Garden thoughts for next year:

I am expanding the big garden by 1/3 at least–an 8′ x 10′ rug’s length across the whole back of the garden. At least that’s the idea–I have the rug killing the grass in the first section at the moment. Of course, I’m not sure how long I can stand the cat pee smelling rug in the grass, especially if the outside cat/s (I’m not sure who is stupid enough to do it) keep pooping on the rug! I mean, gross! Eww! Stinky! Nasty! And all of that.

(Not to mention the fact that I have to watch Miss Mabel like a hawk when she is out by the garden with me, because she likes to eat cat poop, and cat poop on a rug is just even better!)

Cat poop aside, that’s my intention, at least. So we’ll see how much grass I can kill by the end of the sunny weather. Mwahaha!

So, onto next year’s plans:

8-ball or round zucchini, depending on whom you ask. I really prefer these, because they are smaller, compact, and don’t get club-sized as they hide between the leaves of the squash or something. Bowling ball sized, yes, perhaps, but even then, they’ll be easier to spot.

Acorn Squash because I looooove acorn squash.

Spaghetti Squash, the small kind, because I love these too. I can’t remember where I ordered the mini ones a few years ago. I’ll have to find them again.

An entire row of potatoes, whatever variety I decide to get. This year, I planted six Yukon Gold potato plants, and ended up with bunches. I think a whole row of potatoes will be a good thing, since they are delicious! Or, alternately, an entire row of potatoes but a couple/few different varieties.

Despite the fact that I haven’t dug up any sweet potatoes yet, I am hoping that they bear well. The vines are long enough, geez–there’s one vine that’s about 12 ft. long at the moment and still growing. They are quickly covering the bare space where the potatoes were. I really hope I get a bunch. I only planted six plants–I think I could plant a whole row of these as well, next year. The variety I got was called Bogart, on a recommendation from a gardening coworker.

Lemon cucumbers, because they bore really well. In fact, I only got two regular cucumbers at all, never saw the Armenian cucumbers or the yard-long cucumbers, and was that it? I think so. These little cucumbers were really cute and tasty, though. Definitely a repeat for next year. (I do, however, still have cucumbers growing and blooming in the compost pile. They haven’t born any cucumbers yet, but you never know. I think there’s a squash in there as well, now that I think of it.)

Early Summer Crookneck Squash, only not three of them. I don’t and didn’t need three of them. One will do, two in a pinch. Those things grew leaves like paulownia trees.

More than four pepper plants. Although the four I have are doing quite nicely still and I can’t complain. But I think a half dozen would work better. If there’s a milder hot pepper out there (I do use chili powder in my chili) that would be nice, but I want something I can use, not just look at.

Tomatoes, of course. I planted a dozen, replanted three, planted eight in Ethan’s garden (which are doing quite well) and four in the little section of the flowergarden, which are being eaten by the slugs. I also had about a dozen volunteers pop up–most cherries. So I had a bunch. Next year, I definitely want more Romas, maybe two of that variety. I also want to try Lemon Tomatoes (I sense a theme going here) and black cherry tomatoes, among others. I’m going to try for at least 16-20 plants in the big garden next year of various varieties. Or, alternately, two rows of 12. We’ll see.

Other cucumbers. I really like cucumbers, if you haven’t figured that out already.

I am waffling between two rows of just green beans, or a row of beans to dry, or something else. Whatever I decide, at least two varieties of beans. I had three this year. I’m not sure how many cranberry beans I will end up with, because it rained before I could pick them. Hopefully I will at least get some.

Pumpkins in a separate spot. Down the hill, most likely. And that will add to my mantra: “Less Grass to Mow!”

My row of sunflowers worked out well, too–I even had someone from the local newspaper at my house today (thanks to my neighbor, who called them) to take pictures of my hibiscuses and my sunflowers. Coolness.) I would like to grow the same kind next year, and perhaps some regular yellow ones as well, so I can actually have sunflower seeds for me to eat and not just the birds. Ethan has some of the big yellow ones in his garden, but they haven’t bloomed yet.

Early crops:

Lettuce, of course. Spinach again, I guess–we’ll see how the fall spinach turns out. Peas again, although I’m leaning towards trellised peas instead of bush peas. I would like to try carrots again if they don’t get washed away, and maybe radishes.

Flowerbeds:

I also have on my list the flowerbed around the cistern, which isn’t really a flowerbed at the moment. I am planning to take the bleeding heart, spiderwort, two hostas, and anything else that is planted there and legitimate and dig out the whole space around the cistern and then along the other side of the house. (I will till, more than likely.) Then I will plant more stuff and rearrange a bit. That will be my flowerbed project for next spring. I’ll have weeding to do in the others as well, and maybe an expansion of the big flowerbed in the front yard. We’ll see.

New Gardens:

I also have on my list to create a spot for thornless blackberries, a couple of blueberry plants/bushes, currants, and something else. I’d also like to get the magnolia vines and goumi bushes. And my apple trees.

Now obviously that sounds like a lot. But in truth, with the aid of my grass-killing rug, it’s not that bad, really. It will be plenty of exercise and plenty of fun, that’s for sure.

Oh, and by the way, it’s 67 degrees outside, and so lovely I’d sleep out on the roof if I could. I AM SO READY FOR FALL! I hope we have an actual fall this year. About a month of 75 degree weather and 55 degree nights would make me very, very happy. Heck, September and October with that kind of weather… heaven!

BtH/HD is 113,006 words at the moment. This is after cutting a bunch (earlier) and then adding some back in, writing new, and proceeding. I’m still not sure of the ending, but it’s getting closer. (I would really like to be done very soon, though. Ack.)

I am planning to take two weeks off between novels, just for my sanity. That will mean no writing at all, so I’ll have to find a book to read.

Netscape is giving me fits tonight. I’m going to bed. Argh!

Rain! Lots and lots of nice rain! It’s 79 up here–not bad, but still kind of warm from yesterday. And it’s been raining for about 3 hours straight now. Lovely.

I am writing today, trying to get a good chunk of the rest of BtH/HD finished. We’ll see how far I get.

Well, I caved.

It was 80%+ humidity in the house today, I was falling asleep while writing, and I had a raging humidity headache, so I caved, shut all the windows, and turned on the da**** air conditioning.

The weather was supposed to break. It didn’t. It was 89 on my side porch this afternoon. Urgh.

Still, I haven’t had it on since the last week-long heatwave, so it’s only going to be a blip on the bill, since I lasted until 5pm without turning it on. It’s hard to get work done, though, when you’re sitting up here falling asleep.

Where is my break in the weather?!?!

The rest of the week looks positively perfect by comparison, even with the rain.

I will be doing more tomatoes tomorrow. I have a counter full at the moment, and I will have more to pick tomorrow. (I’m getting a little tired of tomatoes now.)

I finally got the Seeds of Change website to work (up to a point, at least) this morning. I’m not sure what’s going on, but Dad couldn’t get it to work yesterday either, so it wasn’t just me.

Here is what I ordered:

1 PACK, LETTUCE, LOOSELEAF, RED DEER TONGUE
1 PACK, LETTUCE, LOOSELEAF, EMERALD OAK
1 PACK, BROCCOLI, EARLY GREEN
1 PACK, PEA, SNAP, SUGAR
1 LIVE, GARLIC, SOFTNECK, CHILEAN SILVER -1/2 LB.
1 LIVE, GARLIC, HARDNECK CHESNOK RED – 1/2 LB.

We’ll see about the broccoli and the peas. I should be able to pick lettuce, though; I like to eat it small anyway.

And I ordered garlic! Yay! They were almost sold out. The garlic won’t be shipped until mid-September, so I have plenty of time to figure out where I’m going to put it. And I need to read up on garlic, because it may be easy to grow, but I obviously want it to stick around…

It rained twice yesterday, and last night as well. Obviously I’m not going to get my cranberry beans picked this weekend. Now they have to dry out again. Argh! And of course, since it was only a 20% chance of rain yesterday, I hung Mabel’s rug and Mabel’s blanket (yes, she has a blanket of her own to chew on) out on the line, where they promptly got rained on. Three times! Ah well.

Since I have a huge empty space where the cucumbers, early summer squash, zucchini, pumpkins (that died) and butternut squash vines used to be, Mom suggested I do some fall planting.

Like peas. Or spinach and lettuce again. Or broccoli, even. Turnips. Beets. Maybe even some early cucumbers, just to see if they ripen enough to work with.

I think this is a great idea! I tried to order some seeds from Seeds of Change, but after spending the past 45 minutes on their website, and then clicking to view my cart and getting an error message three times, I think I may try somewhere else. Grrrrrrrr.

It’s like spring backwards! Ha!

Today, on the CNN home page, I saw that Pluto had lost its status as a planet. It had been coming, the news proclaimed. There was controversy even back in 1930 when it was first discovered. Its downfall was its orbit, which isn’t regular or somesuch–as if any planet has regular orbits every single second of the day. Poor Pluto was way out in noweheresville, cold and forsaken and alone.

My first thought upon reading this was who the hell cares?!?!! I mean, give me a break astronomers or whoever got on their high horse to declare once and for all that there are eight planets in the solar system, not nine. Oh, no, after telling countless schoolchildren that there are nine planets–after My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles–now all of a sudden it’s Oops, we made a mistake. Old technology, see. Back in 1930 we didn’t know any better and any old mass in the sky was a planet. Sorry about that. Oh, by the way, we’re going to make Earth’s moon a planet as well, just to keep things straight. A dwarf planet, so we’ll add in a couple of asteroids as well just to make things nice and easy to remember.

Who gave these people the right to demote a planet? Aren’t there more important things going on in the world than deciding whether or not Pluto makes the grade? What about global warming? Isn’t that a bit more important?

Just think of all the books that will now be out of date because a bunch of astronomers–pardon me, the International Astronomical Union–decided that they didn’t have anything better to do than kick poor Pluto out into the cold, dark reaches of space.

Sorry, Pluto. But you’re not alone–the asteroid Ceres once was a planet too.

I am still working on my financial plan that I implemented back in January. It seems like only yesterday (no kidding!) that I worked it out, and now the year is almost over! Where has the year gone?

And of course, because I’m me, I’ve lost sight of it a bit–not too terribly much, but a bit. I’m off by about four months at the moment, which isn’t the end of the world, really. I’m surprised I’ve actually managed to get this far without horrible problems or ditching it entirely. All those trips to Goodwill and Burlington and auctions do add up, after all.

That is part of the reason why I’m posting some stuff on ebay (other than dolls, that is–they count too, to get myself back on track.) I’d like to get back on track, but I’m not sure I can at this point. And really, four months is not a huge deal in the big picture at all.

So, to work with that, and since I was paying $17 in interest every month on my one remaining closed credit card account (this is the ancient one) I replied to an offer I got in the mail for a no interest balance transfer until May 07, which is my new target date unless I make a lot of extra money on ebay. (And considering I don’t have a lot of extra time to make extra money, I’m thinking I’ll stick with a May date for completion of the first step.)

And lo and behold, that credit card is now my emergency credit card, because damn, I could put a down payment on a house with what they gave me. (At least around here.) So I can breathe easy about that, at least. And put that $17 a month in interest towards the principal. Yay!

With that in mind, I am reworking my formula a bit, just so I keep things straight. I only have one other credit card other than that one, so things are progressing.

Well.

Monday I ran around trying to get the twelve things left on my list of things to do done. I got all but three, including one of the Very Important Things. I just ran out of daylight, strength, and gumption.

I did juice seven quarts of tomato juice, which was nice. And I did do some major work on the one important thing, but I didn’t get her done. Nor did I get her done today, but we’re oh so much closer to finishing.

This morning (and part of last night) I awoke in pain. Everything hurt, from fingernails to toenails. It hurt to walk. It hurt to type. I didn’t think I would last very long if I went in to work to sit at my desk in my uncomfortable chair, so I called in sick.

Ugh.

By about 2pm, I was well enough to work again, so I started working on the important thing and managed to get her almost finished by tonight. She will be in the mail, overnight, on Thursday, since I will have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow to finish her properly.

And of course, this one’s my favorite.

I had to juice more tomatoes tonight, since Ethan was here and wanted to “help squish the tomatoes.” Tonight’s haul was four (and a half, really) quarts, bringing my total up to 20 quarts, which is 5 gallons of tomato juice so far this year!

For note, I got about 4 gallons last year from 10 plants. I have many more plants this year, and many, many more tomatoes. I can’t see how I should have to buy tomato juice for chili or soup at all this winter/next spring.

In truth, I’ve probably juiced 22 quarts, if I count the juice I’ve drunk as well as the juice that went into my vegetable-soup-for-the-week yesterday.

How many tomatoes can I fit in one side of my sink? 80!

In other news, I did get a lot written on BtH/HD this weekend, but nothing yet today. It’s going well.

In other news, well, I think you should just look at the picture. Loki’s obviously fitting in just fine:

Burlington was yesterday, and there was a 30% chance of rain. We went anyway–and it sprinkled for about a minute, but that was it. The weather was lovely, the breeze was cool and refreshing, and I ended up with an Underwood typewriter from 1922 and a quilt top made out of vintage upholstery velvet pieces. It is lovely. But that’s all I bought, and I was way under budget. Yay!

After we got back, we did peaches (peach pie mix to freeze), picked the Wolf River apples, made a blackberry peach pie, and picked tomatoes. I have the tomatoes here to juice today, and they’re pretty much covering my countertop. I didn’t get home last night until 7pm.

Today I have another doll to finish, laundry to do, tomatoes to juice, soup to make (I’m leaning towards vegetable), auctions to post, and a book to write. That’s about all that is on my list.

The office door is now open permanently, I think, unless we have a setback. Zoey met Loki this morning (officially; I’m not sure if she saw him before or not) and wasn’t amused at all. Mabel met Loki too. Mabel was good, but Loki tried to claw my shoulder down to the bone. Or at least that’s what it felt like.

And of course no one wanted to walk around Mabel or close to Mabel at the time and show Loki that she wasn’t really a BIG SCARY DOG.

I have the next couple of scenes of BtH/HD in my head. They are the type of scenes that need to be written at once, I think, so I’ll be working on the computer and sitting here at my desk a lot this weekend. Once I get over that hurdle, I’m pretty sure things will fall into place. I’m still fighting a bit with the timeline, but I’m going to try to make it work.

But before I start writing, I have two things that have to get done this weekend. And since tomorrow is Burlington, I’m going to finish the first thing this morning, start finishing up the second thing as well, and then I’ll have the rest of the weekend to write. At least that’s the idea, so I’d better get to work.

The Wolf River apples are ripe too, so I’ll be going to Mom and Dad’s later to help out with them. I love Wolf River apples. They are lip-puckering tart. Mmmmmmmmmm.