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ltmurnauOn Saturday I did some testing of my new urban counterinsurgency game (government fell and fell hard because they let the gringos in to do the fighting for them, though the insurgents did not have a lot of popular support).
Later we went shopping, and I got an air rifle for Aki - he wants to shoot a "real gun" this summer while he is here, so I thought to get him an air rifle to teach him how to shoot (body alignment, breathing and trigger control, etc.) first. The one I got, an Airmaster 77, looks good and got good reviews, but firing it requires it to be pumped several times for more power - I probably should have got the "break-barrel" type that cocks a piston and makes it ready in one motion.
Speaking of which, I spent a hot and busy Sunday working over the garden. Filling in those trenches (http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/108002.html) was a lot harder than digging them in the first place, but that's the general rule with defensive earthworks. I finished the clearing out of sod (the neighbour suggested I lay down tar paper to keep the grass out of the garden), dressed the soil with lime, bone meal, steer manure and "pink" fertilizer, laid down some new dirt (in beds edged with old boards) and sowed seeds. This year I'm planting (from left to right, not that it matters to you):
- potatoes, grown in tires
- broccoli
- two rows of snow peas
- carrots
- cucumbers
- spinach (a bushy type that is supposed to resist bolting)
- two rows of corn
- five "hills" of zucchinis
- two "hills" of watermelons
- sunflowers on the ends of the rows, for birds and fun
My deer protection plan this year is to get a roll of "deer fence" from Home Depot - it is a black plastic 1" square mesh and stake it out with rebar at the corners so they can't jump it (yeah, I know, famous last words), and leave some kind of gate in the edge so I can get in and water/ weed it. And I have an air rifle now, too.
It is so great to have a garden, and be able to grow even a little of my own food. I'm lucky. (You'll be lucky too, in August when I have 35 pounds more zucchini than I can possibly eat!)
That took most of the day, I was really tired. I went in, made burgers for us and we watched the new Romero, Diary of the Dead. It was interesting, quite grisly special effects but it is mostly a meditation on media/ new media, spin, the observer and the observed, truth in life vs. truth through the lens, got a little self-referential too (there was one point where the audio track in the background was the TV broadcast from the original Night of the Living Dead talking about "Civil Defense Authorities", something that does not exist today).
Later we went shopping, and I got an air rifle for Aki - he wants to shoot a "real gun" this summer while he is here, so I thought to get him an air rifle to teach him how to shoot (body alignment, breathing and trigger control, etc.) first. The one I got, an Airmaster 77, looks good and got good reviews, but firing it requires it to be pumped several times for more power - I probably should have got the "break-barrel" type that cocks a piston and makes it ready in one motion.
Speaking of which, I spent a hot and busy Sunday working over the garden. Filling in those trenches (http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/108002.html) was a lot harder than digging them in the first place, but that's the general rule with defensive earthworks. I finished the clearing out of sod (the neighbour suggested I lay down tar paper to keep the grass out of the garden), dressed the soil with lime, bone meal, steer manure and "pink" fertilizer, laid down some new dirt (in beds edged with old boards) and sowed seeds. This year I'm planting (from left to right, not that it matters to you):
- potatoes, grown in tires
- broccoli
- two rows of snow peas
- carrots
- cucumbers
- spinach (a bushy type that is supposed to resist bolting)
- two rows of corn
- five "hills" of zucchinis
- two "hills" of watermelons
- sunflowers on the ends of the rows, for birds and fun
My deer protection plan this year is to get a roll of "deer fence" from Home Depot - it is a black plastic 1" square mesh and stake it out with rebar at the corners so they can't jump it (yeah, I know, famous last words), and leave some kind of gate in the edge so I can get in and water/ weed it. And I have an air rifle now, too.
It is so great to have a garden, and be able to grow even a little of my own food. I'm lucky. (You'll be lucky too, in August when I have 35 pounds more zucchini than I can possibly eat!)
That took most of the day, I was really tired. I went in, made burgers for us and we watched the new Romero, Diary of the Dead. It was interesting, quite grisly special effects but it is mostly a meditation on media/ new media, spin, the observer and the observed, truth in life vs. truth through the lens, got a little self-referential too (there was one point where the audio track in the background was the TV broadcast from the original Night of the Living Dead talking about "Civil Defense Authorities", something that does not exist today).
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Date: 2008-05-26 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 08:15 pm (UTC)At the end, it says, "If you had prepared all the recipes in this book, you would have eaten 93 pounds of zucchini".
I don't like it that much, but it is easy to grow.
That's my favorite episode of The Young Ones
Date: 2008-05-27 02:16 pm (UTC)Zucchini is the one veggie that I can always rely on showing up in the staff lounge in a basket marked "Free - take as many as you like!". If only my well-meaning colleagues harvested them before they grew to be as thick as my arm, but I think in season they can go from flower to monster overnight.
Re: That's my favorite episode of The Young Ones
Date: 2008-05-27 03:53 pm (UTC)Yes, I am guilty of giving away zucchini, sure. If you water them enough they will become enormous, but they do get tasteless when they get to forearm thickness. I try to get them when they're smaller.