Thursday, July 9, 2009

The GWS Laundry List

I decided that today would be a good day to list out some random announcements and mental musings that have been floating around in my head and warrant a quick snippet on the blog.

1) My Bloggiversary Gnome has settled nicely into his new home in Ribbit's garden! She wrote a great post about the gnome's arrival that involves a kid, a dog, Santa Claus and a mad chase. Head on over to Ribbit's to read the madcap adventure.

2) I added my Twitter feed on the bottom of the right column of the blog. It's way down at the bottom where it's least likely to get noticed by anyone popping in for a quick blog read. For those so inclined to take a peek into the mundane, the feed is there for you to ogle. I cannot promise that any of the tweets will be interesting because I'm not famous and I lead a relatively normal life compared to most people….notice I said "relatively."

3) Farmer B and I have finally decided on the type of chicken run to build for the hens. I'm embarrassed to admit that the driving force behind getting the run complete is that we cannot go on vacation without building it. Yes, three hens are keeping us housebound this summer. Crazy admission on my part. But our chicken sitters cannot be responsible for using the maddening Chicken Transportation Unit twice a day and then catching inevitable loose chickens that result from novice use. Luckily Farmer B has a co-worker who's a "good ole' boy" as we call them here in Florida, and he's built a chicken run or two in his day. Equally lucky is that he only requires a bottle of Jim Beam as payment, so we're golden. Farmer B and his friend will start on this project within the next couple of weeks.

4) Thanks to everyone's advice, I'll be starting raised beds in the garden for the next planting season in August/September. Depending on how much the chicken run sets us back financially, we may only start with one raised bed. But one is an improvement and we can add another bed or two with each new planting season.

5) I put the oh-so-famous "Square Foot Gardening" book on hold at our local library. Apparently this book is quite popular because I am Number 3 on the list of recipients who have the stupid book on hold. So it might be weeks before I get the book and figure out how to make a raised bed and what to fill it with. I have to hope that the other people on the list for the book decide that gardening is dumb and turn the book in after only a couple of days.

6) I miss my garden. I didn't think I would, but I really do. It's just a weedy mess with a couple of producing okra plants and a very angry mint plant that is trying to conquer the garden in a game of "Herb & Vegetable RISK." It's depressing not having anything green to check up on right now and I think my okra are sick of being fondled by me.

7) And in a follow-up to Number 6, my sunflowers aren't growing. I've always been able to grow sunflowers, but so far they're stuck in the same bizarre stasis that haunted the rest of the plants after the garden flooded earlier this year.

8) I'm thinking of changing the background color of my blog to white. I orginally picked beige because they say that beige is the new black, but I think white might be the new beige. I am impressed by how much of my day is taken up by me focusing on the background color choices for the blog and constantly second guessing myself, and then realizing how my life must be going pretty well these days if I can dedicate that much thought to a hexcolor choice on a silly little blog. Other people should be so lucky as to have that as their big concern for the moment, you know?

That concludes my laundry list. Back to regularly scheduled blogging later this week.

10 comments:

Darla said...

I wish I could oraganize my thoughts this well.

Ribbit said...

NO! Don't change the color. White is hard to read on; your beige is easy on the eyes.

You'll love your raised beds. I know I love mine and couldn't do it any other way, but you still have so much time to plant. Your seasons in FLA (depending on how far south you are) are much different from anywhere else. You'll get your best production in the winter when the rest of us are suffering.

The gnome is looking happier each day. I think he's forgiven us. :)

Dani said...

I miss my garden too. Elizabeth asked yesterday if it was fall yet so we could plant more veggies. :(

You will love the raised beds! My veggies do great in them!

Annie*s Granny said...

Raised beds!!! Hooray!!! No more soggy veggies for Kate and crew!!!

I added my twitter link to may page, but nobody came so I removed it. Really, I only tweet with one person (and we tweeted before I put the link on my blog), and all I do is block everybody else! I mean, I tweeted that my dau. had to go in for a routine colonoscopy, and about ten people suddenly joined to discuss crone's disease and IBS! If I mention "dog" I get every grooming supplies/services salesperson in cyberspace. I said my granddaughter went swimming, and "swimming pools" joined!

Don't feel too badly about the sunflowers. Mine got blown over in last weeks wind storm, and I killed the new batch...but that's a story for GBDD on the last day of the month ;-)

Kelly said...

There are lots of good on-line recources as well, including Mel's so you don't have to rely solely on the book. Good luck with the laundry list, and you are not the only backround color obsessor!

Erin said...

Yay! you will love those beds and they will be so rewarding! That is a good book, but don't overthink it too much. The first year I used string and made my little "squares" and planted it just so...lol...it looked pretty ridiculous! The basic premise is just to plant in bunches rather than rows...you will love that the beds make your garden look tidy even when it is an overgrown mess!...oh, and carrots grow better too...not sure about you but up here carrots do horribly in the ground.

Kate and Crew said...

Ribbit - yeah winter is great for us here in Central Florida - actually very late Fall is prime gardening time for us. But it's also hurricane season, so it can backfire...as I know all too well.

Granny - When I started using Twitter I did it solely to follow news stories and such. I'm a bit of a newshound (thanks to a prior career in journalism waaaay back when) so I enjoy reading news as it happens. When I started tweeting myself I did it with the understanding that it would be public and I wouldn't write anything too personal that I'd be bothered when random people followed my tweets, which happens daily. I'm oddly addicted to Twitter and enjoy being able to add random things and read fun stories and links. I even found a shop today via Twitter that sells handmade fake beards! LOL (link in my twitter feed at the bottom of the page).

Kelly - LOL on the fellow-background-color obsession!

Erin - I'm always so impressed when people can do the string and the perfect squares, but I'm much too haphazzard to pull that off. I just want to build 'em, fill 'em and then see what happens from there.

Dani said...

Please don't change the background color! Black on white is too much contrast, it hurts my eyes! That's my opinion anyways

kimchi said...

I think you will enjoy the raised bed gardening - it is easier on the back and the soil drains better. Although for us, it puts all of the good veggies at eye level for the chickens. So we had to put up a small wire mesh fence around them all (darned chickens). Good luck! I think you will love it!

Granola said...

Hi,
I'm new to your blog. I followed you from somewhere and your title caught my attention. :) Feels like my life. However I am a green thumb wanna-be and I used this reference to start my container garden this year (my tomatos are going WILD!): http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/The-Project/how-to-square-foot-garden.html
Thanks!

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