One Year Anniversary and H20 Downstairs

It's the 23rd of May, so this anniversary post is a little belated!

We got the house May 18th, 2012, but I still thought it'd be nice to put up a shot from a year ago, so here it is . . .

(Annie. May 18th 2012)

For some reason, I don't have one of the two of us on the first day of owning the house. I think my mom does though. 

Of course, we didn't move in the first day we got the keys. Annie's dad did a lot painting and Annie and her mom did a lot of cleaning and I did some stuff like get food from Arby's and go to Menards. In fact, Leo was the first to spend the night in the new house. We set up a card table in the middle of the dinning room so no one would hit their head on the chandelier, and that was where Leo slept. I stopped after I got off work a few times to check on him and when I'd look in the window he would be on the card table staring back at me. A few days later we all moved in and the family was yet again together. 

So there's a random memory from a year ago. 

One thing we didn't have a year ago at this time (I think), ALL THIS RAIN! 

(Annie used a broom to sweep the water into the drain, and then we put the fan on the floor and all the water evaporated)

It really wasn't that bad, especially since this is the first time we've gotten water in the basement. Well, that's not quite true—we had water in the basement from our tub leaking, but that's not what I'm talking about. 

For a little bit, Annie was worried that the sump pump wasn't working. I could hear water draining into the hole where the pump is, but we couldn't hear the pump. But after the rain was done and  we went out to look at the way the evening sunlight was hitting the water drops on all the plants, we saw water gushing out of the sump pump's outlet pipe. 

(You can see the puddle of water. It came out of the pipe.)

Like I said, we got a lot of rain. Our rain gauge was around 4-5 inches, but I haven't emptied that out all spring, so I have no idea what we actually got. I do know that our potted plants got too much, as you can see . . .

(The middle one's basil. I think.)

To end the post, I'll put up some pictures from the short walk we took after the sun came out, as well as a few random ones . . . Enjoy! 

(Leo helping get rid of the water with his furry paws)

(The onions are winning as far as sprout height in the garden)

(Here are the hops and Annie. Most of the seeds haven't come up yet, but the snap peas and beans and onions have)

(Leo watching us dump water out of the container plants)

(All that rain makes for a jungle! I've since mowed.)

(Leo's creepy)

(A close up of some wet apple blossoms.)

(Some purple tulips near Highland Parkway.)

(One purple tulip near Highland Parkway.)

(I just thought this looked really green.)

(This one makes a good desktop background.)

-Daniel

The Garden and Some Other Stuff

It's May 15th and it feels pretty nice out. We broke the record high yesterday, something like 97 degrees. I know most people who see this are already aware of that, but this way, when I look back on this post a year from now, I can say, "Wow, it was 97 on May 14th?" And I should also note a week ago I was in Wisconsin for the fishing opener in Hayward, and this is what that looked like:

(May 5th!)

We got the garden up and running finally, and it was a bit of work. I still had a sizable pile of crap (leaves, sticks, other various detritus) from last fall. I was hoping it would naturally compost itself leaving beautiful black soil, but it didn't. It just became a heavy, wet pile of crap. 

(The garden after I moved the crap pile)

(Said crap pile, ready to be removed)

After clearing the space, I finished fencing in the garden, hoping to keep the critters at bay. (Of course, as I'm writing this, there's a squirrel in the garden, doing whatever the heck he wants. I wish I had a BB gun, do you think it'd be kosher to pop open the screen and shoot animals from inside the house?)

I got some dirt and manure and fertilizer and made some raised plots to plant some seeds. Now that I look at them, though, they look much more like graves. 

(Garden ready to be sowed)

  Our mini transplants weren't looking too healthy after the long winter, so we are mainly planting from seed. We also got some serrano peppers and roma tomatoes as transplants. 

(It's a prison for plants)

Despite all this work, I could see the garden not really working out. But one thing I know I can count on . . . the hops!

(Hops don't care about crappy weather or soil. They're like the Yang Yang's of the plant world (Referring, of course, to star badminton player Yang Yang).)

(Room to grow)

Last year was the first year for the hops (I guess that's obvious, being it was our first year in the house), and they still grew to the top of the shepherd's hook I was using. This year I got a ten foot pole of conduit and used an S-hook to tie the twine to (don't worry, it looks really close to the power lines in this photo, but that's just an optical illusion—I still have a good five or six fee). I zip-tied the pole to the fence, so that's kinda trashy. But it's been working well so far.

Finally, here are a few night shots I took yesterday. 

(View out the back door—notice the slight streak in the stars due to the Earth spinning)

(The front of the house. It was windy, if you're wondering why the tree looks weird.)

That's all for now, peace out, 

-me

First Day of Yard Work

It's finally spring at the house, and even Leo's excited. We moved his cat tree back into the porch and there he spends most of his time, watching birds and squirrels, thinking about the meaning of life and how he might get more food. The nights are still a little too chilly for him though, so he usually stays out there until the early hours of the morning then comes into bed with us to warm up. 

Here are three photos of Leo enjoying the porch. One was taken at night with a thirty second exposure, during which he held ridiculously still (his lips were sticking out over the cat tree and they caught the light of the night light, if you're wondering why his lips are green).

(The creepy thing was it was too dark for me to see him, so it wasn't until I looked at the picture that I realized Leo was staring at me.)

(This one's a little blurry because Leo tried to punch me, and I had to jump back)

(I edited this one, if you're wondering why it's crisper)

Enough about Leo and back to the title of the blog post. It was the first day of yard work today (I don't count shoveling as yard work) and I worked on turning the garden into a plot of land capable of sustaining life. I put up a fence around most of it to keep squirrels and rabbits away, and will finish the back half once we take the giant pile of crap in this next picture to a rubbish site. 

(We're settlers!)

Of course, the moment I finished the fence, a robin landed in the middle of the garden just to piss me off. And so begins my war with nature. 

It was a really nice day today, and as time went on, it felt like more and more flowers were popping out of the earth. Here's a shot of the little purple flowers. 

(Don't know what these are called, but once the flowers go away we pluck them.)

The nicest thing about spring so far has been the reopening of our patio. Nicki came over and we celebrated the occasion with burgers on the grill along with grilled asparagus and grilled pineapple (that was first covered in brown sugar). Then I burned a bunch of crap. What a glorious day!

(Patio's open for business—just like Wisconsin.)

This post is getting kinda long, but I do want to add a photo of the hops. They've started doing their thang.

(Just twelve more feet to grow.)

That's all for now. Hopefully it doesn't snow now that I've put up a spring post. 

-Daniel

The End of Winter?

It's supposed to be in the 60's and 70's this weekend, and it's almost May, but I'm not going to jinx us all by saying we've seen the last of accumulating snowfall. I'm just going to throw up a few photos from the last couple weeks. 

Here are two from April 18th, after 8" of snow:

(Notice the roof-rake marks on the left side of the house. It was that bad.)

(The sun came out, and it was really bright. I sneezed—a lot.)

Here are two pics from April 22, after another 5-7":

(View out the porch door. Notice the snow.)

(April 22nd, while it's still snowing.)

In that last photo you might notice a sculpture I made. It was about five feet high. I danced around it at 2:30 in the morning singing Christmas carols and waving a shovel. I'm hoping that will appease the snow gods, and that they will move to other pastures until next fall. 

Here's a closer shot, if you want to take notes on the design:

(Snow sculpture title: Yeti's Lower-Left Canine) 

Finally, and completely unrelated to the snow, Annie and I made a midnight trip to Cub the other day in order to find a bag of the highly elusive new Lays potato chips, Chicken and Waffle. 

(Taking a sniff before diving in.)

They were maple-syrupy sweet with a savory finish. And there is a strange phenomenon, I discovered, when eating them; you need to eat more than a few to really get a good, round flavor of the chips—but if you eat more than that they start to get cloyingly disgusting. 

So keep that in mind. 

-Daniel

Mini Greenhouse Progress . . . Loaf of Bread . . . and Keyless Entry.

Hello World!

(The tall sprouts in back are Kohlrabi)

That's what these seeds are thinking. After only a few short days most of the seeds we planted burst forth from the miry earth to breath in the fresh air. The problem is, the Kohlrabi had to go and get all excited, and now they hit the top of the greenhouse whilst everyone else still needs the cover. I tried taking the Kohlrabi tray out, but they wilted pretty quickly, so I put them back inside. They aren't really a transplant plant, so this was more of an experiment. We'll probably sow some of these seeds the old fashioned way—as in straight into the ground. But the bell peppers, basil, chives, swiss chard and tomatoes seem to be doing well, and with the snow gone from the backyard, I'm sure they will transition to the garden with few problems. Still waiting on the jalapeños though . . .

Moving on, the other day Annie's friend came over and I made a loaf of bread. I got the recipe from Chef John, and have used it many times before. It's a beer based bread, and the flavor changes quite a bit with the different style of beer you use. This time I used a belgian strong ale—it turned out well. I've used an IPA and stout before and each tasted great. I wouldn't suggest a light beer though.

(Beer Bread)

This photo doesn't have much to do with the house per say, but I don't feel like starting a food blog, so there you have it. 

However, concerning the home, we added a keyless entry lock to the backdoor, which is uber convenient. Here's a pic.

(New lock on backdoor)

I'll admit this now, since the lock is changed, but our old lock was broken and there were several mornings where I'd leave to go to work and discover the door had been left unlocked all night. Now we just press that button on top and the door locks itself. Like I said, uber convenient. Plus, it illuminates, which is nice since it's hard to see at night. 

(Me installing the new lock. Multiple pitfalls led to a three hour procedure)

So the photo above is not my greatest picture, but it took me three hours to install the lock so don't expect a jolly smile. I'm not Santa.  The problem with the installation was the old lock was pretty basic, and whoever installed it only drilled holes for what they needed rather than drill holes like you normally would for installing a lock. And I don't have those tools, so I had to improvise with a jig saw, file, and spade bit. I'm actually quite surprised it worked, there was a while when I thought we were going to have no lock on the door, and then we'd have to resort to the honor system.

Finally, and unrelated to the title, I thought I'd throw in two pics I took while playing around with my camera. They aren't good or interesting pictures, but the method behind taking them is. Somewhat. I've been trying to use the Bulb function on the new camera (which means the shutter stays open as long as you hold the shutter down—great for nigh sky photos) but I don't have a camera remote. So I would have to stand there and try to hold the button without shaking the camera. And if you want those pictures of the stars swirling in the sky you have to hold the button for several hours. 

So I used a rubber band and a squished jelly bean to hold the button down. It was just an experiment, but here is a picture of our living room at night after a seven and a half minute exposure (with ISO 100).

(Like I said, not interesting)

The only light is from the streetlight a quarter of a block away and the brand name on the TV. Here's another one where I had the light on for just a second, then sat infront of the window for two minutes. 

( A little more interesting, but not by much)

Anywho, when it warms up more outside and I can travel aways away from the city, I plan on trying this technique on the sky to see if I can get some cool night sky pictures.

-Daniel