One essential feature...
Sep. 2nd, 2015 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrj...of a regular blogging schedule is knowing when it's perfectly ok to blow your schedule to heck and just natter on randomly. (Even if it isn't random day.) I'm just feeling a bit discombobulated currently. Part of it is still Worldcon hangover. (My suitcase is still sitting there in the entryway waiting to be unpacked.) Part of it is losing the weekend to lung crud (which was probably allergies after all, given the trailing symptoms, but does it really matter?). Part of it is realizing that even though I deliberately cleared the decks of pretty much all my non-writing-related social obligations for the year, I still look around at my house and think, "What I wouldn't give for a solid week to get this place in order!" Part of it is a day job that swings between boringly routine and Entirely Too Exciting. (Which country has decided to do an inspection next month? If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium. Oh, oops, Canada. Or was it Japan?)
I returned from Worldcon to discover that one of my automatic garden watering timers had decided to become recalcitrant. As in: all the timer data displays properly, but when the timepoint rolls around to open the water valve, nothing happens. That put an end to the cucumbers, although they were reaching the end of their productivity anyway. None of the perennials were too badly affected. It's been a bad tomato year and I don't think it's just me. The usual display of locally-produced "heirloom" tomatoes has been absent from the supermarket for several weeks now and only the more standard varieties (and non-local ones) are available. The only one of my plants that's giving me much is a lovely dark-purple cherry variety. Maybe next year will be another bumper crop. I think another one of next year's projects should be to install a more reliable timer system for the backyard watering circuits. The current one is battery-driven and attaches directly to the spigot (which means I've got an arrangement reminiscent of an electrical octopus set up to manage five different watering loops plus manual hose. I don't want to lay out a permanent in-ground system because I'm still working on where everything will go eventually, but maybe at least a permanent control box that will allow for a dozen different independent water loops.
The heirloom apples have all come ripe and been picked, though I haven't tasted the second variety yet. Their keeping fairly well on the shelf despite the heat, but I need to do something this weekend. There are still a bunch of the standard apples left on the tree and I need to rake up what's fallen so I can shake off another batch to dry. The dryer has been working very nicely: each batch dries in 24 hours and the time spent in peeling/coring/arranging the next day's batch is minimal enough to fit into the evening routine. I think I have about 8 bags of dried fruit in the freezer (ca. 8 large apples worth in each) and I took one on the Worldcon road trip for snacks. It makes a nice change from processing for applesauce. Maybe next year I'll try turning some of the ornamental plums into prunes. They're small enough that the processing-to-fruit ratio for plum puree is a bit high (though well worth it). The quinces (only a few) and the medlars (oodles and oodles) are still way off from being ripe, but the walnuts are starting to fall, which means I need to begin the raking-up schedule if I don't want the squirrels to play havoc in the vegetable beds. I really do need to come up with some more efficient way of dealing with the walnuts or just give up for this year and toss them all in the green recycling.
And next year -- I swear -- I will figure out how to get this glut of zucchini that everyone else complains about!
I returned from Worldcon to discover that one of my automatic garden watering timers had decided to become recalcitrant. As in: all the timer data displays properly, but when the timepoint rolls around to open the water valve, nothing happens. That put an end to the cucumbers, although they were reaching the end of their productivity anyway. None of the perennials were too badly affected. It's been a bad tomato year and I don't think it's just me. The usual display of locally-produced "heirloom" tomatoes has been absent from the supermarket for several weeks now and only the more standard varieties (and non-local ones) are available. The only one of my plants that's giving me much is a lovely dark-purple cherry variety. Maybe next year will be another bumper crop. I think another one of next year's projects should be to install a more reliable timer system for the backyard watering circuits. The current one is battery-driven and attaches directly to the spigot (which means I've got an arrangement reminiscent of an electrical octopus set up to manage five different watering loops plus manual hose. I don't want to lay out a permanent in-ground system because I'm still working on where everything will go eventually, but maybe at least a permanent control box that will allow for a dozen different independent water loops.
The heirloom apples have all come ripe and been picked, though I haven't tasted the second variety yet. Their keeping fairly well on the shelf despite the heat, but I need to do something this weekend. There are still a bunch of the standard apples left on the tree and I need to rake up what's fallen so I can shake off another batch to dry. The dryer has been working very nicely: each batch dries in 24 hours and the time spent in peeling/coring/arranging the next day's batch is minimal enough to fit into the evening routine. I think I have about 8 bags of dried fruit in the freezer (ca. 8 large apples worth in each) and I took one on the Worldcon road trip for snacks. It makes a nice change from processing for applesauce. Maybe next year I'll try turning some of the ornamental plums into prunes. They're small enough that the processing-to-fruit ratio for plum puree is a bit high (though well worth it). The quinces (only a few) and the medlars (oodles and oodles) are still way off from being ripe, but the walnuts are starting to fall, which means I need to begin the raking-up schedule if I don't want the squirrels to play havoc in the vegetable beds. I really do need to come up with some more efficient way of dealing with the walnuts or just give up for this year and toss them all in the green recycling.
And next year -- I swear -- I will figure out how to get this glut of zucchini that everyone else complains about!
