Fall is giant hairy spider time at the Redneck Cat Farm.  For whatever reason they show up in the house in large numbers, just for a couple months until the weather turns cold outside.  By early winter they are all gone again, to who knows where.

My bathroom-dwelling pet was in the tub this evening when I came in to take my shower.  She scooted into the drain when I came in the room.

"Are you sure that's where you want to be?" I asked.  I turned on a slow trickle of water, and sure enough she scrambled out of the drain.  I laid a strip of toilet paper along the side of the tub to give her something to grab onto, and she scooted out to wait while I made the rain come down.



Not to worry Daisycat.  They will all be gone by the next time you show up out here.

I had to LOL greatly at this:

Vox Popoli: So much for efficient markets

 "Commenting while intoxicated" is nothing in comparison...

Feeling blue? Here's the cure:

Don't believe in chemtrails? Me neither.

However sometimes there are "things that make you go Hmm..."

I watched these two jets fly overhead.

One of them left a contrail just up to a certain point as it approached my location. The other started leaving a contrail just as it approached my location...

...which abruptly cut off just as it left my location.

Um...

I typically dismiss the appearance and reappearance of contrails as being related to the atmospheric conditions at 30000 feet, where variations in dewpoint cause the jet exhaust to condense in one area and evaporate in another.

However, two jets flying parallel, entering and leaving the same space, with one leaving a contrail and the other not...

"Time to fumigate that Desert Cat character. He's getting uppity!"

Elsewhere, the vetch and rye I seeded last week is only showing rye sprouting in places. Very little vetch is up yet.

It has been fairly hot yet this week. Perhaps the vetch is waiting for cooler soil temps to sprout.

The tepary beans are hanging on. I think I'll get a handful of pods at least.


Under the corn patch, some of the blackeye peas are starting to bloom and set fruit, most notably the Tohono variety. A few of the Bisbee plants have blossoms, but they are spending more time trying to climb the corn rather than setting seed. The Yori are doing nothing but vining so far.

Overall, the Tohono variety is the more robust one. I am not surprised to learn this, as it has been selected and adapted by low desert dwellers over generations. IIRC, the others are all from higher elevation gardens.

The Tohono corn is doing fine, with many fat cobs set in the better areas, plus smaller cobs in the weaker areas. Corn borers managed to topple three plants after boring down through the bottom of the plant.

On Voting For The Lesser Of Evils in [Market-Ticker]

It's about consent.

...at least according to this test:
Take the Test to See If You Might Be Considered a “Potential Terrorist” By Government Officials | ZeroHedge
"Many Americans assume that only “bad people” have to worry about draconian anti-terror laws. But as the above lists show, this isn’t true."

Given that Obama has taken upon himself the right to assassinate any American he deems to be a "terrrist", I suppose those drones that circle my place from time to time are as likely to be armed as not.

I know my ultimate destination, Watchers. Do you know yours?

Now more than ever:
Sex Helps You Live Longer, Makes You Smarter, Improves Health and Prevents Depression

...is the sound of Ben Bernanke purchasing a second term for Obama.

QE3: Helicopter Ben Bernanke Unleashes An All-Out Attack On The U.S. Dollar

Together with the wheels coming off the Romney Express, it's looking grim for the Stupid Party yet again. 

Again I had to work part of Friday. The rest of the weekend was dedicated to garden turnover tasks. Saturday I tilled and seeded the farthest bed (vetch and winter rye). I decided to stop tilling beds with paths and tilled the whole thing this time. This meant I was tilling areas that had previously been paths and therefore previously untilled. It was daunting. I am beat, pummeled. Even after several years of working this soil, there are gobs of rocks coming up, and a hard layer below that, which remains untillable. That is why I switched to whole field tilling, because I see little hope of converting that space to rich garden beds. It will serve well enough as wintertime grain field however.

Sunday I tilled the center half of the nearer area. Again I discarded the beds in favor of tilling the whole area. This area has always had fewer rocks. Even so, I pulled dozens of them from the former path areas.

I did not till the full width of this area however. As in past years, this spot has become a lush meadow oasis, and there are numerous meadow creatures that live in it. I left the outer half of this area unmolested, and will leave them this way until frost polishes off the vegetation.

The outside portions of this area have the thickest stands of gaillardias and blackeyed susans. After I was done in the evening, I could still hear the meadow denizens softly buzzing and cricking in these stands.

Elsewhere, the corn is doing well. Some parts of the field are over my head. Other areas with poorer soil are not as tall.

The taller stands have numerous fat-looking cobs.


Under the corn, the beans don't seem to be doing as well as I hoped.

Even where the plants look robust, I've seen no blossoms or pods yet. There is still time in the season yet though.


My poor parched tepary beans are struggling. These are the best of what is left, getting another flood irrigation. I am doubting the feasibility of growing them in anything but a regular irrigation schedule. It may be that they can grow on less water and in poorer soil than other crops, but they aren't going to flourish without water at least once a week.


CATS!

Clyde--"Clydzie, The Gray Wookie"


Bob -- "Bobby Bush Cat"


Tom -- "Thomassie, Tommy Tomatopaste"


Roscoe -- "Rock Skwerl, Rossi Spumante"


Rumsfeld -- "Fish! Mister Thumbs, Rummy-to-the-Tummie"


Jasmine -- "Razzy, Jazzberry, Razzleberry, Yasminsky"


----------------
Update, Monday AM -- I feel like I did a helluva workout routine yesterday. Hams, glutes, mid-back muscles, arms and shoulders are all stiff and painful. In fact I did, but it was not weight lifting, but real work. That Troy-Bilt Horse is a big machine, but the rocks make it kick like a mule. Wrassle a mule for a few hours and then get back to me on how it's not real exercise.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

I did a crazy thing and bought an accordion. I've been running through some free lessons on YouTube, and then came across this:

Watch this pretty little French girl make this accordion smoke! Pay especial attention to the way her left fingers fly across the bass keys during the fast parts of the song (starting at about 2:18). Trust me when I say that is phenomenal!

As for me, the damn bass keys are not in the same place each time when I try to go back to them! (Actually my hand slides around and I have no frame of reference to keep them in register.) Hitting those little buttonettes accurately with my ogre fingers is a helluva challenge. Her little hands fly across those buttons like there is nothing to it!

More Marie Grillet
Tango pour Claude
awesome...

She's been doing this a while...

-----------------------------
Related: Blonde German twins on rollerskates playing accordion polka

Labels: art appreciation

What I missed:

Burn Wall Street

Otto Von Danger's Controversial Burn Wall Street Exhibit At Burning Man - Business Insider

Labels: art appreciation

Breezy, clear and cooler today. The last of the monsoon flow seems to be over.

Here come the halcyon days of Indian summer!

In other news, I may be finally ready to order the panels to upgrade my solar installation. Once the circuits in the house are complete I will need the extra power.

Labels: minutiae, San Pedro homestead

I don't know what it means. We shall see if anything comes of it.

HAARP Status and Real-Time Network Detection

 

Labels: conspiracies, watching the skies

This was an abbreviated weekend, due to my having to work part of Friday. Nevertheless I was under the house again finally, pulling more conductor through the conduits. The east half has all of the conductor pulled through the main spine.

On the west half, I ran out of red wire and nearly out of black wire before I had enough sets assembled to pull through the main spine.


One circuit assembled and ready to pull.


One thing I realized today is that the fat deposits I used to have, served a function when crawling around under the house. Without them my hips feel terribly bruised today. At first this morning I didn't know what was wrong. Then I went under the house and bingo! I had been crawling around yesterday without benefit of said padding. Every move was excruciating.

Ow.

Labels: San Pedro homestead

This diet of mine...I'm melting! I couldn't help but notice in the mirror this morning...
...that I get better looking each day!

I'm in the middle of my second hCG
cycle at present. At this rate, I ought to be sporting a six-pack by Christmas.

Going, going, gone! Yeah, baby!

Labels: felicity and jocularity, health and lifestyle

I fabricated and installed the corner trim pieces for the workshop, both on the new side and on the west side that has not had trim since I first put it up a couple years ago.



This was a fiddly fussy process that took a while. I caulked all the panel seams around the workshop, then continued as long as the caulk lasted around the house itself, resealing seams where weather was warping the trim and siding.

Earlier I recoated the paint shed roof and sealed the roofing fabric to the bottom of the glass. This was pending still from when I installed that pane a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow I will be painting all of this caulk. A couple years ago Daisycat came out here for a few weekends and worked on trim and caulking. But she never came back to finish the job by painting over the caulking and painting up the new trim. As a result of her negligence, the weather ate away at the exposed caulk and damaged the trim she put up. I may have to remove that trim as a result as it has become badly warped. For the stuff I caulked yesterday and today, I will paint it right away to protect it.

Tomorrow afternoon I return to town early, as I have dinner and a concert planned with Daisycat.

Meanwhile in the garden, the tepary beans saw a roughly 50% die off due to the heat this last week. Apparently they are not tough enough to take two weeks without watering when the air dries out. The survivors got a soaking again today, as rain is not forecast until mid-week.


The corn is beginning to tassel in the tallest parts of the patch.

There are only a very few silks peeking out from the tallest plants yet though. Most of the plants show no sign of forming cobs.

So far this is just over 60 days from planting. This is allegedly 60 day corn, but there is no way that is close to correct. With the tassels just coming, it is at least another 45 to 60 days to dry field corn.

This is still fairly poor soil I am working with. These yellow stripes are primarily the result of high pH causing an iron deficiency.


There has also been a fair amount of damage from corn borers and grasshoppers. These are the source of the holes in these leaves. It's not been enough of a problem for me to go after them with any sprays.


I did go after a harvester ant hill though. They were decimating one row of my cowpeas, having chopped off and hauled back to their nest the top leaves of the entire row. I didn't need them getting into my experimental rows of blackeye peas.

Labels: San Pedro homestead