Author Archives: Pamela Rentz

Quick Garden Update

Posted on May 29, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I’m pretty excited about what’s going on in the garden except the part where the deer ate all the apple and pear blossoms. Well, not all of them. There are 4 apples and 6 pears. I counted. I took The fig tree is also not as impressive as I would have hoped by now, but still good.

Look at these blueberries! This plant only had about 6 last year. The branches are bending under all the berries. There’s an equally loaded plant on the other side of the yard. Plus a third plant that always has a lot of little ones.

This is the general garden looking pretty good. Lots of potatoes. Some greens. Peas and bush beans. Pumpkins. Sunflowers.

Also the raspberry patch is super loaded. It’s going to be good.

Posted in garden | Comments Off on Quick Garden Update

Home Grown Tomatoes

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

Sorry for the terrible photos. I kept forgetting and and when I’m doing this my hands are dirty and I have gloves. I have to take off the gloves and grab the camera. And I did a super half-assed job of it.

Please contact a manager for a full refund.

I have put 5 tomatoes in and all of them came from seeds I saved and made the starts on my windowsill.

They get really tall and skinny. I used to try to plant them like this and had a lot of fails.

Then I discovered this one trick! If I was good at social media I could make a movie of my face very confidently telling you about this like I invented it.

But I’m not and I didn’t. Someone on Reddit described it.

I take almost all the leaves off and dig a trough. The long stem goes in the trough and just the last little bit is above the dirt.

Ta da! I have had great success with this method.

I planted one in the backyard and the next day it looked comically wilted. But a few days later it perked up. It still looks a bit scraggily but I think it will make it.

I had another smaller plant I put in the backyard.

I came out the next day to check on it and it was nothing but slug trails and dirt. The entire plant was gone. Dang slugs!

I don’t keep track of what I start but I think they are all smaller sized tomatoes. It’s been awhile since I had a huge crop of tomatoes. I intend to put a couple of raised beds in a corner I am currently rehabbing and think that will help. But not ready yet.

Posted in garden | Tagged | Comments Off on Home Grown Tomatoes

I’ll Be There For You

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I just finished rewatching the entire series of Friends. 236 episodes. I never watched more than 1 a day and sometimes would go a week or longer without watching an episode so it took at least a couple of years.

May 6 was the 20 year anniversary since the airing of the series finale.

I’ve seen a few episodes here and there since then but I never did a re-watch from beginning to end. The show holds up for me. I think Season 5 is the best — every episode is a classic.

For individual episodes: the one with Phoebe’s “my eyes! my eyes!”, the one with Monica and Ross’s routine, and the one with “PIVOT!” are my favorite.

At work, if we’re ever in a meeting and someone uses pivot, my colleague and I will spend the rest of the day exclaiming “PIVOT!” with Ross intonation and die laughing every time.

We lost Matthew Perry during my rewatch. I had already decided to skip his memoir but I ended up getting the audiobook- which he reads. It wasn’t sad in the moment because while he was reading it to me, he was there. But the end was super sad because he was so optimistic about his future. I should rephrase this because the memoir itself is really sad. This guy had troubles from a young age and I think getting so much fame and money so early on top of that made things tough for him.

After all that I re-watched the reunion show which was aired in 2021 so the audience is sparse and many are wearing masks. The reunion show was so enjoyable and well done. I could watch the cast reacting to their own bloopers all day. The other night I dreamed I was watching Friends with Matt LeBlanc. He was very nice and we were both laughing hysterically.

I wish I had some clever concluding thoughts but as always, this has been sitting half-written for two days and if I don’t finish now, I don’t know when I can get back to it. I will say this, the show was whatever the opposite of a perfect storm would be: the creators, writers and cast were fabulous and came together perfectly. There is no other show like it.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | Comments Off on I’ll Be There For You

May 5 is MMIP Awareness Day!

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

[Well, POOP: As per every single time, I was trying to write a post before dinner. Dinner was ready. Bob was waiting. I hurried to finish this and … Didn’t hit the publish button. Too late now. Story will be available this summer.]

Tomorrow is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Awareness Day.

Apex Magazine bought a story of mine called “Loss Prevention” that has a MMIP theme. The official publication isn’t until July but they will be running it on their Patreon tomorrow for free.

The story on Patreon on May 5 here.

More info:

Indigenous people, particularly women and young girls, are disproportionately affected by violence. A growing movement led by Native communities and advocates seeks justice for our lost people. May 5 is designated “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day” to memorialize these lost individuals and raise awareness of the tragedy.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | Comments Off on May 5 is MMIP Awareness Day!

The Tale of the Sad Fruit Orchard

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I have a fuzzy trail cam clip but I don’t have the energy to fix it up to post right this second.

The deer returned.

I saw their hoof-prints and turd-piles so I knew they had been through.

I looked over the apple and pear trees and initially thought they looked okay. Just a few nibbles. But after I saw the clips I took a closer look and realized that the fruit buds are gone. There are maybe 2 apple and a few pear left. They didn’t damage the new trees because they are too new and have nothing on them except tiny leaf buds.

Also, there is one new blueberry out in the front of the house that is missing all the buds.

The bird feeders are down. There is no intentional food for them out there. I’m super bummed. It seems like the solution is deer fencing but I’m not sure how that is going to work in our yard. I don’t want to turn it into an obstacle course.

I just want a happy place where fruit trees and wildlife can live together in peace but I will get the fruit.

This is from the Orleans trip. This is Summer wading through a giant puddle.

Mom wanted me to drive through this puddle.

I told her no, I have a city car. It doesn’t go through lakes of mud.

Posted in doing it wrong, garden, Orleans | Tagged | Comments Off on The Tale of the Sad Fruit Orchard

Asian Plum and NectaPlum in Year 0

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I bought two more fruit trees. I knew they were coming in April so I’d mostly prepared the spots where I wanted to put them.

Dang, it is hard digging up lawn.

I finally got the email that said they were on the way. They including links to four (4!) videos for how to plant my trees. That would have been really helpful with my other trees.

I checked my front porch for my trees every half hour on the day they were supposed to be delivered. I had the planting spots all ready to go.

Finally, it was dinner and I was filthy so I cleaned up and as we were eating I heard the delivery on the porch.

I had planned a more elaborate documentary about planting the trees but it didn’t work out. They spent the night in the shed and I planted the next day.

Here they are! The Asian plum has several varieties. I need to map it out before I take all the tags off. The Spice Zee NectaPlum™ is approximately 1/2 nectarine, 1/4 peach and 1/4 Asian plum. Supposedly it’s really pretty, too. I am very excited about my new trees.

Posted in garden | Comments Off on Asian Plum and NectaPlum in Year 0

Garden 2024

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

It’s taken me a few weekends but yesterday I finally finished getting the garden in. Today I am sore and creaky all over.

I had previously planted peas and a few greens.

Yesterday I put in two more trellis things for green beans and bush beans. I also spread seeds for greens, carrots, beets and probably a couple of other things. This is the part of garden planting that embraces chaos. I throw out a bunch of seeds and see what happens.

The stuff already growing is potatoes from all the little shriveled potatoes that end up in the drawer. And also maybe some daikon radishes? There were also already a few pumpkins coming in. I tried to let them live but I was also pretty vigorously raking dirt around.

This is the blueberry with the most flowers. The blueberries are kinda small on this one. All the older blueberries have lots of flowers so perhaps this will be a big blueberry year.

The raspberry patch desperately needs TLC but my decrepit joints need a break today.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on Garden 2024

Did You Try the Cookies Yet?

Posted on April 14, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

Bob likes to shop at Grocery Outlet. We call it weird foods.

He has picked up some interesting items there that we wished we could have again.

He brought home some cookies in a box that looked like it modeled itself after Girl Scout cookies.

Have you tried those cookies yet?

He asked me a bunch of times whether I tried the cookies. I thought he meant it in a “These are good, I can’t wait for you to try them” way.

I finally tried one.

It was terrible. It’s vegan and gluten free and it’s like eating lightly flavored sawdust.

Turns out, he doesn’t like them either.

I include this photo only because it looks fake or like it was commercially lit for some purpose instead of me running around with my camera trying to capture the daffodil magic.

Posted in baking disasters, doing it wrong | Comments Off on Did You Try the Cookies Yet?

Blueberries

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

Last fall I bought two new blueberry plants.

We originally bought 4 around 2018 but after the great heatwave of 2021 one of them gave up the ghost.

The ones I have aren’t super productive and the birds and I think the squirrels, too, get into them.

When I was reading about blueberry plant care, the articles said that the first year you shouldn’t let them flower and make blueberries and instead let the plant get established. Since I did not know that for the first 4 plants, I wanted to do that for the new ones.

But what does that mean? Do you clip the flowers back? Pinch them?

I asked at the nursery and they told me it was fine to let them flower but if I wanted I could just pull them off. (Actually, every person I have mentioned this to told me it was fine to leave the blooms on.) The new plants are very small and don’t have a lot of flowers and I haven’t decided yet.

For the first time I also pruned the older plants, but not very much. I didn’t realize it took blueberries a while to get established. I thought I would be buried in blueberries so I could freeze some and make jam and we would just have giant bowls full of berries everywhere. Photos of blueberries when I have them.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on Blueberries

Flannel Sheets are the Best Sheets

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

A couple of weeks ago we had a couple of warm sunny days in a row. I told Bob we should switch from the flannel sheets. I was at work and I suggested this via text.

He texted back that he was already in the process of washing sheets and remaking the bed and we should hold out for two more weeks.

Good thing. We have had plenty of chilly nights since then and it looks more nights in the 30s next week. Maybe we’ll keep them on a little bit longer. I love fuzzy sheets. Or maybe I just love bedding because I like fresh summer sheets, too.

As a random aside, it looks like the Archive page is broken. I do not want to wade into website fixing right now. Or ever. But the archives on the sidebar work in case you need to peruse the archives.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on Flannel Sheets are the Best Sheets