Just made and devoured a gourmet pizza. It was, most likely, the only okra-pepper-eggplant pizza ever made on the planet. To be even more exclusive, it used Annie Oakley okra, Marconi Italian grilling peppers and Louisiana Green eggplant – not to mention that the tomato sauce was home made from San Marzano tomatoes. I watched some show on TV the other morning and they said that okra and eggplant reduced cholesterol. Assuming that’s true, we’ll probably have to start taking medicine to get some cholesterol back into the system. They also said eggplant is a major anti-oxidant so we’ll probably have to get an oxygen set up for the house.

Well I already feel better about this upcoming football season after the Gators didn’t embarrass us. Me and seems like everybody I talk to, had very low expectations. Even though beating FAU was not a surprise, last season never really materialized after just barely beating an equally weak first opponent. When that game was over you knew it was going to be a loooooooong season and so it was. What I’m liking is that the head coach is known for his defense and Charlie Weiss is the offensive coach – a solid coaching team. Florida always has talent, that’s almost a given. The starting quarterback had a big question mark beside his name. He played behind Tebow and his style didn’t fit the Meyers offense so he developed a negative image in Gatorland. These new coaches have been high on him but we all suspected that was just hype. Maybe not. Maybe it was a fit problem after all. Still, just hope we remain respectable.

I bought a greenhouse today. The screened porch is taking on the look of a nursery as seedlings are transplanted into flats. I have four full (x18) flats and enough seedlings to fill four more within the next two weeks. My bride would be much happier if these flats were located somewhere other than in the screen porch so when we dropped by Harbor Freight to pick up a couple clamps and spotted this screened greenhouse on sale……….
It’s only 6’x6’x7’H but if I put a table inside, that should be more than enough room. It will really be nice in February when I can keep the seedlings warm inside the greenhouse with light bulbs. It was on sale for $99 and we had a 20% discount coupon so it was just under $80. How could I pass that up? I’ve got a couple candidate locations but leaning on an area up against the house on the west side. That location gets strong afternoon sun, is close to water and electric, and has good wind protection from all directions. On the other hand, it might be nice to have it closer to the garden. Still cogitating on it. I’ll provide a picture when it’s located and assembled.

Got the results of the soil test and did the biopsy thing. The biopsy went according to expectations – – was knocked out so felt nothing at all. It’s a little sore where the penetration was made but nothing that regular strength tylenol can’t handle. Hard chairs, bad; soft chairs ok. The doctor debriefed Nancy and told her that he actually did 24 samples, whereas I had the impression it would be 100+. I go back tomorrow to have the catheter removed and then on the 14th for the big reveal. I’m supposed to do nothing strenuous for the next couple of days. Wonder if turning the compost piles qualifies as strenuous? Nah. The silver lining is that I got to experiment with pass through time; ie, if you drink something, when does it leave the body. I’m measuring 5 hours but since I only have the bag hooked up for 24 hours, my experimenting time is limited. If I had it just another day, I’d eat a jar of pickled beets and do a stop watch check.

The biggest problem with the soil is that the PH is way too high across the whole garden. It’s running anywhere from 7.2 to 8.2 compared to an ideal of 5.5 to 6.5. They say this is easily corrected by spreading ammonium sulphate at a rate of 10 lbs per 1000 sq ft. As far as fertility is concerned, that’s a mixed bag. Some areas are in pretty good shape, some fair, and one spot was rated poor. This too is easily corrected with standard, commercial fertilizer. Generally speaking the fertility issue has not been a real problem for me because I prep the exact planting spot with a good shot of compost and fertilizer whereas the soil sampling is more a global quality measure. That is, I just picked spots at random to get the soil for the testing. That explains why my single plants, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash etc do so well whereas my large area crops, corn and beans, have not done so well. It just so happens that the area in the garden with the worse soil condition is exactly the area where I’ve planted the corn. Still, I need to go buy a bag of fertilizer and just spread it generously.

Now on to more pleasant things. The fire pit garden is full with four tomato plants and eight cabbages. As commented on earlier, the pit has never really produced but I just can’t resist trying to fix it. It’s only about 50 SF but it just nags at me to sit empty. So far, so good. Two of the tomatoes have been living there for close to a month and seem to be settling in and putting on new growth. The other two and the cabbages are just working through their first week so the jury’s out – and will be until harvest day. One surprise from the soil testing was that the fertility rating in the fire pit was good. I’ve also sunk a couple one gallon containers a foot or so from the tomato plants. I drilled a dozen or so holes around the periphery of the jugs so that when I fill them with water, it leaks out and waters the roots deeply. I’m going to use this technique religiously through the season to see if produces differently than the main garden. Aside from deep watering the roots, it would seem to me that keeping the surface drier will hinder weed growth and not lure insects. I think every few weeks I’ll load in a tablespoon or so of Miracle Gro just for insurance. Yep, pulling out all the stops.

A week after Irene missed us by a wide margin, we had a little pop up storm that dropped about 1/4” of rain and this big oak branch. Who needs a hurricane. We get plenty of action on a routine basis. Luckily I have a chain saw and a 100′ 14 gauge extension cord and it fell about 90′ from the closest electrical service outlet. I had it cut down to moveable size in about 20 minutes but the problem was that it was about 500′ from the wood to ash converter, AKA fire pit. It took me 6 trips to move it all. By the time I was finished with the job, I was worn to a frazzle. A cold shower and a bottle of Zipfizz brought me back to life. This was a 3 shower, 3 clothing change day.

I took ten soil samples to the County for evaluation; eight from the main garden, two from the fire pit. I’ve got quite a few seedlings going, some almost ready for transplant to the garden, so I decided to move ahead on letting the pro’s do the analysis. It costs $1 per sample. I’m thinking about getting a soil test kit so I can correlate the results I get with what the County gets. If I get good agreement, then in the future I can do my own testing on an as needed basis with a higher degree of confidence in the results. When I dropped off the samples, the agent asked how many I had and when I said 10 she looked at me like I was an alien. “Most folks only do about 3”. I told her most people weren’t anal about their soil. She looked like she had about 10 more questions but that response shut her down.

My fall crop seedling, that would be some cabbage and broccoli, have gotten to the point where they have to be transplanted into the main garden. Only problem is that I’m fairly certain they wouldn’t be able to handle the afternoon sun for at least another few weeks. So I created a shaded area using my PVC pipes and some old shade cloth tossed away by a local fernery. I think it’s going to work just fine while the roots are grabbing hold of the new homestead. I also created a shaded area over the firepit for a few early cabbages. It’s hard to believe but I have well over 100 seedlings that will be making it to the garden in the next month. I currently have space for, at most, 50 plants so some items will either die away gracefully having done their job or be yanked out in favor of something new. I’ll start getting nervous and jerky by the end of September

So another Solar panel company that was started and nurtured by the Fed’s has crashed. I think in the past month, the two biggest ones, in which we taxpayers invested nearly $1B, have closed their doors in the US. One re-appeared in India but I think the other one just folded the tent. There’s some background noise about the head of the DOE observing early on that this was a bad deal but the guy who got the funding from the feds is a big, big campaign contributor………………… As I’ve said a jillion times – solar doesn’t make any sense with the current level of technology. Sorry greenies, throwing all the money in the universe at it, won’t make it any more feasible. And windmills were understood to be marginal 500 years ago. Quit fighting natural gas which is cheap, clean, and domestically abundant and be glad it isn’t coal. Spend the next 50-100 years figuring out what comes after the fossil fuels are depleted, if ever.

Maybe I need to think about getting a soil test kit. I’ve researched it a bit and found that most commercially available kits are either really difficult to use or just not reliable. A year or so back I took some soil samples to the county extension service and I guess I could do that again. My concern is that the composition at any one location is not representative of a larger section which is further complicated by the fact that it’s a 3D world and the roots tend to grow both horizontally and vertically. Even more complicated by the fact that some plant root structures are very surface oriented whereas others grow deep. So how many samples do I need to take to have any real understanding of what’s going on. My theory has been that over time, it all basically homogenizes as I continue to load it up with compost. But my theory has also been that the compost contained all that was needed to produce bumper crops of anything. I think what I’ll do is another sample set for the extension service but do a better job of collecting the samples. That will give me a starting point going forward.

My neighbor told me that a bear had crashed through the screened porch on another house on the lake. This was the same house where the bear sightings have been fairly regular and detailed – the A-frame at the end of the cove. There was a dog on the back porch so I’m guessing there was also dog food – or maybe the dog was food. The dog was raising hell and the owner turned on the porch light to see what was going on. Reportedly, the bear boogied out the same hole in the screen he’d made on entry. Personally, we’ve seen no signs for a couple of weeks – ever since I started putting the trash can in the shed until pickup day. I keep thinking he’ll find the garden and chow down on the eggplant but so far, so good. It does make me wonder about something. There have been two fatal bear attacks in Yellowstone this summer and a kid had a run in with a polar bear in Canada recently. Do I smell trouble in Jellystone?

Well I’ve already picked the next pres, Perry, so now I have to take care of the veep. Ok, done. Guliani. Perry soaks up the south and conservatives; Rudy picks up the left side of the Republican party. Being from Florida, you might be surprised that I’m bypassing Rubio but I think his day is a few years down the road and I’m feeling another long string of Republicans is in our future. This sequence is getting familiar – we elect a near socialist and then follow with a solid conservative. Then with each following election for a few terms we go Republican but each time a more liberal one. Then the socialist comes back to restart the cycle.

Finally we’re at college football season. You might be surprised to know that this is good news to Nancy as well. Since I’m glued to the tube Saturday afternoons, she’s able to do the Ormond Beach bridge game guilt free. It’s almost a public service duty for her. I’m not expecting much this year from the gators but am anxious to see how the new coaching staff performs. It’s also scary that FSU is projected to have such a great team again. Next year we get some form of college football right here in Deland when Stetson fields a team. They’re in a non-scholarship league so I’m expecting the caliber of play to be maybe a bit up from high school. Still, it will be an option not previously available.

The second corn crop seems to be picking up and most stalks are approaching 2‘ tall, some even taller. I had planted it amongst the butternut squash but it seemed like the squash leaves blocked too much sun for the corn and they looked wimpy. They finally broke through and are trying to make up for lost time. A good corn crop would be another big surprise for the fall. I’m also impressed with the 3 San Marzano tomato plants that have survived and, apparently, thrived. Actually have green tomatoes on all three. At the same time I had planted 3 Whoppers, a variety that produced incredibly last spring. No survivors from the heat. I have a few seedlings, three different tomato varieties, that I’m holding off for a couple more weeks in hopes it will cool down just a few degrees where they can handle it.

Yanked out the Tomatoberry plant. It grew beautifully and produced loads and loads of blossoms but not the first tomato. Clearly something missing from the soil. Here’s the interesting part – it was located at the end of the row where the sweet potatoes were planted. At the other end of the row are the Ghost peppers with almost the same story – nice growth, plenty of blossoms, and virtually no peppers. So everything in that row grew well and produced zero veggies. It also just so happens that this is a totally new row that didn’t exist last year so it’s 100% compost with no natural soil. In a few weeks that row is scheduled to be loaded up with new cabbage plants and since the vegetation for both the sweets and the tomato did just fine, I expect the leafy veggies to do well there. Still, I’m going to pump the row up with a fertilizer light in nitrogen and high in the P’s – that’s phosphorous and potassium. Maybe even buy a few bags of top soil to layer onto the compost base.

Hurricane Irene is driving me crazy. Chris and Jamie are in it; the Burmeister’s are in it; the Bradley’s are in it – all hurricane amateurs – and I’m stuck here in Florida. I just heard a TV personality telling viewers that the eye of the hurricane just made landfall, just offshore NC. Either it made landfall or it’s offshore – can’t be both!!! Should be soon seeing the obligatory reporter on the beach, in a yellow rain jacket, bent over nearly doubled showing us all how hard the wind is blowing. Since the storm track is right up the coast, we’ll be seeing this guy and his counterparts in every state along the way. I was ok yesterday when I had a mental image of Chris’s new place being a few hundred feet above the water until I found out he’s nominally at sea level. His last place was in Jersey City Heights whereas his new place is just Jersey City. At least he doesn’t have a car to worry about and he does live on the second floor. I also know the Bradley’s can’t be very high above sea level, if at all, but it drives me crazy not knowing exactly how high they are or how far they are from the water. I’m hoping they all headed for the Pocono mountains. At least when it was headed our way I had plenty to do getting ready but now all I can do is watch the tube and worry. Is it asking too much to expect all these folks to call me every couple hours to check in??

Updates – Chris is just fine. Never lost electricity. His store was closed over the weekend but opened for business as usual Monday morning. Took the transit system into work as usual. No word yet from the Burmeisters. I know they moved from the Jersey shore to an inland location but maybe that was jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Looks like the hurricane passed us by with a bit of wind and not enough rain to talk about. If I’m O’bama, I’m getting concerned. An earthquake hits Washington and a hurricane is heading to Martha’s Vineyard. It’s one thing to be in a dead heat with Ron Paul but being chased down by Mother nature………………

CAT scan and bone scan all came out fine. The interpretation of that is the problem resides in the prostate, which is exactly what the Dr. had expected. In two weeks, a saturation biopsy, which doesn’t sound like a fun thing, but at least they have the common courtesy to put me out. This biopsy does 100+ samples spaced at about 5mm so they can find small tumors with good accuracy. Jumping ahead to say he’s right and that the PSA rise is not from some other, extraneous cause, the recommended path forward is a cryogenic approach that freezes the bad spots.

Not sure what I would do if I lived in a condo. Today’s events included clipping a few palmettos that had grown in the lake path, tied up a few loose pieces on the dock just in case the winds from Irene prove a little more than projected, sprayed the house inside and out for bugs with Ortho Home Defense, power washed the truck, power washed porch and dock chair cushions and picked a few eggplants and peppers. Power washing is great therapy. Oh yeah, started seedlings for more winter crops – cauliflower, collards, kale, and brussels. When listed it looks like a hard day’s work but I just kind of putz along and never work up a good sweat with this kind of day and have plenty of time to read the Wallpaper and the second Stieg Larsson book. I’m pretty sure I’d go stir crazy in a condo unless it was directly on the beach.

A family friend put me onto a product that, according to him, gives a good energy boost. It’s a powder similar to Crystal Lite which you mix into a bottle of spring water. He also said that if you put a little coffee creamer in the mix, it takes on the flavor of a creamcicle (not sure of the spelling on that but you know what I’m aiming at). If you lay the list of contents along side a general multi purpose vitamin, it lines up with about the same stuff but in lesser amounts. It does have a goodly amount of B-12 and contains caffeine – supposedly from a natural source. I trust the guy who put me on to it so we picked up a pack of 30 multi flavor capsules at Costco. I worked outside for a bit in the heat and was drooping off rapidly so I gave the stuff a try. I think maybe it worked because I was outside cranking away again in about 30 minutes. Certainly tasted good, even with a bit of coffee creamer added. We bought a 30 pack so by the time I’ve worked my way through it, should have a better feel for it but so far, so good. Oh yeah, the stuff is called Zipfizz.

The louvered vent covering the attic fan started falling apart a month or so back. I tried to repair it and did a credible job but the plastic was just worn out and continued to break. I was able to buy a replacement part that was close to fitting but required a bit more carpentry than I was able to handle. The fact that the vent was up about 16′ up made it virtually impossible for me to really attack. Joey and Mark, mostly Mark, to the rescue. They came up early yesterday and within an hour the new one was in place. They then attacked the rest of the exterior – spraying bleach, power washing, mowing and just generally doing all those things that we have to do in Florida every six months. Place looks like new. The question posed is “if you spray bleach on your camo pants, have you ruined them or made them more camo like”? The logic that I am now more camouflaged seems unassailable to me – but not to everybody.

Here’s a story to show the persistence of nature. We have a screened porch which, in Florida, would be called a pool enclosure. It’s roughly 25′ x 35′ with a sloping screened roof that slopes from 8′ to 20′ over the 25′ span. The structure is made of aluminum extrusions and then covered with screen mesh. Very conventional. About 5 years ago I noticed that at one of the structures where a vertical piece met one of the roof pieces that a small oak had sprouted. I thought it was strange to see a small tree sprouting 8′ up in the air and onto an aluminum joint where there’s no soil. I watched it for a few years wondering how big it could grow before it ran out of whatever was sustaining it. When it looked like maybe that wasn’t going to happen – maybe the tree was getting enough sustenance to survive from the rain water – I decided to cut it out before it did any structural damage. Fast forward to yesterday and I noticed that in the exact spot where the oak sprouted, there is now a pine tree about 8” tall. There are 4 similar structure joining spots but only this one seems to promote tree growth. I wonder if I’m violating some EPA rule or Florida Wildlife Preservation law while protecting the screen porch? The variety of trees that are growing may be quite rare and protected. They look like garden variety oak and pine but maybe there’s something special about them. What if I let them grow and they take on a religiously meaningful form – I’d really be in trouble.

We’re eating cucumbers. Very unusual for August. In the past we were pretty much finished with cucumbers by May but this year we’re loaded. So I guess we can add cucumbers to the summer mix – eggplant, okra and peppers. One slight difference between May and August product is a few boring worms. They bore into the cucumber an inch or so and might bother some folks but they don’t seem to ruin the host, just eating the teeny, tiniest bits. Right now I’m thinking I’d rather cut out those spots than spray insecticide.

Looks like maybe a hurricane is heading our way. We’re way, way overdue. I think the last one was about 5 years ago. Ideally it will pass about a 100 miles offshore and dump 6” of water on us. I’m going to assume much worse and take this week to tie up all the deck equipment and anything else that might turn into a missile. I have 3 empty gas cans that I’ll fill to run the generator as necessary.

Tommy came up for a couple of days before heading back to Missouri. We managed a day at the beach surf fishing and just covering all the bases. He’s got a big year coming up as editor of a magazine on campus, working two jobs, and getting to graduation in one piece. He leaves today (Saturday) as does Simon so Tom’s house will be a quiet place tomorrow. We’ve already got hotel reservations for the graduation.

Perry just cemented his lead with me when he said that he didn’t believe in man made global warming. I’ve got a plan for him when he takes over. Phase 1 – cut the EPA and Dept of Energy budget by 90% and allow them to operate or have regulatory powers only on the West Coast and Northeast. Those folks love the agencies. In those same regions, mandate the amount of ethanol in gasoline to 25% minimum and remove the mandates totally for the rest of us. Tack on a large energy tax in those regions to fund their windmills and solar panels and to make sure the ethanol folks are healthy. The folks living in those areas that are unhappy, move out; those outside those regions that like the agencies, move in. Legalize drug sales in those special regions to supplement tax collections. Maybe stiffen drug penalties outside those areas to keep it more contained. Phase 2 – Study and analyze the performance of these special regions in terms of quality of life. That would include air and water quality, employment rate, and cost of living. It might be informative to keep track of population trends. It could be that those folks on the coast would be so healthy and happy that we’d all want a piece of it. Phase 2 would continue for 25 years or until the special regions either fill up or empty out. I’d be ok with letting other states opt in/out at the 10 year mark when the data would be firm enough to see where it’s all going.

I don’t get it. If the pres has a new plan to improve the economy, why is he waiting until after Labor Day? Why wouldn’t you just move on it quick, quick, quick? Maybe it’s not 100% done but surely most of it must be and wouldn’t there be improvements if you implemented the pieces as they are developed rather than dragging it out waiting for the whole thing. As many plans as have been generated in the past year, you would think it would just be a matter of picking a few from each plan. If he wanted to make a really smart move he should pick up the Simpson-Bowles plan that he dumped so quickly when it offended the left, buff it a bit, and put his name to it as his plan. It was bipartisan, produced by some very respected people, and solved some of the problems. But best of all, he could say he was actually putting forth a plan and put an end to all the critics saying he has never put forth a serious plan to attack the economic problems facing the country – which he hasn’t. I think after 2 1/2 years he may finally be recognizing that debt and jobs are really a problem and have been for about 3 years. He doesn’t have a clue how to deal with them which is why he should just grab up that original plan and run with it.

Did the second of the three torture tests, the bone scan. Another ho hum. You go in and get a shot then cool your heels four hours, while the injected radioactive chemicals invade your body. We went over to the library during the hold to download software upgrades. I’ve learned that some of the upgrades can be humongous and my slow, byte limited internet connection is not the way to go. The test itself is just a passive, lay still for 20 minute kind of scan. It’s possible I even dozed off. I’ll find out the results of all this next Wednesday. Also when in the library letting the computer load, I picked up a nice tid bit of info browsing through a gardening book – planting okra next to pepper plants to provide a windbreak. I’ve certainly noticed that pepper plants are fairly brittle and tend to suffer in a strong wind but never thought about a natural windbreak. I’ll have to try that next season – if I can remember.

Grilled okra last night on the Holland grill. No doubt the plumper Star of David variety is superior for grilling. It’s not a good idea to be grilling both varieties together because the dimensional difference means that when the Star’s are grilled to perfection, the thinner Annie Oakly’s are over cooked. I purposely let them grow a bit large to see if they got too woody/fibrous. On the oaklys, the largest were tending in that direction but the Stars were nice and tender.

Although this season in the garden continues to please and surprise, it’s not without failures – just not as many as I expected. The summer squash just crashed without producing much at all. The main stem must have been invaded by some boring critter and it just rotted. It did handle the heat just fine so perhaps if I had launched a spraying program early on, it would have worked. The two cherry tomato plants seem to be crashing as well without producing even one tomato. There has been loads of blossoms for a couple of months, but not the first tomato. My prognosis on this is that the summer heat has put down the bees so no pollination. That was also my answer to why no ghost peppers showed up after the blossoms but that theory is blasted away with the appearance of the peppers. I still have my fingers crossed on the cucumbers. There are plenty of baby cuc’s on the vines and the vines themselves look fine. They haven’t made it to the table yet but lookin’ good.

Why I can’t vote for Michelle Bachmann – her background is in the House of Representatives. We’ve learned about that haven’t we? There is some reason for me to think harder about Michelle. Her husband’s cousin is a good friend of ours so it’s kind of like a family connection. We see John Bachmann a few times a month and he joins us on most of the major holidays. I could probably finesse it by voting for her in the primary, secure in the knowledge that she’ll most likely lose in that election.