Basil Never gives up!

After I discovered my farm was devestated yesterday I thought I was going to have to go back and replant everything. What a pleasant suprise when I discovered some of my plants were fighters. My Basil is picking itself up to fight another day, and some of the rosemary is as well. Hope is alive.

This reminds of my favorite quote from Rocky 6:

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son, you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life." - Rocky

My Farm has died

I came home from the Thanksgiving weekend in Colorado today and I found my whole entire farm died. Everything is all dried up except for my avocados. I am pretty sad about it. The cause of the death of the farm is not so important right now. I am especially sad that my tomatoes died. I am not sure where I am going to get more tomatoe seeds. THe ones I had were a little unique. One of my coworkers gave me the tomatoe and I took the seeds out and planted them. They were doing so well.

At the end of the day though, all you can do is get back back up and plant some more seeds and try again. If I have one skill it is not giving up on things I care about, and I don't intend to give up just yet.

Pickled Green Tomatoes, Chiles, and Carb Cleaner

Back when I wrecked this motorcyle into a fence, I always suspected that it needed its carburetor cleaned. I talked to my roomate about it, and based on what I told him happened he agreed. Step one is to make sure the engine can still run. I decided I better go ahead and clean the car so that is what I did.



It took a little bit of persuasion to get the carb out, but it could not resist.





Definitely a little bit dirty in there. I cleaned all that gunk out with the carb cleaner. Not I just need to stick the carb back in. Hopefully this weekend I will fire it up.



On an unrelated note my tomatoes started coming in. It was a bit of a suprise. I had not seen them grow at all lately, but when I took their syran wrap off they were already sprouting pretty good. The seeds from these tomatoes come from a tomato A master-gardener coworker gave me from her garden. I took the seeds out, dried them, and stuck them in the dirt. These tomatoes are similiar in nature to some pickled green tomatoes I had at a really good restaurant in Seattle. They were really delicious. Once they grow I will pickle the tomatoes.



Finally some of my peppers started to grow as well. These are Santa Fe Grandes.

The proving grounds

Recently my roomate gave me a heads up on an abandonded pumice mine located on some BLM land nearby. We went to go check it out since I needed a proving grounds for the motorcycle-engined remote-controlled/autonomous dune-buggy I am building in my garage. This place was basically out of Mad Max. Shotgun shells were strewn all over the ground along with the carcasses of refrigerators and TV that ended up on the business end of a 12 gauge. The mine was located on top of a Mesa. Multiple cars were wrecked on the side of the hill. I am not to sure if people were playing chicken on the top of the mesa, but that is the story I am going to believe until I hear otherwise. The place had dirt bike trails everywhere. I can't wait to start making use of it.

Lawn Furniture

This morning my roomate and I finally got around to makeing some benches. I have been wanting to put a picnic table out by my garden so I could eat dinner out there. My roomate likes collecting firewood, so we took some of the logs he picked up and made these timber benches. Now all we need is the table. All in good time.

I also finished fertilizing and breaking up the clumps of dirt in my garden. Now all I need to do is wait till spring to plant.