Sunday, March 29, 2009

Spring




Spring, oh spring.
How I have longed for your arrival;
Your gentle winds,
Your warming sun.
Your miracles.
Miracles of life and rebirth.

For the last week or so, I've noticed that the tulips, galanthus, and crocus have poked their heads out. The crocus were in their peak yesterday, and the galanthus, though quiet, have created quite the show!

Spring = rain, mud...ick! And I never believed that to be true until today. Heavy heavy rain. Sheet upon sheets of rain. Not a speck of sunlight. Pretty much tore the crocus from petal to petal, and flooded most of the beds. Oh well: I'll know where I need to add amendments lol

Seeds are starting to come up. Tomatoes, cannas, and Pumpkin-on-a-stick (Solanum integrifolium). The only problem is how to fit everything on the window ledge. You heard right, ledge, not sill. See my parents won't let me bring seedlings downstairs and I've basically have to do everythign in my room. The window ledge between the screen and glass (when you pull up the window) can fit a 4" pot. So I've had to open the window to let my seedlings get light. And there goes my mom complaining about it being cold. If the tomatoes ecetera can take those temps it definately isn't too cold. Had you guys let me bring them downstairs in front of the big sliding glass door, I wouldn't need to open my window.

And as a matter of fact: I don't see how I can't grow seedlings in the living room if you have peat pellets, and soaked cotton and seeds (none of which have sprouted and it's been 2 weeks+) if you can leave them on the kitchen floor and in the living room. parents these days. and my dad only does whatever my mom tells him to do. talk about being hen pecked.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Screaming man at Voldemart

So I strolled into Voldemart today to see how their pitiful bareroot perennials were doing in their warm, enclosed plastic, rotting packaging. none left...or should i say all gone to waste. then i hear this man screaming "let go of me. I didn't do anything wrong. let go of me. someone help me." everyone turned to look, saw nothing, and I heard a young lady, bout 30, say "there's always someone screaming at voldemart." no kidding. you'd wonder, with all the 'undercover' security people walking around, and all the camera, what's the point of using force? brute force. stupid voldemart.

i was at mcdonalds later. wanted to try their 'mac snackwrap' which wasn't all that great as i had predicted. so you're looking at three half patties, a little of your condiments wrapped in a tortilla. Kinda disgusting but you can't say anything unless you try it out yourself. as i was waiting on my order, a skater boy was ordering. then this brown guy comes in with two girls.
guy: "i wann talk to you"
skater: "ok"
"you almost ran into my daughter back there. she heard you swear. you said fuck"
(now here im listening and thinking, so the 16 year old swore in front of your daughter...but now you? why the heck should you get pissed off?)
"i want you to apologize. you're 16 she's 3, you bring yourself down to her"
"sorry"
(he seemed like he meant it...he was sincere when he apologized and wasn't sarcastic from what i heard)
"im a supervisor for a security company. you know you got lucky this time. im not gonna do anything. im letting you go. next time someone's gonna smash that board over your head"
(seemed like a threat to me...there was no need to bring up that he was a supervisor for a security company. raising his hand, calling the kid lucky that he wasn't gonna get anything from him.)
the restaurant supervisor handed me my order and i left.

my thoughts?
- eff off. he's a 16 year old kid. so what. if you kept a closer eye on your daughter...you would've seen the kid coming and he wouldn't had 'almost' run into her
- so its not right for a random 16 year old stranger to swear within the vincinity of your daughter, but its ok for you to swear in front of her?
- you what? 40? and you resort to threatening the 16 year old kid? grow up
- and what's up with following the kid into McDees? you couldn't have talked to him out in the store, but HAD to do it in front of a restaurant full of people?

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Cake and Brownies...VoldeMart

Put five guys together, take an afternoon and what do you get? Chocolate cake and brownies! Well, the brownies didn't turn out *that* good but the cake was great! Too much chocolate in the brownies? Spring is tomorrow, so is Canada Blooms; I can't wait to go! I heard its supposed to be great this year as last year's show wasn't all that great. A lot of people said it wasn't worth the $18 to go see. Guess I'll have to find out myself! I'm jsut hoping there's going to be some 'cheap' tender perennial bulbs that I can buy instead of being stuck buying from local.

Ten bucks for five peonies is quite a deal...but given that its from VoldeMart....I wouldn't buy from them every if its ten times cheaper. Who in the right mind keeps perennial roots in full light and next to the warm air heater? Those stupid 'garden center' employees. That lady's been giving me the eye...I think she knows that I probably know more than her. She probably knows about all the bad habits they use to keep their plants on the verge of death. Believe it or not, I saw some high school part time watering succulents and African violets HEAD ON! And all those poor plants. You know if they actually make use of those hangers and put on flourencent lights, and take five minutes to read up on how to water those plants you mgiht actually make money and not waste and force those living plants to die. Either they die of thirst or get too much water and drown to death. Poor poor plants. Even if they don't cost a lot to buy wholesale, it took the greenhouse a while to raise them. You stupid market monster, all you care about is making money...sepnd the extra few bucks to hire someone who KNOWS what they're doing. Also, if the whole plant is shrivelled up and brown, noone's going to buy it, even after you discount it 10%.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

March Break Pt 2

To Do:
work on bio
have sushi
move stuff from galanthus

done, done, done!

YEAH!!!! so 2 hours later, we had a cover, and three titled slide for our bio powerpoint...not bad? lol sushi...not bad! really rather full. Haven't had anything since the sushi lunch about 12 hours before. and right after I moved the stuff on top of the galanthus...I saw shoots poking out!!! YIPEE!!!! it'll just be a few more weeks before they start to bloom :) 2 days till spring

Monday, March 16, 2009

March Break!!!!

Finally, a full week of rest...guess again. ISP after ISP lined up for each and every day. If there's one thing to look forward to, it's the annual Canada Blooms show; I'm going Friday! It's been nice and mild for the past while, and I've been outside for a while cleaning up. It seems the leaf piles that I forgot about didn't kill the grass, but acted more like mulch (even though your'e supposed to apply mulch after a hard freeze). The Arum italicum survived and are pushing out new leaves. I see plump white buds amidst the crocus leaves (they bloom white) and I've seen the tips of my muscari, daffs, and double tulips push through.

Note to self: take off all the pots and stuff on top of where the galanthus are supposed to be...nothing's going to bloom with a stack of nursery pots stack on top of them lol

Looking like I'm going to be investing a LOT of my small budget into bettering the soil. The drainage is really bad, and I have quite a few things to move about the garden. I'm hoping, really *hoping* to dig more beds. So far, I have these 'few' ideas:

- have a canna bed or at least a canna section
- I really want to grow sunflowers :D the red ones in particular, and maybe also some pollenless ones for cutting
- have a row of ricinus (castor beans) a the end of the yard in front of the evengreens lining the back fence
- give up on the bulbs planted in the small shaded bed and turn it into a veggie/flower patch...which means I'll have to move the arums there
- dig, dig, dig...I want more beds! I've been asking around for some common perennials to fill in and simple no fail blooms: yarrow, iris, daylilies, monarda, shasta daisy, whatever!

Monday, March 2, 2009

Relax and Breathe...not yet

So the week of tests and such...yadda yadda yadda, is over. Well what do you know? Civs test tomorrow: Antigone. Ughh...stress stress all th way upppppp.

So apparently there is this stupid French trip to watch Entre Les Murs. $17 - ok i guess. Do I want to go? No. Why? Calc. Plain and simple. There's a quiz the next day. ughh when can I breathe again?