May 19, 2007
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Mysteries
All four of my tomato plants are dead. Here is one of them. Why? How? We didn’t get a frost, or if we did, these were the only things to suffer. I didn’t spray any weed killer near them at all, although perhaps a neighbor did and oversprayed? But, to kill all four? Can you solve this mystery?
I got a new video camera. I taped one hour’s worth of tape and downloaded it to my computer. The file is 1.74 GB large. (Yes, I did mean gigabytes!) Obviously, this file is huge, huge. What did I do wrong? I used Windows Movie Maker for the download. Can anyone solve this mystery or give me some insight? (For those who don’t know how large 1.74 GB is, a CD can hold about 100 pictures at top quality, or about 700 MB. A GB is 1000 MB. I would need 3 full CDs to hold 60 minutes of a movie, unless I’ve done my math wrong, which is probable.)I awoke today expecting to feel better from this nagging cold and cough. Imagine my surprise to discover a full-blown, miserable sinus infection! Despite the misery, the children and I got a lot done today–garage cleaning, mulching, grass seed planting, house cleaning, pool vacuuming… Around 1:30, Wit said, “Gee, Mom, you look bad. Why don’t we all go in the house and watch Monsters, Inc. since you’ve never seen it. You could use the rest.” Ah, so solicitous and clever in his laziness! We did so, and then I had a three-hour nap. More work followed. Gockle made tacos for supper and Wit tidied up. LibbyK cleaned the whole kitchen and bar during my nap. Hunter voluntarily raked up bare spots and put down grass seed. Oh, they were good today, despite the scuffling here and there. We ended the evening by watching Ever After and drinking milkshakes. They would have been so yummy if I could have tasted them properly.
But enough whining. This is a shot of part of our garden along the driveway. 125 feet is a lot to weed. I like the mix of green colors in it. Check out my black raspberry cane protruding from the bush.
I hope you can help me to solve at least one of my mysteries!
Comments (35)
idk, that’s what happens to any plant i try to take care of. go figure. (the rest of your garden look gorgeous!)
Afraid I’m not going to be of much help with any of your mysteries…I typically have the same kind of trouble when I try to download computer files or pictures. I think I don’t know how to do it so the file is compressed or something. *sigh* I can be pretty clueless.
I love the movie Ever After…such a classic.
……again, i’m not capitalizing on this……… (i love the pun!)….. it’s late and i’m lazy…….. besides, if i weren’t different, who would i be? ;P
about your tomato plants…….. i think you have to have to plant them in SOIL and not in rocks!!! that was my first thought. (snicker! snort!) my second thought is that it looks awfully dry and tomatoes need well drained, moist soil (not soggy, but, don’t let them dry out too much between waterings). try watering it and cutting the dead part off….. that’s what i’d do. (maybe take out some of those rocks, too??)
i’m up late and goofing off. i’m about to play a some computer games and then try to sleep….. had a disagreement tonight and am not in a great mood, to be perfectly honest, but, talking to you, or, rather, AT you, helps!
i’m so sorry you have a sinus infection. i just got over mine and they are miserable. how do you get so much done when you’re sick?? do you mega dose on advil or something?? i’m useless if i am like that…… unless, of course, i douse myself with drugs!
(this anti-capitalist stuff is bugging me, I’m going back to normal.) I mainly have flowers (perennials) and shrubs. I love roses and purple things. My dream is to have a true victorian country garden (whatever that is?) with an old, rusty gate, arbors, benches or an old chair, and unique fixtures (no, not a bathtub filled with pansies or half a wine keg with marigolds spilling out). I, usually, plant some vegetables like cukes, tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, & carrots, but, last year, I only got voluteer tomatoes. I bought tons of seeds last year that never got planted, so, I’m gonna give ‘em a shot this year. Hopefully, some will grow! I got all sorts of fun seeds! Popcorn seeds, enormous gourd seeds & “dipper” gourd seeds (can’t think of their proper names right now), sugar baby tomato seeds, mix salad greens, lemon cuccumbers, broom stick seeds (another one I can’t remember the right name of — I know my English is horrible right now, too!), and lots of other fun ones. Now that I’ve told you, you’ll have to keep me accountable to actually plant them! I’ve been working so hard in the garden the last few days and have pulled up piles of grass & weeds that are growing where I don’t like them to grow, but, if I don’t, our lawn guy will chop down my beautiful plants along with my weeds and misplaced grasses! He does things quick and doesn’t pay attention. He’s already chopped down many of my daylillies, asian lillies, tulips, myrtle, flox, a whole row of strawberries, and even my raspberry bush! (Wooopsie! Got a little too close with that industrial weed whacker of his!!) So….. I guess it’s a good thing since it forces me to get out there and get it done!! I’m sore and my fingers ache, but, it’s a good kind of sore and I can tell, my muscles are getting stronger. If it weren’t for gardening, I wonder if I’d get any excersize at all!
Hope you are feeling tip top tomorrow and get a good night’s sleep tonight! Take care and drink plenty of liquids and good soup broth, take naps, and watch movies……. everything else can wait!! Bye, dear!
So sorry about the sinus infection. This has really hung on, hasn’t it? Hope you get to feeling better soon.
Yes on the composting practically anything except meat and fats–just not too much of one thing at a time. I can tell it is going to be a learning process, and won’t go really quickly.
Have a restful Lord’s Day.
There’s an irlgay in the agbay.
Wow! That’s some garden! No help on your mysteries. Sorry. Hope you feel better today. Wonderful that your kids pitched in and helped out yesterday! They really are a blessing, aren’t they. My older son and one of his friends worked in the garden yesterday. My younger son is sick and is going to urgent treatment today. His cough is just awful at night. Sounds like lots of people are sick this year late in the season.
Our tomato plants either die or produce so many tomatoes that we’re at a total loss of what to do with them! I hope you solve your “mystery” with them – I’d help if I could!
And, feel better soon! Sinus infections are nasty.
I’m not even going to try to figure out your plant or computer problems, but I love the pic of your yard. Looks like a lovely, country home. Love to see more.
Usually recording one hour’s worth of TV on my computer takes up about that much space. It depends on the file format you use. There are some programs out there that will do conversions for you, but I have no idea which are “good.” I do see a lot of things with .avi extensions or that have used DIVX (but I don’t have much experience with them). Hope that helps!
Wellll… I have a final on Friday at 3:30, so the soonest I could get to yalls’ place would be sometime Friday evening: When exactly are the showings? And unfortunately I cannot make it to the dance–Kathryn K totally invited me but my brother, Stephen, is getting married that weekend! (and without dancing afterwards… tough luck for me ’cause I love dancing at weddings). Okay so this note is getting long for a xanga note… write back and let me know about stuff and other stuff too.
k bye!
Daniel
how strange. but i blame it all on tomato-devouring stone heads…*wink, wink*
Did you go to church today? I had a meeting for our VBS after church (I’ll be co-teaching “Super Simple Songwriting & Percussion”) and we found out in church that our music leader is stepping down, very mysteriously, for “personal” reasons which will not be explained to anyone. I hate that stuff. He’s a young guy that is very charismatic and talented and extremely well-loved. He’s been in a leadership position (youth pastor, then worship leader) for 9 years. Even though we’ve only gone to this church for the past year (almost), I had to choke back some tears. All the leaders were just a mess.
We have a couple girls from church over to spend the day playing with my girls. One lost her father less than a year ago….. poor baby. Right now, my husband is doing math flash cards with them and they get a penny for each correct answer which they turn in for a piece of candy or ice cream. (I think my husband would be a better homeschool teacher than I am!! — NOT a huge stretch of the imagination, however!!)
I’m off to yank up more invading grass and dandelions from my garden. Yesterday, I got two beautiful, red asian lillies planted and a whole bunch of weeds pulled….. it was so rewarding to peek into the garden today as we were leaving for and returning from church. My back and
…. hey!! what happened?? Sorry. There are some weird combination keys that I accidentally push sometimes and I have no idea what I just did!
Anyway….. you can delete the extras. I’m going a-gardening!! Ta Ta!! And have a beautiful Sonday, as well!
Haha, no it’s not. ;)
It’s my favorite line from Monster’s Inc. I say it all the time…Lol
Our tomato plants looked that way one year, and we thought that they were dead. Lazy gardeners that we are, though, we didn’t pull them out before planting new ones. Turned out that the original plants actually produced lots of tomatoes…along with all of the new plants! We had way more than we could keep up with.
As far as the sinus infection…I finally thought that I was getting better too, after a week or so of a cold, and then woke up the next morning much worse. I’m finishing up Day 14 of the antibiotics today, and am hoping that it doesn’t come back! Feel better soon.
I think it is normal for video to take that much space. I, too, was going to transfer my video from my genealogical trips last week. However, I’m planning on putting them on dVD which will hold much more space than a CD–they hold 4.7 GB. I asked my son Jed if he knew if there was a video format for dvd that would be more compressed than others, and he didn’t know. You do also have to be careful to use a format generally recognizable by most dvd players. (assuming you start thinking along the lines of dvd’s rather than CD’s)
I enjoyed meeting you! Wish we could have visited more.
I’m sorry–those DVD’s won’t hold much more “space” than CD’s. That’s no accomplishment! However, they will hold much more *data*.
I’m so sorry about your tomatoes. Looks like a mysterious flash freeze. Weird. They may come out of it, though, whatever it was.
RYC: The muffins (or at least part of them) are to take along for all the people who will be staying at my mom’s next weekend. My sister’s family and all of us will be there for most of a week to attend a couple of weddings and a church conference. Since we’re all descending on my parents, I thought it was the least I could do. I’m also taking a breakfast casserole. The rest of the muffins are in my freezer awaiting the next batch of company.
The tomatoes look like they were frosted. The stems are not dead and if it is frost they will probably grow back. If it was chemicals usually any thing that is not a grass would look the same as your tomatoes. Beautifull yard! Mr. M.
Poor tomato plants!
I’m horrible with plants, so I can not be of any help at all. I hope you feel better, though! Susan
I hade sidus infecdtions! Usually if I take “the cure” I can start to feel better fast. “The cure” is going to Red Lion (You’ll have to improvise on the restaurant if you don’t have a Red Lion) and have a french dip sandwich with a side of their horseradish. Quizno’s has decent horsradish, -if you use a lot. Red Lion has the kind that sets off a thermonuclear explosion in your head, and that usually breaks the dam. I had been suffering from one for three weeks when Mr. M invited me along on a business lunch. I had no business trying it in mixed company, but I ordered the cure, and then had to apologise as water poured forth from several orofices, and I had to excuse myself to the bathroom. It was still blessed relief!
Those tomatoes look frosted! Leave them in the ground. You could surround them with a gallon milk carton with the top cut off and tent them over the plant to speed recovery. It happened to me last year. Tomatoes seem to be very frost tender. I predict your tomato crop will be fine. Have you ever tried the red plastic mulch? It’s supposed to speed ripening and increase yield.
Hmm, I’m no good with plants, and I’ve never tried to do much with videos. So…unfortunately, I’m no help, although it seems you have plenty of suggestions from the previous gazillion comments.
i just like the beat..it’s just one of those songs..that i think you can listen to several times and not get bored of it..unlike some songs..
that video..was the first thing i could find..when i looked it up on youtube..lol.
and besides.there aren’t many new hits..that don’t talk about
a) relationships
b) break-ups
c) cheating boyfriend/girlfriend.
so therefore..you sort of have to grab whatever you can from the beats
i wish they would actually write some songs with some real content in them..
If your symptoms hang around, it could be allergies and not a cold. For years, I thought I just got sick every spring, only to discover that I have nasty, evil allergies.
Hope you feel better soon.
k sweet, I’m going to arrive Friday night, and then go to the 7:00 o’clock showing on Saturday. And you and I must play that card game at least once! And we will discuss our novels and encourage each other to write more, regardless of our hard work loads!
Daniel
I am clueless to your computer whoas. Your tomatoes puzzle me as well, but they are only suffering at the top. I think there is hope. Do whatever your doing to your shrubs, they do look glorious!
Sorry I’ve been out of the xanga mood lately. Maybe with school finishing I’ll do better. Hope you feel better soon!
love the garden!
The tomato plants are a mystery. did you get them at the same place as the other plants? How long have you had them? If not very long I would dig them up and take them back–could just be a ‘bad batch’.
I don’t have any advice, just wanted to wish you a Happy Monday!
I think that the person who planted the potato in Kid’s yard is also responsible for the death of your tomato plants.
Ooooooooo I like the green too!
You have a lot of mysteries to solve. Wish I could help you out, but alas! I do not have a green thumb, and I am not too computer savvy.
I am very impressed by the garden
I hope that you are feeling better by now. I have feeling like that…it’s just miserable.
It sounds like your children were gems for you. Perhaps you can teach me your secret
Unfortunately, I have no clue what happened to the tomato plants. But it does look like they were hit with frost, doesn’t it?
I just LOVE the path along your driveway. It looks like a wonderful place to take a stroll.
I think the tomatos look frosted. They’re very sensitive, so even a miniscule frost could affect them without affecting much else… and I don’t know exactly what kind of weather you have had, but you’re not so far from Cleveland, and my relatives there certainly had their gardens affected by a late frost this year.
You’re very welcome to come and see me for a day in Cambridge, if that fits best with your plans! The weekend would be better for me to take a day off to hang out with you, as I’ll be preparing for a big EU conference in Warsaw (I’ll be away the 17th-20th of July for that) and the week before a conference is always busy.
I suppose if you were in the area for an afternoon I could always take off an afternoon and go punting with you down the river Cam, or show you all around the colleges, take you to see Isaac Newton’s apple tree, or walk through the fields to the village of Grantchester to have tea in the orchard, or… well, you get the picture. 
Do you know yet which day might be best for you?