More Snow Music: and melt your Cold Cold Heart

Nora Jones take us into the afternoon...

Snow Music

 While we wait for snow, songs related to it. Send your favorites.

"I have waited with a glacier's patience..."

(Also, obviously, tornadoes.)

Chicago Snow Photoblogging--Feb 1, 2011 9 am

Just a couple inches overnight. 

Because we live on a commercial street, we are forced to pay extra taxes for the sidewalks to be plowed. I'd rather shovel, but there's no opting out.

Chicago Snow Photoblogging--Jan 31 2011, 9 pm

Just underway here in Wicker Park. Will it manifest the massive amounts the excitable weather people predict? If so, I'll be spending a lot of time on this currently dry sidewalk in days to come. 

Stay tuned...

Celebrate a More Humane Society

(via Boing Boing)

I link to these things for selfish reasons, having very little to do with rooftop gardening.  Aaron Bady, at zunguzungu, sums up my feelings:

I’ll have more words in the next day or so on the choices that are being taken, and on the words we’re using to make them meaningful. Always more words. But for now, I want to remind myself, publicly, that the closest thing to an honorable choice that American citizens like me have is to bear witness and solidarity to the incredibly thing that is happening right now, and to do so as humbly and reverently as we are able to do. The world is changing before us, and we will need new words to describe it if we are to be true to the best parts of ourselves, and if we are to be of any use to a world that we might still find a way to be of use to. We need to learn to listen more clearly. We have corrupted the words we were so proud of inheriting, words like “democracy,” and we need to be a lot better to learn the new words that are being coined right now, in places of which even our own ignorance is something of an unknown quantity to us, and in voices that speak, for example, in languages we don’t understand.

Mainly, I know, I need to be reverent right now, if only for myself.  I am under no illusions that it will do the people of Egypt any particular good for me to retweet links to articles and images and expressions of the righteous human spirit so gloriously on display in Egypt right now — much as I would like it to — but that’s not really why I’ve been doing it. It’s selfish. It is for me, because it’s what I need to do as a person whose spiritual body has gotten very hungry. I want to be a part of something hopeful because I find that too much hopelessness has crept too deeply into the person I have no choice but to be.

Winter Prep for Rooftop Gardening + Carl

There's always some kind of indoor prep for the spring roof garden. Today it's 25 degrees in Chicago with enough snow to need shoveling, a good day to cut the "shower caps" that keep moisture from evaporating off the 58 two-bucket SIPs on our roof.

 When May finally arrives, bringing temps in line with tomato-eggplant-squash-pepper planting, it's like the start of the Indy 500. So much to do you can't wait to get started. You don't want to be cutting out plastic circles when there's potting mix to be shoveled and young plant starts to get in.

Though we re-use the potting mix and SIPs themselves, I'm reluctant to the take the shower caps into another season. Sure, the plastic would last at least one summer. But with a fine underside coating of fertilizer residue and possible plant cooties (professional term), I elect to cut new discs each year.

We get 12 from a garbage bag using the large Olive Garden to-go bowl/cloche as a measure, scoring and then cutting.

Since you've patiently read through our indoor task for today, here's a picture of Good Dog Carl from earlier this week, Jan 25, 2011.

 

He is a good dog.

SeedChat on Twitter

I don't do much on twitter besides throw up links, so I have no idea how useful a "chat" would be. But if you're into talking seeds on your computer, this, co-hosted by Chicago's own Mr. Brown Thumb, sounds interesting:

About

#SeedChat is a weekly discussion forum on Twitter where the participants discuss starting plants from seed, seed saving, heirloom plants grown from seed, saving and trading seeds. Twitter members can participate in #SeedChat by searching for and clicking on the #SeedChat hashtag on Twitter, or on Tweetchat, to follow along and reply to other members. #SeedChat is hosted by @xitomatl and @mrbrownthumb. There is also a dedicated Twitter account: @SeedChat that will lead the discussion every week. Join us every Wednesday at 8pmCentral/9pm Eastern to discuss seeds. Our schedule is located here.
 
Format

The format for #SeedChat may be a little more structured than your average conversation on Twitter. You can submit a question ahead of time for a particular week's topic via the form below.