Gardening

Over at the Burnett Homeplace Helene talks about the great seed catalog conspiracy. As in, why is it impossible to get all the seeds you want from one company for one shipping charge?

I gotta say I’d noticed this one myself, and I’m not even putting together a full garden! Husband and I have decided that for this year we’ll pickup a few of the half barrel planters and use those for some herbs, and annuals like his hot peppers. We’ll also try to get the raised beds for the actual garden at least started before next winter, so we can use them next year. I THINK I’ve got my seed and plant choices narrowed down to two companies……I think!


Two points to remember

People driving brand new shiney Ford pickups do not appreciate it when a grubby Dodge Caliber blows by them on the highway.

The driving dead, driving an equally elderly Caddy aircraft carrier 10mph under the speed limit, will flinch themselves almost off the road when first the above mentioned pickup, and then I, blow by them at 10mph OVER the speed limit.


F*ing NY state….I occasionally have to drive that road

Portions of I81 closed due to road collapse. You know, this is the 2nd time this year we’ve had portions of a major roadway disintergrate. Dammit. And my husband wonders why I don’t like the highways here.

(f*ing Google, fix this damn thing so it works with iPads PROPERLY dammit!)

Edited to fix the formatting and other issues that Google can’t be bothered to fix for the iPad.  Idiots.


Can you say idiot?

So, a couple months ago Lagniappe’s Lair posted on the story of a young woman who trespassed, got hurt, and expected the world to cry for her and FIX IT.  Her name was Courtney Fletcher of Mt. Lebanon, PA.  Seems Courtney got bored and decided to Google her name on the internet and was VERY UPSET to discover that the whole world didn’t cry for her, and that, infact, quite a few people thought she was a good example of the problems with today’s kids.  Go read the comments, but I shall quote a bit so you know what you’re getting into:

….benefits is my dads company i work thier and get paid to watch youtube n surf the net, then i go home to my husband my chevy camaro, and my young lifestyle, and i loive it. u all need to stop jumping to conclusions

Yes, all her comments read like that.  Oh, and apparently she sent out nasty emails to everyone who commented using the company email address.  Bets on what’ll happen once Daddy finds out she’s using her work email to get back at the “nasty” people?  All things considered I’m betting his reaction WON’T be to fire her, she comes across as one of those children who’s never been made to pay for anything they did wrong ever.


Not the way to start my day

Reading my email this morning, and as I’m reading two new emails come in from Paypal. The first to tell me that my $1 charge to somerandomsite had gone though, the other to tell me that my $388 charge on walmart.com had declined. Well thats interesting, because I’ve made no such purchases.

Go hit Paypal’s site, cancel the debit/Mastercard and start the process to dispute the charges (cause of course they don’t have anyone working on a Sunday), and confirm that there are no other weird charges, and figure out where I’ve used used the card recently. And of course change my password while I’m at it.

See I don’t keep large sums of money in my Paypal, a few $, for things like iTunes. If I want to use it to make a large purchase I move money into it for that purpose. Previously I’d really only used the card for iTunes and the Playstation network. Course when the PS network was hacked I canceled that card, and the ONLY THING I’ve used it for since is iTunes. Now I don’t know if that means iTunes got hacked, though I did call them and advise them of the situation just to be safe. But theres also the intermediary companies who do the processing, and even Paypal itself, so at this point who knows.


Home Dehydrating

So a while back I asked for some opinions and suggestions as to Dehydrators folks were using.  And a couple of you were kind enough to reply.  In the end my sister-in-law said that she’d buy it herself as a joint gift for the two of us if it wasn’t to expensive.  And since she’s got reasonable taste and is good at picking good quality items I left the choice in her hands.

We ended up with a Nesco American Harvest that is probly very like what DaddyBear and Zercool said they have.  First thing I did was hit Amazon and order the fruit leather trays (and clean screens) that weren’t included in the basic package.  They arrived yesterday, and since husband wants cranberry fruit leather I’ve a bag of cranberries thawing in the fridge.  I expect to get that started tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it works.  I also ordered (we got a bunch of Amazon Gift Certificates from family that don’t live close) The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick.  And I’m reasonably pleased with the book (which arrived today).  It looks like a nice basic guide to various techniques including, but not limited to, dehydrating things.  It doesn’t have some of the fancier recipes you can find, but if I want those then I’ll head online.  I wanted a basic reference for concepts and basics and at first look through it looks like I picked well.


Mother Nature, you can stop-it now, really

Normally by this time of the year our average temperatures are in the 20’s and teens, with drops into the single digits, and we’ve got several feet of snow already fallen and more coming.

As of the morning of Wed Dec 28th 2011 we’d had barely trace amounts of snow and temps were staying nice and warm so the water was coming down as rain instead.  However by evening of that same day we’d had several inches of snow fall.  I was thrilled, everything froze, no more mud.  Winter was finally here.

Yah, I jinxed it.

By Friday evening the yard was a swamp again, all traces of snow gone except for the excess of water on the ground.  Sunday temps hit 52f.

Monday temps crashed hard and it snowed again.  About 3 inches or so though I never heard an official count.  Temps were in the single digits all day Tuesday.

Today the only snow on the ground is in the areas that are fully shaded or where the plows left a ridge.  Temps hit the upper 40’s.  Since this is central NY state that means everyone’s running around without coats talking about the heat wave.  My yard is headed for swamp land again.  The mud’s ankle deep, but my boots are damn near clean by the time I come in because there’s so much standing water on top of it.

Can we just have a normal winter now?