Notes From Zone 4

I’ve spent far more time actually out in the garden than updating the journal, and I’m trying to get my pictures in here, with some narrative, while I still remember why I took the pictures. I also know this page takes far too long to load, so I’m working on a better way to split the pages up. I’ll probably stop using this script, because it was never meant to have so many pictures used in it, I think.

Also trying to figure out a way to print these into a paper/book form of some sort. I like the journal online, but I think I also want some sort of hard copy to remember each year by. The digital camera is wonderful. Frank bought me a photo-quality printer, but how do I decide which ones to print? It would almost be easier to just have snapshots to put into an album. This whole journal thing is turning out to be far more complicated than I thought it would be.

We poked our noses out to do a few things in the garden today, but the bugs were bad and it was so hot that we came in after about an hour, I think. I noticed that it’s great mindless stuff for me … I wander around, deadhead and weed, poke and prod. I try to catch the annuals by deadheading them before they go to seed, but in this heat, they grow so fast that I miss some. At this rate, I’m going to have johnny-jump-ups all over my yard next year.

Frank worked on some of the things that aren’t working very well, like the lights and the irrigation. He has to tinker and think, troubleshoot. He does a lot that in his job, too. I think he likes it, though. He’s good at it, anyway.

I saw this pretty nifty bug thing called a Mosquito Magnet in the SkyMall catalog on the plane the other day. It sure would be nice if this worked, and the guy I was next to raved about his, so I’m hopeful. Frank thinks it just might work, says the theory behind it is sound, anyway. So it’s now on the things-to-save-up-for list. To not have deer flies right now would be awesome. Those buggers bite me through my jeans, even. I swell up for days at the bite site, just like I do with blackflies.