Long time, no see....

Yeah, I did that disappearing thing again.. been busy, really busy.

My etsy shop has expired, I need to post up stuff again and get it running again. Maybe this time sell some stuff :)

Quit my morning job cooking. It was too much stress, and I mean STRESS to do the grill, and my sister is going to be away for a while and I need to be home for the morning hours to make sure everything runs ok around here. So it's back to more regular hours at CB, and looking for another, better job again. Ah well.

Adventure mowing has paid off.. there is now a circuit all the way around the perimeter of the property. Sis busted a tire and screwed the deck with a rope, but I got that fixed and now we can mow again. I just need to get some tree trimmings cleaned up off the yard first. The asparagus is looking good on the back 40, I feel I can go ahead and plant in the rest of it back there. The blackberries got wiped out this year by Crazytown- all I got was a mere pint. But I also have a bunch of other fruit in the freezers, so it will be enough to make a pie or something.

The gardens are doing well... and not. The tomatoes are growing like crazy, and we have even had a couple of the earliest ones, Copper River, Wild Fred, Beaver Lodge, and Snow White. Right now Snow White is a for sure keeper, it is one of the tastiest cherry tomatoes I've ever had. I caught and killed my first hornworm the other day... this is a hornworm, gross.

Giant sucker, ain't he?

I also had to pull the small bed of yellow beans- have a Mexican Bean Beetle infestation. Sucktacular.

I didn't find any adults, but found loads of the yellow larve you see on the bottom left in this pic, and a few of the egg clusters. Found them all over when I got back from Gen-con. And ain't nothing to do but pull up the whole plants and dispose of them. Bummer. So a couple days ago I pre-sprouted some Top Crop beans, and yesterday I planted them into one of the raised beds that didn't sprout the beets like I was hoping.

After a great flush of zukes that I picked after getting home from Gen-con, haven't had any new zukes :( Pickled a TON of zukes. But there will be more, keeping my fingers crossed. The succotash beans have been prolific, I'm hoping prolific enough that I can eat and seed with them :)

Need to get a LOT done out in the yard too.

And while I was gone... Gen-con. Holy shit. I haven't been in years and years, and it was mind-boggling. Huge, crazy huge. We did crazy sales. I got a brain in a jar for Nightvale, and a bunch of cool swag. It was a great road trip, I really needed the "vaca", even though it was a working one. And it was extra cool because this is the first road trip sis and I took in a really long time, and it felt really good to have a good adventure with her :)

But it's already 9 AM and all I got done so far is setting up a dehydrator of cuke slices, so I better be off. I will try to get some pics taken today so I can post a bunch :)