dangling where the blueberries were is just kinda funny.
I’ll try to get a better photo of the all-volunteer cucumbers in the bush.
Here’s that better photo. Cucumbers in the blueberry bush.
We had a staggered corn crop this year that turned out fairly well too. Two separate plantings of two different varieties yielded 12 quarts of frozen yellow goodness. We still have some corn in the freezer from last August, but it keeps well. Speaking of keeping well, I purchased a food dehydrator this year from a friend at work. Mostly I’ve been drying cucumbers. Dehydrated cucumbers you exclaim? They’re actually not half bad.
But, are they good? The cucumbers?
Hi Kate, thanks for commenting here! I assume that you are asking if the dried cucumbers are good. Once you get past the fact that they’re nothing like fresh cucumbers they sort of grow on you. They’re crunchy like a potato chip, so that helps. My wife thought they were pretty good after chiding me when I was slicing up the first batch. So there you go.
By: Kate on August 23, 2012
at 8:56 pm
That was my first thought, too. Are dehydrated cukes yummy? Never heard of such a thing. The corn has me drooling. Despite the drought, we’ve had some fabulous sweet corn in Colorado this summer. Mmmm!!!
I’m glad to hear that you had some good corn there in Colorado. This drought is really awful. Our corn was pretty good, but we’ve had better in previous years. As for the cukes, I’m not going to say they’re yummy, but they’re definitely good and maybe we’ll come up with some other ways to eat them that will make them even better. Fact is, I’ve been waiting for things to dehydrate, and the cukes were the first up.
By: PiedType on August 25, 2012
at 11:22 am
Yellow goodness indeed. As well as multi-colored goodness next to the painting classroom. Thanks for the update!
You’re welcome Allison. Thanks for visiting this quiet little crevice of the interweb.
By: Allison on August 25, 2012
at 2:15 pm
Yeah! You’re back. Wait. I already knew a lot of this stuff. I must be dreaming about your life.
But at least you got to see the “dangerous” version of my odometer photo.
If you ever dream of my life, it’s a sure sign that you’re asleep. Which is probably a good thing, given how active YOUR life is.
By: Ignorethebucklesonmyjacket on August 25, 2012
at 3:21 pm
I am doing IRS forced labour and was wondering whether you knew that you are a specified individual and I am not.
A specified individual! Imagine!
I did not know that at all dear cantueso. I don’t feel all that specified really. But thank you for telling me.
By: cantueso on August 26, 2012
at 12:30 pm
You make me want to go buy pencils and get ready for school. I loved the smell of the art building at college. Should have taken more art. Should also have planted more garlic. At least I don’t know a SUSPICIOUS amount of detail about vampires… I guess I won’t worry about you though, because of the two bushels of garlic.
Thanks for this interesting comment linniew. I also know very little about vampires. And I’d like to keep it that way. We are big believers in the Allium Protection Plan.
I don’t think students buy many pencils these days. Except the art students, who buy very nice pencils.
By: linniew on August 26, 2012
at 7:36 pm
Still doing forced labour, and there was also some humour.
There was a little square and in that little square I had to write in a long number. When I had finished writing the number I saw that there was also that star-shaped character * used to add some footnote, comment or recommendation and indeed there was a little note.
The little note came in very small print called negrita, which of course would be highly improper in the US because it means “little nigger” but in English it is simply “black” referred not to skin, but to print.
And this little note said:
Be careful to copy this number correctly.
Confounded tax forms! I don’t know what else to say …
By: cantueso on September 3, 2012
at 4:28 am
…but they really aren’t half-good either. Of course, in England if something wasn’t half-good it would then be very good! Confused yet?
The floor with various paint splodges on it could be the next Jackson Pollock but attributed to various combined artists. Of course you’d need to cut the floor out of the room and the custodian may get hurt.
Read my blog. (subliminal message implied)
You know, I actually do sleep rather well. But I still don’t get the subliminal messages …
By: S. Le on September 4, 2012
at 2:27 pm
…oh, and I wouldn’t try that comment on the wife’s cooking.
Only positive comments allowed, unless she disses the supper first.
By: S. Le on September 4, 2012
at 2:30 pm
..it may be a lie or a half-truth!
No comment.
By: S. Le on September 4, 2012
at 4:33 pm
Dehydrated cucumbers??? There’s no way I’ll be able to stop obsessing about this delicacy until I try it for myself.
Email your address and I will send you some dehydrated cucumbers. Then I shall await your critique of the “delicacy”. Seriously. They’re not all that great, but if you like them, that will make my day.
By: bschooled on September 6, 2012
at 10:27 pm
However, work is not treated as participation
if it is work that an owner would
not customarily do in the same type of activity
and one of your main reasons for doing
the work was to avoid the disallowance of
losses or credits from the activity under the
passive activity rules, see?
No, I don’t understand. Have you been reading law books or have all the tax forms affected your thoughts?
By: cantueso on September 15, 2012
at 9:46 am
This is a quote from the instructions! This means to tell me what to do! This is US English! But today it got worse. — And I also made some mistakes. I thought that the dollar was a more or less stable thing. I thought that the ups and downs of the exchange rates would only affect the big dealers. So I stuck to the first exchange rate that I got. Woe the day!
— The other mistake is less pardonable. If you have a few figures and add them up and in the end change to dollars your result will differ slightly from what you would get if you converted the figures one by one before adding things up. But never mind. (The latest funny fad is to add: “Jesus wept”, but at least in this case it would make sense.)
However, I got one neat novelty out of this crap: how to make nonsensical syllogism of the kind, you know, men are mortal, socrates was a man, etc———- Nobody is happy. I am nobody. So I am happy. — Cats can be ferocious. My teacher is ferocious. So she can be a cat. This is very nice, isn’t it, and it comes ever so handy if you have to prevent yourself from mentally talking to the taxman while doing the dishes or trying to sleep.
Uggh! How awful. I feel fortunate that my taxes are so simple. I pay 17%, but I don’t have to agonize over impossible instructions or exchange rates.
Love your “nobody is happy” syllogism!!
By: cantueso on September 21, 2012
at 12:14 pm
Is this also yours?
http://thedavidlevine.wordpress.com/
Nope. I do have another blog, but it only consists of two posts and is too moronic to even mention.
By: cantueso on September 22, 2012
at 3:58 am