Welcome to Gaia! ::

Wow! Here's to 1162.8 miles! Do you have an odometer on your bike or just guesstimate it?

Try this for the video: link. I have to upload via Failfox and Flash doesn't work for my computer so I can't verify that it works. I r lame.


Pickled watermelon? I have.... never.... heard of that. Is it sweet tart or something else? What's canned juice like? Like normal juice?

That's nifty if it was part of a society. Is it totally gone or just smoosheled and may be able to be repaired somewhat? If not, hopefully there are items inside that can be salvaged.

Are there normally tornados in Texas?

@Pirhan- since we are very far away from Missouri the only information we have been able to get on the house was a glimpse of the area my grandma saw on the news. I haven't been able to find anything about it online. It wasn't a famous location, so no surprise there. What my grandma said was that she saw the building that she knows was in front of it, and that was heavily damaged. She couldn't see buildings behind but there was a lot of debris. She wasn't sure if the debris was the house or if the house was out of the camera shot. We probably won't know for quite a while.
Although tornadoes can happen anywhere under the right conditions, there are certain areas that are more prone to them than others. In the U.S., we call our most prone area "Tornado Alley." Tornado Alley is primarily in the Great Plains region where land is predominately flat and there are fewer trees and obstructions to the wind. Even when there are no actual tornadoes the winds can reach high speeds during storms and cause damage. All of Missouri is in this region, and much of Texas is as well. My house is clearly in tornado alley. My parent's home in Houston sits on the very edge of the region. Houston does not tend to have as much tornado activity as other parts of the region under normal circumstances. We are very prone to tropical storms, depressions, and hurricanes, though, which can produce tornadoes. I found a great map that shows the area. If you follow the south border of the yellow area east to the Texas coastline, Houston is where it looks like some giant critter took a bite out of our coastline.

No you're not! If you were going to die then who the heck is going to be able to send my dying will message to that one person who moved really far away?

If it's sweet pickled watermelon it tastes like apple pie. If you have dill pickled water melon it tastes like dill pickles.

And yeah- the juice is just juice.

Yay!

Do you bike to work or just afterwards? I looked on Google Maps and it's 3.0km from my door to work. So I do 6km every day. (3.72 miles) I have a tracker thinger with my phone so when I go out on rides I'll take that. It'll be interesting to see how many km's I do, how fast, elevation gain, etc. I'm such a copy cat. dramallama

Thanks for all the info! <3

--
Oi. So it's like my third week with my new landscaping job. It's actually really stressful. Today we "weeded" which basically meant ripping the top of the weed off and leaving the root. I was urged to hurry, hurry, hurry and just to make it "look good" rather than do a good job. We "aerate" each property every week so there is hardly any soil, we take away all the good mulch - pine needles, leaves, all the roots are exposed, the roots are ripped because of carelessness/hurry, hurry, and what soil is left is dead (I barely see any worms or other soil wildlife; it's not soil, it's dirt). And today my boss says we're going to weed n feed next week. This makes me nervous because I'm not exposing myself to herbicides, especially one banned municipally and going on federally. And that none of us are properly trained (nor have proper equipment, it's very rinky-dink); and ill trained people shouldn't be using products they don't know how to handle. Oi.

In other news, my pot of humming bird mix (flowers, not actual birds) has sprouted. I also get lots of freebie "weed" plants from work. I have a tupperware stored in the truck and got a tiny spirea, lavender, some coniferous trees, lilac suckers, rose sucker, hyacinth, tulip bulbs and some mystery flowers. (I pull these carefully out of undesirable places like walkways or somewhere in the big expanse of bare soil where it's considered ugly.) (Sorry to be such a grouch.)

And I saw the bear twice today. Oh, and my bike is going to get new chain, chain rings, derailleur, and wire thingers for gear changing. I took it off the paved valley trail today onto a very easy and wide single track and he was just sluggish. Regardless, going to try and head out tomorrow after maybe getting a full face helmet.

Nah. I just try to ride my bike daily to get some exercise.

@Pirhan- You're welcome. Although in retrospect that was probably meant as a yes/ no question and I dump a text wall. redface About the weed and feed: if it has atrazine as the herbacide then it is extremely toxic. The nursery I used to work at quit selling it after we saw a high number of customers with trees and bushes dying near where they had applied the product. (and they weren't shy about selling toxic chemicals.) One of my coworkers said that the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) was considering banning the chemical. I looked into its effects on people and they are awful. IMO not worth the exposure.


I am trying to go paperless at home. I am planning to scan all of my documents and then recycle (shred and recycle) them. I may actually even finish by the time cancer is cured lol. (I really am trying though) Anything to keep me occupied for a little while since I'm a bit laid up. Some nasty bug decided to bite me without brushing first. Should be ok in a week and then it is back to the job search. BTW- I am totally biking vicariously through y'all right now xd

@ sunsetsmile: I am glad that you are ok!

Today I cleaned up my gardens and started planting things!