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On Friday the 13th my rain gauge, that i had attached to an apple tree stump in the front yard, was empty, despite the over three inches of rain. The stump had fallen over between the progress of rotting roots and the weight of the water.
Later that day, i saw a red delivery truck where our mailbox is located. They'd attempted a three point turn and backed over the mailbox, shattering the four by four cedar post. Odd to loose two posts on the same day, odder still Friday the thirteenth.
This week, a virtual conference.
Survived public speaking on Monday, even if i was a bit muted on the panel. It was about my experience of community which means i was talking about me which is a recipe for self consciousness, and the concept of community remains hard for me.
Tuesday i phased out a bit.
Wednesday i had a morning errand to get the second dose of the chickenpox vaccine i asked for. In thinking about my worries about what complications could arise from Covid, shingles would come to mind. I haven't had chicken pox and it turns out Christine has. If she get shingles, she'd be contagious. Getting the vaccine seemed a reasonable precaution. (At some point she might get the shingles vaccine.)
Colleagues from Ohio and California were talking about whether their counties were "going purple" in a Covid context. This made no sense to me so i took up a search. Different states have apparently different sets of threat levels color coded based around a variety of factors. California and Ohio have five color scales that top out at purple. I don't know if they have the same criteria. North Carolina has a three color scale, yellow, orange, and red. I found the criteria for California's and NC's scales -- and of course the numbers of recent cases were over different periods. Roughly adjusted, though, i found the floor values for North Carolina's orange to be more severe than Californa's purple. Essentially, California is has more sensitive comparisons in the less pervasive infections. When California rates get to their most severe classification of infection, that's when NC has it's first shift from yellow to orange.
Wouldn't it be nice to have one national scale? Well it turns out North Carolina's scale is from the Presidential Covid taskforce.
Meanwhile, there's no mandatory actions if one's county tips into these extreme ranges of infection here in North Carolina. One should consider not going into restaurants, for example, and instead get take out.
Meanwhile, we finally had our first hard freeze last night. I picked the peppers yesterday. Some might have been frot bit, but i kept them in the fridge until i could roast the possibly frost bit ones. I also dehydrated a tray's worth (easily fit in a 4 oz jelly jar after dehydration), and left five to ripen in the kitchen windows. The Corno di Toro peppers did wonderfully this year. Next year i will grow those and a pimento from the North Carolina mountains. I'm doing OK with bell peppers, but i think something that thrives is better than trying to compete with easily available in the grocery store.
My big question is did the freeze kill off the potatoes that have started up. I think they succumb at a slightly colder temp. My hope is to keep them growing and to harvest new potatoes -- i don't know if there will be enough time. Hard to get fussy over volunteer plants. Ugh, like the squash i left out there. I wonder if it's been ruined by the freeze.
Anyhow, sweet potatoes! Earlier this week i picked a mess of sweet potato greens, stir fried them with rice, and topped them with crispy roasted chickpeas and cannellini beans. It was delicious. I've a small bouquet of sprouts in a glass jar in my plant window, an experiment to see if they grow well enough over the winter months that i can get occasional meals of greens from them, as well as from the Malabar spinach plant in a repurposed ceramic water kettle.
Later that day, i saw a red delivery truck where our mailbox is located. They'd attempted a three point turn and backed over the mailbox, shattering the four by four cedar post. Odd to loose two posts on the same day, odder still Friday the thirteenth.
This week, a virtual conference.
Survived public speaking on Monday, even if i was a bit muted on the panel. It was about my experience of community which means i was talking about me which is a recipe for self consciousness, and the concept of community remains hard for me.
Tuesday i phased out a bit.
Wednesday i had a morning errand to get the second dose of the chickenpox vaccine i asked for. In thinking about my worries about what complications could arise from Covid, shingles would come to mind. I haven't had chicken pox and it turns out Christine has. If she get shingles, she'd be contagious. Getting the vaccine seemed a reasonable precaution. (At some point she might get the shingles vaccine.)
Colleagues from Ohio and California were talking about whether their counties were "going purple" in a Covid context. This made no sense to me so i took up a search. Different states have apparently different sets of threat levels color coded based around a variety of factors. California and Ohio have five color scales that top out at purple. I don't know if they have the same criteria. North Carolina has a three color scale, yellow, orange, and red. I found the criteria for California's and NC's scales -- and of course the numbers of recent cases were over different periods. Roughly adjusted, though, i found the floor values for North Carolina's orange to be more severe than Californa's purple. Essentially, California is has more sensitive comparisons in the less pervasive infections. When California rates get to their most severe classification of infection, that's when NC has it's first shift from yellow to orange.
Wouldn't it be nice to have one national scale? Well it turns out North Carolina's scale is from the Presidential Covid taskforce.
Meanwhile, there's no mandatory actions if one's county tips into these extreme ranges of infection here in North Carolina. One should consider not going into restaurants, for example, and instead get take out.
Meanwhile, we finally had our first hard freeze last night. I picked the peppers yesterday. Some might have been frot bit, but i kept them in the fridge until i could roast the possibly frost bit ones. I also dehydrated a tray's worth (easily fit in a 4 oz jelly jar after dehydration), and left five to ripen in the kitchen windows. The Corno di Toro peppers did wonderfully this year. Next year i will grow those and a pimento from the North Carolina mountains. I'm doing OK with bell peppers, but i think something that thrives is better than trying to compete with easily available in the grocery store.
My big question is did the freeze kill off the potatoes that have started up. I think they succumb at a slightly colder temp. My hope is to keep them growing and to harvest new potatoes -- i don't know if there will be enough time. Hard to get fussy over volunteer plants. Ugh, like the squash i left out there. I wonder if it's been ruined by the freeze.
Anyhow, sweet potatoes! Earlier this week i picked a mess of sweet potato greens, stir fried them with rice, and topped them with crispy roasted chickpeas and cannellini beans. It was delicious. I've a small bouquet of sprouts in a glass jar in my plant window, an experiment to see if they grow well enough over the winter months that i can get occasional meals of greens from them, as well as from the Malabar spinach plant in a repurposed ceramic water kettle.