This N That

Well I'm nearly fresh out of projects. The shop is completely done. The paneling is up on the inside. It's wired with four shop lights up the peak, a light outside, and six sockets. I just need a band saw and a small welder at this point. We will finish the fire pit Thursday but that's just one row of concrete. We do still have two walks to make but I'm in no hurry to get that done. That's some mighty hard work there.
The garden is flourishing far beyond our expectations. Everything is either blooming or producing fruit. The great Japanese Beetle War of 2014 has begun. Speaking of war and cultivation, we have kind of let our personal relationships fall the the way side with all of this work at home. We have been going out of our way to make sure friends get invited over. I am now at a point where I can start getting more involved with my Dagorhir fighting company. I have missed that a great deal. I do like to have those people around.
On a side note we have decided to start dating again. I realize this is a strange confession but its just part of who we are and has been from day one of our relationship.

Symphony of Shiva

Last Sunday we organized some friends and went to work on the neighbor lady's newly purchased property. This is the area that is overgrown and has an old structure on it. Working together we managed to get the rest of the roof torn off and about 1/3rd of the house completely torn down. I'd say we probably tore down around one hundred square feet of structure. The look on the Mary's face (neighbor lady) was thanks enough but we ended up with some free pizza out of the deal. I also got around eleven full sheets of cedar siding, maybe fifteen two by fours, a crank out double pane window, a piece of railroad track, and other little bits and baubles. Oh I also dug up two raspberry runners and got them planted. One is doing very well and the other is looking a little pekid. I plan to return the next time they are out working on it to help again. I'll be getting some more of that siding. Just as a note, if you ever come across used cedar siding such as this, make sure you spray it down with a bleach and water solution to kill the mold. If you get mold in your lungs you're going to have a bad day. Mmkay?
The garden has really taken off. We ended up with around twenty-five out of twenty-seven tomato plants. The German Pink are doing very well. The Amish paste are still very small. Depending upon how they produce we might be trying a different heirloom paste tomato next year. We have some corn that is waist high, pole beans that are starting to run up the poles, many varieties of squash that are blooming and cotton plants that are a foot tall. We broke down and bought cayenne, green pepper, basil, cantaloupe, and watermelon. We simply ran out of time to start all of them and some of them just aren't growing as well as I'd prefer. So rather than taking the chance of not having some of them at all we decided to buy them. This is still a learning year for us. We also had to dig up a cherry tree we planted last year. It finally died but it was less than a year old so we're taking it back.
In the coming month we will be putting the siding up inside the workshop, installing the window, and running electricity. I started caging and staking the tomatoes today before I ran out of stakes and cages. I will probably finish that up some time this week.
Anyone know of a good hearty heirloom paste tomato?