Funky Luck

The storm that blew through yesterday with cracks of thunder so close to us that you didn't register the flash of lightning before the thunder was shaking the house, managed to knock out the electricity. Again. And once again, our neighbors on all sides had electricity but we, of course, did not because our power is run from a different pole from everyone elses. We called and they told us the truck that came out to fix it when it first happened (an hour before) was in a horrendous accident and they sent another truck. Last time, the truck they sent out broke down. The time before that, the truck they sent had a flat. The time before that... *sigh*

While I don't mind being in the dark and we found ways to amuse ourselves after the hour long storm past, like cleaning up the ashes where the grill was blown over (yes, I'm serious, a 75 pound grill that is behind a tall cedar tree on our deck was blown over), its annoying that we lose power like every month for hours and hours. And hours. And it is always in the middle of cooking dinner or washing clothes or me taking a shower. I was burning a disc off when this storm just hit from out of no where and the thunder was on us while the sun was still shining through the living room window. Luckily, I have a laptop so my system just kept right on burning. I'd just started preparing for laundry and dinner was in the oven when all of a sudden...

*snarl*

We were without power for just over six hours along with 2.3 other people behind us somewhere in the bushes. Everyone else up and down the street had electricity...

Dinner was served at midnight. Laundry wasn't done until 2 in the morning and the electric company that provides our power (occasionally) was out a few hours of power from 3.3 people on the back lot of... whatever.

Amazingly, my light bill will probably be higher because of this outage.

My carrots survived it would seem. The soil doesn't seem to be too hard on the top, still moist from yesterday's downpour. I hope that they will be able to break through. I topped them with a good layer of peat moss so they would be able to pop right up. We're eager to see some green poking through!

I'm looking at my upside down tomato plant and don't know if it plans to produce much of anything or not. I talked to my father about it and we were wondering if it is because I only have one, but I looked it up and the variety I have self pollinates so that shouldn't be an issue. I've had blooms on it for weeks but not one tomato. I'm at a loss and, strangely, so is my father, who has been growing tomatoes since he was my youngest child's age. We'll see what happens. As long as it is blooming and still green, we have a chance!

My neighbor looks like he'll fair better than I. His plants are large and bushy. And my landlord came out and planted some in the field out back. His are looking a lot like mine. This is strange because when we moved in three years ago, he had a thriving garden back there with tomatoes, beans, corn, squash and a bunch of other stuff that wouldn't stop producing at the end of the growing season. The field has been fallow up until this year when I planted a pumpkin plant and he planted six tomatoes. There is still a lot of field to be filled but it doesn't appear that our plants are going to do much of anything.

It pains me but I know that my neighbor will be hanging shopping bags full of tomatoes on my door this year like he did last year (he loved my tomato relish) while my own tomato stubbornly refuses to produce not a single berry.

Such is life. There is always next year. You can't win them all. *insert your favorite cliche here*

I heard sad news as I write. George Carlin past away peacefully in his sleep today. It is a pity, I grew up listening to his comedy. I certainly will miss him.

I have the day off tomorrow so we're going to plant some of our salad mix and see how that goes. We've been slowly working our way up to having a small but respectable garden and I'm hoping that next year will see us doing better than this year. After all the reading and research and phone calls to my father asking questions about everything, we've learned a lot. And I hope that my sons will be geared up to make it all happen next year.

We are going to spend this winter purchasing seeds, choosing our favorite local garden shops, saving and purchasing containers for our garden and reading up on gardening techniques all over the web and in books. I was considering trying a cold frame to get a jump on the season, but there is a possibility that we may be moving so until I know for sure, that is on hold. But it will give me a chance to make a decision on what type of cold frame I want.

So many projects, so little time!