Tough sunflower

Back in April, a sunflower started growing in the front of the house. I hadn't planted any so it has to be a seed from a plant that grew last year. I did plant a bunch of seeds at the end of May, but not a single one came up. So, the one plant was growing really well, but then got knocked over somehow. It had gotten to almost 4 feet high and had a pretty thick stalk, just like the one's last year. I have no idea how it got broken, but I just left it there and the almost completely severed top half just kept growing. And then a few weeks later some animal chewed it up. I think it might have been the rabbit I see around every once in a while. A couple of days later that part of the plant was just gone. Again I did nothing. I've never even watered anything in the front. Now, a few weeks later, its growing fine again, but has split into four stalks instead of just the single one like it usually is. I'm just amazed and delighted that this plant just keeps on growing.

Ugh. Not this.

My car was sitting in front of my house like always. It got hit. Not seriously, but its very noticeable. It was hit low in front of the rear passenger side wheel. Just what I wanted to deal with. I know this car won't last forever, but this just doesn't sit very well with me. I like the car much less now. I'm going to try to get a couple of estimates this week.

This is the undamaged driver's side.

Trellis time...with pictures!!!

I finally got around to putting up a trellis for my tomatoes. I couldn't use the one I put up last year because it was at the other end of the raised bed, so I just tore it down and used one piece of it for the new one. I'm feeling pretty clever because I reused the wood frames from my old box springs that I tore down a couple of months ago after I got a new (used really, but new to me) mattress and box springs. It's slightly crooked, but I don't care. I'm not a carpenter and as long as it doesn't fall down, it's all good.

I also finally went a got a memory card reader so I can transfer pictures from my camera to my computer, since Kodak thought it would be a good idea to not make their software compatible with Linux. Get with the 21st century, Kodak. There is a reason why you company is not doing so well.

Anyways, here are some pictures of the tomato plants, trellis, and garden that I took today. The first two were actually taken a couple of days ago and the close up is of the one on the right, the Black Seaman. This one is producing a LOT more tomatoes than the Georgia Streak, but who knows what the next month will bring. I'd never even heard of either of these kinds of tomatoes, much less grown them.

As always, click on the pictures if you want to see the larger version. I set the camera on its lowest resolution setting to save room on the memory card, so they aren't too huge.

Here is the not-very-square trellis. I even reused nails from last year's trellis. That one was a lot simpler and consisted of three 2x4's, some 2-1/2 nails, and a roll of skinny wrapping ribbon (like for Christmas presents) that one of my housemates gave me. I attach long heavy branches to the overhead trellis with the ribbon. Last year's trellis had only one overhead crosspiece, while this year's has two. The first version worked alright, but this one should be a little easier to use. 

Here is the rest of the garden. It rained last night and the cilantro/coriander couldn't handle the extra weight of the water. None of them snapped and they are straightening out as they dry. They bolted and started blooming quite a while ago and have a lot of flowers on them. I like to see all the bees and other pollinators come around. I haven't wanted to mow the front yard (clover) for the same reason. The neighbors probably wish we mowed more often.

Its been cold and wet so the basil hasn't been growing very fast. It should take off this month. I made a mistake planting the tomatoes at the south end of the garden. They might be too shady for the basil? We'll see. I wanted twice as much as I had last year, but I was lazier than last year and didn't do much to amend the soil before I started planting. There is this little patch and its planted around and between the tomato plants. I hope I get at least as much as I did last year. We'll see.

Climate class stuff

We are now on Lesson 2. A large part of the assignment, besides all of the reading, is to follow two climate blogs for two weeks and write a 500 word minimum summary/critique/comparison of them. I've read quite a few climate blogs in the past, both consensus and denier sites, so this isn't really new to me. It will be an interesting exercise to critically examine how two different blogs treat the subject. I'm deliberately going to pick one denier blog and one non-denier blog. There are such huge differences in some of these sites. Both sides have their sensationalists, but denialist blogs tend to use logical fallacies and willful ignorance a lot more. There have been a few more science-y denialist sites pop up over the last few years, but they still generally resort to rhetoric and bad science to get their word out. My position has always been to learn as much about the subject as I reasonably can and trust the hardcore science to the climate scientists. If you look past all the rhetoric, so far the vast majority of scientists and peer-reviewed papers/studies are getting it more right the longer they study it. Of course there is uncertainty. No credible scientist has claimed otherwise. But inserting one's personal values and biases into a scientific argument is just wrong.

I wonder how long it will take the world to really start doing what we should be doing, no matter what is causing global climate change. We could and should be the world leader in this. Why aren't we setting an example? I could go on and on about oil/energy companies acting like tobacco companies who denied the link between smoking and cancer. I could say something about the contributions that so many of our politicians get from fossil fuel-based companies. But I won't. This is just supposed to be a nice little post about what I'm learning in school. And I am. Learning that is. Even though some of the material is more just a reminder of what I already know, I am learning about things like the characteristics of the atmosphere, solar insolation, and heat/radiation transfer. These are the things I was looking for. I wish I knew more about clouds. But so do most climate scientists.

I got 100% on both my written assignment and the short essay answers quiz. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a reasonably easy A in this class. I don't think it will intrude too much on the macro class I'll be starting in two weeks.

Goodness! Look how late it is. I need to stop doing this and transition into getting up early over the next two weeks. Good night.

Climatology!

My online class, EC311U Climatology, has been going for just over a week now. There is a lot of reading and PowerPoint lectures, and many short writing assignments. All of the reading is online, except for the one book I had to buy (I found a used hardback at Powell's for less than $11).

Lesson one writing included a 250 word minimum personal introduction and our current state of "climate literacy". The written assignments were the results of online data examination from various sources concerning temperature and precipitation in the US, the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, and Portland. There was also a 100 word assignment and three 150 word assignments, the last of which I want to try to get done later today. The writing is due by Saturday, but I want to get started on the next lesson and be well into the third one by the time my second summer class starts. That way I can slack off a bit in this class while I'm in the other one. At least that's the plan. There will be an online short essay test at the end of this week. I think we have a total of 4 tests.

We have already covered a lot of material about general climate change, climate models, Earth/Sun relationships, and the composition and structure of the atmosphere that has been very informative. I'm already filling in gaps of my own that I have been wondering about for a long time. Lesson two will cover more on Sun/Earth relationships, energy and radiation, and global temperature patterns. There is a lot to read, but only two writing assignments - one 500 word minimum on climate blogs and one 300 word minimum on the book we are reading. I've chosen to read Science as a Contact Sport and it has been very interesting and readable so far. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it. All of the writing assignments have a great deal of reading associated with them. I'm also finding it difficult to keep my writing near the minimum requirement. Going over is OK, but only to a certain point. It takes a bit of skill and effort to strip away as much filler as you can but still coherently convey the required information.

Here's to learning more about our climate!

***I also got my macroeconomics book in the mail today so I can start reading some of that in preparation for the first week of that class (July 23). Sorry, Mom, but I'll be pretty busy most of the time you are here. Classes 4 days a week and an exam every week for a month plus my online class.