Thunder Bolts and Lighting…. (Very very frightening)…

Here there is a storm overhead… with lighting, thunder, and apparently a tornado warning (seen by a friend who called, alarmed by the scrolling warning across the bottom of her TV screen.)

And rain… lots of rain…

Another flash… thunder a second or so later…

Northern California is not Florida… we don’t get lightning… thunder… and this specific type of extreme weather… but we are, now…

The daughter, having spent time in Florida, and having learned Florida rules is unwilling to wash dishes… water conducts electricity… lighting is electricity… You use water when washing dishes… she has a point.

More thunder...

Rain is falling… lots of rain.

The animals are having issues… Atakapa (the cat) is scared… Emma is following the daughter about as a shadow.

A flash… more thunder.

Another flash, more thunder…

Should we unplug?

Thunder, lighting very very frightening, Galileo, Galaleo…., whops… we have reverted to a Queen song…

More thunder, more lightening…

Good night...

Slouching towards the weekend

Following up, Later on Thursday and early Friday... The Lovely Tina is home… after a goodly goodbye party… One of the employees was leaving after 8 years (this is an eternity in Silicon Valley, particularly at Google…)

Tina came home with a Google tee shirt… (this is not unusual… Google puts our tee shirts when the leaves change… I work at a place where we note that leaves change, but no tee shirts…) This tee shirt states “ We Love our Parents”… Everyone, even us have a “Take your kids to work day” but Google has a “take your parents to work day” (too)… Sadly the Lovely Tina and I no longer have parents among the living… so ours didn’t get to go, but Tina was a tour guide today…

Since the lovely Tina had a late night, the wonderful Emma didn’t get to go to Google today (Thursday)… she is mopping about, wanting to go out… She will go to work with Tina tomorrow (aka Friday).

Now Saturday evening…

I had Saturday off… away from the farm, away from work… I mostly gardened…and puttered about the garden… I went to my favorite nursery… I bought plants including two very expensive grafted tomato plants… Tina, Stephanie and I had lunch at a local sushi place… I went to a home improvement store…

Once again home, I planted plants… mostly lettuces, a few marigolds, and some basil… I weeded… some random weeding but mostly weeded in the vegetable garden along the side of the house. My garden is important, more so than the vegetables produced… it is a connection to the earth.

I have tomatoes, lettuce, basil, parsley in a raised bed… Some of my tomatoes have been in the dirt for a full month… One can expect tomatoes as early as 60 days after setting out plants… if true, I could get tomatoes about June first… That is unlikely, but tomatoes by July 4^th are a possibility…

Over the next week I will plant cucumbers, and squash… more onions… more tomatoes (including my special very expensive grafted tomatoes…)

Tina home… I showered (you would need a shower too if you spent the day gardening, weeding) and Tina, Emma (the dog) and I went to Half Moon Bay for dinner at the brew pub… (Half Moon Bay Brewery, maybe the best brew pub in the world, but its my local and I may be biased, but it is really good, visit if in the area) The brew pub had a special “Timmy Day IPA” in honor of Giants opening day and pitcher Tim Lincecum… I tried it… I liked it… I had a second. Go Giants!

We ate outside as the sun dropped… Emma was happy… Tina and I were happy… all was good. We took a photo… We drove home… I blogged (but you might have guessed that if you are reading this…)

Life is good, as good as it gets.

Random thoughts on a Thursday evening

Its about 8:30 pm… I want to go to bed… so does the daughter… I am tired and my ears are still ringing…I am tired...

We were up late last night… at a concert, a Matt Nathanson concert… at the Filmore… an old school music venue in SF… It was a great show, and worth the ears ringing and early morning…

It was one of those concerts… too good… too memorable… we have posters... did I say I am tired?

It was a stand up concert… no seats… lots of SF venues do this… the wife won’t anymore… she is too grown up… luckily we have a daughter to go with me... You have to breed new concert partners as you get old. We (daughter and I) have a Head and the Heart Concert in early June… the wife and I have tickets to a sit down show at the Great American Music Hall for Blame Sally in a few weeks… Tina does sit down particularly if it includes dinner. (Tina and I are in a Blame Sally Concert Video...

Making it worse, tomorrow it will be an early day at work; the electrical engineers are coming, the structural engineers are coming and expect a tour of the crawl space… the city electricians are coming to trace wiring… There are schools coming to, expecting tours…

On the other hand I have the weekend off… Saturday with limited if no responsibilities… Sunday in Sacramento at the brother in law’s (he (and wife)reads this blog) for Easter… He is running for congress… on a conservative platform… I don’t agree with his platform, but like him (and like his wife better) and trust him and we send him money for his cam pain… I guess we are participating in that old school American tradition of buying a politician… we find most go cheaper than expected if you buy in early.

I sit at my computer… Railroad preservation protects are looming… Travel ideas are out there too… a beer sits nearby (Sierra Nevada Torpedo)

From last night, from Matt, a quote of the day…

"You know that moment when .you are about to run in to a burning building and your friend asks “what you are doing” and you say “I am running into that building” and your friend asks if “you are crazy because it is on fire” and you say “that’s OK I’m cold”"

Its random... it works if you were there...

From me… I think its bed time… Night…

The Tomato challenge…

It is garden time… Spring… a time when things grow… flowers blossom…

It is time for the “first tomato of the season” challenge to begin… I am going to win…

I planted tomatoes in early March, before I left… (this is a blog, frequently about travel… if you don’t know where I was, look it up… I will wait, or not…)

I am in a climate which is tomato challenged… Here, near San Francisco Bay, it is not hot.. Occasionally cold, not “frost” cold (we don’t have frosts regularly, and the frosts we have are rarely “hard frost”) but too cool for regular tomato culture… It is just not quite hot enough here in San Mateo, on the San Francisco Peninsula for common tomato culture… (it is much better across the bay, in Fremont where I work, even better on the other side of Mission Peak, in the Livermore Valley… If it is hotter it is better)

But I like tomatoes… and I live in San Mateo, so, I will attempt to grow tomatoes in San Mateo.

Garrison Keller when discussing Lake Woebegone, talks of the “Tomato Dole”… the embarrassment of not having tomatoes in your garden and having to accept tomatoes from neighbors who have tomatoes, who apparently are better gardeners… the proof in the tomatoes, you have them, or you don’t… It is apparently a Lutheran church/Minnesota/Scandinavian thing… I am none of the above but I like to grow tomatoes…

I have used several tomato growing strategies over the years…

I start early… 5 of my plants went into the dirt in early .on March 5th, after the likely first frost, but before the weather is really right… If they don’t freeze, they will get a head start… The 6^th will be planted Tuesday (April 3^rd)… There will be a second bed with more plants… but they are not likely to win the first tomato of the season… They are for later… September, October, maybe as late as December…

I have built a new raised bed… in the middle of the yard, in full sun… less protected from wind, but all in all a good spot… Since the new bed is so “public” (usually I plant tomatoes in the side yard… not easily seen) I bought new tomato cages… in bright primary Googley colors… red, yellow, blue, and green… It makes the lovely Tina happy (she works at Google…)

The soil in the new raised bed is a mix of compost, topsoil harvested while building a new patio area and pigeon poo… I have lots of pigeon poo… I have 4, no, 5, no, 6 racing pigeons… If you feed them they poo… you have to clean the cage with some regularity… I collect the poo, and age it, and use it as fertilizer… it is as good as it gets… It makes tomatoes happy… and big… and green… You probably don't have pigeon poo... too bad...

I plant my plants deep… Tomatoes can grow roots from the stem… I get tall plants, trim most of the lower leaves, then plant them with 4-6” of what had been stem now underground…

I choose my tomatoes carefully… You can’t grow many popular tomatoes in San Mateo… Beef steak just take more heat than we have… so I planted a red cherry, two yellow pear cherry, a San Francisco Fog, an Early Girl (a Monsanto Hybrid… an old school hybrid… as much as I don’t like the idea of modern corporate plant genetic engineering represented by Monsanto, Early Girl is pretty reliable) and a Stupice, a Czechoslovakian heirloom… It is my secrete weapon (after pigeon poop… pigeon poop is special) My later patch will include other Russian and Eastern European heirloom tomatoes… seeing if any measure up… I keep notes… I will also try a purple and a green heirloom… they all seem to be better adapted to cold…

This year I will test a new weapon… My local nursery is offering grafted tomatoes… cold weather root stock with hot weather tops, promising to produce old fashion hot weather tomatoes like the fabled beef stake, in the foggy climate of San Francisco… We will see…

Last year I got my first tomato on June 15^th… the second and third in late June, then the wave hit about mid July… This year, I am trying for June 1… I will report as things progress.

There will also be cucumbers, lettuce, onions, artichokes, potatoes, beets, carrots and green beans (maybe speckled beans, maybe peas) Swiss chard and basil, parsley, rosemary and thyme… (or maybe Simon and Garfunkel… Thank God Monty Python didn’t do gardening sketches…)

I will be doing the sunshine dance… If I was you I would run away, fast… it’s not pretty…