enjoralas

I swear I live the most charmed life, medically. I'm grossly overweight, 280+ more a 5'9" frame puts my Body Mass Index at, like, "Gravy" or some ridiculous shit. I haven't seen a doctor in about 15 years, and that was only cause I caught the Strep and it was like 10 years before that. I eat the crappiest food and mainline Mt Dew during my workday, I eat more red meat than a T-Rex. At almost 40 years old I decided to take up downhill skiing and took a learn to ski lesson then decided eff it, I'll just point then down the hill and see what happens. I've never had a real injury, and no chronic illnesses. At least, none that are diagnosed. I suppose I should swing by Lowes tomorrow and knock on every piece of wood in the Indoor Lumberyard. I figure I'll probably coast along like this for another decade or so and probably have a massively coronary bending over to tie my shoelaces or something.

that was fast. Clock didn't get to 9:03

Short notice, but this deal is on again today at 9am, just over 20 minutes from now. Remember, they go quick. Minutes. Suggest being signed up and logged in before 9am. Don't dawdle once they are in your cart, they're not yours until you checkout. http://www.sweetdealscumulus.com/deal/allentown/blue-mountain-ski-resort-13

I thought it would open this year, but that's mostly because it's been on the trail maps "Coming Soon" since at least the 14-15 season, so I figured it was supposed to open for this past season but they had to delay it to this one. Now that I'm seeing how they work, it would surprise me if it opens next season tho. While up there today for the Beerfest I did overhear some employees talking about the new trail, and how it could have opened this year but they diverted all the money to a new high speed quad on the summit School Hill because they heard complaints about slow lifts

Facebook. Standby.

They're pushing the new trail off another year.

Non friends messages go into a mailbox called "other" instead of the inbox. Lots of people miss them

Thanks, it's really doing pretty well this year. Carrots and peas were a disappointment, but everything else has or is really come through. Here is what I ended up picking last night:

It's close, but it's still pretty green instead of turning cream/orange behind the netting, and doesn't have the tell-tale crack at the stem. Those are the signs I've always looked for, anyway. I did handle it a bit because I know when they are ripe they will pop right off, but she wasn't giving up the vine.

That's how you're supposed to stick up your middle finger? Shit, I've been doing it wrong.

Not quite ready yet, but getting there. Came home from vacation to LOADED up jalapeño plants. Fair amount of bell peppers too. 7 plants all look like this one Some color showing up in the habanero bush. Spaghetti squash is still spreading like wildfire, up and over anything in its path Tallest sunflowers are about 8.5-9 ft and still going. Cucumbers are dying out but there are still a few plants producing. Lost a dozen or so while I was gone, got super dat and turned orange. Roma tomatoes are starting to color as well

Those melons look fantastic. Small seed cavity, lot of fruit. Great color. Might have one ready to pick myself here in a few days

A few more photos from late last week. Sometimes the growth is just astounding to me: An overall shot again. Everything is significantly bigger. Pickling cucumbers. Since taking this some of these have started to wilt and I'm not sure how much more they have to give. Some pepper plants. The sweet banana pepper plant has been producing like crazy. The poblano plant next to it is growing like crazy and has a lot of peppers on it, but they'll take a while yet to ripen. The Roma tomatoes are getting big and have tons of green fruit on them, no red ones yet tho. Getting a good amount of bell peppers out of these plants here. Made stuffed peppers for dinner the other night with peppers that were on the plant 10 minutes before they were in the oven. Yum! Zucchini keeps giving, but is getting tapped out. Found a half eaten zuc still on the plant. Think I have a chipmunk living in the garden. This spaghetti squash plant is just out of control. It's exploded with growth, taking over the entire back half of the garden. It's gone up and over the fence into the lawn, and it's climbing the sunflowers! (So is the watermelon on the other side) Since I took this, at least a half dozen more sunflowers have opened up, and it's starting to look really cool.

It's also about saving time. It takes me a solid 20 minutes to drag the hose out to the garden and water, and I try to do it every day. With the drip system I leave the hose hooked up and have it on timers to run every morning at 8 am. That's better then for the plants than me doing it at 7pm after work too. The water gets right at the roots which means I'm not watering the weeds, saving me even more time because they don't grow as much and I don't have to pull them as often. In the end, I probably spend more than I would just buying the veggies. But I do prefer them fresh, and things like my kid picking and eating cherry tomatoes and my friends raving about the homemade pickles I give them can't really be bought.

I used to grow corn, but stopped a couple years ago. For all the room it took up, it just wasn't worth it when you can get pretty fresh Lancaster corn for $2 for 10 ears most of the time. But when I did grow it, I did love picking it and eating it minutes later

First of the sunflowers bloomed today Have gotten a bunch of cucumbers, bunch of zucchini, several peppers of different varieties. Spaghetti squash vine is out of control, but no real squash yet. Watermelon is also running all over the place, and has many little melons on it. Looks like it will be a good growing season overall.

Good looking berries. I need to get into some fruit. I love veggies, the wife not so much. We both love fruit though. I share with my mom and dad, my dad helps a ton in the garden. I do can some, mostly pickles and relishes, and various tomato stuffs, tomatoes, sauce, salsa. I tried beans two years ago but wasn't happy with them when I opened them, so j mostly blanch and freeze them, after vacuum sealing. If I get as many beans as I think I will this year, I'm going to make some silly beans, basically dill pickle recipe but use green beans. I use a lot of peppers when I have people over, especially jalapeños, for Atomic Buffalo Turds. I give a bunch of zucchini to a couple neighbors who like to make zucchini bread

Rocks don't get tracked into the house, and stay cleaner in the box.

Overall view of the garden from just inside the gate: 8 foot bed of cucumbers, hoping they do really well this year so that I can make some pickles. Some hot peppers and some mild jalapenos: Two rows of bell peppers, and you can see the end of the row of bush beans there on the left: The zucchini plant is doing very well. It's one of the only things that has produced so far, gave me the four zukes here: Tomato plants are also really putting on growth. Lots of green tomatoes, but only about a half dozen cherries ripe so far. Two year old got them all, lol: A shot of the back end of the garden. Added the rockbox this year for my buddy to play in while I am weeding or otherwise working. A bench to rest on and watch him play. There's a couple rows of mammoth sunflowers back there in various stages of growth, and that low lying green mess on the left side is a watermelon plant: Got going so late this year I haven't bothered with re-laying out the drip irrigation system. I guess I should, especially since I'm going away for a week in August and if it doesn't rain I'll come back to a bad scene.

I got everything in very late this year. Just picked my first cucumbers of the year, got about a half dozen of them. There are a handful of jalapenos ready, and a couple of sweet bannana peppers too. Everything seems to be growing well, sunflowers are ranging from seedlings (went in last week to fill bare spots) to 2.5-3 ft high. Zucchini is big and bushy, with a few small fruits. Some green tomatoes. Everything else growing well but no fruits yet. I think I finally got ahead of the constant weeding. Maybe I'll grab a few pics tonight.

The GPS app Waze usually alerts you when you are approaching a red light camera. Or even a speed camera, in states that have them

Watch out for gators!

MRG is takin' notes . . .

DOH!! Forgot my usual bump to this thread. This deal is on again in about half hour, today at 9am: http://www.sweetdealscumulus.com/deal/allentown/blue-mountain-ski-resort-52016

Bumping this one because Disney recently made changes to make one of my Fastpass tips moot. After using your first 3 Fastpasses you no longer have to go to the kiosk to make additional selections. You can make them right from your phone in the Disney app. You can even make one at another park if you have park hopper passes. Big time positive change.