Let the planting begin!

After checking out the blog of friend and world reknown urban gardener Amy Staffaroni astaffaroni.wordpress.com it inspired me to start tracking what I'm doing with my garden this year. Last weekend I went out and scattered a ton of wild flower seeds I'd collected from different places last fall: my mother's garden, my uncle Oscar's garden, from my own plants, some rose pods from a hotel in Montauk NY, some lily pods from a lake in upstate NY, and of course a few random seeds I snatched from the plants at the nursery near our house (I figure they won't mind so I don't ask *wink* ). So they've been scattered all around the border of the house. Will they grow? We'll see I guess. Will they flower this year if they do sprout? I doubt it, most will likely need to toughen up this first year and save their energy to come back strong next year. But there are a bunch of perennials in the mix as well so we should see something.

Outside, around the house some plants from last year are coming up already. Some lilies, columbine and a bunch of other plants whose names I don't recall. But this must mean spring is here! And if I wasn't sure I was reassured by the amount of rain last night, it was cookoo crazy. So much so when I walked around the house this morning I found a fountain in the middle of the lawn. At what to me was a random spot on the lawn water was just coming up as if there was a hose underneath. Here are some pics:




Something else that was a little wacky this morning was the amount of dead bugs outside our one glass door. The hatch must have come yesterday for these guys because there were a ton of them trying to get into the house to get to the lights inside last night. This was the carnage I found this morning.
Gross.

OK, back to plants. Here is my grow room:


And some of the trays of plants. Last year I made the mistake of planting way too many plants in the garden and it was practically choking itself. For example I had about 50+ tomato plants in an area I will be planting 9 now. This year I'm going for less quantity for higher quality results. We'll see if it works.

Tomatoes:

Brussel sprouts and poppies:

The sun flowers exploded within two days, I've already had to replant them into much bigger containers. I wasn't expecting them to grow this quickly:

Here are some other trays with some plants (I'm only using red because it's all we had):

Here are my charts so I know what the hell everything is:

And then here is the shoe box of all my seeds, now half empty:

And then my buddy Vader looking at me wondering what the hell I was doing all morning instead of playing with him. I told him "I'm putting food on the table, what are you doing?!"

Spike And Fawn!!

Finally! After years in the making I was finally motivated enough to finish the project I'd conceived years ago.

"Spike and Fawn's Home Security Service (At your service!)"

I was asked by the lovely and talented Rachel Tiep-Daniels to submit a piece of art for the "Art Blocks For Ghana" charity.

artblocksghana.blogspot.com

The charity is an art auction with the proceeds going towards providing boarding and education for orphaned children in Ghana, West Africa. Works submitted by Blue Sky artists will be on display at Culture Fix from Feb 8th to the 13th.

Here are some pics of Spike and Fawn. Started with a wooden block, a Munny doll, eight pounds of metal spikes, paint, coffee stirrers, an old tie and a lot of patience.

A couple pics from this weekend in Sully

Lifted a piece of tarp left in the deep woods and found this guy. Wasn't totally afraid of me, which is how I got these close up pics. Probably never saw a human before.

"Do you happen to have any cheese?"
Driving home.

Montauk 2010 trip 2

Just a few pics of my short trip the other day.

Montauk Trip 2010 - Early Oct

Took a trip to Montauk to fish with some amigos. Here are some pics.

Getting ready at 12am to get up at 5am.

On the water before 6am.
My favorite lure. Even though he wasn't cut out for the conditions. 18ft waves on Friday and 20-30mph winds the entire weekend will kick your ass when you're trying to fish in the surf. I only got knocked down once, but I was almost knocked over about a hundred times.
This guy was hanging onto this flower for dear life.
My first fish of the trip, a baby blue. Bucktails were about the only thing that worked in those waves and in that wind. Red pork rind tails baby!
Steve and his first fish.
My keeper that within 30 seconds of this photo being taken was swept back to sea by a rogue wave that slammed up the shore and took her even though I dove into the sand to stop her. Live and learn, I will not make that mistake again. I hope to see you another day when you're much fatter.
Bass number two. A bit too small.
Bass number three. And that's it for me.


A random sculpture on the beach.And here we have a video that is sure to upset most people. But I think Bobby McFerrin has that affect on most people.