Garden Plantings

I don't know why I am so late this year (but the ladder fall, limping around, feeling tired, staying in bed late , and bad weather when I had the time to plant) all added up.  Things kind of got beyond me a bit this year...

Anyway, I have finally felt more active lately and got some useful work done.  Yay!  Well, better late than never.  At least they have time to produce SOME harvest.

The tomato seedlings are planted.  I had laid down permeable fabric beforehand and cut Xs where the seedling would go in; then stuck markers in the ground and pulled the cut-to-fit fabric aside.  Then I gave the soil some care.  I take a good few shovelfuls of soil into a bucket and mix organic fertilizer in as I add it back.  That way, there is basically a 5 gallon bucket of well-mixed loose fertilized soil for the seedlings to go into.  The tomato roots don't spread further than that.

So then I put the fabric back on and use a bulb-planter to make a hole for the seedlings.  Tomatoes grow roots from asny buried stem, so the deeper the better.  Early roots are better than early top growth!  [An exception is grafted plants.  The graft has to be above the soil line].

So I got them all planted this week.  I can fit 6 tomotes in a framed bed and there are 2 of them.  Here is one...

A close-up of one seedling. ..

The cage is made of concrete wire mesh.  22" in diameter and 5' tall.  I made them 25 years ago and they are as sturdy as when new.

This isn't new this year.  They are broccoli and purple cauliflower plants.  I planted them last year and they didn't do much.  But they survived the Winter and I' have hopes they will sprout.  There were more broccoli, but the ones that developed heads (and then smaller side-heads) were harvested and pulled.  One neat thing I've discovered is  that the green cabbage worms don't like purple leaves.  They are too easy for predators to find.

I'm trying an idea with the pole beans.  I made a frame of concrete rebar and bent some leftover wire mesh at an angle.  The idea is that the beans will hang down from among the leaves and will be easier to find and pick.

The beans are growing fast!  One month and they are 6' high!  I read a study once that suggested delaying planting of many crops.  The idea is the cool weather slows their growth and later-planted crops often surpass the early ones in total growth and productivity.  Well, I guess I am sure testing that this year (unintentionally).

I also planted small-seeded cucumbers, cantelopes, honeydews, and watermelon along the framed bed trellises (more concrete wire mesh).  Those may seem rather heavy fruits to grow on a trellis, but I have a bunch of plastic mesh bags to support the fruits.  Vertical space IS free, after all.

And after all that, I weeded the remaining areas of the beds.  If I have been late to the Spring-plantings, I am ready for the Fall plantings in late July.  Most people ignore Fall, but it has some advantages.  Summer warmth promotes fast growth, and Fall temperatures actually improve the flavor and extend the harvesting time for some crops.  I can have a second crop of snow peas, and most root crops turn starch into sugars, much as fruits do.

As farmers do, I fear the worst, but hope for the best.  Some years are better than others.  ;)

Humor

Some people demand that humor be socially and politically "correct".  I don't.  I can laugh at the most outrageous things.  I can appreciate good wordplay and sarcasm and "between the genders" humor.  Humor doesn't work unless there is some truth to it.  But it doesn't mean I will post them to others who might not. 

So I try to stick to the odd or surprising or extremely convoluted.  There is a mostly daily column about local life in Washington DC in the Washington Post newspaper.  That is rather unusual, since the Washington Post is generally a national and international newspaper.  The author talks about local history, parks, animals, flowers etc.

So he raised the question of what people call "flip-flops" (those rubber-soled sandals).  I remembered them (and hated them) and seldom wore them.  But the different names interested me.  A lot of people called them "thongs".  That was awkward as I think of them as underwear unusual people wear and I can't imagine doing.  I mean why give yourself a "wedgie"?

Other names were "scuffles" because they come off if you don't.  Another was "clicks" for the sound they made.  Another said "toe-clenchers" because you had to do that to keep them on.  

I'm mentioning all this because of a joke at the end of the article when the author said he always knew them as "flip-flops".  They go flip, flop, flip, flop...

"A guy with 2 left feet walks into a shoe store and asks "Do you sell "flip-flips"?

I cracked up!

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BTW, for the funniest convoluted joke of all time, I like:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson decide to go on a camping trip. After dinner and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night in their tent, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes awakens and nudges his faithful friend.

"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson replied, "I see millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?"

Watson pondered for a minute.

"Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets."
"Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo."
"Horologically, I deduce from the position of the moon that the time is about 3 am."
"Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow."
"What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke: "Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent!"

Cavebear

Garden

 Well, I finally got something done in the garden today.  Between last year when it just stayed cold and dry and nothing thrived (I mean 2 TREES died) and this year when I fell off the extension ladder and couldn't get started until late in the season, it has been a bad 2 years.

I have seedlings of various veggies and flowers large enough to plant.  But the framed beds were weedy and the paths between were invaded by Horrible Vines.  It was a mess.  So the first thing I did was attack the vines.  They are a "gift" from a neighbor 15 years ago.  Some invasive type almost impossible to kill due to the depth of the roots.  

The neighbors killed their's because they could just keep mowing it.  Here it is mingled with flowers and the veggie garden.  It has a flower like this.

I SWEAR whatever a dumb neighbor does never causes them long-term problems but I suffer.  I have poison ivy and english ivy all around because of careless neighbors.  I don't hate my careless neighbors, but I sure "resent" them sometimes.

So, I have an electric string-trimmer.  I have a gas-powered one, but I'm afraid of the damn thging and I HATE the noise.  So I went after the vines in the paths with the electric.  You have to work at the vines from the top down, because otherwise they wrap around the shaft and stop it from turning.  I actually got pretty good at it.  

Which is sad I have to do that.  I bought an electric mower when I built the framed veggie beds.  Just enough room to move the mower between them.  Sadly, I didn't realize I could turn the corners.  I have to lift about 40 pounds to change direction.  I did that.  But it left vines on the sides.

So, the string trimmer.  It took 2 hours fighting to chop the vines (1/2 the time unwinding vines from the trimmer-head).  There are some corners I couldn't get at, but I will use the hedge-trimmer to take care of those.  

And the outside of the enclosure will take more work.  Vines grow up the sides of the enclosure and "shade is bad".  I'll have to use a pruner and cut them off at ground level and slowly to the ends.  Every photon matters to a veggie.

SO, after I whacked the vines I needed to prepare to plant tomatoes.  For several years, I used a red plastic groundcover.  It was supposed to reflect sunlight back up and cajuse insects to leave.  It was also solid plactic sheet, so I couldn't water through it.  I was watering individual tomatoes through the cut part around and that took a lot of time .

This year, I have 100 yards of permeable black plastic mesh 4' wide.   

 I can just water all the plants at once.  And it will suppress weeds.  So I rolled it out on one bed and anchored the ends with bricks, cut it to size for that bed (my beds vary) and dragged my tomato cages out of the weeds (Everything grows here).  There are maybe some disadvantages to being organic; every weed loves the yard too.

I set them on the landscaping fabric-covered beds for spacing.  But it was 6:30 and I needed dinner, so I put everything away for the day.  

Tomorrow, I cut slices in the fabric in the center of the spaced cages, remove the cages, and plant tomatoes (and bell peppers around them) and cukes and melons and squash.  If it is too late, well, I'll still try.  And there is still time for a Fall crop of minor veggies like spinach and radishes.  

I am PRETTY much recovered from the ladder fall.  I no longer have the even think about walking normally, getting into the car is like it used to be, and I only notice it in bed when a part of my shoulder sticks up.  But at least it isn't stopping me from gardening.

And, next to the cats, gardening is important to me.

Air Fryer

OK, so I read about airfryers and bought one months ago. 

I like kitchen gadgets.  And the idea of frying without oil appeals to me.  So I finally took it out of the box a couple days ago and read the manual.  Breaded chicken parts seemed a good bet.  I was surprised at the shape.  I was expecting something that looked more like a toaster oven (square box, ya know?).

I don't like chicken skin, so I pulled it off 2 drumsticks with an aluminum pliers.  Then spiced them and added Panko bread crumbs.  The istructiobns said to press crumbs onto the meat hard, so I did that.  Also said to prewarm the air fryer for 3 minutes.  And said to reduce time if not full of stuff.

So I set the temp at 390F and pout in 2 drumsticks for 20 minutes.

I don't advertise, so I'm not saying the model I bought was best or anything.  But the drumsticks turned out GREAT!  The concept works!

The drumsticks were cooked perfectly and the breading was crisp.

I'm going to try egg rolls, breaded shrimp, and french fries next.  

The buttons are simple.  Default temp is 390F and the timer is easy enough.  The food container is easy to pull out and shake the food around for even cooking.  The food drawer is dishwasher safe but I will probably to it by hand.  There is a warning about metal scouring pads.  

I did notice one thing though.  The vent out the back pushes out some heat.  So don't leave your box of Junior Mints right behind it, LOL!  It's fine on a regular kitchen counter but I think I will store my pizza stone behind it.

And here I thought my Fry Baby was the coolest way to cook breaded stuff.  This WAY better.

Telemarketers

I've never understood how telemarketers succeed.  I NEVER do ANY sort of business with a cold-caller on the phone or a door-knocker.  If I want something, I go find it myself, do some research about the best versions, and then go looking for the best price. 

And besides that, I seldom answer the phone.  It is sort of circular reasoning.  Why answer the phone when it is almost always (like 99%) telemarketers.  So my family knows to send an email, which means that the only people who call are telemarketers...  LOL!

And speaking of door-knockers, the only people who visit are salespeople or charities (and I give in an organized online way).  So most times I don't even answer the door (I open the computer room window and talk from there).  It's just easier to brush off salespeople that way.  

I do understand that telemarketing works on some people and that if 1 of 1,000 calls is successful, they make money.  I don't want to sound mean here, but they prey on those who are old, confused, gullible, or "pushable".  

Heck, *I* could talk to a telemarketer all day and it wouldn't do them any good.  And sometimes I have,  just to waste their time.  But it wastes my time too, so unless I'm really "in a mood" I don't bother.  Just as an example, I was expecting a call from a repairman and answered the phonefor once.  It was some guy saying my Windows  O/S had been corrupted and he needed to help me fix it for a "small fee".  

I knew right away it was a scam because I don't have a Windows computer online (I have an old standalone for a few Windows specific games I can play against an AI).  But I went along with it for fun.  I asked for proof and he gave me places to look for certain files.  I pretended to go along, but always reported finding some different files or menus.

He finally got quite frustrated and demanded to know if I was stupid.  I laughed and told him I knew for "an absolute fact" that he was a scammer.  When he asked to know what made me think that, I said I wouldn't tell him because that might help help him scam the next person he called.  Keep in mind I didn't have an online Windows computer...

Two things happened then.  First, his carefully-cultivated but fake American accent vanished.  Second, he said "May you drink poison and die" before he hung up.  For those of you who do not know, that pretty much means he was Asian-Indian (I regret the day Euopean Colonists called Native Americans "Indians" because that confuses things greatly) .  But it was 15 minutes of fun.

I only mention all this because things changed Thursday.  I use NoMoRoBo for my phone.  It is a free service that screens calls against a huge database of known scammers.  A scam call comes to my phone number and their servers are fast enough to check the database.  If the caller is a known scammer, I get one ring and the call is disconnected.  I still have delete the "missed call", but I don't exactly have to wonder who they are before routinely deleting them all.

Scammers use all sorts of tricks, a main one being to use a fake name and number (usually a local one and often one that is a real business.  I once called a number back to ask why they kept calling me.  Turned out they were a small oriental carpet cleaner business who didn't call people; I had to advise them their number had been spoofed (they were quite upset and apologetic, but I assured them they were not to blame).

So what usually happens with a scam call on NoMoRoBo (I encourage everyone to net search them and sign up) is that the phone rings once and the call is disconnected.  My voice mail kicks in after the 3rd ring.  So, if the phone rings 3 times, I expect a voice mail from a legitimate caller.

Yesterday, that stopped happening.  The phone kept ringing 3 times every 20 minutes or so while I was in bed.  I finally decided there must be some family emergency and got up.  I'd only been in bed for 5 hours but if someone had been arrested or hospitalized, I had to know.  

Five 3-ring calls and no voice mail.  OK, sometimes scammers get new numbers and it takes NoMoRoBo "some" time to learn of it.  So it was either that or something had failed about my voice mail.  I called someone and asked them to try to leave me a voice mail to test it.  It worked fine.

So it was scammers.  More thoughout the day.  I remembered the first 5 calls and started ticking off more as the barrage continued.  When it reached 20 calls, I waited near the phone and answered.  Yeah, I know.  The rule is "don't answer the phone and they will stop calling".

Wrong.  It doesn't cost them anything to call.  But it would to delete my phone number.

So I picked up and said "Who ARE you" (because it was that spoofed oriental carpet cleaner number and I recognized it).  That didn't work because it was a prerecorded message.  So I listened to the message waiting for which number to push to speak to an agent.  You press "1" and get a salesman.  If you press "2" to be removed from their calling list that goes to a database of "active human phone numbers" as opposed to fax machines or computers I suppose and it keeps you on their list.  

The sales pitch was for Medicare supplemental insurance.  I told the agent I didn't HAVE Medicare (I worked for the Govt and have a different kind of insurance) and that whatever company he worked had called me 20 times that day.

He said that certainly seemed unreasonable and that he understood I was not a possible customer and would handle it "from his end".  I thought he might, but naturally the calls kept coming...  It became a game while I was watching TV.  The phone would ring with the same spoofed number and I would pick up on the 2nd ring from that site.  And immediately press 1 to get an agent.

It became a sort of game.  I would quickly say "I don't have Medicare, so remove me from your list because you actually CAN'T sell me any service").  Usually the response was a disconnected dial tone.  Sometimes someone would say they would remove my number.

I told one guy I could string him along for 15 minutes and then hang up.  And he said "Drink poison and die", which confirmed he was from India...  I actually did it to the next one.  He said the same.  Apparently, that is a popular curse in India.  

Which I find rather interesting.  It isn't actually a direct threat.  More of a hope that someone who annoys you will eliminate THEMSELVES.  And, BTW, every agent  I spoke to regardless of differences in voice were named "Jay".  Must be a popular name there.  ;) and LOL!

Friday, I got only a couple calls in the morning.  Maybe they really did delete my number.  But more likely, NoMoRoBo caught up to their new numbers.

Peace reigns again...

That's not me.  But I've been in similar places and feeling similar peace.  But that is some future post...

Processing Pictures

I don't have the best camera.  I don't have the best program (I use Photos on Mac) to process the pictures I take.   I don't have skills to adjust picture colors in details of hues, selective colors, and some other adjustments.

I see pictures on some blogs that are so routinely perfectly-focussed, color-balanced and perfectly-lit that I just sigh in envy.  So it isn't like I'm fishing for compliments here.  I get by "well-enough", and that is about it...  LOL!

But I thought I might mention what I DO routinely do just in case it helps "someone" OR explains why some pictures look better than they originally did.  I mean, I have a routine I go with that "helps me".

1.  The 1st thing I do with a batch of raw pictures uploaded to Photos is go through and delete the hopeless ones.  Wow, who doesn't do that.  But I like to start at the beginning.

2.  I go through the pics and "straighten" them.  I seem to have a vision-tilt to one side.  Meaning I always seem to have to "straighten" in the same direction.

3.  Then I crop.  If you crop first and straighten later, inevitable some part of the picture is lost.  The is no cropping that requires using any 2 opposite corners.

4. After that, I switch to "adjust".  First, I go through "definition" of all pictures at about 90%.  THAT really helps!  If you haven't tried that, try it.  Cat furs show up better and it REALLY improves flower pictures.  And it is easy.  You keep the cursor on the "definition setting you like and then "click", forward arrow, "click" again.  It's repetitive but fast.  It's hard to have "too much" definition.

5.  After "definition", I go through again with light and color level.  My camera doesn't take pictures of The Mews well with flash.  "Low-light" setting works pretty well with normal ceiling lamps indoors.  It is more "even" light and that is more adjustable.

I generally have to raise the light level and then lower the color level.  Otherwise the light seems like a cloudy day and then after I raise the light level, Marley looks like an orange, the walls nearly glow, and the wood floor looks walnut.  So I lower the color level.  I know what color Marley's fur is, the walls are and the floor is, so I get it as accurate as I can.

You might think the light level and color cancel each other, but they don't.  Brightening an entire picture makes the room look brighter; color makes Marley and blankets look more accurate while keeping the picture bright.

6.  Then, I export the pictures to folders.  I have them by year subdivided into moths and then by days.  So, I have "Photographs".  That is divided into subfolders of Cats,Yard, House, Family, and Other.  Each  has a year, month and day.  So, a cat picture processed on May 23rd, 2021 may be in Cats/2021/2105/210523.  I use "year/month/day" because it keeps the pics chronologically and easily findable.  I don't give names to the pictures (OK, in special cases).

7.  But the exported pictures from Photo to the folders arrive at sizes like 1.5MB.  I cant save all that or post them (unless things have changed).  So I go to Preview.  It has easy re-sizing.  "Custom" allows several choices for all the pics from 320x320 to 1920x1920 pixels and there are inch size choices (but I don't deal with those very well).  I almost always use "custom" at 640x640 or 800x800.  For some reason, 640 works better for outside shots and 800 for inside ones

That keeps the resized pics above 100 and below 300 kb, which works well enough for the quality of the pics I use of the blogs.  And I don't yet trust the Cloud, so I keep my original full-sized pics on the hard drive.  I tried copying them to an external 4GB drive, but I couldn't get at them later.  Glad it was "copy" and not not "copy and delete".

8.  I do keep all the originals full-sized.  It is a lot easier to see them full-sized in Photo.  The reduced-size processed pics make me look through them one at a time.

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I hope this has helped someone, explained what I do with pics, or even made you think "wow, I'm smarter than TBT/Cavebear.  ;)

And if I'm doing some unnecessary work, PLEASE feel free to tell me.  

Pizza

I seldom order pizza to go.  Some aren't worth ordering and the better stuff has gotten oddly expensive.  I think that is because the pizza places decided they had a captive customer base during the Covid pandemic.  Some kept their prices and reduced the quality, and some places kept the quality and raised their prices.

I've also bought some frozen ones and some are "OK" but having a pizza stone, I'm helping them out considerably.  Plus I tend to add more toppings.

So I go through cycles where I make my own.  It's not really THAT hard.  You need some equipment though.  I have a pizza stone, a paddle, a bread machine, and a roller pin.  And you need toppings of course.  Well, gee, who DOESN'T have pepperoni and shredded Italian cheeses sitting in the fridge?  LOL!  And I do always have green peppers, mushrooms and a can of crushed tomatoes around (I make spaghetti about once a week).

But I'm not really talented at rolling out dough in a nice circle, and crimping the edges to raise them a bit never works well for me.  And you've seen that tossed the dough in the air to spread it out?  Fugetaboutit!

OK, so I decided to make a pizza Saturday.  It came out of the bread machine "dough cycle" so wet and sticky it was more like I had dough gloves on than a ball of manageable dough.  As a former friend used to say about anything that went wrong "ITS NOT MY FAULT".  But, of course it was.  The dough didn't mix itself...

After slowly scraping the dough off my hands and getting most of it onto the sticky-ball (there is a lot of "ME" in this pizza), and washing my hands free of the rest, I started adding flour and folding several times.  I let it sit in the fridge overnight for gluten-development and rising.  Be aware that doing that also makes the dough a bit sticky again, so when I turned it out onto my silicon mat, I had to add more flour.

But it was OK for rolling out then, but I had a couple of rips in it that didn't want to hold together when pinched and it wasn't uniformly flat.

So I had an idea (and this is actually the point of the post, I suppose).  I have various pans.  A couple of nonstick, a couple stainless steel, and a surprising number of cast iron pans.  The cast iron pans are well seasoned over the years and nearly non-stick.  Most are standard-shaped skillets ranging from 4-12", one is a 10" wok, and one is a 10" griddle with 3/8" raised sides. 

That was when I had a Grand Idea!  First, the griddle was perfect for flattening the pizza dough uniformly while it re-rose from the warmth of the house.  I set it on the rolled-out dough and let it sit for 30 minutes.  Voila', when I lifted it the rips were healed and it was flat.

And the 2nd part was also good.  The barely raised edge of the griddle would also provide a sufficiently-raised edge to the pizza crust!  But I wasn't sure about constructing the pizza on a heated pan.  

Normally, I construct the pizza on the paddle with corn meal sprinkled on the paddle for sliding it onto the pre-heated 500F pizza stone.  But the griddle had to be 500 and set on the cooktop for constructing the pizza this time.  (I set it in the oven at the start)   I was worried I would touch the hot griddle.

But the whole idea was an experiment, so I tried it.  Granted, experiments CAN be painful or fatal (this one was not; I was VERY careful.

I had all the ingredients lined up in bowls on the counter.  Then when the oven said 500 I waited 15 minutes (air heats faster than cast iron).  Took the 500 griddle out of the oven wearing both an oven mitt and folded washcloths (wet) and set it on the cooktop.

Lifted the crust from the silicon mat easily and set it on the griddle (perfectly centered and with the edges "just" to the top of the griddle lip), quickly brushed some olive oil on the crust, spooned some of my reduced tomato sauce on, spread around self-sliced pepperoni evenly, sprinkled onion/pepper/mushrooms, added more tomato sauce (I like that), and sprinkled shredded Italian cheese mix all over it.

And got it back into the oven ASAP.  About 2 minutes I think.  The usual time I need to cook a pizza on the pizza stone is 15 minutes and a crisp but chewy crust.  It took 20 minutes this way.  

But it was WAY worth it.  OK, many people like their pizzas some different ways.  Some like "thin&crispy", some like "chewy".  Some like a crust with a topping or two, some like a lot.  

I tried to make what *I* like.  And it worked out GREAT!

So, finally a picture...

A simple salad goes well with pizza, as does a standard Zinfandel wine.  I cut the pizza into 6 parts; ate 3.  The others are in the freezer to be re-heated in a hot covered pan in a few days.