We’ve had few May showers, including a real gullywasher last weekend, but at least we’ve escaped (as of my typing this) the massive hail storms that have hit parts north and east of Billings. I think we may have passed our last hard freeze back in mid-May, so the garden is going to really take off soon and we’ll put away the cold frame till fall.
I Was Pulling Grass From the Base of a Tree One Day…
…and I grabbed a handful of white, squirmy grub. I screamed. One of us may have gotten squeezed and flung over the fence. No regrets.
Oh, the Television You’ll Watch
I've been taking in a few shows/movies via streaming that have been good so far, or at least worth mentioning here:
PBS: Expedition — Totally charming British guy (and his hunky friend Aldo, ROWR) go in search of adventure along with local experts, lots of female extreme explorers, and a totally up-for-anything film crew. Donate to your local PBS station and you’ll get their “Passport” feature which means binging all your shows at once instead of every week, or getting some nice old episodes of Doc Martin to warm your cockles by.
HULU: Both "Mrs. America" and "The Great" have been my regular “Oh I have an hour,” shows. Though I can’t for the life of me figure out why the ERA didn’t pass (we haven’t gotten to the thrilling conclusion/legislation stall out yet.) Are we getting a new season of Handmaid’s Tale this summer? Also Letterkenny.
Sling: Killing Eve (new season 3) -- if you haven't watched this yet it is SO well done and you can catch up via BBC America or Hulu.
Prime Video: Luther and we also now subscribe $2.99/month to get the SHOUT Network so we can watch all the MST3K movies. Totally worth it to be able to select one of the best/worst movies at random.
Netflix: "Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics" and we started "Babylon Berlin" and "Hollywood." I feel like every time I go into Netflix and want a movie, all they have is TV shows, and vice versa.
Oops, I Just Bought More Plants.
Every time I advise someone on a garden (which is, like, three times already) I try to get them to leave space around plants and not just cram stuff in there. But then I go and cram stuff in my own garden. I’m now to the point where most everything is in the soil in some form, and I’m just walking around shoving nasturtium seeds in places and hoping I don’t forget where.
Goddammit.
See, I’ve already learned the lesson of needing to label every planting. I double sowed a crop of peas right over some carrots a few weeks ago and OOPS they all germinated (see above). So now I’m trying to figure out what lives and what gets thinned. “Thinned” is planter speak for pulling up something that would grow up to be a perfectly serviceable plant, but that is crowding another one that you’ve gauged as better placed or further along or otherwise better positioned to become food. It’s a lot like playing god. It’s why they make those seed packets for the TEENY TINY seeds like radishes or carrots with some extra stuff around them so you can actually plant just one of them and not a pinch of twelve seeds in a clump that then becomes a bio mass of sprouts. They’re called “pelleted seeds” and even if you’re not wearing thick garden gloves it’s a life saver.
Photo proof I have a lot of plants to take care of, as of May 25, 2020:
This is, like, not even everything. And the cold frame will go away this weekend since it’s going to be 93 degrees on Sunday (WHYYYYY). It’s still May, right? (looks at arm where watch should be.) Yep.
Some Insects Are Just Jerks
I don’t like yellowjackets. I’m actually off in a minute to get more Yellowjacket Attractant for some traps I have in the pear tree. I don’t know why exactly I spend so much on attracting the dickheads but since my current attractant has trapped exactly zero of these winged assholes, I’m going to have to spend $5 on another packet. I don’t know what it is in there — insect sexy smells? rotting meat essence? — but they sure do like it. In fact, they like it enough to get themselves trapped in a plastic tube till they die. Huzzah.