veralouie: books, bugs, beeps

this weekend, as greg is throwing around a frisbee* in oklahoma, the cats and i are enjoying a nice madison weekend. as much as i can, i'm rushing through my current(ly not all that interesting) book so that i can get onto all of the new ones i've recently purchased** or been gifted***:

*okay, he's not just throwing around a frisbee. i will admit that ultimate frisbee takes much more skill than i presently possess.

**the courthouse sells (hardly ever used) books for 1 and 2 dollars! how can one resist?!

***one of these books i'm actually gifting to someone. dad, don't look at them too carefully.

yesterday's sky:

but it didn't even rain.

yesterday at the garden. one veralouie reader asked for a picture of the garden as a whole. my best efforts could only fit it within three photos. for those who haven't yet visited it, it's a 20x20 plot.

from the front left....

that table thing in the corner is not part of our plot.

from the middle....

beatrices... trug... in the middle...
asparagus...beans... potatoes to the left...

garlic...tomatoes... basil to the right...

from the front right...

row closest to the bottom of the picture...from left to right, onions, mystery pepper, cabbage patch kids, lettuce, cilantro.

battle of the clearly immodest beetles...

our strategy in the beginning was to send them on vacation. we'd walk them over to some bushes 100 yards away and let them find their way back. which they did.

they have succeeded in creating multiple generations. babies with small mouths, teenagers with big stomachs, and adults, with... as you can see, a voracious appetite for something other than food.

our vacationing strategy was not doing enough. so, we initiated 'operation squish them.' this has pretty much been greg's job, although under the wisconsin statutes i am just as guilty of their deaths****. how do i feel about these blood potatoes? a little torn*****. i really don't like to kill bugs, no matter how mean they are.

so, with greg gone, i found myself unable to kill the guys yesterday, and yesterday... there were more beetles than ever before. so... (any troy gardeners please stop reading now)... i put them in the green trug, along with some weeds... and... some potato plant leaves to keep them satisfied... and took them over to the weed pile which is... well... very far away from our plot... and hoped that it would take them a long, long time to get home.

****i'm listening to 'to the best of our knowledge' right now and a woman is asking people three questions: what do you live for? what would you die for? and what would you kill for? me... i guess i would kill for my potato plants?!

*****: see ****.

on a less buggly note... look at what i found on some of the mystery beans!