a post! it's about time!

hey! i'm back! i'm sure by now you've all moved on and found better blogs or more interesting things to do with your time. i sure hope not! sorry i have not updated the blog for almost an entire week! you must have been so bored at work!!! or, like me... you were too busy to think about veralouie. well, i thought about it, but never found a good time to update. but here i am! and here is a long post for your enjoyment. i can't say many amazing things happened this past week, but i'll do my best:

wednesday morning: up at 5:15 a.m. to get to a marital property training day in milwaukee...

7 a.m. storms on the way to milwaukee...

our destination: the ubiquitous hotel conference room...

it wasn't so bad. we learned a little, got free pens, free paper, free binders, free donuts, free tea, free water, free orange juice, free mints.

next: over to greg's lab after work and he was in the 'machine shop'... can i just show you how ancient this machine shop is...

no, this is not an antique train engine...

it's a tool of some sort. i'm pretty sure it's the only one of its kind out there.

i did some research on this company...

admittedly i was sort of hoping it would no longer be around. that i would only find something about it in some long gone newspaper. not so. central steel and wire has been around since 1909. but i bet this was one of the first stickers they ever made.

no, there wasn't a shaven metal fete. it's just a little bit messy in the machine shop.

man! south bend lathe works is still around too! but it was founded in 1906... so... so this machine shop really is ancient i swear! it's just that these companies are really successful. anyhow, i can at least guarantee that the last time this machine was oiled daily was 1906.

anywho, next up.... what else... green stuff....

this is potentially a view from our new place...okay, it doesn't look all that impressive from the picture, but can you see the bench for sitting on? that's neat huh?


here's our place! okay, okay, it's not our place. not by a long shot. these are the first couple of places that will be finished. ours is the last place. and ours is one, not two stories. maybe i've already shown you a picture of this. isn't it exciting though!?

here's a garden update...

the lettuce that we planted from seed...

just a view....

the soy beans...

the mystery beans...

the greeeeen beans...

just another view...

we planted morning glories by the fence. this is one of the big guys. none have bloomed yet.

have i shown you these yet? can you guess what they are...

us pear a gus.

our mystery pepper plant...

it appears that we will soon find out what kind of peppers we will be getting.

we brought out camping chairs and sat in our garden plot. hee hee.

uhhh....

our two cabbage patch kids...

more cilantro than we could ever eat...

and lettuce.

look! a tomato plant that's really starting to go somewhere!

hmm... this is a very tragic story...

so, this very pretty moth lands on our potato plants and hangs out... minding it's own business... not being destructive (unlike the potato beetles)... and just, generally, acting pretty and nice. and then what happens? i spray it with the hose. on accident of course. but it shot the poor thing off the plant and onto the ground. but... it was okay... it sat on the hay recovering...
until...
i stepped on it. on accident of course! it was very sad. and for those gapers out there, no i did not take a picture of the accident scene. we'll just remember her as she was.

these guys are garlic...

compared to some of the garlic stalks in other plots, these are truly pitiful looking. many people are already getting garlic scapes on their stalks. i don't think ours will get scapes. anywho, we pulled out a couple we believed to be dead and guess what we found...

these!

mini garlics! or, what will (that is, would) eventually become garlic bulbs. how fun!

these are garlic scapes. not as developed as some seem to get. you use it just like garlic. they came in our vegetable box this week.

just another view...

so, the very first thing we planted in the garden was spinach. it never came up. well, so we thought. but finally one randomly popped up. or... so we think. it could just be a gigantic weed...

what do you think?

next: on the right, just a few of our 40+ tomato plants. yes... over 40 tomato plants. what were we thinking? we just couldn't get rid of the volunteers. even the wimpy ones. so, if you'd like to put in an order for tomato sauce, now's a good time. to the left, our green beans and a few of the mystery beans.

the three beatrices. lovely as ever. the flowers in them are growing steadily. the ferns in the first beatrice are even getting flowers on them.

these are onions that we happen to be quite proud of. just look at them!

this is the trug and some of our gardening equipment. trug... is that what the green bucket is called? i know it's something like that. well, it's the trug now. it holds weeds.

i started these gloves from seed. they've really taken off in the past few weeks. soon they'll be ready for harvest and i can wear them!

cheesy sunset picture...

well, not so cheesy right?

i would now like to update you now on the flowers on the patio because i know you just can't get enough of all of our plants and flowers...

okay, so this chamomile might as well have been dead. i was ready to pull them out and put in something new but greg insisted they were doing fine. and guess what! they revived themselves somehow!

see all those little white things... those are flowers. there were virtually no new flowers on it a week ago. good job chamomile! p.s. i know they're scruffy. they're like the scruffiest chamomiles ever. so tangled.

our daisies weren't doing all that well either because dracula decided she liked them, but, they too are making a comeback...

the balcony cilantro is going to be coriander soon.

and this... this is the pride of the balcony...

we started this (and a few others like it) from seed. it's called painted tongue. odd name yes, but look at how pretty it is! we have been waiting on a flower from these guys for so long and this is the first.

well, that's it for now!