Preparing for the gardening season

I had a quick trip to DC in mid-September while Wade was also on a work trip to Ocala, FL for a meeting.  That was the first time we've both been away from home for work and weren't thrilled about it.  The following week Wade headed up to PA for a work meeting, but was able to get in a visit to see his family the few days before the meeting started.  We were really lucky to be able to take advantage of the free travel for him and he really enjoyed seeing his family.

By September we were starting to get hints that fall was on its way, so we spent most of our free time getting things done in the yard - weeding, tilling under the summer crops to prepare for the fall planting season, plotting out the garden beds, ordering seeds, and giving the chickens increasing freedom in the yard.  If you're interested, feel free to check out our favorite seed sites on the right side of the blog under the "favorite links" section.

The ladies even started helping us till up the hex beds that are out in the yard - however, there's a fence between them and the main veggie beds in the garden area that we also call the "poop-free zone" since the dogs aren't allowed in there either.

We took the month of September to let the tilled under beans from the summer dissolve into the soil to enrich it.  We also added more dirt, compost, and minerals so it would be ready for planting in October.  However, we learned there are some things we should start earlier with next year like tomatoes in August and everything else in September.

The chickens also enjoyed having us out in the yard with them more, and when we went in the house they seemed to want to follow.  The weather finally turned nice enough that we could start leaving the door open towards the end of September, and all the animals seemed to enjoy it.

Hilo and Marley saying hello to Dottie through the front door.

A long month

I kicked off August with a trip to Austin, TX for some work meetings.  The week I was there the highs were in the 100's and with all the pavement in downtown, it made for a pretty hot, albeit dry experience, which was strange.  The day I arrived some colleagues and I headed to Barton Springs for the afternoon to cool off in the chilly pool, followed by a larger group of us paddling down the river to see the bats emerge after sunset from the Congress Ave. bridge.  The bat emergence has become a nightly ritual in Austin as thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from their roosts underneath the bridge.  In August and September their numbers swell as the juveniles join in the nightly flight so the event gets even more impressive.  One of our colleagues arranged for us to rent kayaks from the rowing dock so we could paddle the river to the bridge for an even better view.  It was pretty incredible and a lot of fun to see and I managed to get some video despite the lack of light.  You can also see some pictures here.

Despite the heat in Austin and DC that my colleagues were complaining about, we were still having a surprisingly tolerable summer.  I was happy to get home after sweltering in Austin.  Fortunately, our sweet potatoes and beans in the yard didn't seem to mind the heat (although it was hard on the chickens).  Our summer crops this year were flourishing despite the heat - sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, clay peas, and pigeon peas.  Check out the pictures here.  We also finally harvested our bananas and started getting mulberries.

In the middle of August Wade headed to Miami for a quick work trip while I held down the fort. I was also going to a number of doctor appointments again in August so it felt like I was constantly giving blood or sitting in a waiting room. 

The last weekend in August was a bit stressful as we were watching hurricane Isaac and fretting over whether it was going to pose a threat (for most of a week it looked like it would).  But we weren't going to let that dissuade us from heading to Star Wars Celebration - the bi-annual convention for all things Star Wars that happened to be in Orlando.  We headed over on a Friday night so we could be up and in line early on Saturday morning.  Fortunately, we were staying in the hotel closest to the convention center, so we could just walk over in the morning without dealing with parking.  Despite the initial line to get in, the crowds were tolerable and the amount of visitor-made costumes was incredible (also known as "cosplay" when regular folks dress up to attend sci-fi/fantasy conventions).  You can see my pictures here.  Some of these cosplayers mean business - costume guilds to enforce dress code regulations (ie. what exactly qualifies as an authentic storm trooper uniform) - while others are so passionate and creative they make things from scratch that modify or combine two ideas (for examples, see one of my favorite blogs: Epbot - she was there too as a cosplayer and got much better pictures than I did.  If you keep going through the newer posts she has around 5 different posts featuring SWC).  We were also surprised by the actors that were there - we saw Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) who was hilarious in a panel, and caught glimpses of Anthony Daniels (C3PO) and Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine).  We missed George Lucas and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and a few dozen other smaller characters.  We also got to see a panel with the producer of one of our favorite shows - Clone Wars (the cartoon).  We got a sneak peak at the new upcoming season and learned a lot about the behind-the-scenes of the show.  We also saw a great panel with James Arnold Taylor who is the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi on the cartoon and he was incredibly talented and funny - you may also know him as a strawberry mini-wheat on commercials. :)  Finally by Sunday lunchtime we were spent.  We bought some gifts for folks then packed up the car, stopped by the nearby Whole Foods for storm supplies, and headed home to prep the house.  We were extremely relieved that we didn't have to worry about the storm in the end, but we were also disappointed that we didn't even get any rain!

The following weekend we were supposed to head to NC on Thursday evening to see my mom and Larry for Labor Day weekend, but another doctor's visit made us realize that we were going to have to cancel since I had to have another procedure on Friday to deal with a problem.  That week bad things came in triplicate - an expensive vet visit for Carmel who has a heart arrhythmia, we discovered the beach house had gotten broken into and we had to wait with the cops while they dusted for prints, then we had to cancel our vacation for a medical procedure.  Super.  Fortunately this time the procedure was much less invasive than the one I had in April and Wade and I were able to have a nice Labor Day weekend at home together.  We wandered around the yard and just enjoyed relaxing.