Yes, but while making sure the yard was clear for mowing (which meant moving all the squash tendrils back into the garden area and staking up one of the tomato plants that was beginning to creep) I discovered blooms on almost everything. Of course the one thing I was looking for, the bean blooms, aren’t there. I’m still keeping an eye out though.
This is the cucumber. Eventually the fruit develops behind the flower and the bloom drops off.
Here’s the squash blooms, which develop the same way.
And for a bit of perspective about how big there leaves are:
Here’s a shot of that whole plot.
Yes, it is supposed to look overcrowded. The plants are complimentary to each other.
I’ve dubbed this the zombie broccoli, because even though it got knocked over in a storm and all the leaves died off I replanted the stem and it’s come back (see all that nice new healthy growth? That’s what you look for when buying plants from stores, by the way, not the flowers or at the fat, greenhouse grown leaves, but at the new and just starting growth, because that it what will survive transporting and transplants.)
Our neighbor got rid of their hostas (which they had planted in full sun anyway, not their fault, it was that way when they moved in). Hostas are shade tolerant (they can handle up to about 4-5 hours of sun, but thrive in shade too.) and they are really good for those trouble areas, like under trees. This area is shady most of the day, is unevenly covered with evergreen bushes and “landscaped” with rock (I hate landscape rock. You can never get rid of it. Mulch naturally decays, but rock just makes it hard for me to dig. ) I put them here in an effort to fill this area so I can stop weeding it. Despite that black plastic and the rock every year this area gets massively overgrown because in the summer the house sat empty weeds grew on top of it, on top of the weed plastic. The rocks don’t help, they just end up getting flung at me when I’m weed wacking, or spill out into the yard and where they have run ins with the mower.
If these hostas get as strong and thick as the ones I have in the front shade garden then they’ll go a long way to help keep out the weeds.
Speaking of the other hostas, they are flowering.
And so are my stargazer lilies (which are really easy to grow!)
Rot will have eight full page pieces of interior black and white art by up and coming artist Mechelle Sizemore. Here’s a few to get you salivating (and I’m not even going to show you my favorite one.) And you should know that while ebook versions of Rot will be available through Horror Mall the ebook will NOT include the extra art.
Forgot to post about this yesterday. Here’s the page. My formatting skills are questionable (the pdf is pretty, not so sure about the others, I am gratefully open to tips if anyone would like to give them) but the story is good. Enjoy!
ETA: Plague Lives Draft 1 is done! I knew I didn’t have a full 10k to the end. However, look at the over all word count. When I started writing I planned to do three 20k sections, for an overall size of 60k. I have never gotten so close to my goal word count. Also, save for the Moon Madness/Wolf Heart rewrite (which may not count because it was a story I’d already written twice before) this is my longest first draft ever, by about 20k.
I’m definitely progressing when it comes to storytelling and story pacing.
It’s been a crazy year and I’ve gotten a lot of writing stuff that isn’t actually writing done so far, but it is beyond time for me to be done with Plague Lives because I made a goal to finish it in April and haven’t written more than 1 or 2k on it in June. I’m also only 10k or less from the end and I know how it ends now, so all this other bull is just distraction.
So I will finish it before July.
Anyone else want to join in on a Write-A-Thon to boost a word count or finish a project? If so leave me a link and I’ll stop by on breaks to cheer you on.
Plague Lives 1st Draft
59402 / 60000 words. 99% done!
Write-A-Thon Progress
7926 / 10000 words. 79% done!
Sunday June 28, 2009 Total Words: 3526
Monday June 29, 3009 Total Words: 2613
Tuesday June 30, 2009 Total Words: 1787
Last update is here, in case you want to compare, because the difference is pretty dramatic.
Especially in garden #1 (squash, corn, beans)
Seriously, these crop plants grow FAST.
The corn. Those seed-looking bits are actually the male pollen. It’s not mature yet, but it’ll be there soon.
The Squash. For perspective these leaves are large than my face. Easily.
The beans are more difficult because they got dwarfed by the squash. If I do this three sisters planting again I will give the beans a week or two to sprout and grow before I plant the squash. I’m just not sure how many bean plants are alive and well, but I planted scarlet runner beans, so when they bloom it will be clear, since they bloom pretty red flowers.
In the second half of this plot, where the corn never surfaces, I ended up planting some decorative gourd seeds, which are also doing well.
In fact between the corn leaves, which are painfully sharp, and the squah leaves, which are huge and also have a potentially painful edge, I can’[t quite weed this plot any more. However, that is the point to the three sisters planting. The corn grown tall, the beans climb the corn and the squash smothers weeds, growing anong the ground. I do think that the vegetable squash are about as tall as they will get because the new vines coming out of the center appear to be going more for length than height and size.
Garden two:
I am so please with myself for keeping this one so neat and clear. As you can see we lost one of the broccoli plants to a storm that knocked it over. It wilted quite a bit, but then it sort of stopped and I’m pretty sure I saw new growth on it when working yesterday. So who knows, it might come back or might not.
Cucumbers, coming a long nicely.
Broccoli, which will likely be harvested by the end of July. As it turns out there won’t be a second batch of broccoli because I do’t have any more seeds. Maybe I’ll buy more, maybe not.
There will be more of these, in fact there are already more in the two days between me taking these pictures and posting them.
The upside down planters are also doing very well, but I have to check them twice a day to make sure they aren’t drying out too much, and I water them with a 2 liter bottle daily, unless it rains.
I actually pulled this beauty and added it to a salad with some of the black peppers. Yum.
So, looking and doing great. This is the fun part of gardening where the plants are all established and other than checking for problems you pretty much just sit back and enjoy.
I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut, but well, I have this blog so that I don’ have to. So here goes:
Yes, he did some great stuff, music wise.
Yes, from some rather intimate experience with sexual abuse I feel completely secure in saying that there was definite reason to bring him to trial for molestation. Even if he never, as one person put it, “diddled with a kid”* he WAS sexually inappropriate with many children, which is a lesser evil, but does still cause harm.
Forgetting that he suffered and made bad choices as a result of his upbringing in the limelight is worse than mentioning that he might have been a child molester. Holding him pure and faultless in death is not a tribute to him it is a knife in the side of every man, woman or child who has suffered from sexual (or physical or mental abuse).
Think about it this way, Michael WAS a victim himself and he had no support and no help recovering from his childhood. Look what it did to him. What do you think the people he victimized are going to do? Are going to feel?
It is imperative for the victims of abuse to seek help in recovering, or at the very least become determined to break the cycle instead of continuing it. Because the abused are compelled to abuse others. Like a bee to pollen abusers that were once victims are compelled to try to reprogram the people around them, much like abuse victims find themselves trying to relive their abusive pasts.
It takes determination and support to break free of the cycle of abuse. Michael Jackson had near unlimited resources at his disposal and instead of trying to break the cycle he spent his time trying to reclaim his lost childhood, which took him down a path that is exactly like the ones parents are warned to identify child molesters by. He had an unhealthy interest in children, and just children. He went so far as to fill his property with toys and games–and an amusement park–to attract more children and furthermore specifically went after children who were sick, disturbed or otherwise perfect targets for abuse.
He should not have been allowed to do so. No amount of person victimization gives one the license to abuse others! No amount of bad childhood gives you the right to fuck up someone else’s childhood. And no amount of celebrity or abuse justifies refusing to break the cycle of abuse.
Death and celebrity do not wash the psychological health of victims clean. We should not be crying because Michael Jackson is dead. Death comes for all. We should be crying because we celebrated the man’s abuse, that done to him and that perpetuated by him. We failed him, and we failed those he hurt.
Refusing to let it continue, stepping up and saying no more, doing what Jackson didn’t do in his own life is what his legacy should be.
*And for the record minimizing “child rape/molestation” as “diddling” is a self soothing technique the user employs to lessen their own uncomfortableness with the word and the idea of child molestation. So how about starting by growing the fuck up and facing that this shit happens. Denying it and excusing it helps no one.
Rot leaves readers questioning the value of human life, both before and after death. The zombies portrayed have a humanity that many of the living employees of Silver Springs do not display. The employees see nothing human in their charges, and so they feel justified in committing terrible crimes simply because “they aren’t like us.”
Read Zoe’s full review here. (She says it would appeal to fans of literary horror. Have I committed literary??)
Our neighbor got rid of their hostas (which they had planted in full sun anyway, not their fault, it was that way when they moved in). Hostas are shade tolerant (they can handle up to about 4-5 hours of sun, but thrive in shade too.) and they are really good for those trouble areas, like under trees. This area is shady most of the day, is unevenly covered with evergreen bushes and “landscaped” with rock (I hate landscape rock. You can never get rid of it. Mulch naturally decays, but rock just makes it hard for me to dig. ) I put them here in an effort to fill this area so I can stop weeding it. Despite that black plastic and the rock every year this area gets massively overgrown because in the summer the house sat empty weeds grew on top of it, on top of the weed plastic. The rocks don’t help, they just end up getting flung at me when I’m weed wacking, or spill out into the yard and where they have run ins with the mower.
The Squash. For perspective these leaves are large than my face. Easily.
Cucumbers, coming a long nicely.
Broccoli, which will likely be harvested by the end of July. As it turns out there won’t be a second batch of broccoli because I do’t have any more seeds. Maybe I’ll buy more, maybe not.
The upside down planters are also doing very well, but I have to check them twice a day to make sure they aren’t drying out too much, and I water them with a 2 liter bottle daily, unless it rains.
