Pics for Trucks and Veggie Plants...

Well, I'm going to start with some pics of E.'s truck as it looks after hitting Ben's. I'll try to describe, for Tori, what we're looking at. The grill on the front of the truck is crumpled and pulled apart. In fact, the front of the entire truck is crumpled and the hood over the engine has been buckled up a little bit, as is the wheel-well over the right front tire. Mangled metal and shattered light-sockets. Wires hanging loose, even a couple of metal bits peeking from below the truck itself. In the first picture there, you can see how very close our house is to Ben's house. E's truck is sitting about half down in the road with the front up into the drive in front of Ben's house. We have maybe 100 feet from house to house, across roads that are only 40 feet wide. The windows on my house, that are visible are the bedroom on the left, and the livingroom on the right. The front door is hidden behind the open door of E's truck. This also gives some idea of how much pain could have been caused if she'd swerved the OTHER way.


The first of THESE pics is the back end of Ben's truck. As you can tell, they're about equal size, trucks. Both Ford's. I think E's is a bit larger because it's a 4-door crew-cab, Ben's is a 2-door crew-cab. (The seats in Ben's fold forward for folks to climb in behind. E's opens up like a regular sedan.) But, the bed-sizes are equal. Both are red in color as well. Where E. struck Ben's truck, the tail-gate is ripped open with a jagged lightning strike of ripped metal across the face of the tailgate. The back right tail-light has been shattered and ripped to bits. There was lots of glass and plastic from both vehical's lights all over Ben's "driveway". Ben's truck was pushed forward by about 10 feet, and if you look at the pic you can see where the front of Ben's truck came to rest only a matter of 3 or 4 feet from the side of his house. His truck actually connected with his barbeque grill (which is just out of sight, there) which itself came to rest only about 3 inches from striking the house. The grill is usable, but damaged, as it was pushed a good bit closer to the house than he'd had it sitting origionally. If she'd swerved in the direction of Ben's house just a bit sooner, you can see where the front windows are that E. would have put her truck through.

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Now some neat pictures. These were taken Thursday night I believe. It's a rather vibrant rainbow I saw as I was out watering one last time before bed. It's as you look to the RIGHT of our house, if you're standing in the front yard facing the road. Anyway, the colors were fabulously brilliant in real life. (That truck that's just visible belongs the neighbour that stopped and offered to block E. in with HIS truck -THAT truck- from leaving the neighbourhood. It obviously wasn't necessary.) Anyway, the colors shaded beautifully from indigo (which is just barely visible here) through an incredible florescent pink. As great as the colors ARE in these pics, I wish my camera had captured them a little bit more truly. It's impossible to explain just how bright they were.

Now some pictures of my gardening efforts here at the house. These are my Sunset Runner beans. They've only gotten about 8 inches tall so far. I really hope they grow soon, as it's getting kinda late in the season for beans, already. I mean, they've got large lovely leaves on them, but they're only so high. I'd thought they'd be climbing the trellis by now.

Next comes some of my strawberry patch. (I didn't get the "top" half of it, as I stand by the corner of the house by my bedroom window.) Anyway, they all have flowers on them, now. I'm looking foward to tasting the strawberries. *grin* Again, though, I'm afraid these plants aren't sending out runners. Does anybody know if Alpine strawberries self-propogate??? Can I seperate them out when they start growing thicker, kinda like rhubarb needs to be seperated every few years??? Otherwise I'll need to get another dozen plants next year and put them in the spaces between this year's strawberries.


Here are my zucchini. They're growing well, but I'm suprised they're not getting taller yet. I kinda thought they would. But I've never grown Zucchini in pots before. I also hope I didn't crowd them by putting two in this pot.

My two tomato plants. The one on the left is the Black from Tula, the one on the right is the Stupice.

An eggplant I brought over from FIL's house this week. I wanted to see how well it'd grow on my back deck, with considerably more direct sunlight than they receive over at the inlaw's. This spring I joined a Gardening in Alaska yahoo group, and I'm one of several people in the Fairbanks area that is trying to grow eggplant. We're all comparing notes, trying to see what the best conditions are for these delicate plants.

Here is my single surviving (from the seeds I planted) cucumber plant, and my two garlics. The garlics look dead, but they're not. I promise! *grin*


Ooops, forgot to turn this pic on it's side. These are my other two stupice. I decided to cover the smaller one (on the bottom) with a cover made from the top of another milk jug. That's what I'm still doing to my cucumber out back, and the eggplant, now that the two tomatoes on the back deck have taken off and outgrown the covers.

It's hard to see, but these are my two rhubarb plants. The one on the left really actually needs to be seperated, as it's getting too big and the stalks are starting to be smaller. Toward fall, I may go down and ask Corie or Kat if either of them wants a rhubarb plant. If they do, I'll seperate it out and give them part to plant in one of their yards. (Then again, Kat is just renting. Corie and her hubby own their place. I don't know if EITHER of them like rhubarb.)


Here's a pic of my planter bed. The beet-seedlings in the center are still not getting big at all. The Swiss chard is finally starting to take off, and the turnips are doing fabulous!


Here is a pic of some Lamb'sQuarters I harvested today. Scott was going to mow, so I decided to get out and pick as much of this stuff as I could. Our entire back yard was filled with it. I got a good bit. Enough to fill my dehydrator, as well as enough to fill a cookie sheet to dry in the oven. I read that dried and gently crumbled, it makes a good "pot-herb" for winter soups. This will contain both leaves and seeds, which are a close cousin to quinoa. Good to know, for future reference!


Last but not least, my clothesline!!!!! Scott got it set up today, and this is my first load of clothes to be hung out to dry. It's right there to the left of my lilac bush, which is just to the left of my planter bed. I'd love to get a fence out around the back yard for privacy (and to keep loose mutts out of my veggies!), but we don't have the $$ for that right now. So, the neighbours get to see our skivvies hanging out to dry. *wink*

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Ok, just a really quick run-down of our (my family's) Food Independence Challenge update:

Planted: The hubby and FIL planted more radish yesterday. We'll be planting more Chard and Spinach hopefully tonight.

Harvested: Radishes (the FIL), lettuce, and a bit of baby spinach. Will be picking more spinach here soon. Also, accidentally, harvested a couple of stalks of rhubarb as I was pulling a flower out of my rhubarb plot the other day. And that LambsQuarter.

Tend: weeding, watering, and thinning of all the veggies previously mentioned in this post and others.

Preserved: drying the Lambsquarter, and a bit of chamomile that I also picked at the same time today.

Make Preps: Not really, except the drying of the lambsquarter.

Cooked Something: Made homemade trail mix from dried fruit and other goodies (chocolate chips, almonds, marshmallows and coconut) bought at the grocery store. Also made some sweet crackers. These are part of the food I'll be taking with me on the plane when Tay and I head out on Wednesday.

Managed Reserves: Only as usual.

Work on/Toward local food systems: just the gardening and the picking of lambsquarters.

Composted Something/Reduce Waste: Lambsquarters did not all go to waste, composted, and using the clothes-line.

New Skill Learned: does it count that I'm learning how to juggle a couple of clothes pins and a piece of wet laundry??? *grin*

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Ok. That covers it for the moment. We've gotta get heading over to the inlaws as I'm making us all Fried Cabbage and Kielbasa for dinner tonight. (Have a cabbage that needs to be used before I head out on vacation.)

Have a Blessed Day!