My green peppers are turning red. I’ve also (finally!) got a couple of fairly good sized ripe tomatoes, and have discovered that they are sweet. Like candy. Yum. And the texture is just amazing–fine-grained and juicy. I’ve been eating store-bought tomatoes for so long, I’d forgotten what a real tomato tasted like.
Dianthus
I can’t believe this poor little thing is still flowering. It’s in deep shade and was crowded out by a bunch of other plants. I stepped on it, because I didn’t know it was there, and when I did finally see it, I nearly pulled it, thinking it was a weed. And I still don’t know where it came from. I didn’t plant it. It must have hitched a ride on something I transplanted from Ms. Lea’s garden.
It’s the little flower that could!
Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Ironweed
And happy birthday, Andy!
I didn’t notice there was a bee on one of the ironweed blossoms until I was processing the photo. His little trousers are packed with pollen!
Poke Berries
Canna Lily Seed Pods
I love the way poke berries form a rainbow as they ripen.
These are growing under the window Henry was sitting in. Last year’s cannas didn’t do anything. I think the grounds crew may have cut them down before they had a chance to bloom. This year, there are four plants, and they’ve gotten to a decent size. Two are blooming, and the other two should be soon.
I planted several of these last year, and all of them came up this spring, but so far, only one has bloomed.
In other news, that staff meeting and the training BS we have to go through? I got to work this morning, and there was an email from our unit supervisor requiring us to read the FAQ (it’s a wiki, actually) on using our computers. We will have to give a short explanation of what we learned from it at our next unit meeting, this Wednesday. My head nearly explodiated!
1. I read the damned wiki when it was first made available.
2. Because I am one of the few people who finished the ridiculous Web 2.0 assignment (the one in which we were supposed to set up a blog and post photos to Flickr), and because I use them every damned day, I long ago subscribed to the RSS feed for the damned wiki. And I actually look when it’s updated, which is kind of pointless, because it’s almost always a stylistic edit, not anything to do with actual content. But I do look!
This means that I’m not going to read the damned wiki, because I already have. Nor am I going to learn anything from it, because I have actually done what we were told to do a goddamn year ago. Apparently, some folks have not acquainted themselves with the damned wiki, though, so there will be the equivalent of a test.
We are not amused.
Also on the list of things that we are unamused about is the coworker whose daughter is pregnant, and who keeps giving everyone in the department hourly updates on how dilated said daughter’s cervix is. I think I can safely say that’s one of those things that’s near the top of the list of Stuff I Do Not Need to Know. I understand she’s excited about her grandbaby being born, and I understand that’s something that’s perfectly appropriate to share between good friends, but we are coworkers, not good friends, and that sort of thing is therefore definitely TMI.
Beyond that, though, is the larger issue of women’s bodies being treated like public property, especially when those bodies are pregnant. Too many people don’t think twice about offering unasked for advice to pregnant women, or sharing their own birth horror stories with them, or invading their personal space to touch their bellies. It seems that my coworker’s sharing of her daughter’s labor progress falls somewhere in there. It’s kind of private and shouldn’t be for public consumption. If people want a progress report, a simple, “Nothing yet,” should suffice.
They’re getting closer and closer to blooming!
It’s blooming its fool head off.
Apparently the peppers I started from seed (as opposed to the ones I got as seedlings from a coworker) were from a variety pack. There are purple peppers, long green ones, and yellow ones. Hopefully they’re all mild. Surely I would not have bought hot pepper seeds?
Camera-wise, the shots in this post are all untouched, aside from cropping. Those in the last post were pretty heavily edited.
red paper boat 