I saw this recently as I was doing yardwork. It appears to be a robin egg:
It’s a pretty little egg, so I took a photo. Poor baby bird. I like how this solitary ant is enjoying the feast though, like “Screw the colony, this is mine!”
–Simon
Something for Nothing
Remember that moldering potato I stuck in the pot under the grow light 3 months ago because it was winter and I wanted something green inside? Well, it died.
I had never seriously grown a potato before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Liz informed me, however, that the plant dying simply meant it was time to harvest it. Either way, I needed to remove it before it started rotting in my basement, so I dumped the pot outside. Peeking through the root clump, I saw some happy little tubers, so I gently ripped apart the roots and behold:
I had forgotten it was the red potato I planted. While not exactly an epic crop, it’s still a fun little net gain from an otherwise inedible piece of produce.
–Simon
Herbaceous
Over the weekend, we managed to finish the herb garden. I say “managed” because as I’ve mentioned before, the sod in this place is brutal. The grass is old and the roots well-established, and the soil contains just enough clay that separating the two is a feat worthy of a strongman competition. And the vegetable gardens will be bigger. I asked the neighbor to borrow his tiller but it’s currently on loan to his son. Maybe I’ll acquire an ox instead.
Anyway, after two days of hacking and cursing, the sod was removed. The soil, now exposed, was begging for vegetation, to which I obliged before it started enlisting local volunteers.
But first, we discussed raising the bed. Despite our valiant efforts of minimizing soil loss, a large quantity still accompanied the sod in its journey to the pile of discarded grass on the side of the house. That, and the benefits of drainage from a raised bed are obvious. Visions of logs sticking out the back of the inadequate Honda dampened my spirits, but then I remembered the leftover 2x4s from the fencing installation. With a little help from the reciprocating saw and sledgehammer, I secured a border with wooden stakes.
A lot of fancy dirt later, and raised bed we had. Lowe’s also had a sale on herbs, which was awfully considerate of them to time that with the weekend of our herb garden project. And, complementing what I had started under the grow lights, we now have a proper garden of fragrance and seasoning–a symbolic requirement to having an established homestead.
Can’t wait for the pesto to start flooding in.
–Simon
My Outlook: Office Doesn’t Excel
Do you know what they improved between MS Office 2013 and 2016? NOT A DAMN THING!
Okay, to be fair, there were some totally awesome improvements, like…window stacking? And new Excel graphs. And there’s this map function apparently. And better database integration support. This would totally be worth buying a new license.
Of course, that’s not their MO anymore. I realize it’s clichéd to blame Millennials for things as I’m apt to do, but it’s totally their fault. They expect software to have no upfront cost, and to be completely cloud-based. So now, Microsoft pushes subscription services instead. Yay, just like DRM! You never actually own anything anymore.
On the business side, we have the same thing: perpetual contracts, even when the new software adds no value. So what did Office 2016 change? Well, they moved all the functions around so I had to find them again. And now, repeated keystrokes cause some type of application layer panic and everything crashes.
Rant complete. But I’m not one to complain without suggesting a solution. I offer you an alternative: LibreOffice. It’s an open-source fork. So while you may be forever forced to use Microsoft products at work, you can still make a choice in your personal computing needs.
Now I’m going to get back to work and see if Excel launches.
–Simon
A River Runs Through It
Well, a drainage ditch anyway. If you’ve talked to me about the house at all, then you’ve most definitely heard about the drainage issues, or rather, the complete lack of basic drainage. See the Get Off My Lawn! series. The former owner, in her battle against a flooding basement, paid to have it trenched and a sump installed. After purchasing the house, I’ve since extended downspout drainage, and the sump has remained dry ever since.
Until recently. We had a very dry summer last year, and it didn’t give me a good baseline with which to predict future water problems. This spring has seen a lot of water, and now the sump is running. This in itself of course isn’t a problem–the water is being handled dutifully by the pump. Outside, however…
Someone had retrofitted a vacuum hose to the outlet. Again, effective, but incredibly ugly. And then the kid played with it and cracked it, rendering it useless anyway. Now, with water pooling against the foundation, my hand was forced. It was time to finally address this eyesore.
This is the ENE side of the house, under a pine tree. These factors limit my planting options, but it does make a good candidate for a shade garden. First though, I needed to trench. Re-purposing a concrete downspout extender, I could immediately channel the water about 4 feet.
But, this was still rather industrial and ugly, and tended to back up (the sump pump probably spits out about 3 gallons whenever it clicks on). I needed a longer trench and ornamentation. Mattock, shovel, axe, and reciprocating saw all contributed to the project (damn roots). I then buried the pipe, planted the hosta which we saved from the apartment (split apart), added some ferns, purchased more hostas, and voila:
I now have the beginnings of a respectable shade garden, and effective sump drainage. Plus, the mason bees really like it. I like those bees, they’re cute.
–Simon