Heat

Another roaster is forecast for today and tomorrow. I have to work today and though I am not scheduled to be in the garden center I could very easily wind up there. I did manage to work inside yesterday so I only suffered going and coming. I am off tomorrow so I don't need to worry about surviving the hottest day of this spell. We didn't break the all time record yesterday but we might today or tomorrow and we did break the record for the date set at 103F in 1980. Everybody watch the heat and drink plenty of cool water...even though an icy adult beverage tastes nice it is not the best for this kind of weather. Stay inside if you have air or if you don't consider a nice stroll through one of the big shopping malls. I pity those who have lost power around the country due the thunderstorms it is going to make it tough to keep cool.

Good For Roberts

I'm glad to see the Supremes upheld the ACA even if it wasn't exactly how anyone predicted. It means a lot of people who have health care now will keep it. It also means we can now move forward and see what we can do to improve it.
No surprise the the wacky right is having a fit and some are even threatening to move to Canada! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Peak Summer

I had to work until 8p today but that didn't stop the first "peak summer" dinner. Just picked corn on the cob swimming in Irish butter(Kerry Gold). Italian Heirloom tomato sliced at the absolute pinnacle of ripeness with nothing but a light sprinkle of sea salt. Not fancy victuals but never-the-less a perfect meal. Everything picked today from my own little patch of earth. This is what all the work in the garden is for.

Prolific Peppers

You may have noticed that I took the camera with me to the garden this morning to do the daily picking. As you can see on these two pictures of peppers...I got plenty. These two are mariachi and serrano.

Working the Blooms

Speaking of sunflowers. Same flowers but a little closer and getting some reward for not cutting it down when I planted the sweet potatoes. Not only is this creature visiting here but I will guarantee that it's little legs also have pollen from my cucumbers, squash, cantaloupe, peppers, okra and everything else blooming in the garden right now. Thanks little buddy.

Summer Defined

I think this sunflower stands as a fairly good definition of summer, all by itself. It is a volunteer that I chose to allow to grow in the corner of the sweet potatoes. Seems like it was a good decision to allow it to remain.

Not Just Vegetables

Look what else I found growing in the garden this morning secreted in among the tomatoes. Seems I can grow more than just vegetables. Not sure but I think it is the nest of a brown thrasher(the state bird of Georgia). Now I am going to have to be careful when picking tomatoes but it is rather cool.

This and That

Had a day off today and it has been pretty productive. Got a couple of loaves of whole wheat sourdough baked. Did a little bit of gardening. Had a session with the trainer (the second of the week) and I can feel it. Even though I work out on my own as much as I can the trainer can find those muscles that have been neglected.
Finally scored a visit to the Riverview Farms mobile farm truck and came away with a small Berkshire pork roast, Portuguese chorizo, some Tasso ham, and Tennessee farmhouse cheddar. It was probably good that they were out of some stuff or I would have spent a lot more. Thanks to Carmen for alerting me to their local presence today. I have now "liked" them on Facebook so I will get updates for when they are going to be close.
Have to work full shifts tomorrow and the weekend and I have to close Saturday night (1015p) and be back at the store for a store meeting at 6am Sunday though my shift won't start until noon. I'll be dragging.
Hot and dry and I am going to have to water the garden if something doesn't happen on the rain front in the next day or so. With our new tiered water billing you get hit harder for the more you use over your base amount. The more I have to water the better chance I get of getting pushed up the ladder of really expensive water. Nothing to do but keep it at a minimum as there is too much work and time in the garden to just let it die for lack of moisture.

Happy Solstice

Everyone have a great Summer Solstice or midsummer's eve or Litha or whatever. Today will be the longest of the year and from here until the Winter Solstice the days will get shorter. I have to work today so there won't be any dancing or "bone-fires" until later. This is a great time to spend some time in the garden as high summer is when the life force is strongest in nature and it will only wane from here until next year. I highly recommend sitting quietly for a few hours in the garden or woods and let yourself merge into the forces around you. It's amazing.

So Long And Good Night

Even though I am a geek of the first order I don't usually post all of my geekiness here. I, however, must announce that the human race as left the solar system. Voyager 1 has now left the heliopause and is therefore in interstellar space and waiting for the Startship Enterprise to pick her up and we won't even go into Persus Kambata here since this is a public blog.

Funny Peculiar

I worked the garden register for a while yesterday covering for a lunch. While I was there a minivan pulled up and discharged  5 Buddhist monks complete with the saffron robes. All but one made a beeline for the back while one peeled off and headed into the store proper. A few minutes later they all returned pushing a flat cart piled with organic soil conditioner and the loner returned with several pairs of work gloves. The eldest pulled out a Visa from somewhere and slid it through the terminal and boom they all piled their goods into the waiting minivan and vanished. The whole episode lasted no more than 5 minutes and afterwards seemed very surreal. One, I didn't know there was a monastery in Roswell but where else would a minivan of monks come from? Just what are they planting and how do I find out where they are?

First Tomato

First tomatoes from the garden today (cherry) and the first batch of cold water dill pickles is ready today as well. Guess what I had for lunch? Most excellent with a couple of chunks of smoked English cheddar and rye biscuits. If I didn't have to head off to work in a few minutes it would have gone really well with a porter. Next time.

Blackberry Time

All the rain over the last few days sent the wild blackberries in the vacant lot next door into a frenzy of ripening and even though I was in shorts and couldn't penetrate very deeply I manage a good quart of beautiful berries and only a couple of scratches. The berries turned into a tart last night...nothing fancy just a nice crust in a 12 inch tart pan filled with fresh berries a small drizzle of honey and some bits of good Irish butter. 40 minutes at 400F and it was delicious. I could have dusted the berries with a bit of corn starch for a little thicker texture but it was fine without. There will be more berries soon as the bushes are loaded with plenty of red berries. I think the next berry event will be individual "bubbly pies".

Back to work today.

Cold Water Pickle Time

Got a couple of gallons and a couple of quarts of cold water dill pickles started today. The cucumbers are a little earlier this year since it has been so warm. I didn't start pickles until the first week of July last year. The link above is for the recipe I posted last year. This is the old fashioned way to make pickles as you don't have to cook or can and just let them work in the jar or crock and it makes an excellent pickle and one that is not too salty. This is the time of year to keep an eye out for pickling cukes in the farmer's markets and make your own.

Rainy Day

Its a good day to get into all the blog mechanics since it is raining and therefore no gardening. I do have to go to work at 230p for a few hours but I imagine it will be pretty slow with the weather since it really puts a crimp in peoples DIY stuff....especially gardening.

If anybody has any comments about the new commenting took please feel free. Once and if everything gets synched with blogger there will be nothing keeping me from reverting back to just using the blogger comments.

If you are interested I couldn't get the new js-kit widget stuff to work and the web site is no help what so ever. Bye-bye is all I can say.

Disqus Enabled

I think I got everything straight and got the Echo/Haloscan turned off and out. Disqus seems to be working with current posts and we'll just have to see if it synchs up all the old comments after it runs for a while. It accepted the XML file and is crunching away so we shall see. I still need to figure out all the bells and whistles and get those corrected but the motor seems to be running and there are four tires.

Echo,Haloscan,js-kit Going Away

I knew this would happen eventually but now it is happening for real. I have never upgraded to the js-kit widget on the blog and still use the old haloscan code in the template. If I just turn this code off I and revert to the blogger comments I will lose all the old comments and that is years worth of comments. From what I can tell if I upgrade the blog to the new advanced blogger template and then enable the js-kit widget in the new template it should synch all the echo comments with blogger and once synched I can then remove the widget and continue on with  blogger comments. The other option is to export all the echo comments in XML and then enable another third party comment tool like Disqus and import the comments.

The first option sounds simple and the way to go but I am not sure if it doesn't sound too simple. Anyone had any experience with this stuff?

Regardless, I need to do something soon as everything goes away in a couple of months with js-kit.
If things look different around here and there is no commenting then you know I have jumped the shark. I'll make back ups of the old template and export the comments from js-kit to xml just to have some possibility of recovering but I may lose everything in the process. Oh! and the art of HTML has progressed far beyond my once feeble skills so I won't be doing anything fancy.

Vege Time

The garden is starting to produce. Zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, cukes so far. We also dug the potatoes the other day and got a good little yield considering they started as the left overs from last year that were in the bottom of the basket and starting to sprout.
So tonight's dinner will be roasted zucchini, yellow squash, onion and peppers with a balsamic vinaigrette and I'll probably toss in some green and yellow beans from my friends down the road as my beans haven't come in yet. We'll also have a roasted jacket potato.
Rain for two days has kept the gardening at a minimum...just checking and picking what's come in. I work again tomorrow morning but I have the afternoon off and I'll get something done with the weeds that just love the rain. Tomatoes soon and the corn has tasseled and the ears are starting to fill. Not long.