Garden 2017

     Entering year 4 of the garden, and so far, no year has been alike. The first year gave a bumper crop of cucumbers, which then failed miserably in 2015 and 2016. Tomatoes have been fairly reliable, as well as garlic, but carrots, beans, and even strawberries seem to be hit or miss. Last year we had an incredibly short springtime, with temperatures getting to 80 by April. This year, it's the middle of May and we're still getting close to freezing on some nights. Regardless, it's still relaxing and productive, so the garden continues.

A quick recap in pictures... 2014 was the first year, had a lot of success but a LOT of weeds.

2015, I lost the lower level and took over the garden next to me. We tried using straw to keep the weeds down, with moderate success. Good crop of strawberries in the middle, but the corn in the back on the right was eaten by.... everything. The raspberries appeared to die a horrible death.

2016, I learned to net the blueberries so the bids couldn't steal them. Many crops were a success, but then work got busy during harvest and we missed out on a lot of melons and soybeans. The raspberries, surprisingly, came back a bit, but were still struggling.

And so far, 2017 is going not too terribly. I don't have panorama pictures yet, but here are some highlights. I restructured the entrance with some random paving stones we had laying around, so we can actually get a wheelbarrow (for mulch and compost and suchlike) into and out of the garden.








The tools area had been a mess of weeds and stuff, so I leveled it off, put an extra bed frame down over weedblocker, and we now have a place to put a chair for relaxation.

The raspberries not only came back, but have created no fewer than 5 additional canes throughout the bed. Moral of the story, don't give up on something after one bad year.







The top tier has ever-bearing strawberries (many crops throughout the year) while the lower beds are June-bearing (one giant crop all at once). We had just enough fencing left over to cordon off an asparagus that randomly sprouted in the tomato bed. The creeping thyme that is supposed to be growing in the pathway between the strawberries hasn't come up yet, but I'm sure it will.

Surprisingly, due to the cold weather, the lettuce is doing very well. Last year we tried to plant some but it got so hot, so early, that it all bolted and was ruined. This is a random mix of many kinds of lettuce.

     The blueberries are doing wonderfully, and will need to be netted soon. Last year, I let the grapevine grow wild to build up reserves. This year, I'm trying my hand at espalier'ing it, and it has a lot of grape flowers starting, so here's hoping! I did lose a pepper and some squash leaves to the cold snap two weeks ago, but everything else is doing well, and the weed blocker is doing an amazing job. It took 4 years, but I think the garden is finally at a state of maintenance, instead of frantic catch-up. 

Being strong

      When I first got the urge to get in better shape, I searched to see what was available nearby. The first thing that caught my eye was parkour, because it encourages free movement, running, jumping, and generally being a kid again, playing out in the woods. At the time, parkour gyms were less prevalent than they are now, but there was one in my town, and offering adult classes. I contacted them, and they said the prereq for doing parkour was to show I could do: 50 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 50 pull-ups at one go. So that was right out (hint, I still can't do that). Instead, I joined Irish dance, and had a wonderful time getting in better cardio shape and kicking my shins black and blue.

     Unfortunately, when I graduated and moved to the east coast, I was unable to find another Irish dance team that I really liked. I mooched around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then I stumbled onto this website called NerdFitness, which attempts to break down exercise and being healthy into gaming and "nerd" concepts. The posts were awesome, bridging the nerd/jock gap, the community was hugely supportive, and I was frankly sick of doing more and more cardio workouts with less and less result, so I gave it a try. When I first tried the beginner's bodyweight workout, I could barely do two sets of a few squats, lunges, knee push-ups, dumbbell rows and planks. Nevertheless, I persisted, and was very proud when I was able to do a third set, and then started adding weights.

     In September of 2015, I managed to fracture my ankle while ungracefully walking down stairs. For two months, I could not work out at all, and then pushed to get into physical therapy (pt), get walking, and try to better than before. I've always brushed off my bruises and running into walls as just clumsiness, but pt taught me that it was poor flexibility and strength that made me clumsy. Here I was, 35 years old, and injured walking down stairs because I was too out of shape to avoid damaging myself. If I'm aiming to live past 100, this is not a sustainable plan.

     Although strength training at home through an online forum is great, it's not the same as getting in-person training and social time, so once again, I looked around to see what was available. This time, I found a parkour place not too far away that had zero pre-reqs: come in and try it out. I stalled for a bit, looking for someone to go with on the scary first endeavor, but once I finally went... I was hooked. Since so very many things can go wrong in parkour, the focus of training is safety first. First you learn how to fail out of a move, then you learn the move. Can't do the move yet? Here are the steps to work up to it. Everyone get in line, do the variation you can do safely. Go.

     I've been doing parkour now for a little over a year. When I started, I was doing one hour, every other week, and barely able to do a lot of the moves. Now, I'm doing 3 hours, every weekend, and holding my own on quite a few of the moves. Still lots of room for improvement, but I've come a long way.

Move	February '16	May '17
Precision jumps	-	Tweaking form
Cat hang	A few seconds	Working on cat hang pull-ups
Cat leap	-	Tweaking form
Quadrupedal movement (QM)	A few seconds	30 seconds, balancing a bar on my back
Easy vault	2.5' vault box	3' vault box
Safety/speed vault	2.5' box, climb over	3' vault box, working on speed vault
Kong vault	-	Standing jump onto a 2.5' box
Parkour rolls	Working on form	Still working on form
Kip-up	-	Can kip-up into back bridge
Handstands	Against a wall	Hold for a few seconds, free-standing
Running laps	Less than 1	2 laps without stopping

     One of the classes that I take there is like a full-body pt course - we do flexibility and mobility work, and if something doesn't work right, the teacher explains why it hurts, what's probably going on in your body, and how to do exercises at home to fix it. In winter of 2016, I learned I have a partially torn rotator cuff. Between regular pt and the stuff we do at parkour, it is not an issue, and I'm still doing crazy-fun things that, two years ago, I wouldn't even consider doing. There are still some aches and pains of getting older, but I can touch my toes, run laps, do back bridges, fall and roll in any direction, climb up and jump down from 6' boxes, hop over railings, and just generally have fun with my environment. 100 years old, here I come. 

Baking Experiments #3

It's that time of the year again, when cookies and sweets and unhealthy snacks (oh my) appear everywhere. In an attempt to steer things in a slightly healthier direction this year, I made the below recipes for work. They all turned out quite well, although be warned that you should keep toothpicks nearby for the chia seeds!

Oatmeal Raisin Chia Seed Cookies
1 cup butter
3/4 cup each brown and white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup chia seeds
1/2 cup raisins

London/Ireland trip, part 3

(continued from previous post)

     Ok, I promise this will be the last post on this trip! After leaving Killarney, we headed up to Galway, We checked out of the hotel a little late, because we wanted to soak up the peace and quiet as much as possible, so we pulled into Galway right around rush hour. The hotel was pretty decent,
although it had terrible wifi, and had an attached restaurant where, with a reservation, we became the least-well-dressed and youngest couple (by at least 20 years) to have a freaking delicious meal. Thankfully, we both overate horribly, because the waitstaff was not what I'd call speedy, so we had plenty of time to digest before the bill came and we went back to the room to pass out.

     The next day, we drove into oldtown Galway, parked by the water, and began to wander. Since we didn't really plan anything, this turned into somewhat of an adventure as we left the shopping district, found a train station, trespassed on abandoned private property to get a good view of the Bay, got rained on, and found a random cemetery. Knowing that my gentleman and I both appreciate quiet and old spaces, we decided to duck in, counting on the fact that it had a plaque near the front gate to indicate that it was, indeed, open to the public, and we weren't further trespassing.

London/Ireland Trip, part 2

(continued from previous post)

     Having successfully navigated London and Dublin, we climbed back in the car and headed out to see other parts of southern Ireland. After navigating out onto the appropriate highway, I learned two things. 1) The best way to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road is to be on an open highway for mind-numbing hours. 2) Drivers in less urban areas are rather nice, and pretty darn mature. We quickly picked up that the thing to do is to be in the left lane (slow lane) until you need to overtake someone. You move right, go around them, and then get back in the slow lane. We had zero issues with getting stuck behind some jerk going slowly in the fast lane and holding everyone up. It was quite pleasant.