Dear Jason The Computer Repairman

Dear Jason, the Computer Repairman:

Thank you for rebuilding the innards of The Wreck of the Hesperus my home computer. I hope you enjoy the wealth you have amassed during the process, and I wish your children well at the private schools I must be singlehandedly funding.

I appreciate the education I received myself in the interim, what with all the fun of, shall we say, disembowelling my hard drive and all its files after searching every crevice of my domicile for the elusive Golden Fleece referred to as the Dell Recovery Disk.

I'm pretty sure I'm now qualified for an ambassadorship after the many hours of multilingual gymnastics endured at the hands of outsourced Dell customer service employees and tecchie internationals, having learned not only how to order the Dell Recovery Disk, but also other products completely unrelated to the repair of my computer. Receiving these in lieu of the correct item I ordered was such a creative way of honing my new skills of diplomacy, native dialects, interpretation, and idle threats immortalized on a recorded line patient repetition with assorted cretins unable to compose a single original thought beyond their cue cards a delightful assemblage of numerous phone line employees eager to put me on hold repeatedly.

Receiving the correct disk in the mail...finally...was welcomed with the same sort of relief and anticipation usually reserved for delivering a firstborn child, and at about the same expense and internal distress.

To be told by you, later, that you had downloaded the necessary disk content free from the internet after we had endured the above-mentioned process...well...it was just a Mastercard commercial come to life...priceless...

Yes, now we DO have the disk, as you mentioned, for any problems that may arise down the road. I'm sure it will be much easier to find next time, as I have duct-taped it permanently to my husband's forehead.

Now I can get online again to access my 3 week backlog of emails. As a gesture of my continued appreciation and generosity, I can forward you a lengthy list of Kenyan philanthropists I found in my junk email file...all of whom seem eager to share vasts sums of family wealth with you, if you're interested. (I'd hardly keep it all to myself, would I??)

Thank you for fixing my computer and giving me back this part of my life. If you don't hear from me for a while, you might want to try phoning my husband's cell phone. He'll be able to get messages to me on location either at the Plasma donation center or the organ donor office, as I'm moonlighting out all my spare parts in anticipation of future computer maintenance. Never fear... I'm doing my best to guarantee your children will all drive new cars when they turn 16, and will surely have the straightest of teeth and the best orthodontists!

Fondly Yours,

Robbyn

;-)

Freeze Casualties

After the freeze here in Florida...

All the papayas, looking very dead...

All the tamarinds, days ago these were glowing green...

All the gynuras melted down to a brownish-green goo, except

...this one little baby one that had been covered by an old coir doormat.

The guavas that were in fruit...all but one...are toast. See the difference between the one that got covered and the ones that didn't...

This one had fruit on it... (look at pic closely to see)

All the coffees, even though they were on the lanai...you can SEE their frostbite...

And my beloved coco plums, a plant I haven't written about yet here, but had great plans for...they're brown and crunchy now, their formerly robust green leaves are now crispy like potato chips. Note the difference between the freeze-damaged cocoplum below and the gardenia next to it, which was covered. Yes, the cocoplums were covered, too :( Before, they were loaded with blooms and beautiful developing fruits...

Other victims of the freeze:

The baby lychees

Malangas

The starfruit/carambola...wahhhhh :( :(

The coconut palm

The porterweed bush

All the mangoes

The brush cherry

The avocado :(

There are more, I'm sure, and some of these may bounce back...we're not sure which, yet. I had no idea I was so attached to our little green babies.

The hardy survivors??

Amazingly, all the citrus...still even have their blooms. We DID cover them, but then we covered many of the above. (They smell fabulous, too...a very strange accompaniment as I surveyed the damage to the other plants)

The rosemary is thriving like nobody's business, as if it thrives on a good freeze.

The yerba buena is reigning supreme in its area of Bucketville.

The gardenias are fine.

The moringa is fine.

The pineapple plants looked a little off-color, but I believe they're fine.

And all the planted greens and lettuces are doing just fine! :)

Lest the blog be where only successes are documented, welcome to the setbacks.

Amateurish attempts notwithstanding, we've had many successes with our small-scale growing experiments. We're trying to learn what works for our growing zone, what plants are the hardiest sorts for us, and which ones we prefer for any number of other reasons. Ultimately, it's the plants that can take the most abuse that are most likely to survive our learning curve.

Freezing temps are the enemies of Florida crops...this we have learned.

There have been losses all along. Some seeds or starts never make it, even though they're suited for our zone. Maybe we planted them at the wrong time, or in the wrong sort of soil or light situation. Maybe we over/underwatered them. Maybe they just don't like being in pots as well as they would like being right in the ground.

Herbs have been this way. Some I was sure would grow well here just never took off. Other plants, such as the Cape Gooseberry and our Raspberry plants struggled along for a little bit, then bit the dust, as did one of the grapes. The Za'atar herb took one look at Florida and gave up the ghost. Others decided the summer heat was too much for them and promptly kicked the bucket.

Of the remaining hardy crowd, it appears a couple nights of freezing temps can do them in. Ugh...it's like a punch in the stomach. We've talked about one day having a big enough greenhouse-ish situation to protect plants that are not yet in-ground (when we have our land, y'know...). When there is a freeze advisory, we put as many plants as possible on our back lanai and covered them with sheets and towels. Some had to remain in the yard, and some were covered others were not, due to lack of extra material to use as protection.

We're not sure which of these are casualties, and which will make a rebound, but all of these have been seriously damaged in the freeze from last week.

This is our first test of the lower temps. The plants that bounce back, or make a comeback at all, will stay. Hopefully there will be many! In a more permanent situation, we'll make a protected area for all the potted plants, and for the plants in beds, we'll have frost protective cloth where possible. Larger trees can often sustain different extremes than the babies, but any trees we plant in the ground will have to survive...I don't think we'll have any way to protect them from freezes except by situating them among other trees per permaculture recommendations.

I really hope the guavas and the cocoplums make a comeback. It's my hope we can build a small cottage industry around some of the plants that do well, and I do like the taste of guava. The cocoplums are unique to the subtropics, as well, and I hope very, very much to have some prolific bushes to harvest for experiments in tropical fruit jelly-making. The cocoplum pits can be roasted and eaten like almonds, too, which is also something I'd love to see if we could utilize.

Let's see what survives....

Ugh. The poor dead things... wahhhhh :(