Let’s see if I can find something to talk about. Considering I haven’t been paying attention to the world at large and haven’t been doing much of anything but existing in the kitchen with my art supplies, there’s really not too much to talk about.

Well, there is Saturday’s flash mob event! I’m so glad I did that. It was a blast! I rarely do silly things in public, or rather, when I do silly things in public, it’s just me being a weirdo goofball and I’m doing them all on my own (and almost nobody notices). This time I got to be a weirdo goofball doing something silly in public with a whole bunch of other people. It was nice to have fun with complete strangers for a couple of minutes and not be doing something silly all by myself. This one will be followed by others, as the ultimate goal of all this is to have a world record breaking event with some thousands of people doing it at the same time to draw attention to the issue of worldwide malnutrition. I’m going to stay involved and go to as many as possible, because everyone needs some public silliness in their life, especially when it’s for a good cause.

After the event, we went to eat at the Flying Saucer, which is at The Triangle, an urban development I was somewhat opposed to having been built. Oh yes, it’s nice, and there are nice shops and restaurants there, and it’s very pretty, but I still miss the big open green field with trees that used to be there. I’ll be putting my grumpiness about the loss of green-space into reserve though, because I really like the Flying Saucer. If you like beer, they have beer. I mean the beer list is HUGE. Pages long. Now I’m not terribly crazy about beer, though I like a good one every once in a while, so this is the kind of place I like. I can try something different every time I go … for the rest of my life. Who knows, maybe I will find a beer I really, really like! Next time, I plan to splurge on a $10 pint of beer made by Trappist monks. A bit pricey, but come on … beer made by Trappist monks. I have to try it. Oh, and they also have the best hot German potato salad I have had since my grandmother died. I could taste the apple and cinnamon! So very good. As was the bratwurst and the beer and cheese soup!

Sunday Lin cut back the overgrowth in the yard, so our property looks a little more civilized. It hadn’t been completely awful until we had that week recently when it rained every day, and then the prairie grasses grew exponentially. Some of them were at least waist high! I still need to get out there and chopped down the bits that invaded the garden area, but it’s over 100º outside these days, and I just can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe one of these mornings I’ll just force myself to go do it, but I’ve not been terribly inspired to pay too much attention to my garden.

Which brings me to the topic of my garden. Last year things went poorly because of the drought and heat. This year the weather has been nicely moist and until recently not too blazingly hot, which means things like bugs and fungus have been a pain in the butt (and weeds, OMG, the weeds). We got a good number of tomatoes before it got too hot for them to set fruit, and there’s still occasionally one or two every so often. Not as many as I’d like, but there never is. I never went without basil or cucumbers or carrots, so those were all big wins. The onions, garlic, and herbs all either died or were destroyed by bugs and large-footed neighbor dogs. And though the beans grew healthy and bloomed like crazy, we did not get bean one. Not a single bean. I’m not even going to bother mentioning any of the other failures, of which there were a few.

So this year’s spring/summer garden can be summed up as … somewhat unsatisfactory, just like every garden before it. Will this stop me from gardening? Of course not, because the NEXT garden is going to rock! Such is the way of gardeners. In fact, since it’s now August, I really need to get out there and clear out all the seedy basil, pull up the last of the carrots, and start clearing things for fall planting. I have no idea what I’ll be planting. With the art project taking up so much of my time and energy, I haven’t put much thought into it. I imagine I’ll just plant whatever seeds I already have from last year and see how they do this year. I expect the end result will be somewhat unsatisfactory, but that’s gardening for you.

Speaking of the art project, I am in the middle of drafting the pattern for Figure Two, and it’s going as well as the pattern drafting for Figure One went. In other words, not well at all. But I worked out the problems with the first one in a week or so, and I’m sure I’ll work out the problems with this one too. I’m grumpy about it all, but I am feeling surprisingly stress-free. The new deadline is in a couple of weeks, but having Figure One done was the initial goal, and I can finish it up in an afternoon. If I manage to get Figure Two done or the combined Figure One and Two piece done, well that’ll just be icing on the cake. I’m going to shoot for the final combined figure, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ll just finish it after the deadline, because it’s going to be an awesome work of art whenever it gets finished. So all I can say about the art project is that I am still huffing away on it.

Yesterday was the cats’ birthday! I totally forgot until I opened my calendar for another reason and noticed it was already August 1. I usually make a big deal out of their birthday, even though I know they don’t especially know why they are getting new toys and treats. Though I do have to say that they were all being terribly sweet and affectionate yesterday, so maybe they DO know when their birthday is. LOL! Anyway, Ronin and Myu turned four, and Tora is now two. My kittens are all grown up, not that they act like anything other than bratty babies though. I need to sit down and make a post about the cats soon, because there’s been some upset in the hierarchy among the cats, and it’s been pretty funny. I need to go clear the kitchen floor and tables of artsy stuff now though, and if I start babbling about the cats, I’ll be here for an hour.

I guess that about sums up things around here. Like I said, I haven’t been paying much attention to anything outside my own little world. Just been working on my artwork, doting on my cats, trying to keep the house maintained, and sleeping and eating and watching a bit of TV. In the grand scheme of things, from my point of view, life is good. This likely means the world has gone to hell while I have been ignoring it, so perhaps I’ll read some news with my morning coffee tomorrow. I’m sure no good will come of it, but I don’t like being completely in the dark about current events (even though I’ve discovered that ignorance really can lead to bliss).

Did I mention I think I was bitten by a snake a couple days ago?

I was out in the thoroughly ignored and overgrown garden pulling up very tall grass with my bare hands when I felt something ouchy on my left hand. I didn’t think anything of it at the moment, because the grass I was pulling up has sharp edges and there are fire ants and other biting things all over the place right now. I just pressed on and continued pulling up tall grass until the heat and humidity made me stop.

Then I came inside and did some housework without bothering to look at my hand, since it didn’t hurt or itch … I just plain didn’t think about it. Some hours later, while I was sitting at my desk typing, I noticed two very even and neat marks on my left index finger near the knuckle. It was then I recalled that something had caused me a bit of pain on my left hand, so I examined the marks and discovered two even smaller marks beneath the more noticeable ones. At this point, there was no swelling, pain, itching, or any other odd things going on with my finger, hand, or body, so I washed my hand well, put some Neosporin on it, and put it out of my mind. Hadn’t killed me yet, right?

The next day it was a wee bit swollen and pink directly around the marks, but still no pain or anything odd going on. Just four little scabs. It’s the same today too, though what little swelling there was is almost completely gone (and I do mean very little swelling – almost unnoticeable when at its worst). I still feel fine, and there’s still nothing odd going on with any part of my person. I think if it were a poisonous snake (and I was actually bitten by a snake), I’d be noticing something by now (if not being dead). Also, if I were going to have an allergic reaction, that would most certainly be happening by now (by body, it reacts –overreacts– very quickly to allergens, though I always take an antihistamine when coming in from the garden as a precaution). Right?! I would be noticing some awful thing going on by now, wouldn’t I?

This is what it looks like right now:

I’ve never seen an actual snake bite of any sort before, and no one I know has ever been bitten by any sort of snake, but it looks like a snake bite to me. I tried doing a Google image search, but all I was seeing were the most horrible examples of snake bites, and I’d rather not have that kind of stuff in my head, thank you very much. At least not while I think I have a snake bite.

I’ll be keeping an eye on it, in case it suddenly starts looking awful or I start feeling wretched. Thus far nothing, and I hope that remains the same. I cannot afford some kind of horrible snake bite ordeal. I don’t have the time, the money, or the energy!

Two years ago, I tried to identify this weedy (but pretty plant) growing in my front yard, and I never really gave up trying to find out what it was, but there are only so many photos of purple flowers I can look at before I lose interest.

At the time of the original post, a regular reader and friend said she had something similar to it, and hers was a “Ruellia Brittoniana Katie Purple” … and so I spent a lot of time looking at different varieties of Ruellia. I have yet to find any varieties that look exactly like the ones in my yard. There are so many varieties! But I am prepared to declare the weedy (but pretty) plants trying to take over my yard some variety of Ruellia, and this one in particular is a very close match. Everything matches up except the leaves on mine have a bit of a ruffle to them, but that could be because the conditions in Texas when I took that photo were excessively harsh and drought-like. I haven’t looked at them closely lately, but the ones invading the bed in front of the house don’t seem to be as ruffled this year.

So at long last, the unknown plant will now be known as Ruellia Nudiflora … Violet Wild Petunia. They also get to continue invading my yard. Even though they aren’t fabulous for walking around on barefoot, and whenever water gets on the seed pods they propel the seeds out so explosively it hurts to get hit by them, they ARE pretty, and they grow well with no care at all. I think this summer I’ll gather some of the seeds and try to get them started in the far end of the back yard. There are worse weeds to have than wild petunias, and these things do seem to choke out all other weeds (as well as carpet grass, unfortunately).

At some ridiculous hour of the morning, I woke up to go to the bathroom, and Tora was squeaking away in the kitten like the crazed little thing she is. Naturally, I went to investigate. There she sat on the stool by the kitchen window, staring through the glass, and being as agitated as a small cat can be. Getting down on eye level with her, I peer out into the darkness to see what she’s on about, and there in the yard I see a light. One little spot of brightness in the general pitch blackness of my back yard.

“That’s odd,” I thought. I grabbed my phone, put on my garden clogs, and went to investigate.

Well … duh. Lin had bought a silly little $2.50 solar yard light at Walmart, in order to see if it totally sucked or not, and we stuck it out there that day when he got home from work, and then promptly forgot about it. I think that was two days or so ago. I meant to see what it was like that very night, but we ate dinner, sat on the couch, watched some TV, and fell asleep in the living room … and then just completely forgot the thing was out there. Impending senility, I am certain.

I have to say, considering it’s a very cheaply made piece of plastic from China that can be had for $2.50 at Walmart, and the fact we haven’t seen much sunlight since we stuck the thing out there, I’m pretty impressed with the amount of light it puts out. A few more of these out there would certainly light the way for late-night garden harvesting (it happens). It even put out enough light for me to take a photo with my cell phone, which is saying something, because my cell phone camera sucks in low light.

I think a few more of these need to be bought and stuck out in the garden, and a couple more need to be bought so I can take them apart to use the bits for other things. Can’t believe something so cheap works reasonably well. Guess I’ll have to overlook my Walmart boycott and grab some more soon.

While most of us know –or should– that nature has a way of working around and adapting to any obstacle put in front of it, it seems to be coming as a surprise to some people that weeds are becoming immune to the deadly effects of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

The situation is the worst in the South, where some farmers now walk fields with hoes, killing weeds in a way their great-grandfathers were happy to leave behind. And the problem is spreading quickly across the Corn Belt and beyond, with Roundup now proving unreliable in killing at least 10 weed species in at least 22 states. Some species, like Palmer amaranth in Arkansas and water hemp and marestail in Illinois, grow fast and big, producing tens of thousands of seeds.

Monsanto, of course, insists the problem is being blown out of proportion, but at the same time, they are paying some farmers to help cover the costs of buying additional herbicides to keep their fields free of weeds. Just seems to me that if it weren’t an actual problem, Monsanto (like all major corporations) wouldn’t be willing to hand out money to anyone other than their shareholders.

I look forward to the downfall of Monsanto, their disgusting herbicide, and their genetically modified crops that everyone in the USA is growing these days. It’s going to suck when it happens, as there may be all manner of shortages, but we’ll be well-served by getting back to some diversity in our crop varieties. If we don’t do it on our own, nature will force us to get on the heirloom, open-pollination bandwagon … or come up with even more screwed up GMO crops and fancy poisons. Can’t wait to see if people make the smart choice or take the easy Monsanto-supporting way out when the crap hits the fan and more weeds and plant diseases start laughing at our current efforts to keep them at bay.

People being mostly stupid will no doubt choose to continue paying Monsanto too much money for their precious seeds and nasty poisons, but a girl can hope, right?

Finding myself with a few too many cucumbers than we can eat fresh (happy, happy, joy, joy), I decided today I’d make those long-awaited home-grown pickles!

Found myself with a bit too much brine too, so I went ahead and pickled some onion, garlic, and (home-grown) carrots. Woo hoo!

And of course, I also burnt the hell out of part of my left hand. Had I not been wearing protective gear, it would’ve been worse, but let me tell you, boiling hot water and vinegar is, well, boiling hot. Ouch!

Look. Cucumbers. The first ones in years, and there’s more coming! Also two huge tomatoes and one small one to spend some time in the kitchen window finishing up with the ripening (they came off in my hand, so they’re edible now, I imagine), some basil for tonight’s pizza, and two peppers I know are two hot for any human to eat (my lone MILD pepper plant is making peppers too hot for even Lin).

Good harvest today, but will it keep up? Guess I better be happy with what I’ve got!

This year’s winner of the seed saving prize for lettuce is this insane Black Seeded Simpson. It popped up last fall, survived the winter, and has given us so much lettuce. I definitely want to plant seeds from this one! But doesn’t it look insane? If it was growing straight up, it would be taller than me. Just nuts, even for leaf lettuce.

Done working in the garden for the day. The wind out there is crazy! I was constantly having to run stuff down and put bricks and rocks on my gloves and seed packages to keep them from blowing away to who knows where. Seriously, it’s gusting like crazy out there.

I pulled out all the leftover winter stuff. The Brussels sprouts were doing little more than acting as a nursery for nasty caterpillars, and the broccoli and cauliflower I was waiting to go to see were just taking too long. I also yanked up the fava beans. The plants were dying back, so they were done doing the very little they did. I harvested the beans from the already dry pods, and the rest of the plants are out in the sun to dry out the pods. There’s not even enough to eat, so I’ll replant the seeds this fall and see what happens.

Bed One now contains one bulb of Elephant Garlic, more scallions (the first ones just plain failed), radishes, carrots, pepperoncini, and two of my baby tomato plants. That’s in addition to the regular garlic and the last of the winter carrots (which need to come up soon).

Bed Two has a variety of volunteer tomato plants and way, WAY too many baby basil plants (it’s behaving like a weed), plus the tomato plants I’d already planted, lettuce, and marigolds.

Bed Three sucks, and the only thing thriving in it are the cucumbers, though the walking onions did come up too. I didn’t add much outside dirt or compost to this new bed, and it’s showing me exactly how awful the actual dirt in our yard is for growing anything but wildflowers and weeds. I still need to kill the bed of fire ants in this bed, pull up the stuff that’s not doing anything at all, and replant more cucumbers, since they seem to like it. In fact, I’ll probably do that later today.

And how are things going in the garden? Not bad! As I already stated, I am overrun with basil, which is fine. I’ll be thinning them out in the next few days and using them for dinner cooking. The Winter Tomato has several ‘maters on it, as does that bizarre hybrid. The Better Boy is finally blooming, but I can safely say this will be the last attempt with this particular hybrid. Just never does well. The first batch of lettuce is busy going to seed, and the baby lettuces seem to still be doing OK. The marigolds have gone nuts, but they are gorgeous, so I don’t care. I have three peppers on my Texas A&M jalapeño. There’s another huge batch of carrots ready for harvest, and the pole beans are almost ready for a trellis. Also, the squash, which I planted in pots, seems to be thriving and will be blooming soon.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the mound area is just not thriving. The parsley did come up, as did the dill and Nasturtium, but the radishes were all eaten off by who knows what, the Nasturtium look like hell, and nothing seems to want to grow. Also, the lone potato plant is still alive, but it’s growing so slowly.

All in all, I can’t complain too much. I’m pretty sure we’ll at least have tomatoes and basil, carrots and radishes. I’m happy with that outcome. Who knows, maybe everything else will take off and really do well as soon as the weather settles down. We’ve had some hot days followed by unusually chilly nights, and I am certain some of the plants out there aren’t happy about that. But the soil temp is holding steady, so once it gets hot and stays that way, maybe things will just start growing.

Also, I have a ton of excess seeds. I’m thinking of making some small packets and offering them up to people who might like them. Some of them are very high quality purchased seed, but most of them are saved seeds. I imagine almost all of them would grow anywhere, though because I have been self-selecting on the saved seeds for plants that do well in high heat and low water, the saved ones might do best in the south or southwest. I’ll work on organizing and cataloging what all I have this weekend and then maybe next week start taking names of people who’d like a little bit my garden in their yard. I don’t have a large enough garden to use them all, and I’d rather see them used than sitting around losing their potency. I’ll be getting more seeds from my garden this year, and they do begin to stack up after a while!

You know, I think I’ll go plant more cucumbers (and maybe squash) right now, and go ahead and build the trellis for the beans. Might as well get that out of the way right now while I feel like it. My neck and back are already unhappy with me, and if it really does rain for the rest of the week, I won’t feel like going out there and slogging around in the mud. Then I can ignore the garden for a few days again.

I’m bored and not especially sleepy. That’s always a bad mix. The only tabs still open in my browser are news stories sure to get my blood pressure up and a documentary about Monsanto, which I have little doubt will make my head explode. In other words, nothing I should be reading or watching before trying to go to sleep.

Didn’t get much done today, but then I knew that would be the case when I woke up this morning sneezing and congested. I didn’t bother taking an allergy pill, because I at least wanted to get something done, but boy, was I moving slowly. Hate that.

The most important task accomplished today was killing bugs and harvesting seeds in the garden. Plenty of Calendula and Black Seeded Simpson seeds are finishing drying in the laundry room. Tomorrow, when I go out to do some more weeding, I think I’ll pull up the Fava beans. They’ve stopped blooming, and the beans are big and fat. There really isn’t enough to even bother eating, so I’ll be drying those for another attempt at them this fall. I can’t say I am not disappointed, because I am. Also, if the broccoli and cauliflower seeds don’t hurry up and get ready to harvest, they’ll just be going in the compost heap. I need Bed One open and ready for planting NOW.

The only other thing of note that happened is that I had what I would call a major breakthrough is freeing up my artwork. I’m not even going to explain. I’ll just show you as I finish up and declare done a few canvases over the next week or so. Yes, I will actually be showing off some of my paintings. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and I apologize. I just haven’t been happy with any of them, but that’s about to change! I’m kind of excited. Oh how I love finally getting over a major obstacle … like my own mind and methods.

Think I’ll close up the browser, make myself a nice cup of herbal tea, and go watch a craft show or two. I’ve been hogging the DVR with all my sewing, knitting, cooking, crafty-whatnot shows again. LOL!