Garden Update: June

June is almost over and despite my doubts the weather has pulled through and has provided my garden with great growing conditions. Last year it mostly remained overcast and it never quite got warm enough. This resulted in slow growing tomatoes and peppers. This year has been great and I've been busying eating tomatoes, beans, and peppers. I've decided not to spray the beans or eggplants anymore to deal with the spider mites. The spray was natural and fine for organic gardening but it was broad spectrum, therefore it kill both bad and good bugs. I'm going to continue to blast the victim plants with water to give the mites a shake down but the plants will just have to hold their own beyond that. You can't baby them, they're dealing with Mother Nature.

I think it's safe to say, this guy defeated the mites. I'm proud of this Black Beauty eggplant!

The garden is doing well overall with the exception of the Kentucky Wonder. As you can see it has lost most of it's leaves on the bottom. Some of the younger beans have hope. They seem to be recovering from their mite attack but I'm not getting my hopes too high. I'm bummed about the beans but I'm learning!

Maui onions are starting to get big!

California Wonders from last year.

Golden Bell Pepper

First tomatoes of the season

More Indiana

Here's some pictures i took during our recent stay in Indiana.


out the front door at my dad's place. pretty awesome to be able to wake up to this


pops out shredding on the slalom

definition of summertime


view of the woods looking north, away from the house


the backyard, after a good storm in the morning


looking out over the field to the south after a storm

dorman st bar bathroom chalkboard


got here on my last day! so pumped!


view from north end of the canal. i like this one at night mostly, but still awesome during the daytime. how many other cities just have canals like this running through them? indy is awesome.

Indiana

This past week I went home for a dear friends wedding and to visit with friends and family. Being back in Indiana felt wonderful. Summer time in Indiana is hot and humid, but the green vegetation is rampant and beautiful. No matter where I go in the world I'll never find the wonderful individuals that live in my home state of Indiana.

May's (Doorman St.)
Just a bunch of Hoosier hanging out.
Hand over the keys sir.
Part of the Cultural Trail. I'm so proud of Indianapolis. Every time I go home I'm impressed with the city's progress.
El maestro.
If you find yourself in Indianapolis, find this guy, and have him take you to Taco and Burrito Place.
Some rock skippin'.
Green.
Our visit wouldn't have been complete without seeing this little one.
Beautiful
View from my favorite spot in the city.
The beautiful bride!
Dance crew.

who's the moron who decided to try to make his own removable fins?

oh yea, me... so i went out this morning to Huntington and was trying out some new fins i finished last week. These fins were originally on my board, but i cut them off, and redid the bottoms so they'd fit in the fin boxes. it was drizzly and gray, and the waves kinda messy but alright so i headed out. on my first wave i went left and could see it was gonna close out quickly so i cut back into the wave sharply to smash through it and out the back. after doing so i pulled my board back to me via the leash, and whatta you know, one fin was gone! sweet. one wave. one more failure. this one broke off right at the base where the tab goes down into the box. great. i looked around and didn't see the fin, so i thought I'd paddle in. right as a wave was coming to push me in i saw the fin float up about an arm's length from me, but the wave hit right then, and i was pushed forward. i looked around while in the water some more, then went up on the beach, wondering if it'd get pushed in. i stood around for about ten minutes looking into the water, thought i saw it once, and paddled back out some, but couldn't find it, paddled back in and looked around for another five or ten minutes and couldn't find it. the waves were pretty messy and there was tons of white wash going every direction, so it was hard to see a small light wooden fin anywhere i guess. not sure what i would have done with it if i found it, maybe put it up on the wall of failures, or try to redo it somehow but smaller. either way, bummer. like mel said, guess i'm learning, still stinks though.

wait, aren't there supposed to be two fins?

sick

Cardiff day

last weekend i drove down to cardiff friday night and slept there to wake up early and surf something new in the morning, and get some studying done that day too. here's some pics


checked out a few spots along the coast here and ended up coming to this long stretch along some cliffs


pretty pumped on this fin still!


went to make pancakes in these pans, which i thought we had made pancakes in before, but they didn't work out so well. i abandoned the pancakes and went for oatmeal instead.


played in the water some later in the day. i like this picture cuz it looks like when you open your eyes and still have some water in them blocking your vision. no i did not mean to add that effect though...


it was cloudy all day, but looked pretty awesome at times

along with the local library, this was my study spot a couple of times that day

this kid rode the wave for a bit like this. he was pumped and it made me pretty psyched!



sunset on the drive home.

bummers brah

so i took out my first pair of new fins yesterday on my fish, and they felt awesome. super loose feeling, but still some control. these were the small black ones i'd taken off a shortboard i found in an alley, and converted them to fit in my fin boxes. Well it turns out i didn't do that well of a job converting them to fit. when i got out i notice one of them felt a bit loose and wobbly. i figured one thing, but then when i took it out, i realized that hte base that i molded onto the fin had seperated from the fin. shit. then i took out the other fin, which still felt tight, and realized the same thing had happened to it! shit. at least they didn't fall out in the water cuz they would have sank. well, now i gotta figure out how to get more glass and resin around the sides of the base as that seemed to be the weak spot. you probably don't care about this failure, so sorry if you read this...


they look fine right?
nope, this happened... not enough resin and glass along the sides i think.

finished these guys adn got them back in. these were my original fins i had on the board, now just converted to fit in the boxes. hope they stay in! they'll float if they do fall out at least, but then you gotta find em!

Spider Mites: The Destruction of the Kentucky Wonder

My Enemy.

This past week I discovered that my sad looking eggplant was covered in spider mites and after consulting my books I just spray them off with water. I decided to keep a vigilant eye on the eggplant to see if they would return, pretty naive of me by the way. Of course they came back, they're pest. So I decided to head to they nursery to ask for advice on how to handle the spider mites and I also brought some yellowing leaves belonging to my green beans. Well it turns out that the green beans, those fantastic Kentucky Wonders, were covered in spider mites as well.
I purchased a spray containing pyrethrin, a natural insecticide and frantically sprayed the green beans and eggplants. The spray seems to be working some but I'm losing hope. We'll have to wait and see.

recent projects

here's some projects we've been working on lately!

Mel made empanadas! here they are pre-baked. these had onions, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and fake meat, and some other stuff, ask her for all the details. they're incredible though

and after! best thing she's made this year? idk. maybe

I've been making my own granola lately, cuz someone pointed out to me howeasy and cheap it is. google how to make your own- it takes about ten minutes to prep and an hour to bake and it's so easy and you get a ton of it for so cheap!

These have been taking up a serious amount of my time. making different fins to go into the my board i just modified. at different stages of being done as you can see. psyched!

Mel's garden!



Mel's been embroidering some here and there, although she gets her nose buried in a book and never looks up!

the front flower boxes are doing well. Mel planted dahlias a couple weeks ago and they're loving the weather!

up close

and personal

Here's a new surfboard rack i made for up front in our living room. pretty psyched on how it turned out. it cost about 4 dollars for the materials and keeps the board safe and looking good!
all lined up