Near Potato Famine

We harvested our barrel potatoes yesterday. As you can see in the photo, it wasn’t quite the bumper crop we were expecting. The stalks and leaves weren’t nearly as brown and dead as I was waiting for but some people were very eager to see how things had turned out. There were lots of smaller potatoes and dozens of little nubs which could have developed into potatoes so the potential for a better harvest was certainly there. I didn’t see where our larger potatoes appeared vertically in the barrel. If the big ones were mostly at the bottom, I would guess that the others would have fattened up if they were harvested a little later. If the big ones were at the top, I’d guess that I added soil too quickly and should have given each level more development time. If it was just random, then our small potatoes could be blamed on either of those reasons or planting too densely, not adding plant food, or a number of other reasons. We still have many other potato plants planted the traditional way in other areas of garden so we’re not about to starve. I also don’t expect Superstore to be sold out of potatoes for the next year.

In the end, it was a fun experiment. Everyone in the house had fun watching the potatoes grow and getting out to water them. I’ll plant another crop next year. I’ll have to check how to preserve my starter potatoes from year to year though. There are other plans for the garden so there won’t be as much room for potatoes next year.

Barrel Potatoes

While driving back from a conference, the conversation turned to urban agriculture. My friend suggested I try growing barrel potatoes. That is, potatoes grown in a barrel. Luckily, soon after moving in to my house a year ago, the City slapped a warning sign on my seldom-used garbage can. It has been sitting inside my fence ever since with nothing to do. So, I decided I would try and grow potatoes in it.

I drilled some holes in the bottom and cleaned it out. Now it was ready for a little soil at the bottom and a little bone meal. I bought some Yukon Gold seedling potatoes and placed some in my barrel. I then covered with soil, watered, and waited.

I’m now twenty days into growing potatoes and I have a number of plants coming up. The only hard part is that I need to keep the soil just under the leaves of the plants but they’re growing at different rates. One is about 25 cm tall while I just noticed a new one coming out today.

It looks hopeful that I’ll have some potatoes in the Autumn as long as I don’t keep the soil too wet and my potatoes get mouldy.

A summer of exploration

LP and I are very happy with the location of our new house. We have been able to enjoy a number of activities around the city without relying on our car.

Foremost is our proximity to the school grounds. LP often took the girls to play in the park during the summer. She met a few other mothers and some of Julie's future classmates. Julie starts preschool in a week and we're planning on sending both girls to the school for its Chinese program. They'll have a short walk and will be able to enjoy hot lunches at home.

The first activity to which we enjoyed walking was swimming. The local pool offers an hour of free swimming each week to community league members. We're close enough that even Shannon could walk there before she turned two. LP has also walked to the local grocery store with the girls when she just needd a few items.

LP used her bike and trailer to take the girls to the library and new splash park a number of times this summer. After taking a route across the Whitemud and 170 St which wasn't very friendly for family cycling, we were able to plot a much quieter route on Google Maps. She can now get to the splash park in under 20 minutes along bike paths and residential streets.

We also travelled to three big events this summer by bike. In July, I pulled the girls in the trailer downtown to watch the Capital Ex parade. It's about 9 km to downtown along the river valley trails. LP pulled the girls home in an hour since I had to be at work. In August, we biked to Heritage Days at Hawrelak Park. Three weeks later, we again biked to Old Strathcona and the Fringe Festival. The kids' section of the festival seemed to get off to a slow start on its last day but the commute was enjoyable and the girls both napped for 40 minutes during the ride home. I guess my riding style just isn't exciting enough.

Starting new

On 7 March, LP and I bought some seeds and started our garden for this year. We've started cucumbers, cherry tomato plants and pumpkins; pumpkin pie pumpkins and Atlantic Giant pumpkins. If we have some success this year, Thanksgiving and Halloween should be fun. I hope this year goes better than last. Last year we would have starved. We started late and pretty much nothing grew.

This year, we're starting some stuff indoors and will start everything else as soon as possible. We're planning some rain barrels and other improvements to our yard. Things are already starting to grow!

I hope we can keep this pace up.

I feel so Canadian

I sold some stuff on eBay this weekend and had to take the items down to Canada Post for a quote on shipping. I remembered one postal code but not the one for the second package. I did remember the buyer lives in Toronto so, when the clerk asked if I knew any postal code in Toronto, I thought for a moment.

Yes...

M5W 1E6.

Listening to podcasts

I love podcasts. Actually, I love professional podcasts. Way back when, I listened to one Formula 1 podcast which sounded like two yokels with bad recording equipment who didn't seem to know anything about Formula 1 other than what they saw earlier that day on SpeedTV. Currently, I subscribe to one Apple podcast, three in German, four from CBC, one F1, four about digital photography, one from Gordon Ramsey, a short comedy video podcast, one from each of John Cleese and Stephen Fry, one in Chinese, one NHL, two from the Onion, one science video podcast, one from Sesame Street for Julie and Strong Bad Email. I found a solution to put all my audio podcasts into a playlist so that I don't have to select each of them individually. I just press "shuffle" and then I'm good for a bus ride downtown.
In order to have a playlist with all your audio podcasts and have them play in random order, you have to jump through a few hoops. You'll need to set up a smart playlist; a screenshot of mine is above. You'll need to match the following rules: first off, "podcast is true." No-brainer. My second rule was to exclude my Chinese podcasts 'cause I need to be in a certain frame of mind to feel like learning Chinese. The next three rules exclude videos, movies and pdfs from the playlist. On my iPod touch, video will play in audio mode but, if the Onion is trying to make a joke by telling me to "look at this shocking graph," I'll miss the punch line. I only match checked items so that I can save a podcast and not have to hear it everyday just by unchecking it and live updating is essential.
Jumping through hoops really comes when you're updating your iPod. Every time I open iTunes, it looks for new podcasts. Normally, I plug in my iPod and let it update. Old podcasts will now have a play count of 1 and new podcasts will be downloaded to iTunes. Once the update is finished, I delete podcasts I no longer need and uncheck ones I'd like to save. Once all downloads are finished, I need to do a quick Apple-A, Apple-I for "Select All" and "Get Info." At the bottom, I select "No" from both the "Remember Position" and "Skip When Shuffling" pop-up menus. I like to start at the beginning of each podcast and, if you skip when shuffling, your playlist will play one podcast and then return to your playlist menu. Annoying!
This technique works quite well for me except when podcasters use enhanced podcasts with a slide show. I have only two podcasts which do this and one announces every new picture so I know when to turn on my display and check the picture. The other, I tend to listen to once and then skip through the pictures later but I can miss why the picture is important.

The Great Mouse Hunter

We've got a mouse in the house! As you can see though, the trap is set. While I was in the hardware store, I considered being a good Buddhist and thought about how I will come back in the next life while looking at the catch and release traps. Of course, if I release the mouse close to home, it'll probably figure out the way back in. I don't feel like cycling, driving or walking with this mouse all the way to Nose Hill in order to keep it away from all houses. Ergo, I'm going for the quick, clean kill. I did ask to borrow one of Peggy's cats but she says they've gone soft and wouldn't be effective. I also wonder if my ceiling tiles in the basement can hold them. I don't think I'll post any photos of the next stage since it won't be of a happy, well-fed cat.

Pedestrian

In just a week, we've gone from a two car family with just one driver's licence to a no car family. It's just a temporary situation though. Minutes ago, someone else drove away with my beloved Beetle. I bought it around Xmas 2000 and it's been a fantastic car ever since. I hope it does a good job with its new family. On Sunday while up at Lake Louise, our brand new car started to act a little strange and a non-critical warning light came on. Monday morning, I dropped it off at Fifth Ave to be fixed. They said they'd try and squeeze it in over the next few days. I phoned today and found out they've been swamped and it will be a few more days. It seems like such a short time ago that we had our Jetta in the garage, a Civic in the garage from some of Ying's friends and our Beetle in the driveway. That's all over and there's currently just a few bikes and a stroller in the garage. Well, good thing I haven't let myself go completely 'cause I'll be confined to the bike for the next few days.

Moved

It's done! Ying and I have successfully moved from our little condo into a much larger home. We're very happy in our new place and we invite all our friends to come visit us sometime. We'll have enough room when the baby arrives to put up a few relatives who'll be in town to help out.

The move into the new house went great. We invited a lot of people to come help and many of them turned out. I rented a big truck and everything was jammed inside in under an hour. The drive took 20 minutes and then everything was out in no time flat. Our movers were paid in beer, chilli and sugar and they all seemed to have had a good enough time.

Today I rode the proletariat chariot into work for the first time. It was actually pretty good. To and from work, I was one of the first people on and off. It was nice to get a seat for the 35 minutes journey. It looks like I'll be riding all week since we're supposed to get some snow for the rest of the week. It's also a little darker than I like while biking. The sun comes up earlier everyday so I don't think it will be long before I'm cycling in. Good thing too. I'm currently sitting in third in the weight loss challenge. I think I'll spend April and May going over Nose Hill so I get 300 m of climbing everyday.