From Zone 10 botanical correspondent Stan of the Sawgrass:
This years Tineapple harvest (minus 2) with kittens (Max, in tux, and Minnie, in mufti) for scale (and cuteness.)
Pineapples, as always, were mellow, sweet, and excellent. The core is soft enough that you don’t notice the extra fiber.
Tried fertilizing the hell out of ’em this year, but it didn’t seen to change the size much, although the avocado tree next to the pineapple patch went nuts– went from about 9 last year to twenty-plus this year.
Pretty good year for mangoes, too, though there were two crops at the same time: great big ones from the normal blooming, and little bitty ones from a second, late blooming. I’m pretty sure that it has to do with the changing climate.
Apart from the happiness of gardening & kittens, what’s on the agenda for the start of the first “real” week of summer?
David Koch
raven
I was going to extend the weekend but decided to go ahead and work.
NotMax
@raven
Still sans siding?
raven
@NotMax: Not just siding. The framing crew had a great start Tues-Wed and then the work crashed and burned Thursday and Friday. They are off today so they’ll start back up when it gets really hot after missing several really nice cool days. It’s given my seriously obsessed bride more time to pour over pintrest in search of that perfect. . . whatever she’s looking for.
After laying the 3/4 flooring and getting up most of the walls it poured for two days so I got out there with a push broom and got most of the standing water off.
opiejeanne
I am exhausted but can’t fall asleep. Tomorrow my husband has his pre-op physical for back surgery in a couple of weeks, a minimally invasive procedure to relieve the pressure on his sciatic nerve. He has a ruptured disc. It was described as being like a jelly doughnut that has been squished, and the jelly is the part pressing against that nerve. They’re going to shave a bit off of that. He will go home the same day.
He tried to lift something the wrong way back in March; the weather was nice and we were both working in the garden for the first time this spring, and he just overdid it.
He was laid up for most of April and May until therapy, drugs, and an injection in his spine relieved his pain. Now he just has weakness in his left leg, from the knee down. Can’t flex or point his foot, so he walks much slower than he used to. (Our girls say that he can’t go up in elevee). I have to slow down for him now, when he used to have to slow down for me sometimes.
I don’t know about this getting old stuff, but the alternative does not appeal.
NotMax
@raven
Oy.
“It just goes to show you, it’s always something — if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”
– Roseanne Roseannadanna
David Koch
Joe Biden embracing Hope Solo
Amir Khalid
I don’t think I’ve ever seen ripe pineapples that small. How old are Max and Minnie?
Mustang Bobby
I came back to work only to look at the calendar and see that about 2/3 of the office will be taking an extra day off. So here I am being a conscientious employee and no one to impress with it.
I went with some friends to the Coral Gables fireworks show at the Biltmore Hotel on Saturday night. Great show, great symphonic band music, and no rain. The only clunker was the airhead announcer who told us we were going to hear “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Souse, whereupon the crowd — or at least those of us with a modicum of musical history and culture — roared back, “It’s SOUSA, you blithering idiot!”
Baud
@David Koch:
That’s a relatively safe distance. Joe’s training is going well.
Baud
Greek finance minister resigned. Greece is apparently revamping its negotiating team. Brinkmanship 101.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
NYT has a story about your PM.
ETA: sorry, it was the WSJ.
raven
@opiejeanne: My bride had that, it helped but she HAS to do her daily exercises.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: He had to keep that far off. I hear Hope has a mean left cross.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Zing!
satby
@opiejeanne: Wishing him well! I have occasional sciatica, not enough to require surgery (yet) and it’s painful. Pushing through the pain for PT is important to get better function back.
Old Irish saying: Do not begrudge getting older, ’tis a privilege denied to many.
satby
I don’t know which are cuter: the teensy pineapples or the adorable kittens!
Eric S.
Work today. I need to be very productive today.
Tomorrow I drive downstate to meet my father for a doctor’s appointment. Dad has bad arthritis and his fingers are swollen and bent. This doctor thinks he can help with hand surgery. Dad wants a second set of ears to listen and help him decide whether to go through with it or not.
After that 3 more days of work and I’m of to Clearwater Florida. The Girl is already down there. We are staying at her mom’s place for the week.
opiejeanne
@raven: Thanks. He has been bad about doing the exercises his therapist gave him, but only the past 2 weeks. He did them every day until then, when we had to make a quick trip to SoCal, and he hasn’t started up again.
I will have to remind him.
opiejeanne
Stan, I am jealous. I managed to get a pineapple top to become a plant only once, but it never produced fruit. We were in the wrong climate, and now we are in an even wronger climate.
Nice kitties.
Mustang Bobby
@satby: Or, “It’s better to be seen than viewed.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric S.:
I’ve heard that story several times and it never added up. So far the pain’s just not that bad yet. I figure when I begin to give amputation serious consideration, that’s when I’ll have the surgery.
opiejeanne
@satby: Thanks. I have a small touch of it sometimes too, but not enough to do anything about it. It hurts in my butt sometimes if I overdo it, but not very often. I look on it as a reminder to lift with my legs.
Amir Khalid
@Baud: @Baud:
Najib’s still got plenty of ‘splainin’ to do. If that money wasn’t for his personal gain, why did it go into bank accounts owned by him instead of to the organisations doing the good work for Malaysia? And his personal lifestyle, lavish enough to raise eyebrows out here, doesn’t exactly scream innocence.
If Najib goes down for corruption, his party Umno (and therefore its coalition Barisan Nasional) is in bad shape for the next general election in 2018. This might even bring about an opportunistic reconciliation for the fractured Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: “This might even bring about an opportunistic reconciliation for the fractured Pakatan Rakyat coalition.”
Is that good?
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
That’s what we would call a “smoking gun,” n’est pas?
Althea
sweet, sweet kitties! mine would probably start chomping on those leaves stat.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
That depends. One of the main parties in the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat was the Muslim fundie Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PAS). PAS just pulled out of allying with the secular Democratic Action Party, and thus out of Pakatan, out of petulance that neither the DAP nor anyone else is keen on their plan to implement Sharia law (Hudud, as it’s called here) in the states where PAS controls the government. (PAS doesn’t have the legislative supermajority to make that happen by itself.)
Needless to say, PAS’ ambition has no support among non-Muslims (which is 45% of Malaysians) and this makes for a lot of butthurt on their side plus a certain fragility in Pakatan.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
C’est vrai.
Tommy
About to sleep for a little.Cat will come with me. She is pissed I’ve not gone near my bed for the day.
OzarkHillbilly
Some caving buddies of mine made the news this weekend:
A new generation of cavers is poised to discover secrets in Devil’s Well
The article is mostly a bunch of hocum written for the lay person and laced with a bunch of “Oooooooo…. caves…. vewy scawy pwaces….” and this,
“Why so long between entries? In the past, the Park Service didn’t have the expertise to safely enter Devil’s Well, said spokeswoman Dena Matteson. “This venture became a possibility,” she said, when the Cave Research Foundation assembled a team proficient in single rope technique.”
is absolute bullshit. SRT has been around for decades and proficiency is not hard to obtain (I first dropped Gollandrinas in the ’80s). It was all politics. Scott has been working the politics forever and a day (he is good at that stuff) and he finally hit the right mix of words, cave specialists, superintendents, holding his tongue right and using the right curse words under his breath.
Still it’s cool that they finally got back in and that Jerry was able to be there for it (he is a legend in MO caving). I was talking to Dan yesterday and he said the NPS had sent out a press release and it was a zoo with all the media. Not at all what cavers are used to. I mean, it’s not El Cap, is it?
ThresherK (GPad)
Kayoote kitties. We are suckers for torties at any size.
Baud
Just a reminder
satby
@Mustang Bobby: I like that one!
Hillary Rettig
what great pics to wake up to!
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Personally, I think Death has just gotten a bad rap over the years.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: it’s all in the timing.
debbie
@raven:
On the other hand, won’t the flooring have more time to dry out?
satby
The Confederate deadenders are still at it on FB. Time to just hide feeds.
JPL
@satby: CBS news just mentioned that Texas has a new textbook which barely mentions slavery but does spend time talking about states rights.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Different context, but whenever I hear stories like this, I think of Steve Martin’s “I forgot” routine:
youtube.com/watch?v=l00GGEy_72c
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Touche!
satby
@JPL: It’s been taught so long now some of them really are gobsmacked that the history is not what they know. But they live in the undercurrent of racism and grew up during the Civil Rights era, so even if they don’t know the details of history, they certainly know the flag of treason stands for opposition to civil rights. No one can honestly say otherwise, I think it’s why they are so intent about teaching the rest of us the “real history”.
PurpleGirl
@opiejeanne: I’m sure his surgery will go well. I had a hemilaminectomy 20-odd years ago. After several months of searing pain in my left leg, when I woke up from the surgery the absence of pain was incredible. (It felt like there was a little man holding a blow-torch running up and down my leg.) Residual back problems come from the spinal stenosis I also have but I’d redo the surgery in a heartbeat. I will keep your husband in mind for a good outcome.
ETA: As my neurosurgeom explained it, they can’t often point to one qction as causing the herniated disc, but it’s an accumulation of a life-time of damage. But it sucks.
raven
@satby: It should be ok.
gogol's wife
@Althea:
I groan inwardly whenever anyone brings flowers to me at a dinner party. They have to go into the garage, because otherwise Sasha will eat them and then throw up all over the house. (It’s an old house and none of the doors close.)
Mary G
Zone 10 represents! Adorable pineapples and kittens make an unbeatable combination.
@Eric S.: After 30 years of rheumatoid arthritis, intractable pain in my wrist due to four collapsed carpal bones drove me to a hand surgeon, who removed some nerve endings in a twenty minute surgery that was the single best medical solution I ever had, FWIW.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It takes a lot of water over a long period of time to really degrade sub-flooring. Raven is right to sweep it off as possible, but the stuff is made to stand up to moisture. It will have plenty of time to dry out once the roof goes up.
Got another bird stuck in my wood stove flue. Guess I need to let him out.
ThresherK
@JPL: You
hadlost me at “Texas” and “new textbook”.MomSense
What sweet little kittehs. Pineapples are adorable, too.
Elizabelle
Top photo almost looks photoshopped. Love it, though. All the elements: tuxedo kitten w wide eyes and ‘tude, Miami style art behind, tiny pineapples.
Stan: why am I guessing you have a Tiki Bar outside too?
Joel
@opiejeanne: I had a herniated disc back when I was 19. Refractory to injections and the like. Surgery made me 99.99% better.
Elizabelle
All of these reassurances should make mr. opiejeanne feel much better.
Wishing him the best.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: thank you, yes. I will tell him about the several successes listed here.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: thanks. We have a good friend who is from Malaysia and goes back to visit family fairly often. He won’t even try to explain the political stuff, just shakes his head when asked about it.
J R in WV
When you hurt enough, past some “ordinary” level, anyone who promises some reasonable amount of improvement is so believable!
I was very resistant to surgery until, one day, our family Dr (who we’ve been seeing for nearly 40 years now, was so believable when he said “you need shoulder replacement, that will fix the pain!”
Now I’ve had both done, so far so good. There is lots that can go wrong, but nothing says it has to go wrong!
rikyrah
those are some cute pics of the kitties and the pineapples.
Aleta
These photos gladdened my day. Thanks Stan.