Miscellaneous

A few miscellaneous pictures. We are getting our first tomatoes from the plants this year. We are heading toward an apocalypse though. We planted 11 tomato plants, assuming we have the normal mortality rate of 50%. However, we moved the garden earlier this summer, and the plants like their new home much more. So this trickle will become a deluge very soon.

Last September we scored a great deal on a Hills Rotary Clothesline at the New Mexico Solar Fiesta. We had actually been debating getting one for a while after hearing the company profiled on the radio and we talked with the salesman for a while. His company specializes in importing Hills clotheslines (a icon that is ubiquitous in Australia), and strangely enough based in warm sunny Pennsylvania (what, there is sun there?). Even more strangely, we have mutual friends from Penn State (6 degrees)! We gave him dinner recommendations and directions and went our way. The clothesline went unsold by the end of the day, and he called us and asked if we would like to buy it for a fraction of the retail because they didn't want to take it back to PA. Awesome!

It has languished in our garage since, but we finally got it erected and ready to go. We just finished with the inaugural load, and it dried our sheets as fast on the line in the NM sun as in the dryer. We will see how much our electricity bill drops now.

Finally, here is a picture of Ali and I from Sunday Brunch with Ali's parent when they were in last weekend. We had a wonderful meal. Check me sporting my new Utilikilt, a very late birthday gift from Ali.