Working It

HOW IT GROWS: It's been a minute since we've updated the growings on in the MPA garden.

We have our first tomato with color - a chocolate cherry tomato. It is a superstar, given that there's almost NOTHING else going on with our tomato plants. They're leafy, and a few blossoms, but I don't think a whole lot of fruit is in our future.

There are a couple of bright spots, however. Our kohlrabi seems to be doing really well. 

Sure, something's eating its leaves, but the bulbs or whatever they're called seem to be growing well.

Have I mentioned we have NO idea what to do with it? I've never touched a kohlrabi until I impulse bought this as a much smaller specimen. 

We have some 'summer squash' that is blossoming. I hope we're overrun with zucchini, but I'm doubtful.

We have some pretty basil that's flowering. I just need to remember to use it when I'm cooking!

I'm not sure that we've ever successfully grown a pumpkin. We have a blossom this year, but I'm not super optimistic about it. 

And perhaps our biggest under achiever (oxymoron, anyone?) is our eggplant. Look at the puny, pathetic little things (foreground). They're no bigger than they were in May, in their little seedling start pots. 

COMET CHASERS: Yesterday afternoon, the kids watched a program all about NEOWISE, a comet that was recently discovered. It has been putting on a show in the Northern Hemisphere, including over Seattle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFn4-kQPjzk#action=share

Upon learning that this comet only comes around about once every 7000 or years, spotting it immediately went to the top of our to do list. 

In hopes of seeing it, we needed a pretty much floor-to-ceiling window of ground level to Big Dipper. 

The kids and I wove in and out of streets on the west side of our hill for  a half hour plus right after sundown.

Finally, at about 10:30, just as we were about to give up, Annabelle's young eyes spotted the comet, below and to the right of the bottom of the Big Dipper's ladle. Oh, happy day!

We have no photos to prove it - just our memories. :)

Skies and Sweets

RAINBOW CONNECTION: A couple of evenings ago, there was a magnificent rainbow to our south. It was pretty darn close to the house (especially the right side of it), and it had such an arc, it felt like we could see more than 180 degrees of the colorful arc.

When I was taking the photos, I knew that they wouldn't do the 'bow justice. But they're still pretty pretty. 

CAKE CRAFT: We're so happy that Birthday Dreams is accepting cakes from volunteer bakers once again. They stopped back in March, when there were still so many questions marks about how COVID is spread. (Originally, 'experts' were saying it was primarily contact-spread. Turns out that's not true - aerosol is the biggest danger.) Anyway, we hopped back into the cake baking game.  Annabelle chose a 14 year old who wanted a Minecraft-themed cake.

Minecraft is an online game where you build most anything you want in a blocky-looking world.

As soon as she saw the ask for a Minecraft cake, Annabelle suggested making the literal Minecraft cake. 

So that's what we did. It was three layers of chocolate with fluffy chocolate filling with mini chocolate chips. 

It was crumb coated in vanilla buttercream, and then wrapped in homemade marshmallow fondant, which we decorated. 

Annabelle made the birthday girl's age out of modeling chocolate, in the style of a Minecraft torch and fence. 

It's not our fanciest cake ever, but it's definitely a Minecraft cake. We hope the birthday girl likes it.

ANOTHER CASUALTY: Every summer, the kids look forward to their one and only annual 7-11 Slurpee, when the store gives them away on July 11 (7/11). 

Well, add a free Slurpee to the list of COVID casualties. 7-11 canceled the event because they didn't want crowds in their stores during COVID. Smart move.

I didn't want the kids to feel too disappointed, though, so we went ahead and bought them each a Slurpee. It only set us back $2 - not free, but not bad. So at least they got their one Slurpee of the year.

FIRE IN THE SKY: Perhaps you've heard, Comet NEOWISE is dazzling in the evening skies. I've tried to spot it a couple of times, to no avail, but I'm not giving up!

Comet photo from NASA

Perhaps after tomorrow's NASA news conference, we'll have a better chance of spying the stunning celestial visitor.

NASA experts will discuss and answer public questions about Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE during a broadcast on Wednesday, July 15. Per NASA, "The comet is visible with the naked eye in the early morning sky and starting this week, after sunset."

The NASA Science Live episode will air live at noon on Wednesday on NASA TV, as well as on their Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope, LinkedIn, Twitch, and USTREAM channels.
Following the noon broadcast, there will be a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday. The media teleconference audio will stream live at: https://www.nasa.gov/live

The participants of the teleconference will include:

Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer and program executive of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA HeadquartersEmily Kramer, co-investigator on the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) science team, NASA's Jet Propulsion LaboratoryAmy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator, University of Arizona

For information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, including its Near-Earth Object Observation Program, check out:
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense