A Few Quick Notes 411

-Today, while not as nice as the past few days, was pretty OK until some time this evening. Unfortunately, things are expected to get even worse tomorrow (meaning rainier), though I am still holding out a little hope that the forecast is as inaccurate as usual.

-I am now 2/9 with my Roll Up the Rim to Win cup. I am starting to feel a little like Chuck Knoblauch, in that that I am just not doing what doing what needs to be done. I keep missing my mark.

-I have recently been so busy tipping back diet passionfruit pop that I completely forgot how refreshing a nice glass of ice water can be. In case you too have forgotten how nice a glass of ice water can be and are curious the answer is great and refreshing. Glasses ice water are so good it is no wonder that they are my favourite drink and the one drink I would take with me to a desert island (assuming I am ever given such a choice).

-In class today we were talking about international development NGOs and their relationship to missionary work when the professor asked the class "Have NGOs assumed a missionary position?" After I broke the silence and laughed a few of my classmates joined in before the professor caught on and shamefacedly rephrased the question. Though I know my father might spend years crafting such a line, I am pretty sure that this one was spur of the moment and considered a misstep by the professor.

-I harvested some of my tobacco seeds today. I still have to separate some of the seed pods from the seed, but it is already clear that I have thousands and thousands of seeds. I have no idea what I might do with thousands and thousands of tobacco seeds.

-There is an awesome butter sale at the grocery store this week. I am hoping to head by tomorrow and pick up a few pounds.

-A few weeks ago I decided to "soften my image" by growing a beard. I was hoping that a beard would draw attention away from my super-short haircut and allow me not to look so intense. Generally I think that this worked, though it is kind of hard to say. Anyway, my beard was getting kind of long and my hair had grown out enough that I decided that I could go back to being beardless and would likely not look to intense so I got rid of my beard this morning. I generally think it was a good move.

A Few Quick Notes 409

-Today was another beautiful day. In contrast to many of past few nights, the temperature seems to be remaining above zero, though the temperature drop was still about 10 degrees, maybe even as high as 11.

-I am now down to 2/8 with this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. Apparently playing for Jess only got me through the initial days of the competition, I will now likely need to find some other cause to reinvigorate myself (though this doesn't mean that I won't also carry original burden).

-A few days ago Neil called our internet service provider about our sluggish internet connection. After a few minutes he learned that the problem is that due to an 'administrative error' we had been switched to a slower service some number of months ago. Apparently we are now to get some kind of discount, though I am not sure if we have been told exactly what this will entail.

Of course the good news is that we now have a much faster internet connection that doesn't seem to disconnect as frequently. The bad news is that we have once again confirmed that we are so lazy that we will wait months before dealing with an obvious problem.

-Maybe two weeks ago Neil and I were grocery shopping when we happened to come across some discount passionfruit flavoured pop. Much to my surprise, I was quite taken with the $1.98 product and decided to buy a dozen cans of the diet variety. After just a few days we were out and I was jonesing for more.

Yesterday night we went back and bought another dozen (along with more traditional groceries). Sadly, I pounded back five of the dozen cans this afternoon and evening. At this rate I am likely going to need to re-stock by tomorrow afternoon (that is if I want to re-stock before I run out).

-I am in the midst of preparing an essay for submission on Monday. While things are a bit rough at the moment I think that I have at least finally settled on the basic outlines of the structure (a development that was a long time coming). Hopefully I will be able to fashion something approximating a first draft tomorrow.

-Tonight all three of us went upstairs to have dinner at our neighbour/friend's apartment. We had a really great stir-fry for dinner and then a sticky toffee sponge pudding (that I prepared) for desert. It was a very pleasant affair.

-A few weeks ago this neighbour/friend and I decided to jointly acquire a seed starter kit (basically mini-green house with peat pellets) and together get a jump on the growing season. With a few of the seeds that I already had and a few more that I ordered from Vesey's (they have great seed catalogues) we managed to take care of the planting last Saturday. When I went up tonight, much to my surprise, I learned that most of the seeds we planted, including most of the tomatoes, have already sprouted and are quite perceptibly plants. This early and vigorous sprouting has really helped me get pumped about our upcoming container gardening season.

Hopefully at some point in the coming days I will be able to take a few minutes and explain what is going on plantwise and what I expect to happen in the near future.

-As many of you likely know, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. Though I am not a particularly keen celebrator or St. Patrick's Day I did end up visiting a local establishment yesterday evening. I decided to head out to this particular event because a fellow political science grad student and former Nova Scotia premier Rodney MacDonald were to be performing together. While at the event Neil and I ran into a few other political science grad students, as well as my supervisor. All in all, I think it is safe to say that we had a good time and would likely consider heading back next year if a similar slate of performers happened to be scheduled to appear.

A Few Quick Notes 408

-The streak of good weather continued through today, at least that is my recollection of things. What I have been finding most impressive about our recent good weather is that while it will go as high as 5 or 6 during the day it will then drop to close to -5 or -6 at night, which means something close to a 10 degree temperature swing in just a few hours.

-Not only is Gushue out of the Brier, the team that handed him his first loss of this Brier, Alberta, are now the champions. It seems that Neil and Rebecca, unbeknownst to me, decided to make their way to this evening's final game. Apparently they scored discount tickets from a scalper and had pretty good seats for what was, at least according to them, a pretty good game (even if Alberta did win).

-We managed to lose both of our Ultimate games on Saturday. This didn't really surprise me as the first team we were playing beat us rather soundly just a few weeks ago and the second game we were playing after already having played a game earlier in the day. It seems that we have one game left for the season/play-offs.

-On Friday my seed order arrived. I purchased some pea, bean, and tomato seeds.

Yesterday, with a neighbour/friend I planted a number of these seeds in small starter kit that I purchased a few weeks ago. I am already looking forward to this year's harvest. Hopefully I will be able to provide you with a few more details about what I expect to grow when I have a little more time.

-The time change has been brutal, and I don't think I have really even noticed it yet. Tomorrow morning is going to be incredibly painful.

New seeds

As regular readers will know, several days ago I ordered a few packages of seeds from Richter's in Ontario. After an excruciating wait of about 5 days, they finally arrived. As Kirsten arrived today and we were looking for something to do we decided to try planting a few of the seeds this evening.



Given that both of us were most interested in the tobacco seeds/plants, that is where we started.



I decided to try starting the seeds in small, homemade paper pots that I would then place inside jars (which I hope will act like greenhouses). After making the pots Kirsten and I filled them with soil and started the planting process. As you can see from the image above, the seeds are quite small, much smaller than I expected.



Not surprisingly, the whole process didn't really take all that long.



Any the planted seeds and whatnot have now been moved to the windowsill in my bedroom. I am hoping that a few of the seeds germinate and don't overheat in the homemade greenhouses.

Once the tobacco seed operation wrapped we moved on to the menthol mint and sugar beets. In both cases I am pretty sure that the pots I used are too small and that I put too many seeds in each pot. Anyway, that is what I have been doing all summer, I don't know why I would want to change now.

The merging of two dreams?

As I have been writing about for months, it seems that our apartment has a bit of a spider mite problem (though things might be under control at the moment). So far most of the approaches I have tried have failed and meant that I have had to get rid of quite a number of plants. Anyway, the result of this situation that returning to a spider mite free condition is a bit of a dream of mine. Such a condition would allow me to grow all kinds of plants indoors and maybe acquire a few more that seem interesting (coffee tree, hops vines, and a hibiscus). Until the apartment is clean I really can't consider adding any fancy plants to the environment.

At least that is what I thought until a little earlier this evening.

While looking through a Richter's seed catalogue earlier this evening I ended up coming to the tobacco seed section. As I have been interested in growing my own tobacco since at least junior high I thought I would look at the blurbs to see what they said and to see whether or not the seeds would be economically feasible. It turns out that not only are the seeds economically feasible, but that wild tobacco "is a source of nicotine sulfate, an insecticide for the control of aphids, thrips, whiteflies and mites."

It sounds as though this may be one of the few plants that might be of use to me in my battle against the spider mites.

If you are wondering, it seems that growing tobacco in a personal garden is viable but the curing and aging processes are very difficult without the proper facilities. So while I may be able to grow tobacco plants, don't expect me to start trying to sell any on the side.

A Few Quick Notes 323

-We had another beautiful day today. For much of the late morning and early afternoon the sun was out in full force. By early evening it was a little more overcast, but this wasn't much of a problem.

-A few days ago when reading about tomatoes and some of the other plants I have been trying to grow I also managed to read that coffee is, apparently, an easy house plant to grow. For the past few minutes I have been trying to find a way to get seeds in Canada. So far my search, though incredibly limited has been rather fruitless.

I do think that it it would be rather cool to have a coffee tree, even if it is only likely to produce a pound a year of coffee.

-One consequence of my search for coffee seeds is that I have now signed up to receive several seed catalogues (though none of these suppliers sell coffee). I am really looking forward to browsing these catalogues once they arrive.

-A few more of my pepper seeds seem to have sprouted. Unlike some of the other peppers I have planted, these are starting out as purple plants (the stem and the leaves). I am curious if this colouration will last, or if they will turn green in the near future.

Strangely, the chives I planted at the same time seem not to have sprouted at all. I find this odd as in the past I have had absolutely no problem getting chives to grow. I am starting to think that be the age of the seeds. If I don't see any action in a few days I may have to consider re-planting or planting something new.

-Today I read a story in the Globe and Mail about blogs and blogging. In the story it was reported that 95% of blogs have not been updated in the past 120 days. This story largely confirms something that I was thinking about a while ago, which is that as far as blogs go, Montifax has had a pretty stellar track record given that we now have more than two full years of regular updates under our belt. Of course, this doesn't really mean anything, particularly when most of our posts are about domestic goings on and whatnot.

-For the first time in a few weeks I went in to the library to work in my library carrel. Of course, when I arrived at the carrel I found that the light had burned out. While I have mentioned it to the proper authorities I have no idea how long it will take to be fixed.

-As we have now passed midnight we are in election day in Nova Scotia. Though some of the more recent polls have suggested that the NDP have a large lead, I am still not exactly sure how things will turn out. For some reason I suspect that Liberal/PC strategic voting may come into play and be a deciding factor in a number of seats. I guess we will find out tomorrow one way or another.

I guess I should start preparing for this move

In the past few days it has finally hit me that in the very near future I will be moving to Halifax. More importantly, I have finally started to realize that I really need to start preparing for this move. In particular this means gathering the items I am hoping to move as well as acquiring those items that I need to acquire before I move.

Fortunately, starting some number of months ago, I set aside a shelf in a closet for things that I am hoping to have in Halifax. So far this shelf has accumulated a few books, some clothing, and a few kitchen related odds and ends. Unfortunately, most of the things that I will eventually pack are not anywhere near this shelf and are more likely scattered around my room or the rest of the house.

Even more problematic than the fact that my belongings are all over the place is that I no longer recall exactly what it is that I already have in Halifax. Though even if I did have a complete list of my belongings that are in Halifax I know that I would still be likely to take too many things with me. (Part of this is because I always like to have back up items, just in case I am in a situation where I can't use the item that I would normally want to use).

On the more pro-active side of things, I actually managed to make it to a store today and buy a few packages of seeds for plants that I hope to grow while I am in Halifax. While some of the seeds are admittedly foolhardy, I think that I will at least have fun with the attempts.

The six types of seeds I purchased are:

Beets - Detroit Dark Red - While I don't know that I have had beets in the past 15 years I was thinking that I would try to grow a few and then make borscht. Fortunately I should have between 50-60 days from the time of planting to actually have to figure out what it is I might want to use the beets in.

Beans - Improved Golden Wax - I think these were a good choice because I know that I really like yellow beans and I know that it is possible to grow beans inside in less than ideal sun conditions. As with all of the plants, I see space being a particular problem as I will likely need a number of pots to grow more than a handful of plants.

Corn - Early Golden Bantam - This is clearly the seed that is most unlikely to succeed of those that I purchased today. While I know that this is a long shot under the best of circumstances I am somewhat hopeful only because I witnessed the relatively remarkable growth of some corn at one of my house-sitting houses this summer. While the corn was certainly behind schedule and likely to never produce an edible ear of corn it was nonetheless a clearly identifiable corn plant, which is about all I might be able to hope for with my seed packet.

Dill - Anethum graveolens - This is something that I think might actually grow well and require only small to moderately sized pots. So I guess this means I think that this is a safer bet than some of the other seed choices I made, and of course some success would be nice. Furthermore, I think that I will actually be able to use dill, though it isn't my favourite herb.

Thyme - thymus vulgaris - This is a plant that I know can do quite well in a pot inside, and I am relatively certain that it should even be able to handle the smaller amounts of sun that it will receive in the winter. This one, like the dill, would be in the safer bet category.

Radishes - Cherry Belle - I purchased these because I am a big fan of radishes and it would seem that they are only supposed to take about three weeks to reach maturity. This means that I might even be able to grow these on the balcony before the cold weather sets in, though this might be wishful thinking.

Peppers - Yellow Hot Wax - This purchase was made with Neil in mind as I know that he is a fan of hot peppers (or at least he was in his youth). A further consideration is that I was able to germinate pepper seeds in Montreal indoors in the spring under less than ideal conditions. Presumably these will be as allow growing as the bell peppers that I planted in Montreal, meaning that I shouldn't even hope to have anything before Christmas.

I have also made plans to take clippings from a few of my mother's plants just before I leave. I am particularly looking forward to growing a succulent plant that has green rain-drop like leaves on branches that gracefully hang from the side of the plant's pot (assuming that the plant is large enough to extend beyond the sides of the pot). More recently I have been looking forward to taking a papyrus clipping, though my excitement has been somewhat tempered by my relative lack of success when it came to making papyrus from the shoots of this plant earlier this summer.

Of course none of these seeds or plants will work if I don't manage to acquire pots and potting soil, something I haven't yet arranged with Neil or Rebecca. Another concern might be my desire to fill the apartment with an unmanageable number of pots and planters, something else that I have not really discussed with Neil or Rebecca.