Jade Blooms pt 2

one of the 4 jade plants really came through with the blooms. they all had some, but this one looked the best. check it out:

Jade Blooms!

i moved all my plants inside b/c of freeze warnings. they are taking up space in the kitchen, which i hope to remedy this weekend.



anyway, they are all succulents including Christmas Cacti and Hunter Jade. i was looking at them this week and noticed the Christmas Cacti are sprouting buds, which is great.




I love the blossoms they produce and it's a reminder of the changing seasons. check out my past glory:



as the subject of this post might suggest, i was amazed, ecstatic, floored, etc., to discover my Hunter Jades are sprouting buds, too!! this is a first for me. i've always wanted a blooming Jade and now i have...4.

i took a few pics. more pics to come as they progress.





Thanks, Daniel!!!

HAHAHA!!!

Shocking story about McCain-Palin sign stealers and the man who had the courage to stand up to the face of evil and make a difference.

Happy Birthday, Stuss

Krusty, or "Stuss" as we've taken to calling him, turned 12 years old on the 12th of October this year. i figured what better way to celebrate than scan a bunch of old pictures and upload them on a Picasa album. Sometime in the early 2000's we went digital, so they're not all crappy.

enjoy!

Stuss's Retrospective

Goodbye Polly

Mom and Sam had to put this little angel of a dog down today:



she was just shy of her 17th birthday. part of me wishes i could've been there, but the other part is glad i wasn't. the long distance insulated me enough to where i wasn't a complete mess today. unlike Mom and Sam.

she called me tonight and told me about Polly's last day and how everything went as well as it could have. the call started off normally, but as she went on, she started getting upset. the small details of how it all went down caused that insulation i spoke of to start breaking away and the emotion hit me, too.

i love you, Polly! i will always remember you.

da midnight choo-choo

where can i get a pair of tickets??

Similarities??

hopefully the baby won't have a tail, brown teeth or bite people.

Baby news

real quickly: Andrea is always having me feel her belly when the baby is moving around, in the hopes i'll feel it. all i ever feel is her heartbeat, but i always try b/c i know one day, i will feel it. and i can't wait!

well, the wait is over: this past Saturday morning, she had me put my hand on her belly and no sooner did the little guy give a really big kick. it was unmistakable! she said "did you feel that?" and i was like, "uhhh...yeah!". then again, and again: 3 big kicks. it was great! last night i laid the ukulele across her lap and played songs for him. he will either love it or hate it as he grows older, but i plan on using that as the instrument of choice to sing to him. it's so easy and fun. go get a ukulele if you don't have one (Thanks Dean and Angie!!)

today we had a level 2 ultrasound. they took some really good pictures of...well, everything...to make sure he's coming along and all appears to be normal. check out this pic from Andrea's Blog: the 1st ever actual picture of Baby Updyke. he looks very comfortable.

that's all for now. thanks to everyone for all the support, be it in the form of advice, books, other stuff, etc. we've got a great group of folks in our corner and i know you'll all be tripping over each other to baby sit for us when the time comes. thanks in advance!

Yacht Rock Revisited

check out the whole series here. you can also search for "Yacht Rock" on YouTube. very informative. there are some language issues, but we're all adults here.

JD Ryznar is making it happen. kudos, JD!

Chuck doing what he does best

whatever you do, stay outside the sandbag circle...

I have changed my ways

For the record: I have not, nor will i harm my new little furry nocturnal friend. he only weighs a couple ounces, so even if he eats his weight every night, it would hardly put a dent in my stock pile of sunflower seeds.

if i walk out there one night and there are 10 of those things going to town, that would be really creepy, but i'd refrain from doin' any killin'. life is precious AND my feeder costs around $40 and i don't want to risk breaking it.

there are 2 types of flying squirrels in the US: Northern and Southern. ours is a Southern, although both live in NC. both are also mainly associated with the Western part of the state, so i'm flattered he has chosen our back yard to plunder.

check out this shot of a Southern flying in its natural habitat. magnificent!!

What the H????

...is that thing sitting on my bird feeder at 9 o'clock at night??? here's what i saw when i walked outside this evening:



a closer look reveals this seemingly cute, cuddly thing is actually quite terrifying with visibly sharp claws and (presumably) rabies and sharp teeth just waiting to tear into me:



here's a different perspective, which also contains a gratuitous shot of the dog (bottom right):



i'm all for "live and let live" and what not, but take a look at the level of that seed feeder: definitely runnin' on E. i filled it only a few days ago!! behold:



busted!! that's the last free supper he's getting from me. next time, it's gonna be more like this:



btw, after about 2 minutes of internet searching, Andrea and i decided it's a flying squirrel. the "flying" part is cool, but not cool enough to counteract the "squirrel" part.

happy hunting!!

SRH

Ain't she sweet??

i'm going to be a father, eventually!!!

sooner than later: we're scheduled to deliver a boy/girl on January 31, 2009, a mere 19.5 years after my high school graduation. some of my classmates have kids that are drinking age by now...but i digress.

mother and baby and father and dog are all doing fine. Andrea's fatigued a lot of the time, but we're counting down the days to the start of the Fun Trimester. only 2 more weeks.

for good reading, pictures and details, check out Andreas blog.

WOOOOOO!!!!!!

it's raining again

That's my dawg

Jade Madness

Daniel Hunter is known for many things, not the least of which is his mighty Jade, which he's had since the mid-1990's and has multiplied into an unbelievable network of Jades spreading from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Northwest. it is a Super Jade. when the mood strikes me, i'll climb up in the attic and pull out some old photos so you can see how far back this thing goes.

the day before he married his lovely wife, Jamie, i found a squirrel munching on my then prized jade (lower case b/c it's of no relation to the Super Jade). i closed the porch door, trapping the squirrel, and proceeded to beat the life out of it with a 6' Cold Steel bamboo staff. for a couple years after that, i was jadeless.

almost 2 years ago, just before Daniel and Jamie moved to Corvallis, they gave me a large shallow pot with the trimmings of one of their Jades. today, Andrea and i re-potted it. it was long overdue, as it has gone from from 4" to 5" in height when they gave it to me to over a foot. here's what it looked like about 6 months ago:



it started getting top-heavy and spreading out over the sides of the pot lately:





Healthy Leaves!


on our way home from church today, we stopped by Lowe's and got a bunch of clay pots and dirt. they didn't have my usual brand of dirt and i had to get Miracle Gro, which i hate. it's just overpriced, chemically treated peat moss! i should've made my own mix, but it's too late for that.



good thing we had leftover vermiculite and peat moss from our garden! we would need it.

the first step was to dump the Jade out of it's old pot and separate the root mass.



this is always the most stressful part for me. this thing was so intertwined and tangled, i definitely snapped some important roots and will be lucky if i didn't kill a few of them. i made sure to keep them nice and moist:



i took this opportunity to consolidate Christmas Cacti (visible in the upper right corner of the above photo) that were originally in the same pot many years ago, but i split out b/c it got too big. i had to free up this great white pot (also from Daniel...seeing a pattern??) b/c i felt it was time to reunite Hunter Pot with Hunter Jade:



i was feeling good:



and then the rains came:



i decided to stay out and finish the re-potting:




...but Andrea wisely suggested otherwise. and check out Krust in the 2nd pic! this is the dog that's afraid of rain and thunder/lighting...riding out the weather with his old man, shoulder to shoulder! i was proud of him.

we took advantage of the rain delay by eating a delicious dinner Andrea whipped up and taking pictures of ourselves:



it finally stopped raining, but was still pretty windy, wet, cool and generally kind of nasty. Andrea came out and helped me finish, which i couldn't have done without her help. check out our new Jade Arboretum:





pretty cool, huh? we got the blue pot intending to make it the flagship Jade, but it didn't go down like that. it never does. whenever i have a big re-potting project, i start freaking out half way through when all the plant pieces are laid all over and i have to try and arrange them in a pot, fill it with dirt and try to keep them from falling over and/or breaking off branches. it stresses me out, man. this time was no different. but unlike past experiences, i had SO MUCH Jade to work with, there wasn't a whole lot of pressure. the Flagship Jade turned out to be the one on the top step, in the middle. it's the biggest pot. the other pots are probably not big enough to handle all the plants we crammed in them. i may be re-potting sooner than i'd like to remedy this, but not for at least another year. the one in the white pot turned out great, too. i'm sure there will be more pics coming as the roots take hold and they get used to their new diggs.

i made reference to the Super Jade at the very beginning of this post. it's funny that i again have a Jade from that line. way back in the day, Daniel had 2 plants and gave me one. i was an idiot and gave mine to a girl who's long gone. so let that be a lesson to those who are now in possession of Super Jade: don't let anything happen to it. there's a 10 year wait to get another one.

a big Thank You to Andrea and Krusty for their help and to Daniel for giving me the love for all things Jade, as well as giving me actual Jades! your lineage is thriving in Raleigh!

Keepin' it Real with Barack

"Come with me..."

things i find myself muttering under my breath at work

today it occurred to me that i mutter the same stuff over and over while doing my day to day activities. here's a quick list in order of frequency, highest to lowest:

- "Sigh...."
- "Son of a bitch!"
- "Gimme a break!"
- "Seriously??"
- "That's Bull$h1t"
- "Whatever"
- "You've got to be kidding me"

you get the idea. i mean, i love my job and my coworkers are cool but every little thing that goes wrong, i feel the need to mutter. then, as quickly as it came, i'm back to normal.

i'm listening to the R.E.M. album "Document" and have instantly been transported back to my Junior year of high school in Yakima, Washington. what a great album! Stevens (who i know is reading this post): should we consider pretending to want to do this one for the Great Cover Up instead of/in addition to "Life's Rich Pageant"??

i'm out.

that time of year (PI-5)

pre-allergy spring and pre-allergy fall are my 2 favorite seasons. unfortunately, we are now into full on allergy mode Spring which is my least favorite season. close second is full on allergy mode Fall.

but this isn't a post about pollen, sneezing or itchy/watery eyes. if you've read this blog at all, you know the only things i post about with any frequency are barbershop and poison ivy. my last post covered barbershop, so there's your clue.

it's spring, as in "plants spring to life after they laid dormant all winter and fall and you thought they were dead and never coming back". that's right. i've been scouring the yard for poison sprouts...and finding them. sometimes they come up singularly, with their tiny, bright red leaves. other times, they are apart of a 10 foot vine running along the surface of the yard. either way, i've been on a mission all spring to eradicate all things poison ivy from the yard without infecting myself in the process. so far, so good.

yesterday, i decided i was tired of looking at the remnants of last years battle. the vines are dead and dry, the branches brittle and ugly. check it out:




i figured it was time to find some things out.
1. are those dead, dry poison ivy vines still capable of infecting people?
2. just how many of those vines can i rip down with my bare hands?

my goal was to answer the 1st by doing the 2nd.

saturday, after Andrea, the dog and i did the annual Mordecai yard sales, Andrea went to a baby shower, so that was my opportunity. she hates when i mess with the poison ivy, b/c i usually end up with it. assuming i would get it from head to toe, i thought a "before" picture would be prudent:



you can see i'm already in a bad mood.

our neighbor Matt and his little girl were in their back yard shed (you can see it in the pic below). when the 30 foot long "vine" came crashing down on the fence that separated us, it sounded like the whole tree to which it had been attached came down, instead. he came running out of the shed, "are you alright??". i was just standing there, a little shocked and making sure i hadn't just destroyed the fence, which it turns out i hadn't. he threw the the several feet of death-wood that had landed in his yard and i went about my business. it looked something like this:



there was all kinds of dust and bark falling down into my face and sticking to my body as the vine was coming off the tree. the good news is, i think i found the answer to question #1, which is "No". the answer to question #2 is "2". here's what the 2nd one looked like:



now, with the dog thrown in for scale:



i eventually removed my gloves and bare-handed the vine-wood. with loppers in hand, it cleaned up into about 3 piles, similar to this one:



you know how you can count the rings in the cross-section of a tree to estimate its age? check these babies out:

the 1st 2 are from the vines i ripped down. it's hard to distinguish after 17 or 18:




this is near the base. i would like to cut a cleaner cross section with a saw and get a better count. it looks to be about 18 or so rings, as well.


are there any botanists out there that can back me up on this? is this the largest, most disgusting poison ivy you've ever seen? i'll make you a deal: you come out and remove it from my pecan tree and in return, i'll let you study it and what not for as long as you need, provided it's less than a week. and you pay me.

that was yesterday.

today, i went looking for new growth. "new" as in, growth i hadn't seen before, but not necessarily "new", you know? along our back fence is no-mans-land. it's where the dog takes dumps and i dispose of charcoal ash. it's overgrown and i knew there had to be some poison ivy lurking back there unnoticed. my job was to find and neutralize it. and did i ever find it...

i didn't see much growing on the ground, so i looked up to scan the trees and what i saw horrified me: a very healthy poison ivy vine with long branches and very large leaves, probably 30 feet over my head. i was so pissed, i got my gloves on and started tugging on it. most of it came down, but the vine snapped and a large chunk was suspended in the air. Andrea was home by this point and stayed to watch the rest of the show. to get the rest of this new vine, i had to go after it. so up into the tree i went. at one point, the dog was on the ground below, barking and whining, i was about 8 feet up in the air with my right hand firmly grasping a freshly severed poison ivy vine, the majority of which was over my head and threatening to come down on top of me and i was imagining the worst case scenario of me falling out of the tree and landing on the dog...both of us strangling on the vine.

long story short, i made it out with only minor brushes of leaves on my ankles and right arm. as soon as i hit the ground, i ran into the house and showered. let's hope it was enough. behold the fruit:




Nice Flowers


click for super-high res. aren't they beautiful??? my eyes itch just from looking at this picture.

i look forward to the day when little white children can play with little black children in my back yard and not get infected with friggin' poison ivy!! i feel like the whole property should be condemned sometimes. it's not safe. how long am i going to have to put up with this stuff?

When it rains, it pours

this guy just schooled me:

Ween sighting - spicy food

Andrea and i went to IKEA near DC last Sunday. it was an all day trip and we had a great time. got a lot of cheap furniture designed by the Swedish and packaged by the Chinese. i really loved the store. it was designed and layed out very efficiently and intelligently. read Andrea's blog for more details.

while there, i'm pretty sure i saw Claude Coleman, the drummer for Ween. i whispered to Andrea "i think i see Claude Coleman!!". she was like "who??" and i said "the drummer for Ween. RIGHT THERE!!". she answered, "take a picture...oooh! look at that bookcase" or some such thing. the 1st stop on their East Coast tour is in on the 25th in, you guessed it: DC. it was totally him. i have now seen "Ween" 4 times in the past 10 years and Claude Coleman 5.

tonight Andrea was in the mood for something spicy, so she made this kung-pow chicken that certainly fit the bill. she put it over rice in our bowls and warned me it was spicy. i licked a spot of juice that splattered on my hand and coughed for the next minute or so. you know how when you swallow something exactly the wrong way? maybe it's just me, but it was as though the fire-juice went directly from my hand to the back of my throat. misery. it was a sign of things to come.

i dug into mine with a nice big bottle of cold water...and boy did i need it. i was sweating and my mouth was numbing but it was great! Andrea ate a couple bites and had to fix herself something else. it was just too hot for her, which worked out great for me b/c i ate hers, too. she was upset with herself b/c she followed the "extra spicy" directions on the box by crushing the dried red peppers into the mix. haha. i ate all mine, hers and all the leftovers on the stove. my stomach is currently gurgling and i do not look forward to tomorrow. i'm hoping the ice cream i had for desert will hook me up, but i doubt it.

job's going good. marriage is going good. dog's good.

let it rain