Watch the Stars
I'm done base-building and today starts "official" marathon training. Not exactly much has changed, but I can't just blow off workouts. I'm also comfortably down to three strength sessions a week of four or five different lifts instead of the longer and more detailed ones I've been doing since January. Today's run is a 40-minute easy pace, which I'll be doing on the treadmill because it's still miserably hot here. My rule of thumb right now is that if it's over 75 when I get up, I run on the treadmill. Unfortunately for me, the recent hurricane has dragged an area of high pressure over us, bringing relentlessly hot temps. There's a glimmer of hope later this week - I see lows between 69 and 71 coming up - but I'm not going to hold my breath. It's still tempting to run speed sessions outside, because it just doesn't feel like you can really exert any power on the treadmill.
The garden's getting to that ragged late-summer stage that's kind of depressing. I need to till under a couple of beds and start preparing for our actual growing season here - winter. The garlic didn't do well in the heat, so I'm going to try that again, and I'm going to designate another bed for potatoes. I have eight Everglades Tomatoes that are coming along well and need to either be in pots or in the ground soon. There are still two pumpkins out there on the vines, but I've harvested four so far, which is a decent haul. I'm debating whether to start more. Fox is going to be moving the burn pile further to the east so that the flat area we've made can be converted into more veggie beds and/or a larger trellis area for pumpkins or grapes.
The mosquitoes are a nightmare, though, and those big tiger-stripe ones are out. UGH
Henry Thoreau wrote that he could hear whispers of autumn even at the height of spring, and so it is here. The big golden Orb Weaver spiders are starting to build webs, which is usually a late summer thing. The poplars *may* be starting to turn? I can't really tell so I'm going with "not yet." There's a huge Orb Weaver web near where Fox has been working, and we were looking at the spider with a bug she'd caught when a larger fly (like a horsefly or a sandfly maybe?) flew into the web, stuck for a second, but then pulled away and flew off. I wonder if that fly has any appreciation for how much luck was on its side that day.
Sorry if I'm whining, I just do not like summer.
The garden's getting to that ragged late-summer stage that's kind of depressing. I need to till under a couple of beds and start preparing for our actual growing season here - winter. The garlic didn't do well in the heat, so I'm going to try that again, and I'm going to designate another bed for potatoes. I have eight Everglades Tomatoes that are coming along well and need to either be in pots or in the ground soon. There are still two pumpkins out there on the vines, but I've harvested four so far, which is a decent haul. I'm debating whether to start more. Fox is going to be moving the burn pile further to the east so that the flat area we've made can be converted into more veggie beds and/or a larger trellis area for pumpkins or grapes.
The mosquitoes are a nightmare, though, and those big tiger-stripe ones are out. UGH
Henry Thoreau wrote that he could hear whispers of autumn even at the height of spring, and so it is here. The big golden Orb Weaver spiders are starting to build webs, which is usually a late summer thing. The poplars *may* be starting to turn? I can't really tell so I'm going with "not yet." There's a huge Orb Weaver web near where Fox has been working, and we were looking at the spider with a bug she'd caught when a larger fly (like a horsefly or a sandfly maybe?) flew into the web, stuck for a second, but then pulled away and flew off. I wonder if that fly has any appreciation for how much luck was on its side that day.
Sorry if I'm whining, I just do not like summer.