Mid-August Garden

Here are a few more garden pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/homerhorns/AugustGarden#slideshow/5509121440239505746

Time for another update

The Red Sox just lost in the bottom of the 9th to Toronto. What's up with those guys? We watch most of the Sox games on streaming video from MLB.TV on our computer. Hooray for technology.... when it works.

Summer is here with a vengence with temperatures in the triple digits. Our swamp cooler (evaporative cooler) was acting up so I bought all kinds of parts to repair it. Unfortunately, they no longer make that model and I couldn't replace the blower fan. The shaft was so corroded I destroyed the fan getting it apart. I did manage to gump together the fan temporarily, but it's slightly out of balance and vibrates so much we can feel it in the house. Shaving is a challenge as the bathroom mirror trembles when the cooler is on. So, yesterday we made a trip to Las Cruces for sax reeds, guitar strings, and a new cooler. Here it sits in the carport. I think I'll wait for the cool of the evening to take the old one down and install this one early tomorrow.

I've been having too much fun making band related stuff. Here's a keyboard stand I just finished for Annie. It comes apart for transport into four flat pieces of 3/8" plywood. I painted the logo to hang on the front. I also made sax and guitar stands.
We're playing several Saturday Nights a month at the Turtleback Oasis, a local Natural Food Store. They pay us in coupons for free eats at their deli. Our friend Tracy cooks there and the pies and pastries are wonderful. On Sunday's we play at the Lee Belle Johnson Senior Recreation Center (she was a "Cowgirl Poet" who passed away a few months ago). The crowds have been small, to say the least, but maybe they'll pick up as word gets out. Those who do show up seem to enjoy our music.

Our gardens continue to thrive. We've been eating lots of zuccini, along with chard and beet greens. Some of the chile peppers are getting ready to pick but the tomatos seem to be waiting for cooler weather to really set on. Lots of flowers, but not many tomatos yet. Last year they peaked in early October. We've got about a dozen various melon plants that volunteered from our compost pile. Here's a small watermelon, but we've also got cantelope and several unidentified melons of equal size.

A few weeks ago we found a bunch of bamboo beside the road. There is municipal trash pickup here and folks leave their yard litter beside the road to be hauled away. I couldn't see this stuff going into the landfill so salvaged a couple of vanloads. It makes great trellises and we've stuck a bunch in the fence for the birds to perch on. The finches, sparrows and assorted doves come to be fed every day and some days there must be 75 birds at once sitting around our yard waiting for a chance at the feeder. (that's the empty house next door) I've got several projects in mind and will post some photos at a later date. I have more garden pictures, and if I get ambitious I'll put them in a Picassa album and post a link here.