14 September 2015

Moonflowers Mowing Garden Weekend of Sept 12-13


We set up the tripod and videotaped the opening, blossoming of two moonflowers Saturday evening.  I had seen some of that on UTube, but wanted to see and video it myself.  Wow, was it fast, as it took only about 45 seconds to go from a closed bud to an open flower.  Really remarkable.  I put the video up on U Tube. That was Sat. evening while Deej was making salmon cakes in the kitchen, so she was our watch to alter me when the two flowers started to bloom and I rushed out and started the video.
https://youtu.be/u1Gg2LjAtgw

Otherwise it was normal stuff, well sort of.  Tried to mow the back yard Sunday afternoon, but could not get the lawn mower to start.  We had bought a new gas cap about a week ago, and it was finally dry enough after the 2 inches of rain late last week.  But we tried and tried.  Pumped or primed the mower, and it would start, sputter for about 3 seconds, and die.  We gave up around 4 pm and went to the garden.

We hadn't been to the garden for about 5 days, so expected some large okra pods to pick - and there were several - too big to use in gumbo or for cooking, but then there were about 2 dozen medium and smaller pods which we can use.  Some Deej used for simple okra/onion/tomato gumbo for supper along with the salmon cakes she had made last night.  Other okra we might give away, such as for neighbor Ned who seem interested in trying some okra in a gumbo.  Also picked lots of cayenne peppers, sun flowers, orange and colored cosmos, French, orange and yellow marigolds, and tomatoes.  Deej said she had counted 20 green tomatoes last week, but 19 of those were stolen or picked by someone else, so we got only a few.  They have a new badminton court at Azalea park!

Coming back from the park, kept working on the mower without much luck - took off the air filter and replaced it, took off the spark plug and replaced it.  Nothing seemed to work - just pumping, starting for 3 seconds and dying.  I thought maybe water had gotten into the gas, when the cap had been removed and the cover was not good enough.  So, we emptied out the gas into a milk carton, took some paper towels and soaked up the gas as well as rubbed it around the inside to clean out an muck.  Then put about 1/4th tank of new gas in - it sputtered just the same for about 3 tries, and then, then it finally kept going - so I filled the tank completely full, and it lasted the whole 50 minutes mowing around the big back and smaller font yard.  Whew - what a lot of work and frustration.

 We did some walking such as Saturday afternoon through the Frank IX park where some vendors were closing up their booths - Deej turned to home around 15 minutes into the walk, but I kept going for another 15 so I could get some steps.  She turned back because she had two loaves of banana nut bread baking in the oven.  I also walked at night around 8 pm to get the rest of my 10,000 steps, going to the south along 6th street and turning east before heading up to Belmont park. Then walked some around the garden, but got most of my steps mowing all of the yard.

Had a nice Hangout with Nadeem and Bill K. - looked like Betty tried to join us twice unsuccessfully.  Bill talked of his conference last week on aging, we discussed the moonflower blossoming video, and different Arab and other singers, as well as film, such as Timbucktu and Blues Brother 2000 - and fringe religious group music - Quakers, Holly Rollers, Sufis, etc.  Barb called in the middle of it, and I left and talked to her for a few minutes - she wanted to go to the Richmond Symphony performance of Beethoven's Ninth this evening, but Woody said he had the kids and could take her.

Yesterday the University of Virginia almost won against 7th rank Notre Dame, but they had a touchdown with 12 seconds to go, and went ahead and won the game.  I didn't get a chance to watch the NFL games today.

The coming week I have a South Asia history class presentation Wed. and then 4 different Sociology Research classes on Thursday and Friday presented with others.  We are planning a beach week from the 27th Sept to 3rd Oct. And Curry Club on the 26th Sept, maybe with Deej and I giving a voyage travelogue at chai.