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deluxestogie Grow Log 2017

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OldDinosaurWesH

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Okay, if you use you imagination, it does look a little like a Greek statue cut off at about mid thigh.

Will the goddess strike you down if you show up with a chainsaw? Hey, I'm from the northwest, we like our chainsaws. We measure trees in board feet.

Wes H.
 

deluxestogie

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Cattypan O' Lantern's Final Days

Garden20171028_3197_cattypanOLantern_finalDays_600.jpg


I carried my chrysanthemums and Folger's tobacco indoors on recent frosty nights, returning them to the steps the following morning. But Cattypan O' Lantern has a mission that can be fulfilled only by remaining on duty 24 hours a day. Unlike his larger cousins, Cattypan O' Lantern doesn't handle frost as blithely. It's been hard on him, and it shows. Like his master, he's getting a little soft in the head.

Cattypan O' Lantern has stood guard for a month now. Only three more days to go. And it looks like he'll make it--barely, before transitioning into a puddle of Ghost Busters goo. He warrants our admiration.


This morning, near 5:30 am, I lay in bed, partially awake, my fuzzy mind listing through a differential diagnosis of my current, sharp, right flank pain: cancer, tuberculosis, kidney stone, obstruction....

I sat up. In the darkness, my head cleared. I recalled that yesterday I had removed a 12' broken maple branch suspended high in a tree crotch 10' above my head, by repeatedly swinging another hefty 12' fallen branch like a baseball bat over my head. (I bat right handed.) After about twenty whacks, I had managed to dislodge the stuck branch, allowing it to fall to the ground. I then carried those and other windfall branches to the brush pile at the rear of the property. Job done.

Old people do stuff like that, without thinking of tomorrow. Carry cinder blocks, shovel snow, hand-dig garden beds. But old muscles and joints seem to take hours to consider their options, then collectively protest--loudly.

So I gingerly stretch and rotate my angry torso. Too bad. The day goes on. This evening, I'll consider zapping it for 60 minutes with my TENS unit (a birthday gift from my son, two years ago). Pain is Nature's way of telling you either to slow down, or that you're still alive. I'll go with the second choice.

Bob
 
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OldDinosaurWesH

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Bob:

I moved my Amaryllis plants inside a week or so ago. Being tropical plants, they don't like the cold. I have one that I have regenerated every year since I acquired it in 2002. I want to keep on regenerating it 'till it refuses. I have no idea how long an Amaryllis will live. 15 + years seem to me a long time for a flower bulb.

The weather man is predicting overnight freezing temps starting on Wednesday night. Overnight temps in the lower 20's by next weekend. So today and tomorrow I am on a mission to cut down my seed heads and get them hung up. And to dig up the rest of my stumps and stuff the garbage can as full as it will go.

I have had a good run this year, and am sad to see it come to a close. But mother nature has her way, and she doesn't take no for an answer.

Good luck with the aches and pains. Lately, I've been having my share of them too. A lot of back pain and hip pain. If I didn't spend so much darn time in my garden all bent over tending to my tobacco plants, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. But I like growing my tobacco. Tobacco growing is a good challenge. "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it."

Wes H.
 

deluxestogie

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Tobacco use shortens one's life. The substantial exertion of growing tobacco lengthens one's life. I suspect that tobacco growers who use their tobacco may break even, while coming out ahead on contentment.

Bob
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Bob:

You make me laugh! I guess our sense of humor intersects somewhere out there in left field.

Do you get lots of kids?

Wes H.
 

deluxestogie

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I usually get nobody on Halloween. The road averages one house per "city block", and there's no sidewalk. Inefficient for sugar addicts.

So I just buy things that I'm willing to eat myself, since eating it myself is the most frequent outcome. But maybe once every 3 or 4 years, some lost soul shows up. That's why I buy anything at all. Notice my paltry Jack O' Lantern effort (CattyPan O' Lantern)!.

Bob
 
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OldDinosaurWesH

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I live in a residential area, but we have very few kids in my neighborhood. Most years the count is zero. Some years I'll get one or two groups. I take it CattyPan 'O Lantern is headed for the great compost pile in the sky about tomorrow.

Wes H.
 

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Tobacco use shortens one's life. The substantial exertion of growing tobacco lengthens one's life. I suspect that tobacco growers who use their tobacco may break even, while coming out ahead on contentment.

Bob

Despite my settings, I only get notifications about new posts once a month. Of course, by then, the conversation has moved on, so that things I wish to respond to are no longer relevant. Too bad on this one, as when I read the above, it reminded me of my favorite cartoon, here:

cleanliving cartoon.jpg
 

deluxestogie

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I logged onto Fandango, and purchased my ticket for Star Wars: Thursday, 14 Dec 2017 10:00 pm. That's the night before "opening night".

Bob
 

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Garden20171205_3291_DecemberDawn2_600.jpg


Today was predicted to be a rainy one, after a long stretch of dry weather. I awoke before dawn (old people do that sort of thing for no reason at all), and glimpsed out the kitchen window, while my Colombian coffee was slowly dripping through its paper cone.

I went out with the camera and took these shots. My Canon Powershot is just not engineered for pre-dawn lighting and its super-high contrasts. (It's optimized for fake smiles.)

Garden20171205_3290_DecemberDawn_600.jpg


A third of an inch of gentle rain eventually passed through during the afternoon. Not enough to form even a single puddle.

I've already threaded my Christmas lights into the front porch corner column: a short string of battery-powered, white LEDs. No wreaths or dead trees. A pair of D-cell alkaline batteries will be my entire holiday energy expenditure.

Bob
 
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