Looking toward autumn

First let me say that the 6+ year old G4 400 MHz desktop computer is still running. I took care to set the energy saving panel in System Preferences to NOT spin down the hard drive, instead just put the display to sleep. The computer had been on for a while but the drive had spun down when I noticed the problem on Sunday. I am writing using the new iBook with Firewire hard drives connected.

mushroom

There are quite a number of fungus specimens in the yard now, including one I have never seen before. I discovered it on Monday when I was weeding around a cut off Forsythia bush by the flower bed. At first I thought it might be a plastic worm.

mystery fungus

It is still cool, foggy, and damp this morning but we had a lovely afternoon yesterday, blue skies with piles of snowy cumulus clouds. It was warm in the sun. I used the opportunity to do some wash and hang it out to dry and to vacuum the car. Still seem to be dealing with effects of whatever virus I had. My back has been sore since last week and coughing or sneezing wrenches it. Bending over works OK but I need to be careful getting back up.

The tomatoes have slowed down a bit with the cooler weather, but I had enough with some Romas my mom didn’t want to make some sauce to freeze on Tuesday. Time to plan for autumn and winter, don’t want to let summer go quite yet though. I got a mum plant on impulse when shopping last Friday. It is bright yellow and very cheery sitting on the front deck. I plan to plant it in the flower bed later on. Also deciding where to plant the white daffodil bulbs from my mom. There are plenty of spaces between the anemone plants. By the way, they are still blooming! The hot weather was hard on them, hope despite their late start that they get established.

I have decided never, ever to plant feral tomatoes in the flower bed. They outgrew the tomato cages, then I used an old pair of panty hose to tie them up. Now they have reached the window! Besides crowding out other plants, they have very little fruit for the amount of foilage and are hard to pick.

Last week I pulled the lettuce that had gone to seed but the ground was still too wet to work. I sprinkled some of the organic lettuce mix seed on the earth and sprinkled some potting soil on it. I used a polystyrene board that came from a packing box to cover them. I removed it two days ago, the seed had already started to sprout. It is taking a chance on frost, but I only planted a small patch so should be able to cover it.

I was thinking of frost last night when the sky was clear with a huge full moon. When it has been in the low 50s or high 40s at night when there is cloud cover, could easily slip below freezing on clear nights when we have radiative heat loss. It is worse down here in the valley where the cool air accumulates. Tom and Della told me that up on the hill they look down many days and see thick frost but their grapes are OK.

Ling Ling is getting to be quite friendly at night now that it is cooler too. Several mornings he sat on my lap and pawed my sweater, wanted to crawl inside and cuddle up.

About Kathy

Perl, MySQL, CGI scripting, web design, graphics following careers as an analytical chemist and educator, then in IT as a database administrator (DBA), programmer, and server administrator. Diagnosed with Mitochondrial Myopathy in 1997.
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