How My Garden Grows†

I sense you are dying to know how my garden is doing.

[SUMMARY: Psychic!]

It's very kind of you to ask.

Cat for Scale really enjoys gardening with me.

EnjoyED gardening with me.

A couple of days ago, he discovered he could walk through the slats on the deck railing and cross the rooflet to the neighbour's deck.

[SUMMARY: Wait... what happened to the garden? Hey! This isn't a summary!]

Oh, the first couple of times, he walked over, sniffed around and came right back, no problem. Last night, he discovered he could walk through the slat's on the neighbour's deck railing and cross the rooflet to *their* neighbour's deck.

This led to a very funny incident‡ in which I was screaming§ "Quill! Kitty! Come here!" at the top of my lungs, then bolting out the front door to ring the neighbour's neighbour's doorbell like a demented Avon lady.

When nobody answered, I dashed home, grabbed the treat jar and went outside shaking it viciously and yelling,§ "Kitty treat! Do you want a kitty treat?"@

"Meow?" I heard. I pressed my anxious little face against the trellis separating me from my pet.

"Quill? QUILL??!?"§

"Meow?" And there he was, bumping my ankle with a look I swore said, "Why are you yelling? I'm right here. Did somebody mention kitty treats?"

So I tossed a couple of treats inside and closed the door as far as I could.¶

Because I can no longer trust him to do this:




He's going to have to wait for me to install some sort of screen to keep him home safe before he can garden with me again.

[SUMMARY: The wild beast stalked the veldt.]

Anyway, back at the garden...

cucumber buds, cucumber tendrils twining on their own leaves, baby Brandywine,
fat little jalapeno, white cucumber, baby Beefsteak, banana peppers, Lemon Drops





...a beautiful baby Slicemaster cucumber:




...and a lush, spiny, fully-grown# and harvested white cucumber.




I took a whole bunch of pictures on June 20. Then I didn't do much with them, so I took a whole new batch on August 12, thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool to do the before and after?"††

[SUMMARY: Cool is in the eye of the beholder.]

My Hammacher-Schlemmer‡‡ Upside-Down Tomato Gardens:

left planter: cilantro, white cukes, Big Rainbow tomatoes
right planter: purple basil, sweet basil, dill, banana peppers,
Beefsteak tomatoes, Lemon Drop tomatoes and Besser Cherry tomatoes



My Topsy-Turvy Upside Down Tomato Planters:

left to right: Brandywine tomatoes, Anaheim peppers, tomatillos, jalapenos, Slicemaster cukes




I sowed the cilantro June 19, so here's June 20:




...and August 12.




In the last two weeks, the tomatoes, tomatillos and herbs have doubled in size and are positively fecund.

The bees are having a field day.

There is a Slicemaster cucumber that would make John Holmes blush. It hangs, heavy and obscene, at the very bottom of the vine, where it sways lasciviously in the slightest breeze.^

There are little white spiders on one side of the cilantro and ladybugs on the other and I wonder if there'll ever be a caged death match somewhere in the middle of the crop.

[SUMMARY: Gardens make you thoughtful.]

Most important, I *finally* got a ripe tomato,§§ one of the little, round Bessers finally got as red as I figured it was going to.

Funny story: eBeth had the Besser plant labeled as an Anna Russian. I Googled all the varieties of tomatoes she started for us% and found the Anna Russian is a medium-sized, pink, heart-shaped tomato.

Imagine my surprise to get a fire engine red globe the size of a 25-cent gumball. So I took it to book club last night to ask eBeth what it might actually be, since it didn't appear to be medium-sized, pink OR heart-shaped.

Once she said it was a Besser, I rinsed it off in Jeanne's sink and popped it in my mouth. The... I... *slurp*... FLAVOUR... burst!... *grrrgle*

"Oh... that's good," I said.

"I don't believe any of us have ever heard you say that," said Annie.

I was mildly embarrassed, thinking, "Man, am I so negative nobody's ever heard me say I like anything? Or maybe it's just a vegetable thing?"

"...having never been privy to your bedroom," Annie finished.

I blushed.¶¶

"...and your eyes kinda rolled back..."

"...and you moaned..."

I *really* like fresh garden tomatoes.

Just for posterity, the houseplants are also doing well.






[SUMMARY: Show off!]

Happy to help.

p.s. -- Chickens!##


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I probably shouldn't admit this in a public forum, where people who might want to hire me may find this out, but I've always thought of it as "Marin, Marin, quite contrarin, how does your garden grow?" I was five when that started and it just stuck. For the record, it's also "Eat, drink and be Marin."

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Really funny if you're a cat. Maybe not so funny if you're a frantic cat keeper.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): At a cat I'm pretty sure is stone deaf.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): In the same tone, volume and timbre used by Swedish thrash metal frontmen. Or Animal, the muppet.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): What with the hose hooked to the kitchen faucet. It sounds ghetto, but it was either that or let my father perpetrate acts of plumbing on my house.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I was expecting miniature cucumbers -- like the gherkins in the grocery store. These are like lemons.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): In all honesty, I took new pictures because the old ones were so outdated, then the before & after inspiration hit me and I decided to pretend it was my intention all along.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): After buying these, I love Hammacher Schlemmer... truly, madly, deeply. Best customer service I've ever had from someone who wasn't going to get a tip. I'm going to buy a third planter for next year's garden.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): I may be projecting... something.

§§FOOTNOTE (here's where the worm turned): The whole reason I started gardening. I don't know what those things in the grocery store are -- perhaps some breed of bouncy ball -- but they aren't tomatoes.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): As one does.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (red cheeks): Doesn't happen that often. Let's not get used to it.

##FOOTNOTE (chicken scratch): Because a day without chickens is like a pig without a lick.

Tuesday, Tuesday... la laa la l-la laaaaaa

I played hooky yesterday. It was marvelous.

For some reason, sitting around knitting and reading and communing with the North 40 is just so much better when I realise Hans is in the office working.

*************

You know what those 13 little stars mean... we're going to lick the pig!

*************

This is not my story to tell, but I feel I must relate it anyway.† Many of you don't know Mary Beth and most of you weren't there when she was telling it. I feel I would be remiss if I didn't spread the word.

Wherever you live, there's a good chance the question of urban chicken coops has come up recently. I thought it was that way in Denver because of recent changes to city ordinances, but it turns out it's just part of this big push toward organic self-sufficiency.

Anyway, Mary Beth is going to raise chickens. Which takes a lot of paperwork and governmental meddling.

First, she had to be issued the application from Community Planning and Development and Neighborhood Inspection Services. The completed application was then filed with Animal Control.

Somewhere in here, she bult a chicken coop which apparently rivals the Ritz Carlton and Mary Beth wants to move into it herself and maybe let the chickens have the run of her house.

Animal Control did a home visit to see that the chickens would be clean, comfortable and pest-free. She was approved for six chickens, a feat only slightly less bureaucratically arduous than fostering a human child.

THEN she paid $50 for a chicken permit.‡

Finally, she ordered -- I love this part -- an assortment of chicks.% Which come by post. From mypetchicken.com.

Getting on the Internet and ordering the six chicken assortment and "mypetchicken-dot-com" made me so happy. Some days, just knowing things *exist* out there is totally happy-making.

*************

You will all be delighted to know the sleeves of the guitar sweater for TFN's birthday are on their holders§ and I'm roaring down the sweater body with speed and something approaching accuracy.

Intarsia also makes me happy.¶ Frankly, I'm usually not that big on the look of a lot of it, but it's engaging knitting, the kind where time flies.

*************

I'm beginning to think the new Big Girl Phone may be too much phone for me.

I'm wondering if I want to be *that* connected. Ah, well. I signed a contract. I'll live with it for a couple of years and probably become one of those asshole people who can't leave her phone alone for two minutes and insists on texting at her own wedding.#

It does take nice pictures, doesn't it?

*************

My father is getting married August 22nd. I am in charge of two things: the music for the wedding itself†† and the food‡‡ for the "bachelor party"§§ the night before.

I'm kinda hoping I get some ripe tomatoes from my garden before then.¶¶

*************

Speaking of gardening, did you know cucumbers don't put out big root systems? They have to be watered more frequently than, say, tomatoes or peppers because they won't go looking for the water, you have to take the water to them.##

This was a lesson hard-learned. I lost many baby cucumbers††† before I read that particular bit of cucumber wisdom.

*************

[SARAH! DON'T LOOK! AVERT YOUR EYES!]

Hammacher-Schlemmer apparently heard from my nephews about my spider preferences. They sent me an email about this today.




I'm assuming Batman is posing under the spider arbour rather than Spiderman because he's better colour-coordinated...?

*************

No. 4: Diagonal - Gareth Pugh & Emilie Coppermann (Part 4 in the series)@

Marin says: Dill! Seconds of dill, then off to a very close-to-the-skin, very warm woody scent that could be a spice or richer floral tempered by a delicate amber. I certainly like it, which is good since nobody else is likely to know it's there.

For the record, I put this on mid-afternoon and the next morning I still had a very steady amber/musk finish clinging to my wrists. This would be great for long meeting days when I don't necessarily want to be remembered for my perfume, but I may still need surreptitious sniff during water breaks to boost morale.

Six Scents says: "Contrast, ambiguity, duality. Gareth Pugh said about his style: "it's a struggle between lightness and darkness." this is what I tried to translate in this perfume. The contrast between different raw materials, masculine and feminine, rough and smooth, dark and light, fresh and sensual." - Emilie Coppermann, Perfumer

Ingredients: Dill,$ Black Pepper, Nutmeg, Palissander, Black Tea, Amyris, White Amber,$ Musk.$

Hans says: Well, now, that smells like some kind of food. Mushroom? Fried mushroom? Actually, it doesn't smell like mushroom at all, but I'm sticking with it.

*************

Speaking of Hans, he went to his college roommate's wedding this weekend. The photographer had a ring of lights thing set up, so the wedding guests took turns seeing who could take the best cheesy prom photo.



I believe Hans and Trav‡‡‡ win.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If nothing else, it's the foundation for this whole pig-licking and I couldn't very well leave it out.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Annual. $50 a year for a chicken permit. You have to pay $50 every year for your chicken permit. By "you," I mean, "Mary Beth." I just love saying "chicken permit."

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Apparently, chicks can live without food through the first 72 hours after they hatch so they can be packed up in boxes and mailed.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): In the grand tradition of circus knitting, I am going to attempt to knit both sleeves at once on two circular needles, in situ. I see no reason it can't be done. Speaking of circus knitting, did you see some guy at Sock Summit was knitting seven pairs at once? Hmph. Been there, done that -- way ahead of you, big guy. I guess if SOME OF US had just gutted up and gone to Sock Summit, we could be famous for our Xtreme Knitting too.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And intarsia in the round makes me feel like a superhero.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): This is not an immediate danger, just an example.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The temptation to abuse this power is fierce. I could do two hours of very pointed songs. I won't, of course... the Electric Slide will almost undoubtedly feature, but I *could* propagandise.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I'm thinking a couple of homemade pizzas, a big ol' salad, some finger food in case a poker game breaks out and a cherry pie made from cherries I picked myself. Hi! Remember me? Susie F. Homemaker?

§§FOOTNOTE (backhanded bachelor party): In quotes because, as Brother said, "You have to have some kind of activity, but clearly we won't be making the bachelor do shots of Jager until he barfs, and the standard substitutes (like paintball) probably won't work..." There will, of course, be no naked girls. Or boys. Or porn of any kind. So it's not so much a bachelor party as a "get Dad from underfoot so the evil stepsister doesn't kill him before the wedding" gig.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (round, ripe tomatoes on the vine): Not quite so much because I'm looking for quality ingredients as I'd like to show off.

##FOOTNOTE (cucumber trellis): Thank you, Dr. Science!

†††FOOTNOTE (stake the cucumbers!): Very sad -- they go dark brown and crispy.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): You should go check out Nathan's pictures of the packaging. Kinda freaky, in a skully-good sort of way.

$FOOTNOTE (on the money!): And if I weren't so lazy at the moment, I'd Google "palissander" to see if it might qualify as "woody."

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (long and winding road): Trav is a friend of the groom's from out of town. Hans found him delightful.

Let's Talk About the Weather

This was yesterday:




As part of the ongoing cycle of extreme weather, we had hail.

And torrents.

And urban flooding.†

Hail isn't kind to plants. The basil gets muddy and trampled...




And the cucumbers get shredded and even impaled on their own stakes.‡




And yet, The Little Tomato That Could powers on.




Now, I'm very proud of my little tomato. Watching it is not unlike watching Tallest, Hairiest Nephew when he was just discovering vision and movement; I could sit with him for hours watching him watch everything.§ Now I watch The Little Tomato That Could intensely, aware of every little hair and every hint of a new leaf, every colour change and every growth spurt.

But I also saw Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and I'm wondering at man's folly¶ in creating a tomato strong enough to blithely withstand a hailstorm.#

[SUMMARY: Plants are almost as scary as robots if you do it right.]

Today, the tell-tale darkness blotted the sun and I ran out to put one of the deck umbrellas over the tender plants†† to save them from possible impending hail.

For those of you unfamiliar with Denver's weather plane,% there is a large-scale weather rotation called the Denver Cyclone that occurs when winds coming off the Palmer Divide meet the currents of the Platte River Basin. When heat and moisture are high enough, rotational thunderstorms that can lead to hail and funnel clouds are the result.

This is a rotational thundercloud that‡‡ became a high funnel cloud just down the road.§§

ETA: It's more fun if you wait 'til the buffering finishes, then fast-forward it. Nobody really needs to watch a full minute of slow boil.




Always an education here at the Rickety Blog.

Kids: don't try this at home. This was the work of a certified lunatic and should not be attempted by the levelheaded.

Back to you in the studio, Jim.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): A catch-phrase almost as popular as "Doppler Radar" on today's weathercast.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Not a stupid sparkly one among them.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Well, and play with him as one plays with a cat. Altruism only goes so far before one needs to entertain oneself.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): By which I mean "my folly."

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I would like to point out that this is a wholly organic tomato, grown by wholly organic means in organic soil and organic compost, fed organic tomato food... I learned *something* from the movie. Also? I worry that The Little Tomato will rebel in its teen years and eat nothing but McDonald's and petrochemicals because I was so strict with it in its youth.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Using a remarkable system of deck rails and bungee cords. Bungee cords are the new duct tape.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Let me be your weatherdork, baby.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I believe.

§§FOOTNOTE (twister!): They had to evacuate Coors Field (three miles from my house) during a baseball game. In my fantasies, the funnel cloud that precipitated that is the one I recorded.

There Is an Elephant in the Way

It's the moment you've been waiting for, the storm of the century, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to Lick the Pig!

Bet you never thought the day would come.†

[SUMMARY: Long time no lick.]

*************

We had a fire drill yesterday.‡

We filed in a calm and orderly manner down the stairs, then congregated in the parking lot kitty-corner from the office.§ Hans and I are fire buddies,‡ so we checked to be sure we were OK. The fire wardens for each floor wore their red Fire Warden hats‡ and checked us in on their fire warden clipboards. Then they let us back in the building.

Dude.

I've been four and I've been twelve...

[SUMMARY: I'm ten.]

*************

Speaking of school daze,¶ Brother sent me these:










Consensus is that the elephant is the funniest one.

While Brother thought the lack of humour on the part of the grading parties was noteworthy, I think "Very funny, Peter," made me laugh almost as hard as the funny Peter made to get that accolade.

[SUMMARY: Humour is subjective.]

*************

This morning, I got a parking space on the only street in downtown Denver with no meters and no time limits.#

I have a feeling I spent all my kharmic green stamps for the next three years to get that spot.

[SUMMARY: Kharma is subjective.]

*************

Did I mention I got Bronco season tickets over the weekend? Second-hardest-to-obtain season tix in the NFL?††

[SUMMARY: I may be in kharmic debt after that.]

*************

I took brother to see Leonard Cohen at Red Rocks last week.‡‡ If you get the chance, ya gotta see him. First, he has some of the best musicians I've ever seen/heard backing him up. Then, not only did he play for three-and-a-half hours, he skipped off the stage every time he left.

Skipped. A 74-year-old man.

And he's funny.

Great Leonard Cohen paraphrase:

"It’s been 14 or 15 years since I walked this stage. I was about 60 then, full of a young man’s dreams. I’ve taken a lot of Prozac since then. And Paxil, Wellbutrin,§§ Ritalin, Focalin… but I never took any of the little blue pills.

You see, I was deep in religious study at the time.

I didn’t know Prozac suppresses the libido.

I thought I had transcended desire."

[SUMMARY: Leonard Cohen would definitely understand Kharmic Green Stamps.]

*************

The tiny little Tomato Plant that Could gets stronger all the time.

Every day when I leave for work, I have separation anxiety because¶¶ I'm afraid a tornado will go through the alley or we'll have [more] hail and I'll come home to find it washed away.

[SUMMARY: Parenthood has its stresses.]

*************

Speaking of plants,¶ I planted the north forty this weekend and ended up with an honest-to-Jebus farmer's tan.

[SUMMARY: There's a little white trash in all of us.%]

*************

Speaking of weather,¶ with the current and recent levels of humidity in Denverish,## my hair has become large and unruly.

I give up. The hair is on its own.

In other weather news, I finally bought an umbrella, so it hasn't rained on my walks to and from the office in days.

[SUMMARY: This is me... this is the universe revolving around me...]

*************

And in the lick of a pig, I'm off.

*************

No. 2: Wicken 3000 - Bernhard Willhelm & Lucas Sieuzac for Six Scents (Part 2 in the series)†††

Marin says: Alcohol *flash!*

Aldehyde *flash!*

Soap *flash!*

A brief *flash!* that makes me want to quote Grains de Musc on Jean Claude Ellena,‡‡‡ then licorice and bay rum under heavy cloud cover.

This is so watery and close to the skin and disappears so fast -- even with three direct hits from the bottle.

It's inoffensive.

It's almost not there.

Six Scents says: "A light, fresh, clean scent that embodies a fusion of the elements. The idea was to create a perfume close to the elements of water and air,but with a futuristic approach.§§§ Express "the Back to nature" side of Bernhard with a pure & essential fragrance." - Lucas Sieuzac,

Perfumer Ingredients: Sea Breeze Accord, Bergamot, Water Jasmine, Sheer Musk.

Hans says: Whew! There's a lot of alcohol! It smells like a gin and tonic. It's definitely very light. I like it, but it's very... it smells like, um, summer mist off a... weeping willow.¶¶¶


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I may be overestimating your excitement over pig-licking.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Srsly.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Not the one I take pictures of all the time... the one across the street from that.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): We were.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm not telling you where.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): For those of you scoring at home, the Green Bay Packers are harder. heheheheheheheh

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Jealous? Oh, please be jealous.

§§FOOTNOTE (I'm just a little confused): sp?

¶¶FOOTNOTE (staked tomotoes): Because I'm a tomato dork.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Except maybe Nathan.

##FOOTNOTE (the pounding moist): Unheard of humidity! Humidity on a grand scale! A swamp's worth of humidity!

†††FOOTNOTE (tick tick tick): That sounds so 60 Minutes, doesn't it?

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (I tracked it down!): "...one of Jean Claude Ellena's many variations on the smell of water." And a big auxilliary slurp to Nathan for that quote.

§§§FOOTNOTE (triple take): Hey, that's what I said!

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (three pats for Hans): And this is why we continue to keep Hans around.

The Promise of Spring*

When we got our seedlings from eBeth a month ago or so, I killed one of mine.% I knocked it over right there in eBeth's kitchen, burying its fragile leaves and delicate stem under a honking pile† of potting soil, compost and perlite.

I took it home and propped it up on a bamboo skewer,‡ but the next morning it wasn't even a green smear in the earth. So I planted a cucumber seed in its place§ and went on with my life.

[SUMMARY: To everything, turn, turn, turn...]

A couple of days later, I took my remaining six tomato plants outside to harden them.¶ Carefully following instructions,# I left them in the May sunshine for an hour then brought them in.

They were all noticably yellowed and a couple had brownish-greyish spots on them. I had burned my poor little tomatoes.†† Not fatal, as it turns out, but very sad. With all the rain we've had in Denverish lately, I couldn't take them out much, so they had a chance to recover in peace.

All but the littlest one recovered. It continued to look miserable. Alive, but miserable.

Sunday morning‡‡ I decided to take a trip to the garden center§§ for some herbs and another cucumber and I figured a good, solid beefsteak tomato would be a nice addition¶¶ to the more colourful heirlooms I already had.

I stopped to visit the plants on the way out and that tiny, spindly tomato -- a brandywine -- was more pathetic than ever. It was plastered to its bamboo stake and transluscent like wilted lettuce. I stroked it gently## and decided to get another brandywine at the garden center.

[SUMMARY: I'm both sentimental and practical.]

"After all, self," I said to myself, "if the spindly little guy makes it, you'll have that many more tomatoes to can. This can't be a bad thing."

The demon in the back of my brain was screaming, "It's going to DIE! You killed ANOTHER ONE! Are we there yet? There is NO HOPE! Can we get ice cream?"†††

Until that sickly tomato actually disappeared, I wasn't willing to give up on it. I put it out with the others Sunday for a full day of sun and fresh air. I brought it in at night and there it's stayed through a rainy Monday and Tuesday.

Today, there's a new leaf.‡‡‡ And it's standing on its own, tiny and delicate, but upright. And the leaves are growing out from the stem§§§ instead of hanging down in a most untomato-like way.

[SUMMARY: Cue the Handel! Sing out, Messiah! Hallelujah!]

As a chick who clicked her car fob at the electronic entry point on the office door *four times* before figuring out why the door wasn't unlocking,¶¶¶ I find this tale of hope and resurrection### very comforting.


*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, oddly enough): hearts and flowers... lalala...

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Well, it wasn't really mine until I wrecked it.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Honking if you're a quarter of an inch tall and have the tensile strength of bunny fur.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): All my tiny tomato plants have tiny bamboo stakes I made out of vegetable skewers. That's very nearly ironic, isn't it?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Which had two leaves three days later, so I like to think its tragic end wasn't for naught.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): It's like plant porn.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Apparently not carefully enough to read to the part where one should put them in dappled sunlight to start.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The next day, there was a flurry of emails from the group of us intrepid gardeners. I wasn't the only one who burned her seedling.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I woke up at 7 frickin' o'clock. And went back to sleep. And when I woke up, I figured it was 10:00 and I'd better get moving or I'd lose the whole day. I went to the garden center, the office supply store, the pet supply store, Home Depot and Chipotle and was home by 11:00. Did daylight savings time end Sunday? I'm pretty sure I got an extra hour. At least.

§§FOOTNOTE (tendrils): The beauty of a new hobby is the wide vistas of new shopping it spreads out before you.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (sprinkler heads): For those of you wondering what a single chick needs with six tomato plants, I will be canning. Just call me Betty Crocker.

##FOOTNOTE (trellises): Because stroking your plants is a professional gardener-approved addition to the hardening process. Heheheheheheh. Plant fluffer.

†††FOOTNOTE (stakes): My inner demon is four.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (oregano!): I have yet to turn it over. *rimshot*

§§§FOOTNOTE (garden twine): OK, it still looks a little like a weeping willow (weeping tomato?), but it's noticably perkier.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (bulbs): If any of the PTB had seen me, I believe they would have fired me on the spot. After they stopped laughing, of course.

###FOOTNOTE (row markers): Dudes, wouldn't resurrection be a SPECTACULAR add to my saintly résumé?