Picture Thread 2015

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Someone on another board commented on him trying to pick up a 7-10 split.

I turned out th blanket box today - and among the junk my olds had hoarded were a 'few bags' of old clothing from my childhood - I am washing it and giving it to charity - so that is one piccie - the second is of my beerful weekend, looking ahead....

Vegatable gardens, Some blackberry bushes, dire wolf, one of my grape vines.

Nice pics, but it begs the question - you try to grow blackberries? Goodness I can't cut those pesky things down fast enough! They grow like weeds once they get established. But then again there is no middle ground. They either grow and take over or the conditions aren't right where they can't grow at all. But those veggies are nice. I have an area for a vegetable garden but the drainage isn't right. I will have to use "raised beds" no doubt about it, like you have done. I've got the sun, I've got the water, but I don't have proper drainage and distant from all the bugs. Your bed on the left looks like it's been there a while (wood is more weathered) the one on the right looks newer. All I am growing this year is sunflowers and wildflowers. The wildflowers are to benefit the wildlife.

I took pictures, but I don't know how to get them from 3 megabites down to a smaller size that I can post. Newsflash, I'm not very tech savvy. Thus I have nice pictures but I can't shrink them.

I encourage the blackberries to grow along the outside of the fence and I nuke any that try to spread. I built the raised bed on the left (5'x12') two years ago. The one on the right (5'x8') this year for cold weather stuff like lettuce and onions. Next year I'm going to build a third 5'x16' bed to the left 5'x12'. they'll get incrimentally longer because that fence at the back is at an angle

Speaking of gardens - here's us in our backyard garden circa 1958. The Kodachrome hasn't held up well. I'm the little one.

Here's a better pic of the new "cold weather" bed. I've been eating a lot of salads.

Okay, explain the "cold weather" bed. These are vegetables that grew during the winter and are now ready to be harvested?
I can't wrap my mind around that. If it gets below 32 degrees at night in November/December/January/February/March/April then wouldn't winter growing vegetables die off during these months? My zip code in Georgia has the last frost date averaging 15 April. Would you have to cover up all your vegetables on frosty nights?

Lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, onions, etc. do better when it's between the last hard frost and the heat of the summer. Light frost won't bother them, but during the summer the lettuce will bolt. Once that happens it's inedible.

I see! So light frost (maybe an hour or two below freezing temps) isn't a deal breaker. But the "heat of the summer" might be problematic. If it's 89 degrees in April for one week but cools back down to 80 in May will that cause the lettuce to bolt?

Not in April. This is the first time I've tried lettuce, so I'm not for sure yet, but I'm not expecting it to bolt until Juneish at the earliest..

I see! So perhaps I couldn't grow lettuce in Georgia, where in gets in the high 80's in the spring every year. Maybe they have varieties that won't bolt so soon.

It runs away? Can't you get the dog to chase it down?

Went to Canada last week. Saw some cranes.

I didn't notice the muscadines the first time. If I'm out in the woods in late summer I can't pass up eating some!

Here ya go. I know you've waiting for it, so here is 135 pictures of my immediate family* (Me, Anne and Isaac + Brother and Fiance living in basement + Mom and Dad) when my parents were in town visiting 2 weeks ago; had a friend meet us a Seward Park for a couple hours:
http://deniseshaffer.com/majohnson

Hmmm..... Important question. Now that I'm married and my wife has a child that she claims is mine, are my brother and parents still immediate family?

Mommy's Day Weeekend.

We're on a plane!


Mom!


Me and Mom and my big sister and my honey.


Meeting mom's neeiighbor.


My sister and her granddaughter.


The neeiighbors cast a long shadow!


My nephew and his new missus.


Toolin' around town with Ma.


Lunch at Mom's.


Greenville Spartanburg: Using the selfie cam as a rear view mirror to see if Mary's back from the snack bar.

View from the Staten Island Ferry of downtown NYC

I was disappointed when we flew in to Newark the other day. I was on the wrong side of the plane to see Manhattan as we landed. I could actually see the damn building I work in in Clifton, though. :/

I love train graffiti the best! If you are stuck waiting for the train to go by, you might as well have cool shit to look at. It's like mobile art! Those freight train cars go all over the country for people to see your work.

Its the middle of May and I'm already harvesting.

Makes me think immediately of:

Spent the weekend at the in-law family farms in Middle-Tennessee. We've got land there, and we hope to move there eventually.

"Oh, were you using this laptop?"

happiness is a warm keyboard to roost on.

On which to roost.