Thinning and weeding

(016:  Thunderstorm brewing.  Photo © 2009 by Robin)

We had another line of gusty and wild thunderstorms move through yesterday evening.  It must have been ahead of a cold front as things cooled off considerably once the storm had passed.

The power was out when we woke up this morning.  I have no idea why.  It was on when we went to bed and still on at 6:30am when I first woke up (and promptly went back to sleep).  I’m not sure what time it went out.  Sometime between 6:30am and 8:00am.  I may have mentioned this before so pardon the repeat:  It’s not the lack of electricity that gets me so much as the lack of water.  The morning ritual takes on additional work when you have to haul water into the bathroom.  Fortunately Ohio Edison got things turned back on before it became necessary to really do some hauling.

Mother Nature has gifted us with another gorgeous day.  I have clothes out on the line to dry which shouldn’t take long with all that sunshine and a fresh, brisk breeze blowing.  As soon as I have some more of this laundry sorted out I’m going to spend some time in the garden which I’m sure is in need of care.  The bok choy needs to be thinned out, a chore I’m not too fond of.  I’m a bad gardener in that I hate to kill anything I planted.  And, as you may recall, I had a hard time pulling weeds last year if they were pretty.  The vegetables didn’t seem to suffer from my methods.   However, it’s probably not the best way to go in the long run.  Eventually the weeds would have the entire garden and I’d have to move elsewhere to plant vegetables where the process would start all over again.

So, I’ll be ruthless and thin out the bok choy.  I’ll pull the weeds, pretty or not.  And I’ll plant some swiss chard.  I bought the seeds a few weeks ago and forgot all about them.

While I’m thinking about it, have you seen the latest hardiness zone changes?  Pretty interesting.  We’ve gone from a zone 5 to a zone 6.  Before long, we could be in a tropical growing zone.