Homegrown

In these harsh economic times, a guy's got to do whatever he can to save a buck. To that end, Becky and I have started a small vegetable patch on an eave outside one of our living room windows. Here is a picture of it:

Not in their best light
I forgot to take a photo during daylight hours
But they taste good!

With a little help from Dante, who didn't feel like schlepping his vegetable plants to Alaska, Becky and I are now growing Swiss Chard and some other type of lettuce, which has small, roundish leaves and red stems. We first planted all the plants in planters on our front porch. Unfortunately, they weren't getting enough sunlight there. Then, one day, when there was some exceptionally strong wind, three of the four planters blew off the banister, dumping out the little seedlings.

I saved as many plants as I could and moved them to the eave, where they get a lot more sun. We now have about 15 lettuce plants outside our window. On Monday we had our first homegrown salad. Here is a picture of Becky enjoying the salad:

Mmm...
Not everything on the plate is homegrown
But the lettuce is!

It took a few weeks for our plants to grow enough to be harvestable, but it now seems that we'll be able to get supplement our store-bought lettuce with fresh, homegrown lettuce almost daily. I'd say that's pretty exciting. How did our homegrown leaves taste? Like lettuce.

Next, I think we'll try to grow some tomatoes!

In other news, last Thursday, Becky and I saw the neatest thing on the way to work (she was driving me because I needed to bring my car home). Right at one of the busiest intersections in town, where Route 50, Van Dam Street and Broadway come together, a red-beaked woodpecker was hard at work drilling a hole in a tree on the side of the street.

Knock, Knock, Knock
Everyone just stopped and stared
It was quite a moment for this city in the country

From the looks of things, he (or she) had been at it for quite some time, based on the giant pile of wood chips on the ground beneath the tree. It was a funny process to watch, as the woodpecker would hop from one side of the hold to the other, removing a bit of wood here, and a bit of wood there. Passers by reacted with mixtures of confusion, shock and guilty pleasure in watching this bit of nature unfolding in the middle of the city. I can say without a doubt, that it was one of the most interesting things I've seen on my short commute in the seven months I've lived off of Broadway.

As of Monday, the tree was still there
I'm not sure if it's going to survive in the long run
Knock! Knock! Knock!