Inside The Perimeter

Thankfully for me it is not often that life changes greatly. But yesterday held surprises…

Yesterday a uniformed representative of the United States Government delivered to me an envelope from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). I opened the envelope containing a check with bated breath, planning my retirement on the wealth contained within. The check was payment of funds from when Netbank went belly-up some twenty years ago, clearly I’d have enough to do all of the things I have ever wanted to do. And I can, as long as whatever I want to do costs less that $1.10. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I heard a lot of clatter coming from a neighbor’s yard yesterday. These are my next-door neighbors who have lived on my street longer than I have, a rare feat twenty-two years after my arrival. I wouldn’t be surprised to lear that these neighbors have lived in that house for over thirty years. As I snooped across the chainlink fence that separates our properties (another rare thing these days) I saw that they were loading a U-Haul truck with items from their garage. Have they succumbed to old age? Have they decided to cash in on one of the many offers they have undoubtedly received from property flippers because my street is “near” the Beltline? Time will tell.

I spent some time puttering around WLF yesterday morning. I continue to transition away from my Spring/Summer crops to Fall/Winter ones as I keep my eye on the arc of the sun and how this will alter my plans. I also spent a little time taking down some branches, weeds, and bushes that have encroached during this growing season. Along with some of the larger projects I have in mind, these activities will keep me busy until next growing season.

Last night Betsy made my life a little easier by providing food when it was my turn to do so. She had made a eggplant bolognese with turkey meat, served over pasta, with a side salad. The food was tasty, the company (Betsy and Bella) enjoyable, and overall the night was fun.

I don’t like to admit when I am wrong, but today I just do so. With a few minutes to kill before going inside Betsy’s house I checked my email. For some reason I clicked on the email from Jackson Associates and attempted to get into a survey… and failed. And then even stranger, I tried to get into the brioche bun survey on next Thursday… and got in! 🎉🎉🎉 So I was wrong about thinking about giving up on getting into surveys, and Bonnie was right to urge me to keep trying.

Today? Well, now that I don’t have to do any financial planning, I may do something fun like going to a state park with Bonnie for a hike. I need to take advantage of my time off, as well as the perfect weather that we have at this time of year.

Hope that you are remaining happy and healthy.

I have nothing today. Well, I could talk about the ending to “Only Murders in the Building”, but I won’t since I don’t want to spoil anything.

I am debating driving to Tractor Supply Co in Conyers this morning. I don’t really need anything today, but there are other stores I can hit along the way to make the journey very productive.

Hope you are having a good week.

I needed a day of relaxation and a day for getting some things in order, so that’s exactly what I gave myself yesterday. I poked around in WLF long enough to harvest some vegetables for lunch. My desire to rest carried over into the afternoon when I decided to pull the plug on going to the Moonlight hash last night.

I don’t expect to do a heck of a lot today. I have heard that Davey is doing a walk in Lullwater Park at 11am, but Aas of now I doubt that I will have myself in order to make it out today.

I will be watching the season finale of “Only Murders in the Building” tonight.

Hope your week has started well.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 187.4 pounds (+3.4 from last week’s weigh in); rats! 😢 Time to get serious about my caloric intake again.

Well, something changed this weekend. I awoke to temperatures in the high forties (Fahrenheit) which made the remaining pepper, eggplant, and tomato plants in WLF very sad. These plants like the warm weather. This morning even finds me under covers and having the ITP Estate’s kick on in order to keep the internal temperature above 66°F.

Note to self: why have you not scheduled HVAC maintenance yet?

Oh and it turns out that Owlie may hav actually tried to attack me on Friday. Apparently owls are territorial, and I have been shown of an account of a runner in Piedmont Park getting attacked by an owl a few days ago.

The weather had not turned chilly yet for the PrideLake romp around midtown. We started the hash at the Publix in Ansley Mall, wandered down to 10th and Piedmont, before heading back through the park, ending at what is now Guac y Margo. After wolfing down way too much food on Saturday night I crashed hard in the futon.

The weather yesterday was cool, but sunny. The Wheelhopper “poker run” hash was okay, but a little hard to find at spots. I drank enough beer to counteract any exercise I did, and then finished my night off eating delish food at Bonnie’s; she did an UberEats order from Gu’s Dumplings.

Today I have to start thinking about getting WLF ready for winter. I may have to wear a helmet when I go out there. 😂 I need to check on some seedlings that were duct through by goddamn squirrels (I think). I will wait for the weather to warm up a bit as I am not looking forward to battling the cold, nor Owlie.

Tonight I may go out to the Moonlight hash, but my appearance will be dictated by the temperatures as well as my mood this afternoon.

One thing that didn’t change this weekend was my fortune as a sports fan. The only reason all of my favorite teams didn’t lose this past weekend is because the NY Jets were on a bye week. I stand corrected, the Atlanta United managed to win on Saturday night.

Hope that you had a happy and healthy weekend.

Except for my failed attempt at making a dessert last night yesterday was a pretty decent day around the ITP Estate; it was another good hiatus day. Perhaps I should try to make this permanent, or perhaps I should get my shit together to earn some money again in the future…

I puttered around WLF, not getting everything done I’d hope to, but I did get some choring done. For some reason I am holding hope that two of my four remaining tomato plants will ripen their fruit. This hope is slowing down the progress to setting up my fall/winter garden, however. Also, I’m still seeing a bunch of bug pressure because things still eating my plants. I discovered the largest slug that I’ve found in WLF and while I didn’t kill it like I should have, I moved it to a far away part of the yard.

Dinner last night was a tofu stir fry, which included carrots, radishes, peppers, potatoes, and Asian greens harvested from WLF. 🎉 My failed dessert was churro bites made in the Instant Pot. I have made this recipe previously, but I tried to rush things last night and they came out wet. They were edible, but far from desirable.

Today I will be doing more of the same. Tonight I will possibly be headed out to Red’s Beer Garden for their monthly comedy night.

Traditionally this would have been a LEAF weekend and I would be on my way to Black Mountain, NC. However with COVID still lingering the thought of being around thousands of people, even if it is outside, doesn’t pique my interest. Instead, this will be a hashing weekend. I know, after last weekend you’d expect for me to take a hiatus from hashing too! Tomorrow is the PrideLake hash, and as the weather is supposed to be spectacular, I might attend. Sunday will be a special Wheelhopper, an in town “poker run”. I am not a fan of true mountain biking, so an in town ride is almost literally right up my alley. Don’t ask me about the “poker run” aspect as I have no idea what that entails.

Hope that you have had a decent week, have remained healthy, and are going to have a wonderful weekend.

As we are now in mid-October and the weather will start to cool it’s time to declare the 2021 Spring/Summer growing season over. You may be surprised to see how much I tried to grow in WLF this year.

Here is my 2021 WLF Scorecard:

Asian Greens = B+
Basil = F
Beets = F
Broccoli = F
Brussels Sprouts = F
Butternut Squash = B-
Candy Roaster Squash = ? (only one out there currently, have to see how it turns out)
Carrots = C-
Cauliflower = F
Cucumber = A
Eggplant = B
Garlic = F
Green Beans = A
Lettuce = C
Kale = C
Kohlrabi = D
Leeks = D
Oca = F
Okra = B-
Onions = F
Oregano = B+
Parsnips = F
Peas = C-
Peppers = A
Potato = B
Radish = C
Rosemary = C (reduced from an A now that the three pots have partially died off)
Shallot = F
Spaghetti Squash = F
Spinach = F
Squash = D+
Sugar Snap Peas = B
Swiss Chard = B+
Tomato = B
Turnips = D
Zucchini = C
Flowers = B+

Legend
A = plants did well, producing the expected amounts, and sizes of fruit
B = plants did well, producing fruit that was either smaller than expected, or not as many as I desired
C = plants did okay, producing something to eat
D = plants struggled, producing fruit that was disappointing or inedible
F = seeds didn’t germinate, seedlings died, or plants never produced edible fruit

I find it weird to be lying on my futon at 6:50am and it’s still pitch black outside, the sun not due to rise today until 7:42am. Just think, four month ago I would have already been to Lowe’s and have gone outside to WLF to start working by this hour. And in a couple of days it’s supposed to get honestly chilly again!

When the sun does finally show its face this morning I will go out to WLF to do some choring.

Yesterday I cast adulting to the side after a short prattle around WLF. I drove over to Bonnie’s house, and from there we walked to Loose Nuts Cycling in Grant Park to meet up with an old friend for some day drinking. Robert, our friend, drove us to Bold Monk Brewing where we three ate lunch and had beer. Sadly the IPA and Pale Ale I ordered were out, so I had to slum with a Festbier with my lunch.

It’s tough to day-drink brewery hop during the week in this city because it seems that most breweries don’t open until 4pm or later on a Wednesday. Slackers!!!

After Bold Monk we drove back near the hood and had one more stop at Three Taverns Imaginarium.

I then hung at Bonnie’s a bit before going to Betsy’s for Top Chef night.

As I mentioned, I will be doing a bit of farm choring this morning, after which I will clean up and return my nose to the iOS grindstone.

Tonight I will be making a tofu stir fry with some greens I will be harvesting from WLF today. 🎉

Hope that you are remaining happy and healthy.

Tune in again tomorrow because I will be giving my planting year-end scorecard of how I did in WLF this summer.

Err, I’m not feeling it today. I’ve awoken to sore knees, which, given the troubles I had this time last year always concern me now. Perhaps this has something to do with the manual labor I did yesterday. After lunch I weed whacked the front lawn (since the grass growing wouldn’t be cut by the hipster lawnmower), trimmed a few small, low-hanging, dead limbs from trees (mostly to practice with my tree limbing pole saw, and you know, winter is coming so I don’t want them to snap off), chainsawed some of those limbs, and carried the lot of them to the backyard. Depending on how my day goes I may attempt to bring out the Wee Little Chipper and run some small limbs through it to produce wood chips.

Fall is on its way to Atlanta soon; yes, I know we are already in fall, I refer more to the cooler weather coming this weekend. I will have to harvest the remaining peppers and determine the fate of the plants soon. I’ve been watching videos on how to overwinter pepper plants, so I might try to do so with a few that really produced well this year. Next year’s tomato and pepper plantings will be managed much better now that I have a couple of years of experience under my belt.

There was discussion of going to Red’s Beer Garden for trivia last night, but that didn’t pan out since the people intended to be met couldn’t make it. Instead, I went over to Bonnie’s house to watch “Only Murders in the Building” and was treated to a nice dinner of pizza and salad; I brought over some beer to share with her.

Tonight I will be headed to Betsy’s for “Top Chef” night. It’s Betsy’s turn to provide food, so I have no idea what I will be eating tonight.

Hope that you are healthy and happy.

Stop me when you have read this before— I am sitting outside the midtown Waschsalon waiting for someone to open it, after their posted opening time. 🤦🏻‍♂️ I am here this morning because I couldn’t get my shot together and acquire laundromat quarters.

I am not as angry about all this since:
– I have just eaten a wonderful bagel sandwich that I purchased from Emerald City Bagels on my journey here.
– I must do laundry today, so it is the only thing on my morning schedule.
– It is what it is, and I chose to try again, so I need to deal with it.

Oh, the owner has arrived so my clothes are now in three large washing machines. Woot!

Yesterday was a good day for me. I puttered around WLF, transplanting some broccoli plants into a new section of the farm, and harvesting some okra, green beans, and shishito peppers that I incorporated into my lunch!

After lunch I did a little more cleaning/organizing inside the house, there is much more to do, and then go ready to go hashing. Since last night’s start was near the ITP Estate I drive over to Bonnie’s and walked with her to the start. Trail was fine, it allowed me to get more exercise, and ended at Grindhouse Burgers on Memorial Drive. I had but one beer, and two onion rings to eat! Oh, until I got home when I ate some Triscuits and cheese curds.

I didn’t mention that this morning’s sandwich, a chopped cheese special, contained meat. Guess it’s now a meat day! If I wind up going to Red’s for trivia tonight I might even they one of their meat dishes. 😮

Hope you are having a good start to your week.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 184.2 pounds (-1.8 from last week’s weigh-in); in the right direction, niiiiiiice. 😁

The blog post is a little late this morning not because I have had a slow start, conversely I have already been busy. Today is going to be a day of putting things on order, and preparing for a successful week.

But first.

What. A. Weekend!

On Saturday I walked with Betsy and Bella getting coffee. Once done I returned home and mounted my mountain bike for a ride over to Oakhurst for Porchfest. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t sad that I was riding alone, but life doesn’t always go the way one wishes. Once in Oakhurst I stopped into Sceptre Brewing Arts and bought a couple of beers to consume while seeing the first two bands on my agenda. I rode around all day, bumping into hashers along the way. I made it to the see the unofficial hash band Brewery Road perform at One Ball’s and Snail Trail’s house, chatting up many hashers I’ve not seen in a long while. My Porchfest ended listening to a fun Irish band called The Muckers.
At the end of the day:
Bands seen = 5
Beers consumed = 5

Sufficiently filled with beer, and music, I pedaled home where I made a frozen pizza and passed out on the futon.

Yesterday was the Big Game, no not the Jets losing to the Falcons on London, Glory Mole’s and Wee Little Bit’s Black Sheep Hash! As you probably know, Black Sheep hashes are laid “live” meaning the hares get five minutes before the hounds start running trail; I’d be willing to guess that the pack gave us a longer lead time… Even with a group of Black Sheep regulars running Mystery Mountain we had a good number of friends run our trail, which was 95% laid live. Knowing our lack of speed, we sneakily pre-laid a tough Count Back 12 to buy us another minute or two of time. Trail was great! I was snared by the pack twice, mostly because I got a bit lost, don’t run up hills well, and generally got worn out running three miles through the woods. We were blessed with amazing weather, which was good since a large chunk of Glory Mole’s section trudged through creeks. Everyone who ran trail said they enjoyed themselves, and praised us for laying a good Black Sheep ITP. It was an adrenaline rush, one I don’t want to repeat anytime soon, if ever again… 😁

Here are the lyrics to the hares’ song, as created by Glory Mole (aka Bonnie)

To the tune of “Stand” by R.E.M.

Stand at the check that they laid
(Now face north)
Think about direction, wonder how they’ll screw you now
Stand in the long-ass creek
(Now face west)
Think about the hares and
How much you’ll snare them now

If you are confused, and not having fun
The call of on-on, will help you along
Your feet, are going, to sink in the ground
Your hair, is where, the ticks will be found

So, stand in the trash and the thorns
(Now face north)
Think about direction, wonder why the hares were born
Stand in the crime scene tape
(Now face west)
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you left there today

The bees, are going, to be in the ground
The planes, are there, way too loud
Then your clothes start drying, your cuts start clotting
Follow the flour
BEER is calling!

Drink it down, down, down…

As I mentioned at the start of this post today is a day of putting things in order. I will be washing a load of dirty dishes, getting my mounds of dirty clothes ready to take to a laundromat tomorrow, doing some WLF choring, and general house tidying. Oh, I should probably get back on the iOS training path again. And, tonight I will be attending the Moonlite hash since its start will be at Madison Yards — that’s Memorial Drive at Bill Kennedy Way (née the Glenwood-Memorial Connector) — it should be a fun hash.

Hope your weekend was at least half as enjoyable as mine, because it it was, you also had a good one.

Can you feel the excitement today? Why? Because it’s the seventeenth anniversary of this blog! Think back to what you were doing in 2004. I was still getting over the pain of having someone break up with me, and dealing with the aftermath of being carjacked in my own driveway. Good times?

Seventeen years. This blog is old enough to drive, but not yet old enough to vote or drink (legally).

Unfortunately the annual parade and rock festival have once again been canceled because of COVID restrictions, and a lack of funds due to unemployment.

But enough about this blog, let’s type more about me!

Yesterday I tried to be good. I really did, but the weather kept thwarting me. My biggest goal yesterday was to cut back some limbs that were growing toward the house, as well as some that cast unwanted shade onto WTF. I know my limits so it wasn’t as if I was trying to take down big limbs, but it turned out that many were higher up than they appear from the ground so I couldn’t reach them. After getting my new(ish) My First Electric Pole Saw pinched in a limb, forcing me to get the ladder out to extract it, I gave up on working above my head and moved to tasks that could be carried out on the ground. And then it started to rain, lightly, but heavily enough for me to bring in my electric tools.

I had a grand plan for dinner last night, to make a meatloaf using Impossible ground beef, that was stymied by the fact that the ground beef was nowhere near thawed when I started assembling ingredients for the loaf. This may sound weird to you, but I am going to make the meatloaf later this morning so that I can eat some for lunch and then have leftover meatloaf sandwiches for awhile. Instead, I fried up some vegetables with veggie chicken nuggets and ate that for dinner along with a beer and then a non-alcoholic beer.

It was still light out when I started my walkabout to close the almighty exercise rings on my watch. I wandered toward East Atlanta Village and was miffed to realize that I once again had forgotten about the farmers market, and had no mask nor payment method with me to buy anything. Admittedly the EAV market is small and in need of more vegetable purveyors, so I did a quick sweep as there wasn’t enough time to return home to get mask and wallet before the market’s closure.

If all goes to plan I will be doing a final reccy with Bonnie sometime today. I am ready to put this Black Sheep in the rear view mirror as I am starting to obsess over the trail. Unless something out of the ordinary occurs the trail will be fine, we will get snared a bunch, and currently the weather looks promising. Bonnie has written a good hare song for us to sing while sitting on the ice; I will post the lyrics on Monday. I doubt that I will get into anything tonight other than beer drinking and television viewing.

Tomorrow’s weather is looking fantastic for the Oakhurst Porchfest. Sadly I will be going to this year’s edition solo as my partner in crime has another obligation. After walking with Betsy and Bella tomorrow morning I will pack a few beers and ride a bike to Oakhurst to listen to bands for a few hours before returning home to eat a meatloaf sandwich for dinner.

If you don’t have plans and music is not your thing, you can drive to my buddy’s brewery, Ironshield, in Lawrenceville for some beer, a car show, and a photography opportunity with models. If you time it correctly you will also have the opportunity to meet up with world famous ITP-Reader Ham With Cam!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday will be my (potentially last) Black Sheep haring. Unlike two years ago this hash will be laid by yours truly and Glory Mole (aka Bonnie) without help of another hasher to buy us ample time to run away. We are fortunate that many of the normal Black Sheep hashers have made a poor choice by signing up to run a half marathon/ marathon at Red Top Mountain that day and therefore will miss the opportunity to snare us routinely.

Hope you are well, and can make the most of this weekend.