"The Best Thing About The Future...

...Is That It Comes One Day At A Time."


Just in case you are interested, my Blog title and subtitle this morning is actually a saying attributed to President Abraham Lincoln.

I found it a few months ago somewhere on the Internet and today I keep it written on a Post-It-Note stuck on the edge of my computer monitor in my office so I can see it each day.

When things get crazy like they are around here right now after being out of town for a week, it helps me to remember to worry first about today and possibly tomorrow and then let the day after tomorrow and next week and next month and next year sort of take care of themselves, you know?

It's frustrating because I managed to leave town with things around here professionally and personally sort of under control...

I thought.

I was actually worrying about running out of something to do in the near future, then all of the sudden a bunch of old and new crap sprang up and now everyone wants to talk to me and get things from me this week...

all at the same time.

I spent six hours yesterday working on a proposal for some new addendum on some old work with a customer, and then when my eyes and fingers were worn out from sitting at the computer I went out and stumbled around in the garden.

You know--the garden which is out of control with weeds because I ran the sprinklers on a timer for thirty minutes twice a day and it also rained every day while we were gone?

We had a bunch of peppers and tomatoes which had ripened while we were out of town.

Regarding my Pepper harvest, I bought a new batch of small mason jars before we left the state and I'm planning on acting like Peter Piper and pickling a peck a half-peck a few jar of peppers this week.

I've got sweet and "mildly hot" banana peppers running out my ears right now and besides just sitting around munching on them and putting some slices on the occasional pizza I find pickling to be the best way to avoid them just laying around out of sight spoiling in the bottom drawer of the fridge.

And fortunately/unfortunately this year's Tomato crop is a faint image of last year's bumper crop. We probably gave away half of the Tomato's we grew last year because we had so many ripen at the same time.

This year we ended up buying a bunch of our plants which are growing today from the local Kroger to replace the first ones we planted. They've been slow to start and half of them are still limping along not producing fruit in a section of ground last year that had plants with vines ten feet long.

The original planting I did Easter weekend (which were pretty much beat to death by the April 27th hail storm) came from Home Depot and a local place called Mayo Gardening Center which has been here in West Knoxtown for over 100 years.

Those few plants left from the original crop are thriving and in the next couple of weeks I hope to scald the skins off of a few dozen and make some pizza sauce out of them.

Wait...(checking the clock)

OK...

It's 4:30 AM and I have to wander down to the Basement Shop and get ready for my Programmer to stop by later this morning to pound on another PLC project.

Until next time...

Regards Y'all...

Back To The Grind

Injuneering Ensues...

Well, after a crazy week and weekend featuring a schedule turned upside down by Wednesday night's severe weather and the resulting damage, I'm hoping to get back on schedule beginning later tonight.

I managed to crawl up on the roof to inspect the damage and get all of the shredded tree limbs and leaves cleaned out of the gutters.

Pat wandered around the back yard with a rake generating a giant pile of more leaves and crap shredded by the two hail storms.

We also replaced a couple of tomato plants that were beat and broken to the ground, and since I'm hard headed I planted EVEN MORE tomatoes along with some onions and cucumber plants.

That gets things in the gardening department of the Turbo Pup Compound back up to about the 60% level of completion...with some more stuff going in later this month after we get back in town for the upcoming field start up trip for the waste water storage control system.

Speaking of said control system, the panel is basically tested electrically but it's still dumb as a brick without the software which is being delivered this week

Now I have to go down to the shop and start programming and testing the ultrasonic level sensors before I get to the field.

I'm too busy to even rip off a good rant about the insanity in the news or something this evening, so I'll talk to Y'all later I guess...

Lawn Tiller Induced Coma

...A Machine Kicks My Ass...


Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I went to bed before dark yesterday and just got back up in the last hour.

You see, yesterday afternoon, in a fit of homeowner induced insanity,  I went out and rented a lawn tiller.

I've committed this same crime before, so I knew what I as getting myself into.

But I did it again anyway.

This time I rented for 24 hours, although as usual...

After about the first 15 minutes I was ready to take the darned thing back to Home Depot.

So any way, I managed to get one of the tomato plots tilled up pretty good, and the squash/zucchini bed area is in pretty good shape, and then I wandered over to the other tomato bed and found the ground there to be as hard as a concrete parking lot. 

Then I remembered that I didn't do as good a job last year tilling that area and apparently it didn't soften itself up by itself in the off season.

I reluctantly scratched around with the tiller bouncing around on top of the ground for a little while and only managed to get a couple inches into the dirt, and by then I made an executive decision that it was break time. 

Then I poured myself a fresh drink and sat down with my neighbor Danny to catch up on the local gossip (My neighbors who are ten years my senior do all of their own lawn work and, because I hire a "lawn guy" to do my lawn they like to watch me when on the rare occasion I actually attempt to do anything in my yard.)

Turns out we were sort of starring in the local tongue waging banter because of Pat's trip to the hospital last week. 

Meanwhile, back in the garden, after fooling around making very little progress I made another executive decision.

I took the rest of the afternoon off.

Some people might consider it sacrilegious to spend part of Easter Sunday working in my garden, but the way I look it things the Bible says the Lord helps those that help themselves.

And eating one of the quality tomatoes I grew last year could be considered by some if not many as a Religious experience...thus I balm my conscience with that realization.

So instead of "fishing for men", I'm "tilling for tomatoes" this Easter.

Broken English Better Than Know No English At All?

"Think So GI Joe....Me Nots "


Just Dammit, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I've outsmarted myself again apparently.

You see, I joined this thing you've probably heard of..."Groupon "...and bought a couple of things like half price  dinner coupons and such to use locally here recently with great success.

I don't do everything they do like half day Spa treatments or half price Hot Air Baloon  Rides but they threw out a coupon last week before Valentines Day for $40 worth of flowers or gifts with FTD for $20 cost.

I jumped on the deal figuring that I'd use it later this year for birthdays or whatever since I had already bought Pat's Valentines' Day flowers from Proflowers.com.

The only downside to Proflowers' product is that you have to put the arrangement together yourself after the flowers arrive in a box with a Vase and other crap you buy.

Historically FTD has the local member florist put everything together and delivers it to your door ready to go.

Therein is the only SINGLE advantage FTD's business model has today as I see it and if they are not careful, just like travel agents and buggy whip makers, based on my experience with them this week I'd say that FTD will be out of the flower delivery business before the end of the year 2011 because of the incompentence of their customer no-service system and the decline in their flower dealer network.

You see, I found out this morning that the local florist in my Mom's little town down in Alabama has dropped out of the FTD network...i.e. they've elected to stop paying the fee to FTD to be a member probably because the business generated using the formerly well recognized and regarded FTD brand is no longer worth the golden logo it's printed on.

Then after three days spent on and off trying to place an order and get sale prices and use the "Groupon" I finally managed to get through this morning and successfully negotiate their website, use the "Groupon" ID code, and hit the ORDER button.

Then I printed my confirmation page and put it in a file and went on to other things...like taking my mid-day nap.

Then not TWO HOURS later yet another lovely young woman which had apparently studied speaking English using cassette or eight track tapes played in a 1973 Chevy Vega or Ford Pinto with AudioVOX or Jensen 6x9 inch triaxal speakers called and woke me up and said something like this:

Lovely Lady on Phone: "Local florist say no live blooming flowers ready (the order was for a week and one half from now)...you OK they use cut flowers with live green plants in pot?"

Me: Whuuaaaaattt?

Lovely Lady On Phone: "You OK they...er...um...substitute cut life flowers for life blooming flower in arrangement?"

Me: "No Ma'am, just cancel the order because I don't have time to think about it right now."

So now I'm back to square one again, having spent $20 trying to save $20, and still probably owing another $20 to get something moving for my sister's birthday, and having spent going on THREE hours which I normally sell for somewhere between $50 and $85 per hour to clients.

If this keeps up I could probably BUY my own florist operation and deliver the flowers myself and SAVE MONEY in the process.

Is it just me?

UPDATE 2:30 PM


I went back to the FTD site to try to order something else and the stupid Groupon Code wouldn't work because they had cancelled my earlier order but not voided out the Groupon.


So I had to CALL GROUPON and explain everything to them and get them to issue me a refund on my Debit card for the original purchase.


Let me be clear here...I have no problem with GROUPON...BUT...


I'll never use FTD again except in an emergency like flowers for a Funeral, and I suggest that you do the same because their customer service is really custer non-service and their website is inane and customer non-support is feckeless and obtuse at best.


Gee...I don't have a NEGATIVE OPINION of FTD do I?

Warm Weather's Going To Kill Me

Carefull What You Wish For...


It was over 60 degrees here at the TurboPup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River this weekend.

Closer to 70 degrees in my back yard this afternoon I think.

So...you know me... in a spastic fit of home improvement and landscaping efforts employing pent up energy from enduring a couple of months of snow and ice and just generally crappy weather, I wandered out into my yard with my chain saw and wheel barrow and some other tools and a bunch of good intentions.

I was determined to clear the small overhanging trees and other crap off of my back property line which was shading a good portion of my garden plot last summer.  I also have a gigantic Crepe Myrtle tree on the Southwest corner of the property which was shading another portion of the garden from the sun in the late afternoon which in my mind had to go.

Three hours on Saturday, and another three hours today, and now I have a pile of logs and limbs the size of a small school bus laying there annoying me.  It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and turn cold again this week so processing the pile further and getting a burn permit and disposing of the mess is out of the question for a while.

You know what?

GOOD THING, because I'm such a middle aged wimp that I've seen all I need to see of the Chain Saw and other yard tools for about a month.

So it's back onto the Patent Engineering work and more PLC programming this week sitting like a little nerd in my shop in the basement.

I hope Y'all have a LOVELY week also...

No More Tomatoes

Some Sort Of Record...


We harvested the last of our tomatoes this afternoon...November 7th.  The heavy frost and freeze over night finally did the plants in.  Some of them still had blooms on them yesterday afternoon.

I got a dozen or so ripe fruit which wasn't damaged and a ton of green tomatoes which I'll either batter and fry or possibly pickle if I have the time and energy.

I'm saddest about the three Roma plants I raised from seed this spring.  I remember them when they only were an inch tall and had two leaves each.

The pepper plants took it on the chin also.

Thus goes the ebb and flow of the tides and the seasons, I guess.

The frost makes my old bones hurt too...maybe someone should consider frying ME after I get through pickling myself...

I'm Over Run With Vegetables

"Garden Takes Over Knoxville Man's Property..."


I have to admit that, while I grew up visiting my Grandfather's farm every summer back in the 1960's and early 1970's, that doesn't make me a farmer any more that having attended a bunch of Atlanta Braves games makes me a professional Baseball Player.

I present this season's garden as evidence of my inability.

It's not that I'm not getting fruit and vegetables out of the dirt as a result of my efforts...

It's that the garden has literally taken over my back yard, and the areas where the garden isn't growing I've let the weeds get out of control so the whole thing looks like some sort of scene out of a Star Trek movie.

You know, the one where Mr. Spock dies and Kirk launches his body and this "Genesis Device" down to a barren planet and the planet grows into a lush rain forest and Mr. Spock comes back to life in the process.

I wish Mr. Spock (or Dr. Spock or Old McDonald) would show up here with a Weed Eater and a Hoe and help me get things under control.

I harvested a dozen tomatoes yesterday and a couple of cucumbers, so now I have about four dozen tomatoes laying around and a couple of dozen cucumbers waiting to be processed.

I eat tomatoes on cereal and peanut butter sandwiches these days to get rid of them and I've got funky jars of vinegar and spices I keep slicing cucumbers into to make quick pickles and I still can't keep up with the process.

My neighbors lock their doors and pull their curtains when they see me coming with a Kroger bag bulging with stuff.

All of this from about ten tomato plants and two cucumber vines.

And now my Japanese Eggplant and Squash are starting to come in and I'm actually afraid to walk out in the back yard because instead of just sitting around smoking a cigar and reading the paper I have to WORK when I get out there.

I was going to run the weed eater yesterday and try to knock some stuff down around the plants and a rain storm snuck up on me and it sprinkled on and off for most of the afternoon and by then it was too wet to work outside.

The Herb garden is also rocking and rolling and my Pumpkin and Watermelon vines are crawling all over the place and my pitiful little bell and sweet pepper plants are even starting to have near edible stuff on them and...

...you get my drift.

There's worse things to happen I guess than to have more stuff than you can freeze and eat...all from an ameteur farmer.

(Oh, by the way, the PLC panel is alive now and absorbing electricity and new software but still belching and farting a little yet, so it's time to go back to work I guess.)

Abridged Official Transcript Of Oval Office Address

Brought To You By This Blogger As a Public Service


"Blaa Blaa Blaa Oil Spill Blaa bla balallllllaaa British Petroleum, Blaa blaa blaaa working families blaa blaaaa forced compensation.

Blaa blaa blaa great country blaa blaa limitations of my office blaa blaa determination blaa greater regulatory reform.

Green energy blaa blaa blaa don't pay attention to Owl Gore bonking that bimbo instead of his wife bla blaaa blaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Fossil fuel evil like Heroin blaaa wind energy blaa ethanol blaaaaa solar panels on your new bicycle blaa blaa shut up Biden blaa blaah.

Now I've got to go call for a tee time blaa blaa blaa and get started working on killing the coal companies once I'm finished with the Oil Companies...blaa blaa blaa

Thank you America...and good blaaaaaaaaaaaa evening"


Overall it was only a little over 18 minutes of Hell...I've listened to it once on the Radio and watched it once on TV and every bone in my body aches from enduring the process.

Now I have to go soak my head and press it in a vice and see if I can squeeze the inane words back out my ears and nose.

Please excuse me.

My Garden's In...But I'm Heading Out

Travel Plans Necessitate Automation...


I'm pleased to report that I managed to sneak out into the garden between rain showers and get the balance of my vegetable/herb seedlings into the dirt yesterday afternoon.

It wasn't pretty, but when it was all said and done I had Mint, Cilantro, Dill, Basil, Fennel, Parsley, and Sage in the Herb Garden area and Sweet Texas Onions, Radish, Okra, Pole Beans, two kinds of Cucumbers, Watermelon and Squash in the main garden along with Colored Bell, Banana and Cayenne Peppers.

All that in addition to three kinds of Tomatoes and Tomatillos in two other separate beds against the back of the house...surrounded with carrot seeds which are now sprouting around the base of the bigger plants to keep the weeds down in theory.

With any luck I'm planting a few other herbs from seeds and I have some GIANT Pumpkin seeds (bartered for in exchange for a cow while climbing a beanstalk I think)to toss out in a few perimeter areas and some other miscellaneous stuff I may sprinkle around and let it fend for itself over the season.

Besides getting most of the chicken anti-rabbit wire stapled up into place around the perimeter, the most important improvement was the installation of a digital timer supplying an area sprinkler and two sections of soaker hose which will allow us to hopefully complete the extensive travel schedule we have planned over the next six weeks...the upcoming long weekend in South Carolina, a week in Alabama around Mother's Day, Florida possibly thrown in for good measure, and a half a week in Kansas City celebrating Pat's Granddaughter's High School Graduation in late May...without everything drying up and turning to dust in the heat.

I don't mind asking the neighbors to pick up the mail and newspaper and occasionally sprinkle a little water on the house plants, but handling watering the garden is a chore best left to family and life long friends, thus the need for the automation.

As usual I'm sure the water system will continue to grow and evolve over the next few weeks and seasons, but the current experimental evolution will just have to do for now.

Time will tell I guess.

Still Raining On My Garden(ing)

Precipitation Delays Progress...


As of this morning I have about half a garden installed in the back yard.

Ten tomato plants of various descriptions, two Tomatillos, and a row each of onions and radishes.

Oh, and there's the expensive Yuppy container pot of pole beans--four plants--that I paid way too much for and transplanted to a spot in the dirt by the rear fence so they can run along the rails and posts.

There's also a whole bunch of carrot seeds I sprinkled around the base of the tomato plants which are starting to germinate, but the Herb Garden part of the planting is still sitting in little pots in my wheelbarrow while the rain continues to fall.

I was planning on finishing things up today and getting the chicken anti-rabbit wire stapled up around the perimeter but it looks like its going to be tomorrow or even Wednesday morning before things dry out enough to risk dragging my compressor and pneumatic staple gun around in the yard.

I wish everything was already in the ground so it could take advantage of the rainfall.

I may sneak outside between storms and try to get some more stuff in the ground at the risk of having more dirt on me than the plant's roots.

Until then...Regards Y'all...

On The Seventh Day He Rested He Rented A Lawn Tiller

Beat To Death By A Gasoline Engine...


So I know it's sacrilegious (or possibly semi-sacrilegious)to do yard work on Sunday, but at the risk of earning myself a lightning bolt on Easter Sunday afternoon I got off my butt and went up to Home Depot and brought home a medium sized lawn tiller.

I couldn't stand waiting any longer and with the weather forecast changing from rain on Saturday and Tuesday to sunny and mid eighty's through the rest of the week I felt like I had to get the garden and tomato plots tilled up before the ground set up like concrete.

Since it was 2 PM on Sunday afternoon Home Depot has a policy of letting you keep their rental tools until 9 AM the next morning for the half day rate.

Yeah...RIGHT...after only TWO hours of hanging on to the infernal machine I had everything I deemed reasonable busted up and I loaded that sucker back up in the car and tossed it back in the front door of the store and ran as fast as I could in the other direction.

It basically whipped my butt in the process, but working in ten or fifteen minute torture sessions I was able to get a 36' x 10' area and two 8' x 12' areas dug up about 8" deep.

My hand's and forearms have had it, and if 8" isn't deep enough according to the experts, let the experts come over and bring their tiller and they can have at it.

So any way, it's still a little risky to plant certain crops here at the Turbo Pup Compound now because we still have a couple of weeks of frost possible, but I'm tossing a couple of store bought tomato plants into the ground any way and sewing some carrots around their bases for ground cover.

Meanwhile down in the basement I have a bunch of tomato and pepper seeds already germinating and I'm planting some more Herb seeds like Mint in egg cartons that don't have to be out until May today.

I guess it's time now to take a couple more Tylenol and go lay back down on the heating pad.

Y'all have a LOVELY week now...

Garden Takes Shape

I'll Swap A Cow For Some "Magic Beans"...


I don't believe that I've ever mentioned here on the blog that the family who built our house in 1963 and owned it until we bought it in 2008 also owned a small farm here in Eastern Tennessee, so when we moved into this place we weren't surprised that the property was literally infested with wooden and metal poles and stakes and other artifacts left over from them having planted and grown an extensive assortment of vegetables and other ornamental plants over the past four plus decades.

There's a vegetable plot, covered with "landscape cloth" with holes cut every 12 to 24 inches which covers an area about 12' wide x 30' long, out in rear corner of the back yard.

Thus I regret to admit that through a combination of being gainfully employed and busy as heck the first season, and just being generally lazy the second year...2009, that best intentions aside our well intended efforts to extend the gardening traditions around here have basically consisted of growing a few potted plants and watching our "lawn technician" mow the grass and assault us with the hated weed eater and leaf blower every week or so.

All of that history ruefully behind me, this year I'm resolute that things are going to be different in the area of home gardening on several fronts.

First of all, with all of the cooking that goes on around here on a regular basis, a herb garden plot could definitely enhance our efforts while at the same time possibly saving a little money in the process.

Things like Basil and Cilantro and Parsley are staples in the bottom trays of my Fridge and I end up throwing away or drying probably 25% to 30% of what we buy, so having fresh stuff growing outside the back door would pay back immediately and those kind of plants basically take care of themselves because they--in spite of all of the hype--are actually WEEDS.

Next there's things like Tomatoes and Tomatillos, stuff we use for sauces and salsas and which are just plain fun to produce. I find the Roma and "Bunch type" hybrid tomatoes to be much more useful to try to grow at home according to my Googling efforts, although a couple stalks of the "Better Boy" or "Best Boy" or "Beefsteak" variety sandwich sized slicers will probably make it into the dirt here in the end.

I don't think that we have enough room to do beans or peas or any other of the "staked" varieties, but I have a spot where I want to toss out some different varieties of Summer and Winter Squash and let them fight it out for space, and possibly do a couple of hills of Watermelons, and I have a package of ...get this...SIX "GIANT PUMPKIN" seeds which I paid almost 50 cents each (that would be PER SEED...not PER PACK) for last year and never planted.

These so-called "Dill's Atlantic Giant" seeds are supposed to be capable of producing pumpkins which weigh between 400 and 500 pounds each.

A FIVE HUNDRED POUND PUMPKIN?

I guess that's better than growing a bean stalk going up out of sight outside my deck, into the clouds, and having to screw around with all of that "Fee Fie Foe Fum...English Man's Blood stuff..."

Me and the Turbo Pup would probably pee on ourselves and everything else in sight when the "not-so Jolly Green Giant" came stomping down...you know?

But then again I guess that on a positive note managing to actually grow something alive a gourd that sized could get me on the local news without involving the police or fire department unless the thing fell over or rolled over me while trying to move it into the kitchen.

I've previously handled and carved a 140 pounder back on SSI in 2005 or 2006, so IF I ever manage to grow something which weighs that much I'm considering hollowing it out, putting a tag and tires on it, and hitting the road towing it behind the old Chevy Suburban doing carnivals and circus side shows.

Does anybody know...is there a Redneck version of "Cirque du Soleil?"

Oh yeah...we call it the "County Fair" down in these parts here in the South.

Any way, I think that you could almost LIVE inside a 500 pound pumpkin, you know?.

Back to gardening in general, basically anything else included beyond the above listed vegetable/fruit inventory, with the exception of possibly some hot and sweet peppers, has yet to congeal/coagulate within the confides of my hyperactive mind.

Wait...no...I forgot...I also need to plant some Onions and Garlic and Shallots...got to do something to keep my breath from being all fresh and minty...

As then as is usual, now I have to do an AutoCAD drawing of everything overlayed on our residential plot plan. And there will be a surveying crew involved (survey crew = me and little Missy the Turbo Pup and Pat running around outside with my 100' tape measure, a can of OSHA orange paint, some wooden stakes, and a giant roll of string), and then there are the endless Bills of materials...and a rental soil tiller and...

Man...I get tired just trying to write about it all...