§ Hello § At work I spent some time experimenting with a low-pressure sodium vapor lamp . It emits a very narrow spectrum of light that makes everything look monochromatic. It took three attempts but I finally managed to order one that didn’t arrive shattered in transit. I also continued my previous experiments with 2D anamorphic art and built a quick three-dimensional example of a similar…
§ Another week has flown by before I was able to get a solid grasp around anything. At this rate it feels like I’m going to wake up next week and it will already be mid-autumn. § At work, I started building a five-foot-diameter, seven-foot-tall column that will eventually become a large round dry-erase writing surface in the museum. It has been a fun, one-off project but deceptively difficult to…
§ The first fruit on our heirloom tomato plant finally ripened this week. Unfortunately I left it on the vine one day too long and a deer decided to take a big chomp out of it. We were devastated. Elsewhere in the garden the passionflower vine has suddenly popped out a number of quickly-growing maypop fruits. I finally discovered last year that fully ripe maypop fruit is incredibly delicious so I…
§ The garden seems to be bouncing back after the intense weather we’ve had over the past few weeks. I’ve noticed a handful of new flower buds on the green beans and it seems like all of our cherry tomatoes are ripening at once. Earlier this spring, I bought a fennel plant on a whim . At the time I assumed it was a variety that would produce an edible bulb only to later realize that bronze fennel…
§ Monday was Caroline’s and my two-year anniversary. I took off work and we spent a nice relaxing day together. For dinner we went back to the boat shaped restaurant we ate at last year while the in-laws watched the baby. § Thursday was Caroline’s birthday. We woke up to the city blanketed by smoke from the Canadian wildfires . We were looking forward to spending the day outside but this changed…
§ This week brought the first few ripe blackberries and tomatoes of the season. The Cherokee purple and San Marzano plants are both growing really well but I noticed a number of their larger fruits are suffering from blossom end rot. It’s not unexpected but still disappointing. § On Thursday I harvested a big pile of fresh green coriander seeds from the rest of my bolting cilantro plants. I also…
§ Northeast Ohio saw a brutal heat wave this week with temperatures in the upper 90s each day. Our fig plant must have enjoyed it—its branches are suddenly covered in tiny budding fruits. The one breba fig I found at the end of May still isn’t ripe though. Elsewhere, our passionflower vine is blooming and our bush bean plants are full of fully-grown green beans. I picked the first couple of garlic…
§ The return trip from Chicago was even more uneventful than the drive there . Caroline and I feel emboldened to do more traveling with the baby in the near future. § On Monday we picked up a nice pair of new (to us) couches to replace our previous set that was older than we are. It’s a genuinely dramatic upgrade. § The neighborhood lightning bugs have finally emerged and little by little…
§ Hello there. Happy summer solstice, Father’s Day, Juneteenth, etc. § In the vegetable garden our bush beans have started flowering and the tomato plants are all fruiting happily. Did you know that saffron comes from a crocus that is perennial in zone 6? Well I didn’t until a few days ago. It is now near the top of the list of plants I want to track down for our garden. § The trip to Chicago for…
§ On Monday I picked our first few ripe strawberries of the season. § Later that evening I installed the new iOS 27 beta . For the most part, it is full of a large number of tiny everyday improvements. All of the big marquee features are behind a wait list that I only got access to yesterday. So far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well everything works. § On Friday I picked all of the young…
§ As is tradition this time of year , I found a baby deer in my yard on Monday. This one was more skiddish than most. We can only hope less ravenous towards the tomato plants too. § At work I spent some time trying to emulate Tristan Duke’s fascinating and monolithic Aperture Lucida project, just at a much smaller scale. After making two different rudimentary jigs I dipped my toe into the…
§ The baby is almost seven weeks old now which is a fact I find hard to comprehend. In one sense it feels like he was born only yesterday, in another it feels like he has been a part of our lives for as long as I can remember. § In the garden I can see a number of tiny blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry fruits starting to grow. A couple of budding tomatoes as well. On Friday I bought and…
§ Almost exactly 14 days after sowing and at the first sign of warm sunny weather, the beans I planted all suddenly started sprouting. Also, I found a lone breba crop fig on our tree. It’s obviously not much but maybe a sign of more to come in future years? § I went to another native plant sale yesterday and picked up a new black tupelo tree to replace one that I lost as an innocent casualty…
§ In the garden our raspberry bush is flowering and it looks like the blackberry will follow suit any day now. I picked up some tomato, tomatillo, poblano, basil, and rosemary plants from the nursery and planted them in the few remaining free pockets of full-sun garden space I have left. I’m truly running out of suitable space at this point. § On Mother’s Day Caroline and I took my mom and the…
§ It was a week of almost nonstop rain—the downside of the spring season that I always seem to forget about. On Monday I planted ten small patches of different pole and bush beans. It’s a week later than I planted them last year but I hope the result will be just as successful. § As I mentioned last week, I got a new fiber internet connection installed Wednesday morning. The installation itself…
§ It is Sunday already ? This week flew by in a sleepy, drizzly haze. My paternity leave is more than halfway over which makes me feel a bit panicky when I think too hard about it. I haven’t checked my email since the baby was born and I’m dreading its inevitability. § Out in the garden I found the first signs of new growth on our brown turkey fig plant. So far it looks like the garden is growing…
§ I’m risking hubris here but I have to say, when you average it out, the first nearly two weeks of parenthood have gone more smoothly than I feared. The highs are higher than I would have guessed and the lows are just about as expected. Each day alternates between utter exhaustion and a kind of half sleep-deprived new-parent euphoria. I can understand why, years later, parents looking back at…
§ Hello. I’ve been keeping a secret from you for the past, well, nine months . I hope you can forgive me. Early Tuesday morning my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy—Kieran. Mom is healthy, the baby is healthy, and the three of us have been nesting at home since Thursday afternoon, slowly getting acquainted with our new life together. § Some miscellaneous notes: When you are forced to sleep…
§ The museum I work at serves double-duty as one of eleven NASA visitor centers so this week’s Artemis II mission brought a lot of infectious, excited energy to the building. I’ll admit I wasn’t especially interested in the Artemis project previously but watching four humans slingshot themselves around the moon was decidedly incredible. In between Artemis activities I started experimenting…
§ Hi, Happy Easter. § Lots of warm, rainy weather this week. In between showers I poked around the garden. Trout lilies went from nonexistent early in the week to numerous and flowering by the week’s end. The raspberry bush is leafing out, and the asparagus has finally arrived. § Yesterday was the hottest April 4th since 1882 , breaking a 144 year record. It was a treat. Caroline and I spent all…
§ This week has been a bit of a blur thanks in no small part to temperatures ping-ponging more than 30 degrees day-to-day taking my sinuses on a wild ride. Last week when I mentioned how much I love spring I had forgotten all about this part. § After work on Monday Caroline and I finally— finally —braced the lovecraftian horror of our local Verizon store to upgrade her old iPhone 11 with a 17. I’m…
§ Hello. Happy spring, officially. The daffodils are flowering and our honeysuckle vine is suddenly dotted with tiny green leaves. Most importantly, I found almost a dozen tiny ramp shoots sprouting up through the soil —an exciting culmination to an almost years-long wait . My favorite stretch of the year occurs between now and the summer solstice. It’s a time full of optimism, new growth, and…
§ The start of daylight savings time last Sunday means that the sunlight now stretches past 7:00pm. Bliss. § I finally finished reading Autumn and started, appropriately enough Spring . My reading pace is picking back up as the weather improves. I always seem to think that I’ll spend more time inside reading during the winter but that never ends up being the case. I think my body goes into a bit…
§ I’m officially on ramp watch—assuming the ramps I planted last year survived the winter I should see them sprout as early as this month. § Aside from the garlic , which is still going strong, I found a mystery plant sprouting up in my vegetable patch. I think it might be ornamental allium? § I saw a rabbit lounging in the front garden and the chipmunks are out in full force. Can you tell I’m…
§ Rabbit rabbit . Happy March. § The snow came back on Monday and temperatures dropped again but the early signs of spring I saw last week made it all feel more manageable. Indeed, by Friday all of the new snow was gone and temperatures were back in the 50s. § My car has had a slow leak in one of its tires for the past several weeks. A similar situation last April caused a tire to suddenly pop at…
§ Happy year of the fire horse . I can’t help but think it feels like a particularly portentous designation. § As the snow cover continues to recede the starlings and the sparrows and the robins all descend to comb the muddy lawn and fill their stomachs. We have our first signs of life in the garden: eight of the garlic cloves I planted last October have started sprouting. Is it too early for them…