Farmer Chris

I hate the heat. 

Absolutely hate it. I have always felt that I can deal better with the cold. More socks. Layers. More wood in the fire. Space heaters carefully positioned so as not to set fire to everything in the house. Fleece blankets. Yes.

With the heat, there's nowhere you can go and nothing you can do. You can take off just so many articles of clothing before they put you in jail (if you're, you know, outside and stuff). You can aim a fan at your face. You can put a bowl of ice in front of that fan or make your own air conditioner/swamp cooler. You're constantly fighting the heat and trying to overcome it. Moving, going places, walking, being outside, these all become intolerable.

And then you die. 

DC area heat can be brutal. It starts early and goes long. Not like New England where there are 2 months of super hot heat, around here, it is a solid 5. 

I am not a good gardener. 

I like the idea of gardening, but I do not enjoy doing it. Kind of like the opposite of what Jim Gaffigan has to say here, I'll eat them, I just don't enjoy the work that goes into maintaining the garden. 

We have put in some garden plants just about everywhere we have lived, and I hate weeding, and Doug kind of believes in just letting the garden do its thing. So our gardens have always kind of sucked.

Last year, we put out tomatoes and peppers. Within 2 days some small critter ate our pepper plants, we ended up with one single solitary pepper as a result. 

It was nice. I appreciated it being there. 

But I told Doug then that I didn't intend to go out there and be Farmer Chris and take care of the garden, and it seemed he did not either even though he said he would.  There was a wooden swing in the yard when we moved in, and it was a rickety piece of shit, so we had taken the swing off of it and put the frame over where the garden would be. Doug said he was learning his lesson from past gardens,and would build a lattice of twine so the tomatoes could grow up. He'd said he'd weed the garden. 

He did not. 

And then the bastard squirrels came. 

They would pick tomatoes off the vines, which were growing down on the ground and out into the grass in the yard, and they would eat them while sitting on top of the frame of the old swing, looking at us in the kitchen window. Tauntingly. Nom nom nom look at me, loser! I'm eating your under ripe tomatoes! Oh And I'm basically going to eat about 1/3 of it, drop it, and go away. Bye!  

I tried to get Doug to avenge them by putting up that nice netting system over the frame, and do the twine lattice, but he said 'meh.' 

I think we were both, at that time, sick of being at home, cooped up, working. And the loving spirit of growing things was gone. 

This year, we put plants in again. 

The yard had 3 established garden beds. The previous tenants were avid gardeners it seems. We still get their gardening catalogues with super expensive seeds and implements for digging and cultivating. 

The family across the street are huge gardeners, too. They told us in the past they'd coordinated what they were growing with the people who lived here and behind them, and traded a lot. We didn't want to grow things like potatoes and corn, so Doug politely said that he was going to grow tomatoes and peppers and just see how we made out. 

The dad seemed disappointed. 

Doug spread out a ton of Cosmos in one of the plots, and sunflowers in another. He likes wildflower gardens that take little or no maintenance, and when we lived in MA he'd always put out wildflowers. The island we had in our driveway in the Brown House was always the greatest. People would stop to tell us how beautiful it was. 

And it was.  

He spread out a shady mix at the back corner along the fence, but barely anything has come of it. Possibly not enough rain, possibly birds. We were disappointed in that. 

We put in tiny sweet orange tomatoes, some Beefsteak and Better Boys, and 2 different peppers in the center plot. Once again the peppers were eaten overnight by another critter, probably the little bastard who ate the last ones we planted. Doug angrily replaced the peppers, and bought some spray to keep the little jerks away from them. He bought a zucchini too on that trip, so the zuke was planted late but seems to be thriving.  

We also planted herbs in pots, which is something we never have done. We'd had some hanging baskets in the shed when we moved, and he brought them here rather than pitch them. Doug's instinct to reuse paid off. I planted Greek oregano, parsley, mint, and thyme. Wish we had some rosemary because I like to use that on chicken and fish.  I'll remember that next year.

Left to right, oregano, thyme, mint, parsley. 

Doug pulled a ton of parsley off the other day and used it in a marinade and it was delightful.

I should note, I planted the veggies in the yard myself, talking to them and welcoming them to the plot. I have began actively weeding the areas around them. I started noticing that they really should be staked up, one of the tomato plants was getting yellow at the bottom and two of its lovelies were on the ground, bug eaten. We got the stakes after I told Doug I refused to let these bad boys die. 

While Doug took a nap last weekend, and I got to work. And things are looking pretty good out there right now, considering how much I hate this. Not as good as the super gardeners across the street but hell yeah, good for something I'm not good at. 

Here are some pictures. Sunflowers, Cosmos, Tomatoes. All the friends. More to come, I'm sure.

Some of the sunflowers are 8+ feet tall! Looking up, I always try to take pictures of them without the power lines getting in the way. 

Looking through the Cosmos, the tomatoes are behind them and then the sunflowers soar.
The cosmos are about 3ft high. 

I took some of the cosmos from the main patch and moved them to the fence. I thought they weren't going to make it, but they're doing well. I should have moved more into this bare spot on the fence! 

To the left and right of the cosmos, I've got morning glories starting up... late. 

I can't wait for them to start to get tall enough for me to coax up into the chain links and they can climb.

And yes, weeds. I have to go out and weed. 

These little orange tomatoes are delightful and delicious, and we discovered Phineas likes to eat them off the vine, so we have to watch him carefully.

Everyone is still so green. Please ripen so I can eat you!

Zucchini in front, I'm hoping it starts to vine and thread and grow, I'm going to encourage it through the tomatoes. And the peppers are to the left and right. And I do need to weed this too, but this is looking good compared to last weekend. 

We managed to score some firewood from some neighbors through the nextdoor app.
Not pictured, Doug cut down a small dead tree and pruned another tree in front of the house that was growing into the chain link fence, so we've got a bunch of wood from that adventure, too. It all needs to dry/season before it can be used. Some of this wood is too long for the fire pit, so when Doug gets his blade replaced for the electric saw, we'll have some perfect pieces.

And even with the heat, which I hate, I have done this kind of activity a few times this summer and didn't cry or die. 

After getting completely filthy and caked in dirt and sweat, the post garden-time shower I have taken each time has been a gift and a blessing, where I stand and watch all the dirt and grass pool up round my feet. 

It's exhausting, and then in the shower, I feel sleepy but very alive. Maybe that's why people like this?

We still have a lot of days of super high heat, and I'm keeping an eye on all the friends, watering with my new 75 ft hose (because, of course, the water spigot is on the totally wrong side of the house for the garden). 

Waiting for those green ones to ripen and be delicious. I hope.

Enjoy my filthy feets, I guess I am Farmer Chris after all.

July and the Second Half of 2021

After my last post, and looking at things where they were for a couple of days, I decided to move Lita's Likkah Cabinet to the other end of the room by the hutch. 

Closer to the kitchen, closer to ice and the sink, closer to more glasses. It made sense. I noticed how the sun was coming through the windows (which do need to be cleaned, yes) and a bonus Phineas sleeping on the dining room floor in the sunshine... So I had to take the picture. House is still coming along nicely. I have my puzzle table set up, and just have to move 2 more things to get stuff organized.

Managed to not get my legs and feet in the shot through some mad skill. 

The past week was kind of a rough one. Work has been insane, but when is it never insane? Doug keeps getting mad at me for working after dinner but my job is different than his. I go to a lot of meetings during the day and don't get to touch helpdesk tickets. So all the tickets that come in all day long, I look at them at night, answer them, send some to other co-workers so they can help. And usually put in 2-3 hours additional. I feel right now that if I can just do the meetings, or the tickets, one or the other, life would be better. Or if I had someone doing the ticket side of my life so I could do far fewer of them, that'd be great. My co-workers are taking a lot of the easier tickets (or the tickets for things I'm not sure of the answers to, but they do because they built the sites) but there are still so many tickets. 

The other night, my sister and I were going to facebook video chat, and she was delayed in getting to me. I had made an icy, pint glass sized vodka tonic and put it on my bedside table ready to drink while we talked, but she never got to calling, and I didn't drink the cocktail. 

I worked. Completely focused on answering tickets. 

I sat here with my cute little lap desk that I bought (it's perfect) and pounded through those tickets. Doug came in for bed at 10pm and I put the laptop away... perfect timing. We went to sleep. 

I woke up around 6:30am, the dog wanted to go out. Geoff had fed him and let him out at 5 but an hour or so after brekkie he enjoys another go-out. I reached over to the bedside table to grab the glass of water. I always have a glass of water there. 

Only it was not a glass of water. It was a room temperature, rather strong, vodka tonic. 

Imagine my surprise. 

And yes, I drank the whole thing. Hey Wednesday, how you doin?

It has been exceptionally hot. Not as brutally hot as the historic and deadly heat up over the Pacific Northwest. I talked to Aaron over on the coast and he said in his backyard it was 115 at the moment. Right on the river. Right at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The next day it was 66 and cloudy, but folks from Portland were all flooding to the coast to try and get some sort of reprieve. I felt incredibly bad for them. 

Here it was "normal" hot. DC hot: mid to upper 90s, tons of humidity. But we went about a week without receiving a cooling rainstorm.

Our AC was working extra hard, as I'm sure everyone's was. All kinds of people in the neighborhood were having AC guys at their house to fix. We all have Central Air - it's kind of mandatory around here. 

When we moved in, I asked the rental agent to please have a furnace and AC wellness check done in February (she did). We had just spent 4 days without heat at the other house (they got a brand new, super quiet, efficient and lovely furnace installed, we got to enjoy it for a couple of weeks before moving). I didn't want for that to happen again, and I wanted to avoid any AC nonsense on days like we had this week. 

With the cold, I can deal with fleecy jammies, slippers, blankets, and space heaters and stay comfortable.  I always feel like we do fine. 

But when it is hot like this, there's absolutely no escaping it. You can't sit in front of a fan enough to cool off. 

Yesterday we finally got the storms through the area. They were pretty rough! Thunder and lightning began here at about 1pm. I was on a Zoom call with a station and one of the attendees slacked me to say it looked like someone was taking pictures in my house. The room was very dark, and the flashes noticeable. It lasted all the way until about 6pm. We had our power go out twice while I was on calls. Luckily I wasn't the only one from my team on the call so we had someone fill in for what I was saying until I could log back in. 

We got another wave at about 9pm, and a tornado touched down near DC from what I understand. The overnight was quiet, but wow, what a ride. 

Phineas was kind of sick this week. Starting on Friday he just wasn't the Phin we've gotten used to. He stopped eating. Drank a LOT of water. Needed to go out pretty much all the time. Which was nice because yeah, it's hot a balls doggie. Come back in! All weekend he didn't touch his food, and all he wanted to do was sleep. 

And throw up. 

We couldn't figure out what was going on - did he eat something? I mean, he went through the whole Dogs Eat Cicadas phase during the Cicada invasion, but the brood had long finished and there have been no more bugs to eat. Doug said that a hungry dog will eventually eat. Which he did, but not with the exuberance and gusto of his usual brekkie and phinnertime celebrations. He'd nibble and leave, and go back to sleep. 

Starting yesterday he seemed back to his good normal self. Seeing him bound up the stairs to come back in after we walked around the yard together was a relief. Before that he took the steps so slowly, like a very old man, and I was afraid he was going to fall down. 

But we're on the mend, and heckin' cute.

Phin wishes you a good day.

It's the 4th of July weekend. We're entering the second half of the year. My early morning wakings will note a darker sky in a couple of weeks and the reality of the downhill slide to winter will begin. Still, it's incredibly light early in these parts for the morning rise to take the dog out and feed him.  

Doug is looking for places for us to go watch fireworks. I'm not really interested in going. My office would always open the 4th floor deck for employees and families to come and enjoy the view over to the national mall, but last year and this year the building is closed for that. So none of that for us. I'd kind of rather stay home. 

I have a feeling our neighbor across the street is gearing up for a party and fireworks. He shoots them off all the time. When we lived up the street it wasn't a big deal but now across the street we may be in for it. We'll see. 

Least a guy can do is invite the neighbors over for the shindig, am I right?