Overrun with beans

Since the beans started pouring in a few weeks ago they've been coming non-stop.  It seems that we can't go more than a day or two without needing to spend at least a few minutes harvesting things.

Though there are a few repeats below, I thought I might bring together a few photos of our harvests to really demonstrate what I'm talking about (and these were all taken between July 13 and August 2, 2013).

Of course, with all of our success we're still waiting for a few things.  Despite the early presence of juvenile tomatoes we're still without even a reddish tomato.  Our edamame plants, despite their ever increasing size, are without fruit (or even flowers - though these should be just around the corner).  I guess it's still just early August so I probably shouldn't be too worried.

Things that go crash in the night

At about 2:00 AM on Monday morning (AKA Sunday night) Jeannette and I were startled from sleep by a loud noise.  While both of us were immediately awoken there was some disagreement about the source of the sound.

I was of the opinion that the sound was that of something falling outside, though I couldn't imagine what that could possibly be given what I know of the area surrounding our bedroom window.  Jeannette, alternatively, was of the opinion that the sound was that of a car crash.

Being the attentive husband that I am (and also being interested in the source of the sound) I went to our bedroom window to see if I could see what had happened.

Just as I arrived I saw and heard a car speeding away.  Because it was dark all I could see of the car were its tail lights and general shape (probably a hatch back).  And the area from which the car was departing did not appear particularly disturbed.

As I couldn't determine the source of the noise and as nothing more appeared to be afoot we tried to return to sleep.  After a period of time we were successful.

By the next morning I'd inadvertently managed to put the whole incident out of my head.  Instead of dwelling on the strange events of the night before I made coffee, ate breakfast, showered, and prepared for work.  

It was only as I was starting my walk to work that I was reminded of the events of the previous night because of the presence of a police car, a neighbour sweeping up smashed car debris, and a newly totalled car.  Apparently Jeannette had been right to place the sound as a car crash.

Though the neighbour sweeping the debris lives much closer to the site of the accident she had not actually heard the event the previous evening so by speaking to the police officer I was at least able to provide an approximate time and semi-description of the vehicle.  Based on my exchanges with our neighbour and the police officer I also got the sense that the neighbours whose car had been hit had also managed to sleep through the event and hadn't learned anything was amiss until just a few minutes before I came on the scene.  I also learned that, perhaps not surprisingly, that this looked like the work of a drunk driver.

Despite the fact that this was a fair bit more excitement than our quiet neighbourhood is used to, I haven't heard much discussion of the event.  I am starting to think that most people slept through the original event and then weren't out on the street early enough to see the police presence and car removal.

This event taken with our own car troubles last weekend are leaving me with the impression that we might be best not to park on the street unless its absolutely unavoidable.

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).

The kind of day it was

Today has been a pretty weird day.  One minute it seems to be bright and sunny only to be followed by the next minute when it's either raining or overcast.

As you might have guessed, I tried to capture at least some of this experience via time-lapse technology.  And while I have been known to cry wolf when it comes to the quality of my vids in the past, I actually think this one is kind of neat and makes clear that there are at least a few layers of clouds at work.

Enjoy.



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I bet you're all really jonesing for the vid that I'm currently in the midst of filming - how could a sequel to this hot vid not be even hotter?

A Few Quick Notes 598

-So after several months without rain and clouds grey skies and rain have finally returned to Regina.  For the better part of the past few weeks we've had at least grey skies for part of most days and somewhat regular rain.  The upside of this weather is that on Thursday night I got to see my first double rainbow, the downside is that it's almost always not quite as warm or sunny as I was expecting it to be at this time of year in Regina.

-Despite the grey skies, cool temperatures, and plentiful rain the plants we planted in our garden a few weeks ago are mostly growing.  Sure, most of them would probably be doing a fair bit better with a few more hours of sun a day and soil that at least occasionally is a little drier, but that hasn't meant that most of them haven't continued to grow - if somewhat slowly.

Not surprisingly, the radishes are furthest along.  And had this weekend not been as rainy as it was we would have even planted a second and third row so that we can start to have a stead stream of radishes. The peas and beans are also doing well, though, again, more sun would surely help.  

The plants that seem to be growing particularly slowly are our pepper and corn plants.  The corn plants seem not to have managed to make it beyond about three inches while the pepper plants don't seem to be any taller than they were when we moved them from indoors to the garden.

In any event, the fact that most of these plants are even alive seems kind of remarkable given the incredible number of weeds and the high clay content of the soil.  I suspect that not weeds be an annual battle, but so will the soil.  Who would have guessed that in a province known for agriculture that the soil is mostly just clay?  In Newfoundland it's always a challenge to put a shovel into the ground because of the rocks - here the rock-free clay is just to dense and goopy for one's shovel.

-A friend of mine from library school is coming into Regina for a conference tonight and I've offered to give her a ride from the airport to where she's staying.  Not only am I looking forward to catching up after about five years, having someone else in the car finally provided me with the motivation I needed to finally get around to giving the car a quick vacuum and clean for the first time since we've owned it.  Not surprisingly, the back was a fair bit cleaner than the front.

-Now that our balcony rail has been in place for a week we've started thinking about our next project.  As some discussion we finally settled on re-roofing our garage.  Yesterday I picked up most of the supplies, though I still have to snag some flashing.  So whenever the skies clear and the rain stops we'll have to start on this project.  I'm a little worried that this is going to be a bit of a nasty project - but at least at the end we'll hopefully have a garage that doesn't leak quite as much as our garage does currently.

Oh, and then once we're done with the roof we'll have to move on to re-siding it.  Hooray!  

Fortunately, I think we've got the game plan for this more or less figured out - though that doesn't mean that there won't be surprises when we finally get around to it in a few weeks.

Box Kitty

It wasn't long after Marie arrived that it became clear that one of her favourite haunts is Jeannette's desk.

The only thing that seems to have made the location even more desirable has been the addition of a shoe box.

Sometimes she'll spend hours sleeping in such a box while Jeannette works.

Of course, she's not particularly loyal to a particular box - basically any shoe box will do.

And if she happens to be in the bedroom rather than the office she's more than happy to trade a shoebox in for a pair of my pants.

And even then she's not particularly picky - pretty much any pants will do.

Life's certainly a little different around here than it used to be in the pre-kitty days.

Catching up on vids

So while Jeannette and I were in Vancouver just over a week ago I managed to snag a few hot time-lapse vids.

The first I took while taking a break from walking along the Sea Wall in Stanley Park.  It seems that even on a grey day in Vancouver the place is fausty with people.

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Later, when were back in West Point Grey we stopped at a park near where I used to live and I snagged this while we sat and drank coffee.  As you might be able to see, downtown Vancouver can be seen in the background.

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Don't forget to keep checking back for hot new vids.

Working our way up the scale

After some painting and then a few weeks of gardening projects Jeannette and I finally got around to tackling one of the more substantial (maybe it wasn't actually all that substantial - but it was certainly daunting) projects associated with our new house - the construction of a new balcony rail.

Soon after we moved in to our place it became clear that what looked just like a little weird balcony on the back of our house was actually a decrepit little weird balcony.  As this winter's snow began to melt and expose the places where there used to be wood we began to get a sense of the general decrepitude of the rail - and it wasn't good.  As more time passed pieces of rotting wood began to fall onto the patio below.  Sitting nearby when there was even a slight breeze became risky.

As obvious as it was that something needed to be done, I was a little hesitant to act before we were comfortable with our plan of action.  Of course, once it became clear that my unwillingness to even consider developing a plan became was an excuse for inaction, Jeannette scoped out the supplies and forced me to agree to a plan.

On Friday after work we went to a local building supplies store and picked everything up.  And because I was less than psyched about using my mitre box and saw to make all of the cuts we took advantage of the store's cut shop.  For reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me (but that may have something to do with an employee's dissatisfaction with his job) we ended up getting all of our cuts done for free.

Of course, it rained most of Saturday so we had to wait until today to get going.

Fortunately, because the rotting process was so far along the task of clearing the old railing was accomplished in just a few minutes.

Before long we were on to the construction phase.  And because we purchased a few metal connectors instead of relying on nail/screw based joins we were able to move along confidently and quickly (and with zero bashed fingers).

And then not long after that we were able to start adding the balusters (though our original plan had been to add them from the inside and then flip them around to the outside we decided to just keep them on the inside).

And that's basically all there was to the project.  Amazingly, we were done in just a few hours (deconstruction and construction combined).  As it turns out there was no reason for my hesitance - this whole process was shockingly easy and straightforward.  And as Jeannette just pointed out to me, it wasn't particularly expensive (especially after we returned the extra balusters).  I'm just glad my lethargy didn't cause us to try to put it off until next year.

And if you're curious to know how we passed what would have been rail construction time on Saturday it went as follows:

I installed a new cord on this lamp.

With Jeannette's assistance I installed some box shelves on the wall in Jeannette's office.

Assembled a new patio bench.

All kinds of shopping related errands (including the purchase of new sheets, plants, and deeply discounted linen clothes).

Three hot kitty vids

So, as promised, here's the kitty jumping in a box supercut.



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I also managed to snag a clip off her visiting three boxes in quick succession.



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Then, last but not least, here's a quick clip of her cleaning herself with a lick-the-paw-and-then-rub-it-on-her-head manoeuvre.


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Had the angles worked out I would have had a time-lapse kitty getting a bath vid to share, though, sadly, as foreshadowed earlier in this sentence, the angles did not work out and most of the shot was my above butt-crack region.

As always, keep checking back for an unending stream of less-than-stellar kitty vids.