55 bar falls 29.59 8mph NE dewpoint 36 Beltane
Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing
This is Grandma and her descendants, Gabriel and Ruth. Gabe still has to learn to suck and swallow. He also needs to wean himself from the canula that deliver an oxygen stream. Both of these are maturational tasks that would have completed on their own in the womb, so he just needs to grow and get older. Right now everyone wishes he’d do both quicker, unmasking one of the many contradictions in human development. As we age, no one wants to get older and grow bigger.
Kate came home last night. She was sad. Ruthie now knows her and runs up with a smile and arms out, “Grandma!” That’s tough to leave. Gabe, too, is in a vulnerable place even though she’s confident he’ll be fine. She also helped out Jon and Jen with domestic matters like cooking, grocery shopping and Ruth care when Ruth was not in daycare.
Having a child in the hospital creates stress just because, but there is stress, too, because work goes on while the daily routine gets disrupted. No one gets enough sleep. A tough time for the Olson family, Denver branch. It will receded into the past, someday, and become the stuff of family legend. When you were a baby, Gabe, you were in the hospital so long and we were so worried.
A reader from the Webiverse asked to see some photographs of my hydroponic setup. It occurred to me that it might be the feds trying to catch a not too intelligent dope grower. Go, ahead, buddy, show me your pictures. Heh, heh, heh. I hope so, but because boy are they going to be disappointed.
From this and the next angle all you can see are lettuce and tomato plants, but there are also morning glories, cucumbers and three varieties of beets. These last are not as far along in the growth process and will go outside as soon as the weather warms up.
As I’ve begun to work with the hydroponics, this setup seems small. The megafarm is the larger of the two; the smaller is sold as Emily’s farm.
Here’s the whole deal, including the seed sprouting area. The halide bulb and shield are just out of sight near the top.
It’s amazing the charge I got out of working with seeds and young plants when snow and cold weather blew around the house. I plan to branch out (ha,ha) a bit over the year to include flowers and, maybe, carnivorous plants. No, I don’t know why.
LOL, no I’m no fed. I can think of about half a dozen things off-hand that pretty much disqualify me from any kind of career like that.
I just like seeing people growing stuff without dirt that isn’t “that stuff”. I hate going to the garden shops asking about stuff and then having the people there look at me like I must be “one of those types”. Yeah, it’s cheaper to grow stuff outside in the dirt, I get it. But like you said, there’s just something about doing it indoors when the weather is bad that makes you smile.
I’ve grown all kinds of stuff in dirt and I know the pride of handing someone a disturbingly large home-grown tomato or carrot or such and telling them, “Yeah, I grew that.”
I can’t wait to add “… in my basement – without dirt” to that statement.
It’s geek gardening. Dirt just ain’t “science enough”.
I like what you’ve got growing there. I’m planning a relatively similar (though simpler) set up to start off. A rubbermaid bin on the bottom with some lights like you’ve got on the bottom – fluorescents. I’d like to get some HID at some point, but they’re pricey and I’ve got my eye on a new Toshiba laptop.
Oh, and it disturbs me that you’re thinking of adding carnivorous plants.
I was just on ThinkGeek the other day, saw their carnivorous plant set-up (the cheap little plastic thing that actually grows them pretty nicely). I saw that and thought, “Gee, I bet that would work pretty well sitting next to some hydroponics plants… just an occasional foliar spray… and they’d keep down the pests!”
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So yeah, stay out of my head man! ;p