Slackass.

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Slackass = my blog updating schedule, not my life in general, although things have slowed down a bunch, which is not too pretty bad. Trip to Victoria was max awesome ... so rad to see everyone and help in the garden at my old house and get to actually go to a show and all that good stuff. I'm gonna try to make it back to town sometime this summer, but we'll see how that works out.

The garden is actually, finally, kinda sorta under control. The potatoes look pretty damn boss, as you can see from the photo here. We're pretty much wishing we planted the whole thing with potatoes because they grow so well in a first year garden, and they're so easy to take care of. We're definitely starting to get a sense of how little we will yield this year, which is to be expected because we're just starting to build up the soil. The spinach all bolted way early, and the broccoli and basil are doing their best to do the same, although we should get a bit out of them. The tomatoes are doing pretty well, as are some of the peppers, and a decent amount of the squash should be fairly decent. So, we're eating well between this garden and Judi's garden and not having to spend much on groceries, which is a huge relief to my brokeass self. Unfortunately, all the lettuce we planted in the new garden didn't grow fast enough and was too bitter to eat. I pulled it all out this morning and chucked it in the compost, which was a bit of a bmmer. It sure took a lot less time to take out than to seed, anyway. Next year it will all be easier.

It is starting to get super crazy hot here (35 degrees yesterday), so we started waking up at five so we can finish the garden work by ten. I'm trying to divide up my day so I spend the morning in the garden and the afternoon in the workshop. It's been hard to tear myself out of the garden because there's always so much to do, but it's really necessary for my own productivity as a woodworker and sanity in terms of not being chained to the garden. Besides, there just isn't a ton to do in there right now besides harvest, so that's pretty okay. I'm starting a new project for a friend here .... doing a set of built in bookcases and a little captain's bed. I'm really stoked on both endeavours ... it should pay okay, and they'll both be a lot of fun to build and really good for my portfolio. The woman I'm doing the work for is an absolute sweetheart as well, so that's always a bonus.

And, yeah, other than that everything is good. We officially bowed out of doing the market, which is a huge relief. No more hawking lettuce to hippies for basically no money. I'm working on selling to a couple of grocery stores in the valley, which seems both promising and unlikely to drive me completely bloody insane. There's still some folks that we met at the market that we'll end up hanging out with, but no more wasting all day Saturday in bongo drum hell, which was really getting to me. In other news, Gretchen got stung in the face by a wasp and had some crazy face swelling, as pictured above. She looked like Popeye on half of her face for a few hours, but she didn't seem bothered by it. Also, Devin's mum came to visit, which was totes sweet and a fun couple of days. She took the goofy family photo above. In pretty much every picture either Devin or I managed to look like a total dullard. I have generously chosen to post one where I look as though I'm halfwittedly trying to figure out what's going on while Devo strikes and epic pose. Yup, we are max photogenic.