A Few Quick Notes 601

-After a few days of regular thundershowers and downpours we've had a few rain free days.  While the days haven't been quite as sunny or warm as I expected, they've nonetheless been a welcome change of pace.  Actually, aside from the fact that they're not quite as sunny as I'd like they've been almost perfect (not to windy or hot or humid).

-Today we went to an open house/jazz concert that was held down the street from where we live.  Not only did the open house allow us to see one of the units in a row-house complex we'd been contemplating when we were in the housing market, we got to hear the jazz band while were outside working in our yard.  The only bummer was that by the time I was finally ready to go the jazz band had finished their show and was packing up.  I guess this will teach me to be a bit prompter next time I was to see a free outside show.

-The regular pea pod stir-frys we've been having with our backyard-grown pea pods have been really wonderful.  I think that next year we'll have to consider doubling the portion of our garden we devote to peas.

-Our very own sweet little Marie has been really misbehaving the past few days.  It's been a real bummer following her around just to clean up her messes.  We're hoping that now that we've switched her back to the kitty litter she'd been using for her first few months with us that she'll calm down (but that may be too hopeful).

-As of this week the our house is now completely repainted.  The body of the house is purple and the trip is a cream colour.  We both are quite please with the outcome.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the colour change seems to be attracting a fair bit of attention.  Most drivers seem unable to drive by without at least slowing, some even come to a complete stop.  Pedestrians, as you might have guessed, are also frequently stopping to look at our newly purple house.  I get the impression that the people of Regina aren't quite used to houses being painted purple.

-I guess it's time for me to get back to dinner.   Hopefully it hasn't burned in my absence.

The harvest keeps on happening

It seems that every day we have to harvest some of our crops or they're turn bad.

Amazingly, even though I did a once over on the peas and beans yesterday (pictured above), I managed to snag another few servings worth today.  Of course, I should also mention that Jeannette also snagged a nice handful of kale yesterday after I finished my once-over of the place.

The other exciting news is that a few of our female pumpkin flowers actually look as though they might  end up doing something other than failing to flower before they die unceremoniously.

I'm a little worried that these developments may be a little late for us to end up with a full-fledged pumpkin by harvest time - but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In other news, after removing the bushy parts of an arbor vitae and some evergreen bushes in the front of the house a few weeks ago we removed the stumps this morning.  Much to my surprise, the stumps came out much more easily and quickly than I anticipated.

Why these developments are important is that they should now put us in a good position to turn the area that previously housed the bushes into a secondary vegetable garden (hopefully with fewer weeds than our primary garden).  If all goes according to plan I think we'll even be able to select plants and plant positioning that will allow us to have a very attracting area.

It happened again

For the second time this year our car, this time while the car was parked, has been hit by a driver backing up a much larger vehicle.

In this case, fortunately, the damage is relatively minimal and doesn't impact the operation of the car.  It seems that the driver of the other vehicle backed his trailer hitch into a plastic grill under our bummer and which was then hooked on as he pulled forward.  As far as I can tell, the damage seems limited to this single piece of plastic.

Of course, the really amusing part about the whole event is that truck was being operated by our neighbour's adult son.  So after he told me about the damage he had to go in and tell his mother, which probably gave him a flashback to his teenage years.

Life always seems to have a way of bringing one back into contact with large bureaucracies (in this case the our insurance company).

Power outages and thunderstorms

For the past few days Regina has been hit with a number of thunderstorms and power outages.

The storms, though one of them did come with pea sized hail, haven't been particularly bad or lead to much damage.  Of course, the fact that they seem to be happening about once a day does mean that they're still quite annoying.

The power outages also seem to be equally frequent.  Yesterday out part of town was hit with a strange mild-weather power outage that lasted a few hours.  This morning much of the eastern portion of the city was also hit with a several hour power outage (and I think that all started before either of this morning's two thundershowers).



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And it wouldn't really be a storm if I didn't at least try to catch some of it on time-lapse (and this time I was successful in capturing the entire first round).

In case you're curious, when I moved to the prairies I didn't expect to experience quite as many rain related weather events, nor as many power outages.

Finally, a harvest to write home about

So after a slow ramp-up, our garden has finally started to really come on strong.

This morning we were able to harvest quite a few beans, as well as our largest harvest of pea pods.  Jeannette even managed to snag an almost full-size mini-beet.
 

We may finally have so many garden fresh vegetables that we won't be able to eat them all on the day they were harvested.

Of course, our herb pot also continues to do well.

Even with the strange new additions I found this morning.

And after a seemingly slow start, our tomato plants are finally with tomatoes (though they don't look as though they'll be red any time soon).

And in case you haven't guessed it yet, we have definitely fallen down on the weeding.  It seems that every time we try to go out and weed we are just overwhelmed with mosquitoes and it doesn't seem worth it.

Actually better than usual

So it's been going back and forth between grey and blue skies for the better part of the day.  Just a little while ago, when things started to look particularly ominous, I set up my time-lapse machine to see if I could catch the transition from plain old grey to thunderstorm grey.


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While I didn't manage to capture any lightning, you can see the clouds racing around as well as evidence of the downpour.

And while this video is definitely not perfect, I'm pretty confident that it is one of my better time-lapse clips of clouds.  Hopefully my past efforts won't deter you from watching this one.

And the harvest expands

After returning from the local farmers' market we went out to our own garden and harvested a few things.

I'm particularly impressed with the number of pea pods we found, as well as the two sample potatoes we dug up.  I'm a little bummed with the size of the beets, but apparently they're a mini variety.

Things are definitely coming along and we should have more beans that we know what to do with very shortly (and while they're coming in more peas will continue to come in).

This is definitely pretty exciting.

Apparently a suitcase is also just fine

She really isn't very picky when it comes to picking places for a nap.

A Few Quick Notes 600

-We seem to be heading into another grey and rainy prairie summer's day.  Yum.  If we're 'lucky' we may even get to have a few thundershowers and whatnot.

-I guess it's a good thing that we just installed our second rain barrel below your garage's new roof and eavestrough then?

Unfortunately, our smaller rain barrel is below the downspout that is likely to collect more rain.  Eventually we may have to try to switch these barrels around - but for the time being and as long as I am disinclined to cut up our downspout and then re-attach it to our stucco siding we may have to stick with this less-than-ideal arrangement.

-Oh, and did we mention that we're painting our house?  The process should start in earnest next week.

Maybe the new colour will help with the naming process?  Of course, I'm not entirely sure that I like the idea of naming our house something like "The Eggplant" or some other name that is entirely dependent on a house colour that may not be permanent.

I guess we could consider something like "Jellybean West"?  (For those of you not familiar with St. John's, Jellybean Row are colourful row houses in downtown St. John's.)

-I think I may have mentioned it before, but our cat seems to really like hanging out in boxes.

This shoe box seems to be Marie's favourite, though if she's in another room she'll pretty much take anything that's available.

For instance, laundry baskets are definitely a suitable stand-in.

-Despite the aforementioned risk of thundershowers the sun seems to have just found a slight crack in the cloud cover.  Of course, it's now clear how long this situation will hold.

A Few Quick Notes 599

-So for the past few days it's been pretty hot and humid in Regina.  I'm a little bit bummed about this as I have long been lead to believe that Regina is in the 'dry heat' zone.  Maybe this is just a bit of anomaly?

-Yup, we still have a cat and she's still at least a little bit cute.

Of course, from time to time she's also at least a little bit crazy.  Sometimes she seems to work herself up and then run around and jump off of furniture as quickly as possible.  She also likes running quickly and then sliding into turns on the hardwood floors (sometimes she misjudges the slide and bangs into things).

-I have today off so I walked over to get a nice summer haircut.  Already I feel as though I made the right call.  Maybe I'll have to be on a two or three week cycle for the rest of the summer?  

-If all goes well I be able to take care of some cement patching, aquaponics setting up, and a few other errands before my day-off comes to a close.

-Oh, and because I didn't mention it before or when it was happening, a few days ago I was in Ottawa. And is there a better way to commemorate the trip than to grab a quick time-lapse of the intersection outside of my hotel room?

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Right, I didn't think so.

A little unexpected

When I was walking to work yesterday I spotted what appeared to be a pelican on Wascana Lake.  Since confirming that it was a pelican that I saw I've seen either that pelican or another pelican a number of times (on my walk home from work on Monday, on my walk to work today, and on an evening stroll tonight).

Of course, I think the following photo does a slightly better job of representing the beauty of the evening, though a much worse job at making it overwhelmingly clear that I saw a pelican in Regina.

Definitely didn't ever imagine I'd spot my first wild pelican while living on the prairies.

Harvest progress

In late May Jeannette and I planted our garden.  At the time this seemed a little late, if anything, as Spring was already several weeks behind schedule.

After several weeks of rainy grey weather, if anything, it felt as though we'd jumped the gun and planted far too early.

Now that we're into July things finally feel as though they're catching up (or at least close to catching up).

Of course, the weeds are also growing quite well and we've definitely fallen down on our weeding duties.

Our herb barrel has also really picked up over the course of the past month.

In early June it didn't have much going on.

And now in early July it's damn near full (and that's after a fair bit of chives, thyme, and mint harvesting).

Of course, we've also had our fair share of radishes (actually a full row of them at this point).

And Jeannette's been collecting various greens (beet, kale, spinach, pea, and strawberry spinach) for at least the past two weeks).

So just to round up what we've had so far because I haven't been diligent about photographing the harvest we've managed to get at least a handful of each of the following (in more or less this order):

1) Chives
2) Thyme
3) Apple Mint
4) Radishes
5) Spinach
6) Strawberry Spinach
7) Beet Greens
8) Pea Shoots
9) Pea Pods
10) Kale
11) Spearmint
12) Basil (two varieties)

My recollection of what we have left to come is as follows:

1) Green Beans
2) Edamame
3) Beets
4) Hot Peppers
5) Sweet Peppers (two varieties)
6) Pumpkins
7) Celery
8) Carrots
9) Sweet Corn
10) Potatoes
11) Tomatoes
12) Onions

If all the stuff on this second list works out we may actually manage something of a feed for ourselves at some point this summer.  I'll be particularly impressed with us if we can somehow managed herb roasted potatoes and corn at the same time (and maybe with some edamame for protein).