Month: June 2010

Dragonflies Welcome in the Herb Garden

Earlier this evening I was pulling some weeds in our little herb garden when I noticed something attached to a basil leaf that was definitely not a weed:

I’m no entomologist, but this looks like a dragonfly to me.  Although it’s way cooler than any other dragonfly I’ve seen before.  This is much better than my previous attempt at close up wildlife photography.  The bug let me snap a few pictures then regally flew over to a strawberry plant, where I was able to get another decent shot:

After reading about dragonflies, I’m glad I have them.  Among their prey are mosquitoes.  And even though this summer is just a week old (officially), I’m already unable to count the bites.  So anything that looks as cool as a dragonfly and eats mosquitoes is fine with me.

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King Tom’s Beet Farm

One of the great things about owning your own place is you can do whatever you want to your house and property.

Since moving in back in March, The Civee and I have already made some modifications to our house.  As for our backyard, it has needed a lot of work-when we bought the place, there was nothing in the backyard other than a big patch of grass.  No fence, no garden, nothing.

In just a few months, the backyard has come a long way.  The grill stands proudly above an herb garden.  We’ve successfully grown some tasty strawberries.  And while we want to grow our own vegetables, for our first year, we decided to start small.  I had a packet of beet seeds left over from when I thought we’d do some gardening back in our apartment days. The seeds went in the ground early last month and they’ve already grown quite a lot.

We have a nice patch of beets, although they’re growing a bit close together and have to be separated. Separating them is a pain and I have to admit, some of the ones I’ve re-planted haven’t survived.


Hopefully, some of them will survive to be eaten (by the Civee and I, not bugs or animals).  Beets are among the most versatile of all vegetables.  In addition to eating the roots, you can use the greens (also known as chard) also.  You can grill the roots, roast them, shred them and eat them raw with some olive oil and lemon juice.

Next year, I’m sure we’ll plant a few other vegetables and use what I’ve learned this year to make next year’s beets even better.  But hopefully, this year, even with the beets being as crowded as they are, we get enough to do some interesting things with this fall.  Or whenever the beet harvest is- I’m not exactly Dwight Schrute when it comes to beet farming.

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Food That Waits For You

Awesome Town is getting a new gas station/mini mart.  They’ve been building the place for the past few months, but put signs up last week and decorated the inside this week.

While walking past and peeking in the windows, I noticed something- three quarters of the shelves in the place are already filled with foodstuffs–chips, twinkies, candy, etc.  They haven’t said when the place will open, but I’m guessing it’s another week or two away.  This got me to thinking- that’s a lot of stuff that will be sitting around before people even get a chance to buy it.  But somehow, because of all the chemicals contained within each item, they will still legally be able to sell it and people will be able to eat it.

I’ve had a lot of junk food in my day.  But this got me thinking- with all this stuff in there sitting around, waiting to be bought and eaten, it can’t be that nutritious, or otherwise good for you.

So welcome to Awesome Town, new gas station.  I may stop to fill up my car.  But after seeing all that food sitting around, I probably won’t be stopping to fill myself up.

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Mowing It Old School

Thanks to all the rain we’ve gotten recently, until tonight, my lawn has gone un-mowed for more than two weeks.

Because it was clear, cool and I had some time, I decided to mow tonight.  When I mow, I usually like to listen to something other than the whirring of the blades.  But I had a problem.  Usually, I’d use not-so-trusty phone, an LG VU as a music player (playing music is one of the few things the phone does well if you ignore the eternity it takes to load the music program).  But the cord that I use to link my headphones to the micro-USB slot broke.

Fortunately, I had a trusty backup that I had unearthed in the basement earlier this week: a Walkman cassette player.  I had gotten this particular Walkman sometime back when I was in high school (mid-90s) but haven’t used it at all this century.  Fortunately, all it needed were some new batteries and a tape.  I found a tape I had recorded off the radio from my junior and senior years of high school.  The tape contained songs like Undone, Buddy Holly, Einstein on the Beach, Allison Road, New Age Girl, Come Out and Play and Basket Case (most of which are also on my phone).  Also on the tape was a radio call from a May 8 1994 game between the Yankees and Red Sox in which Danny Tartabull, Mike Stanley and Gerald Williams went back-to-back-to-back (and as John Sterling likes to add “belly-to-belly-to-belly”).

The thing that struck me was during this time period, for music, I’d listen to WPST, a station out of Trenton, even though (for the most part) I lived in Staten Island, New York.  For the most part, the New York stations were too poppy and PST played mostly alt-modern rock type stuff.  Of course, these days, PST has gone through a major format change (and moved frequencies) and isn’t something I’d even listen to today.

It was weird having to switch sides on the tape (and even fast-forward physically through some commercials).  Because of the tape format, some of the songs (especially the Weezer songs I’ve heard thousands of times) seemed a bit slow.  But overall, it was an entertaining mowing session and I’ll probably use the Walkman again in the future.

I should mention that the Walkman isn’t the only ancient piece of equipment I used today.  This is our mower:

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Griffey Couldn’t Beat The Yankees This Time

April 30, 1998
Yankees 9, Mariners 8 (10 innings)

As a Yankees fan in the mid-nineties, there was one team I detested more than all others.  It wasn’t the Red Sox, the team’s historical rivals.  Nor was it the Blue Jays, who ruled baseball in the earlier part of the decade.  But rather, it was the Seattle Mariners, who beat the Yankees in heartbreaking fashion in the ’95 AL Division Series.  And on the Mariners, there was one player who I hated/feared more than all others: Ken Griffey, Jr. who destroyed the Yankees in that five game series in ’95 and always seemed to do damage whenever he was up to bat.  Besides, as an obnoxious Yankees fan, I felt Griffey was overrated, while my team’s Centerfielder, the less-flashy, but equally (if not more so) laid back Bernie Williams was underrated.

Well, earlier this week, Griffey announced his retirement.  He put up some great numbers in his day (cleanly, I might add), will surely make the Hall of Fame and while I can respect him and what he’s done, I still dislike him.  Once an obnoxious Yankees fan, always an obnoxious Yankees fan.

I remember one game in particular where, if I had not been an obnoxious Yankees fan, I would have appreciated his offensive abilities.  Unfortunately for me, he put up a few runs early on in this game.  But in the end, the Yankees somehow managed (in thrilling fashion) to defeat the hated Mariners and Griffey’s awesome display of power didn’t really matter that much.

The date was Thursday April 30, 1998.  The Yankees were wrapping up the first month of what would be their greatest season ever (or at least of my lifetime).  I was wrapping up my junior year of college.  My roomate Jon (the convert) and I should have been working on a group project for one of our classes.  Instead, we decided to head to The Stadium with our suitemate Royce to catch a Yankees game before finals started.  Because it was a mid-week game, the Stadium wasn’t near being sold out and we managed to get seats in the lower level on the third base side.

David Wells, who was erratic early on in the ’98 season started for the Yankees.  He gave up four runs in six innings, two of them to Griffey, who hit two home runs (with future Yankee Alex Rodriguez adding his own home run).  Despite the fact that the Mariners struck first, the Yankees showed up to play, with the lead see-sawing back and forth until it was 7-4 Yankees going into the eighth.  In the eighth, Mike Stanton gave up four runs, before Darren Holmes (“that young man from Colorado,” who seemingly was behind a number of Yankees losses early in the season) shut the Mariners down.  The game went into extra innings thanks to a Tim Raines solo shot in the bottom of the ninth.

Mariano Rivera quieted the Mariners in the top of the tenth.  In the bottom of the inning, Tino Martinez singled in Chuck Knoblauch to seal a win for the Yankees, sending the crowd home very happy.  Despite Griffey’s two home runs, the Yankees came out on top.  Griffey would only be in the league for another season and a half and the Mariners never really again struck fear into the hearts of Yankees fans.

As Griffey put up Hall of Fame numbers, our Centerfielder won four World Series rings.  I’d rather have Williams’ career.  But then again, I’m an obnoxious Yankees fan.

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