The Garden, 2009

This year we are taking our little piece of land in a different direction - flowers. I love the idea of growing some of our own food, and our urban farm (in the smallest, loosest sense of the phrase) was my little baby last year. However, we just don't get the necessary sun to grow much food. So we are going to scale back the vegetables to a couple of tomatoes (not five like we had last year), some pepper plants (probably anahiem and jalapeno), and various herbs.

That said, our HOA decided to convert some of our common area into a community garden. So we might try our vegetable hand again.

Our little flower garden, on the other hand, will get the attention it deserves and has not gotten the past few summers. As most 20-something-environmentally-conscious-Obama-supporters-living-in-a-dry-climate do, we want to use mostly native, water-wise plants. At the same time we want some color and texture variety.

As much as I would like to think otherwise, my green is in the horns, not the thumb (a little gardening humor for you). So with the help of my mom and the landscape architect in my office we have a great starting place.

We are heading to the Red Butte Garden plant sale this weekend and the Wasatch Community Garden plant sale next weekend. Hopefully we will come back with a trunk of plants we wanted and a couple of surprises.

When I cleaned out and organized our little shed last weekend I discovered we have about a dozen pots of various sizes and quality. So our front door step will get a floral treatment and we will have a potted herb garden behind our house.

I am excited to get some plants into the ground. I'll post pictures and probably write geeked-out, step-by-step explanation of the process. I'm sure you can't wait.

The End of Days

Bikes, soda, me being fat, blah, blah, blah. I'll get to that later. Right now I want to talk about something that has been on my mind a lot lately - Zombie Apocalypse. Everybody has a zombie exit strategy, I don't care who you are, you have thought about it. Everybody has at least a cursory "I know the fastest way to the freeway so I can get the hell out of Dodge" type of plan. If you say you don't you are a liar.

Anyway, I am sure it will be a 28 Days Later type of outbreak. We will not be slowly chased by shambling, mindless hordes. It will be a virus, it will make fast, strong zombie warriors. And it will be bad.

Without going into too much detail I'll just say Tasha and I have non perishable food, easily accessible outdoor sportsman gear, and a 4-wheel drive vehicle that always has at least half a tank of gas. I am sure it will bite me that I don't own this yet, but I will get one, .357, of course. (If it's not too late. I'm looking for some power, and a longer barrel length increases accuracy, cus I want to hit those blood thirsty freaks from as far away as possible. This one wouldn't be a bad idea as a back up. Its handkerchief duel design is perfect for when zombies ambushe and I need to clear leather in a heartbeat.)

We will head south (viruses have a more difficult time in hot, dry climates) and stay away from cities. I'm confident in my hunting/fishing/survival skills, so we will wait it out in a defensible position with a (preferably) spring fed water supply. We will teach Morgan the old ways and tell him stories of sky scrapers and civilization.

Anyway, one detail I am ashamed to say I overlooked in our Zombie Apocalypse preparation are pandemic barriers. Coveralls, respirators, gloves, anti-viral hand gel, etc. Thanks to the Internets I can take care of that.

The most reassuring thing is that Tasha and I can protect Morgan too (at the bottom).

I can't believe I thought we could get out of the Zombie Apocalypse alive without pandemic kits! We will, however, put shoes and gloves on our zombie pandemic-escaping baby.