Month: June 2020

Garden update – June 2020

What a difference a month makes during gardening season! When I posted my spring garden update last month, the garden tower, keyhole bed, and bed frame were freshly planted, and the star was done with the seasonal bulbs with excess amounts of mint sneaking into the center.

Left: Garden Tower filled with marigolds & petunias, plus some dill and purple basil; Top right: star-shaped bed with excessive amounts of mint, plus chives, cilantro, rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, and newly planted squash and sunflowers; Middle right: keyhole bed with sunflower, tomatoes, pepper, acorn squash, and honeydew: Bottom right: marigolds, petunias, and some mystery squash

And look at it now! The marigolds and petunias are thriving in both spots, but more so in the garden tower. I get to look out my kitchen window at this array of colors, paired with the bits of dill and purple basil that came back from last year’s herb garden.

The star bed lost its first batch of sunflowers, and with the bulbs done for the year, I weeded out the entire center. I then relocated some mystery squash (probably acorn squash), planted milkweed seeds (a few years old, no sign of germination yet), and the last few sunflower seeds from this year’s shopping. I’ve taken to watering the sunflowers with a mix of coffee grounds and cold water, hoping the coffee scent will discourage whatever’s been devouring my sunflower seedlings.

The keyhole bed has gone from early sprouts and seedlings to explosive growth, particularly the acorn squash and tomatoes, with the volunteer (read: probably planted by a bird or squirrel) sunflower towering over them. I’m hoping they’re squished enough in there to prevent the neighborhood woodchuck from eating all the squash flowers before they bear fruit.

The marigolds and petunias in the bed frame have grown a bit, though not as much as the ones in the garden tower. There are a couple mystery squash plants there too. I really hope the mystery squash is acorn squash… I like to bake it wrapped in bacon.

Wizards Unite, a Harry Potter-themed game

I’ve been playing Wizards Unite (WU) for about a year now, since the app first launched, and somehow haven’t written about it yet. Like Pokémon Go (PoGo), my interest in the game is a blend of geekiness and fitness. In fact, I frequently run Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite at the same time, bouncing between them to accomplish tasks at local inns, greenhouses, and fortresses (WU) and Pokestops & gyms (PoGo). The locations are the same, they’re just used in different ways.

Not surprisingly for a Harry Potter-themed game, potions are important. Ingredients are acquired through visits to greenhouses, both by picking a random ingredient (repeatable every 5 minutes) or by planting seeds that you’ve collected. Ingredients can also be collected from random appearances on the ground, or in some gifts from your friends.

Spell energy is another essential part of the game, and that can be collected from inns, gifts, or random appearances on the ground. All of the random appearances have increased in frequency with the worldwide shelter-at-home orders. Spell energy is used to collect foundables – individual items that have to be salvaged by casting a specific spell – and in wizarding challenges, which take place at fortresses.

Wizarding challenges can be faced alone or with up to four other people. Before the lockdowns, this was always at a fortress with other players that were physically present. More recently, the Knight Bus became available, taking players to the virtual Fortress at Hogwarts Castle, where you can team up with whoever else happens into the challenge level as you’re prepping for battle.

The fortress challenges feature several types of combatants, with each of the three available professions (auror, magizoologist, and professor) having advantages and disadvantages against different opponent types. In an ideal challenge, each of the three professions is represented, and at the higher level, many estimulo, which boost your spells, and healing potions.

A pixie floats above the cat. Quick, defend the cat!

Part of the fun of the battles is to turn on AR, or Augmented Reality, mode. You can have it on for the entire gameplay, at some cost to your phone battery of course, but I find it fun just for the battles. Depending on how open the area is, your opponent’s size can vary. If I’m right up at my computer when I start the combat, I can end up fighting a midget werewolf perched on my keyboard.

But what I really enjoy is focusing on a cat as I’m starting the combat, so I’m fighting to defend the cat. Here you can see Arwen ignoring the pixie flying above her as I fight it. The game actually captures an image as you line up the combat, so if the cat walks away halfway through, your screen doesn’t reflect that change.

Between the two games, I have set myself a minimum walking goal each week, in addition to my other workout routines. Both games initially launched with GPS distance tracking, but later added Adventure Sync, which tracks distance and location while the game is closed. In other words, if I have my phone in my purse while grocery shopping, or in my pocket while using the treadmill, the games count that distance towards in-game goals. So fun and fitness combined!

Find something that makes you smile.

This year has given us all some time for introspection. Well, that or video games. And if that’s what makes you smile, go for it. We each have different needs.

Pink peonies

My garden makes me smile. Looking out at the flowers, stopping to smell the peonies (which smell like roses!), admiring the sunflower that has sprung up in the keyhole bed… particularly after losing all the sunflowers I planted out back to some hungry critter, and unsure whether the front yard sunflowers will survive whatever’s leaving holes in the leaves.

But I can’t complain too much about the critters… I just smiled at a rabbit hopping through my back yard. And have you ever watched a woodchuck run? It’s like a low to the ground penguin waddle, with hips shifting back and forth as it leaves a trail in my grass. Of course, that may be who ate my pea seedlings. It’s hard to tell, I’m not spotting the rabbits or woodchucks in the raised beds.

Keyhole garden with prominent sunflower (no flower yet)

At a guess, it’s birds eating my strawberries, but at least that’s the actual fruit. If the sunflowers had grown to full height, most of the seeds would have been consumed by the birds. The peas probably would have been shared between us and the woodchuck.

The cats June and Diane sitting on a cat rug

And then there are the indoor critters, sources of amusement and frustration. I walked in to these faces this morning. I was immediately suspicious. This was after breakfast, so they weren’t expecting food, and the third cat, Arwen, wasn’t in sight. Arwen is the main troublemaker, the one who figured out how to open the crockpot over Memorial Day weekend, landing a paw in my chicken soup. (Knowing it was possible, Diane then followed her example.) As it turns out, Arwen was lounging in the bay window, and I still have no idea why these two were eagerly awaiting my return from the garden.

Pork chops with cherry sauce, peas, garlic mashed potatoes with chives

I also happen to enjoy food, eating it and preparing it, given enough time. And it’s a mix of things I grew up with – like omelets, which Dad would make on Sunday mornings, grilling on my Big Green Egg – a gift from Dad, or making a pizza from scratch. We’ve developed a Friday night pizza habit, and while the multigrain crust is pretty much the same each time, the toppings vary from week to week, and sometimes I switch from tomato sauce to pesto.

This is by no means the entire list of things that make me smile, just a few things that came to mind. What makes you smile?

The world watches in horror as the United States attacks itself.

With around-the-clock news and social media, the world was watching as the United States (among others) federal government floundered epically in the face of COVID-19. The world saw armed protestors rally against their elected officials, because their need for a haircut or a meal out is apparently more important than preserving lives.

The world was watching as the news came to light that an African American man, Ahmaud Arbery, who was running through a residential neighborhood, was killed by two armed vigilantes while their friend filmed the attack, and the local prosecutors sat on the case for over two months before arresting the attackers.

The world watched as a white (now ex-)police officer kneeled on the neck of George Floyd, an African American man, ignoring his cries for help and beyond the point when he became unresponsive. Three other officers, also since fired from their jobs, allowed this murder.

And now the world watches as the response to peaceful protests against systemic police brutality against minorities is… systemic police brutality. Reporters have been arrested and assaulted, including being shot with pepper balls. A CNN reporter was arrested – on camera – while visibly wearing his press credentials. And they’re seeing the protests turn into riots each evening, as the crowd shifts from the legitimate protestors to the rabble-rousers.

What the world isn’t seeing – I couldn’t even find this on our national news sites, much less international ones – is the clean-up effort, as volunteers flock to the Twin Cities. These people, the helpers, are the ones to watch. They’re the ones who understand that they live in the community and need to help each other. (It also lends credence to the accusation by Minnesota’s governor that most of the damage was done by non-residents. Who would show up the next day to clean up what they destroyed?)

Watch the police officers whose immediate response is to condemn the murder for what it was, and are trained to de-escalate situations instead of intensifying them. Watch the officers who listened to the protestors and joined them, recognizing the validity of the complaints. These are the officers who signed up to serve and protect everybody. These are the officers we need.

It’s what George Floyd needed – if just one officer of the three watching had done something right, his murder could have been prevented.