Lessons for Gardening on a Balcony...

This is my fourth (can you believe it?) summer in my condo, and thus my fourth try at planting things on my balcony. I'd like to believe that I've learned a few things along the way...

1. It is better to perform the actual potting of your plants somewhere other than on your balcony. It will make your downstairs neighbor much happier. Plus you don't have to haul huge bags of dirt up the stairs and through your living room.
2. There isn't enough room on a balcony (or, at least, on my balcony) to plant a vegetable garden. In other words, you can't grow enough green beans in a planter box to make it worth your while. Same thing goes for carrots...
   
3. It is best to carry full planters by the bottom when transporting them across your living room. (Ok, I didn't actually learn this the hard way, but the thought did occur to me this year as I was hauling full planters up the stairs and through the living room to the balcony. The last thing I want is the little bottom tray popping off and scattering dirt and stuff all over the carpet.)
4. Just because a plant is listed as "full sun" does not mean that it is qualified for balcony life. Particularly if said balcony does not come equipped with a hose. If the instructions for the plant call for watering everyday until water runs out the bottom, just walk away. Unless you really think you'll enjoy hauling gallons of water from the kitchen to the balcony every day.

That said, my Portulaca's are doing nicely this year. I'll post some pictures once they have a chance to really start blooming.

What more could you ask for?

Tasty food and free Over the Rhine. What could be better? Maybe a little less rain, but other than that?

Sunday I met some work friends and my sister Sarah at the Taste of Cincinnati for some food sampling and concert listening. It was pretty crowded, but we had a good time. I think that's the farthest I've been from the stage in quite a while, but there was a big video screen, so we could still see everything. The torrential downpours were a bit of a problem towards the end, but in general a good time was had by all.

Shopping List

One of the girls at sock club this morning took some time to show off some of the purchases she'd made in Ithaca - Spinning Bunny sock yarn, in the Blueberry Patch colorway.

If anybody out there feels the need to give me an unexpected, really early birthday or Christmas gift, this would be a great idea. :)

Sock Class

After reading about the Yarn Harlot's travelling socks, I thought it might be fun to try one of my own. So I signed up for sock class at Yarns & Fabrications, my local yarn store. I bought some yummy Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn and a loverly 40-inch Addi Turbo circular, and started learning how to use the Magic Loop method to make a sock.

I had some issues at first. Somehow I kept making an extra loop of yarn around the needle whenever I went to switch sides. Which was giving me an extra stitch every time. Not so fun. But we eventually got it figured out, and now I'm making good progress. See?

I'm back!

I haven't posted here for quite a while. Life got busy. I got annoyed with my stupid MythTV computer and all its difficulties... Note: eventually those difficulties ironed themselves out and I am now running MythTV quite successfully with Ubuntu as the host. It installed with no problem. I think it had just been long enough since I bought everything that the stupid motherboard and processor were finally supported by more Linux distributions.

My intent for this blog has changed. I don't really need to keep notes on what I'm doing to my computer - because it's working! So I'm going to turn to my new hobby: knitting. :)

I'll post pictures & such of all the stuff I'm working on or have finished. It'll be fun. And I think that the name I picked for the blog (total Over the Rhine reference, by the way) fits better with a blog about the stuff that I'm knitting than it did with my MythTV notes.

So, in honor of my first (new) post, here are some completed project photos:

• The baby blanket for Sophia. Double stranded Bernat Softee Baby. 3 skeins each of two different dye lots, since there weren't enough of one lot. I can't remember what size needles. Maybe 10.5s?
  


• The baby blanket for Kara's new baby whose name I can't remember. About 2/3 each of two Lion Brand Pound Of Love (huge, really huge) skeins. Size 10 needles, I think. It's tough to know for sure because towards the end I (stupid, very stupid) took the needle tips off of my Denise kit. That in itself isn't stupid, but I hadn't been removing the tips up to that point, so I didn't really remember what size of tip I was using. And once I put the tips back in the case, all I really remembered was the general case area where the needles were located. So, maybe size 10, maybe 11, maybe 10.5. Probably 10, as the gauge didn't change too much afterwards. :)