2011 Coca Cola 600

The kids flew in for the weekend with tickets to the Coca Cola 600. We tailgated and had a great time. Thanks Brahm and Dagmar!  At the beginning there was a Fly By of a B-1 bomber. The first one that I have actually seen.  I have no favorite driver, but the fans clearly favored Earnhardt Jr.  He was in the lead the last 10 or so laps, and on turn 4 of the last lap, with a 5 car lead, he ran out of fuel. Made for a great finish. He finished  about 8th. I guess I was secretly hopping for Kyle Bush. He got a speeding ticket a week or so ago in the Charlotte area for 128mph in a 45. It would have helped with his fine.

No Problems With Barrelponics

My barrelponics have been running trouble free for several weeks now.  I have added a couple of gallons of water to it, and I feed the fish every day (except for a couple of days we were in Charleston, SC). So I think that it proves to be the most effective and waterwise way to grow veggies.  I also think that you could make manure tea with cow, horse or other animal waste.  This tea could be soaked in water and the water pumped directly into a grow bed the same way.  This may not be as water wise as the fish. Perhaps that when the tea was diluted to a point that the it needed to be replaced, it would go to the landscape or regular garden as a soil builder.  Anyway it is something to think about.  I use these large tweesers to pick bugs off the plants. They are fish food suppliments.

Is the West--Best

I grew up in the west, as in Colorado.  All my life I felt like it would be wonderful to live where it is green all the time.  Someplace that got a lot of rain.  Then the opportunity came to move to North Carolina, so we moved .  We found this great home on a little more that an acre of land.  We bought it and moved in on December 15, 2005.  The first year we lived in the house, I saw more rain than I had seen in the past decade. Alex mows the lawn twice a week, except in the winter. Winter is December and January. Then, in August of 2008 we went back to Colorado to visit the kids and grand kids, and realized how much we miss the west.  Alex always feels closed in and claustrophobic with all the trees.  Now we want to sell and move west.  We have our property in Southern Colorado, and a little piece in Terlingua, Tx.  Winters can be harsh in Colorado, so we thought we could spend the cold months in the desert of west Texas.  We have a old Airstream trailer, and have considered buying a motor home.  With diesel fuel at over $4 a gallon, there are some good deals on motor homes. Anyway, selling the house is next on the list.  That might be a problem, but we will see!

Friends on Sunday

Our friends Forest and Erica came by on Sunday and we worked on a project  making a frame to support the barrelponic plants.  We cut and painted some 1" PVC to go over the barrel. I will suspend parachute line from the top, for the tomato vine support. We enjoyed a couple shots of Lunazul Tequila. Erica brought us a set of Tequila glasses and we had a great time with our best friends. Forest painted the support frame, and I supervised. My tomatoes and eggplant are in bloom. I will assist with the pollination, to help assure fruit. Alex was cleaning up some weeds around the yard and started breaking out.  I went out and looked at where she was working and sure enough-Poison Ivy.  I hope she doesn't get it too bad. She is very sensitive to poison ivy.  It has not bothered me at all, yet, so I will finish what she started tomorrow when I get home. I took a picture of it. I am also posting a picture of one of the talopia being a pig.

Signs of growth

Just a quick update on Barrelponics.  The plants are starting to grow more rapidly, and the goldfish are doing well. I have added more plants, and they took right off.  I think that this is a sign that the bacteria in the grow bed is changing the ammonia in the fish waste into nitrates that the plants can use.  Now we will see if the goldfish do as well as the plants seem to be doing.  I added some yellow squash, a couple of eggplants, and several sweet basil plants.