It’s grow time.

We have cotyledons. Repeat. We have cotyledons.

Howdy ho, family-o. Sorry I skipped last week. I had a Very Important Deadline™ Monday and worked nonstop through the weekend. Don’t worry, I had a very relaxing time this weekend.

I am pleased to report that last Monday I got all our start-indoors seeds going, and they are doing swimmingly.

This is an appropriate amount of seeds to start, right?

We’ve got 11 trays going under the grow lights:

• 6 each oregano, cilantro, chives, lemon basil, Thai basil, mint, parsley

• 8 each tomatillo, cherry tomato, tomato, eggplant

• 16 each habanero, scotch bonnet, Thai dragon, sweet banana peppers

• 72 sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)

• 204 marigolds (3 varieties)

• 137 cosmos (2 varieties)

• 65 zinnias (2 varieties)

• 36 mammoth sunflowers

Is that too many? I hope that’s not too many. We’ll share the extras with our neighbors. And don’t hate on our annuals, native plant fans, we need to fill in the holes while the perennials get going! All the flowers have sprouted already, and I’m worried it was too early to start the sunflowers, which are already a few inches tall.

They grow up so fast!

Oops. We’re still waiting for the herbs and hot peppers to show up.

I also planted 1 little pot each (with lots and lots of seeds) of some prairie natives that I have leftover from my grad school research. These seeds are from 2014-2016, so this was mostly a test to see which, if any, still germinate. So far only the Bouteloua has sprouted (yay!!) but it’s early yet.

• Verbesina alternifolia (wingstem)

• Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem)

• Eryngium yuccifolium (rattlesnake master)

• Echinacea purpurea/pallida (purple coneflower)

• Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem)

• Koeleria cristata (prairie Junegrass)

• Oenothera biennis (evening primrose)

• Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed Susans)

• Bromus kalmii (prairie brome)

• Bouteloua curtipendula (sideoats grama)

• Elymus canadensis (Canada wild rye)

• Oligoneuron rigidum (stiff goldenrod)

• Penstemon digitalis (foxglove beardtongue)

• Potentilla arguta (tall cinquefoil)

• Dalea purpurea (purple prairie clover)

• Scrophularia lanceolata (lance-leaf figwort)

• Sorghastrum nutans (Indiangrass)

• Liatris sp. (blazing star)

(I am pleased to report I can still spell all of these from memory — except Schizachyrium. Darn that a.)

BOUCUR!!!!!! Welcome to the world, lil buddy!!!!!!

The other big Funkyard news is that we’ve started killing some grass to make way for beds! So exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RIP side lawn grass, we hardly knew ye.

We had a bunch of packing paper and boxes left over from our move, so I raked out the spots where we want veggie beds, laid down the paper, stuck some rocks on the corners, and then piled them back up with whatever leaves and mulch was around in the yard. I think it’s gonna work. (Please work.)

More leaves still incoming. This spot is going to look so nice full of beds of herbs and lettuce and tomatoes and eggplants and cucumbers and and and

Raking has been uncovering a lot of goodies left behind from the old residents. Mostly nerf gun darts and chunks of what I assume are long-destroyed dog toys.

Also these. Sadly the nerf gun is no longer functional.

It’s been an adventure.

Wildlife update:

There have been two (2!!) exciting bird appearances in the neighborhood this last week. The first was a pair of red-shouldered hawks, which I’ve never seen before. They seem to have moved onto our block, and we see or hear them just about every day now.

Their names are Grapefruit and Ruby. Guess which one Andy named.

The other was a MyStErIoUs flock of long-necked, long-winged birds (like cranes) that flew over the house, fairly low. Maybe a dozen or two birds. Most of them were brownish (like sandhill cranes) but a couple were white with black wing tips (like whooping cranes).

WHOOPING CRANES!!!!!

I did get a quick look with my binoculars, but sadly no photo evidence. Were they actually whooping cranes? Who knows. Whooping cranes are super rare (2021 estimate is that there are 80. TOTAL.) and this would be a little far west for them. Plus, whooping cranes are a bit bigger than sandhill cranes, and I like to think I would’ve noticed a size difference.

There are other rational options for what this flock could’ve been — white ibis (juveniles are brown) or even pelicans (there are white and brown ones). But, given that there’s no way I’ll ever know for sure … I’m going to stick with “it wasn’t not whooping cranes.”

I’m reading:

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

I tried to pick up Wit’s End by James Geary and just could not even get into it. For the first time perhaps ever, I am letting myself give up on a book after 2 chapters. I decided to instead give an old favorite a try. I absolutely adored this book as a kid and hope it holds up!

We’re watching:

Altered Carbon season 1 (Netflix).

Yooooo this show is GREAT. It’s the future, and society has figured out how to grow human bodies. People’s minds are downloaded into their “stack” — a half-dollar-sized bio-electronic somethingerother that lives on the back of the neck — so when you die, you can come back in another “sleeve.” This makes life complicated. Add a murder mystery and a delightful AI hotel owner with a proclivity for Edgar Allan Poe… it’s a delight. (Note HBO levels of nudity, though, in case that’s not your scene.)

New stories for you:

Pandemic year 2: Vaccines, variants, and other developments for Stacker

What Are Macronutrients and why do People Keep Talking About Them? for Discover

OK team, that’s all for today. Until next week,

XO

A