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Samhain Greetings!

Happy Halloween, y'all! So named by the Catholics, when they were trying to co-opt the pagan celebrations of Samhain into All Hallows Evening (to celebrate all their saints who didn't have their own days).Lots of cool traditions around the world and throughout that past several thousand years about spirits, harvest, begging, pranks, and whatnot. Enjoy whichever you like!

We were treated to a rare red luminous cloud of aurora borealis here last night, right around trick or treat time. It was stellar. Thanks to Daria for calling and leaving me the heads up message.

I'll be marching in the WVU Homecoming parade tonight (football is king here, it even displaces the rare and wonderful event of Halloween landing on a Friday) along with the "just folks" band and a giant Earth puppet. The weather is expected to be lovely, and I'm looking forward to it.

I have unlimited hot water because of the on-demand hot water unit inside my new furnace. Thanks to Dan the Man! I highly recommend it. No hot water tank necessary all winter, will save me on electric, and eliminates the wasteful burning of fuel to keep water hot when you're not using it.

And one last tidbit from the catacopia, I am still picking ripe tomatoes from my vine! I planted a few plants in a giant pot this year, late in the season. I brought the pot in at the first frost because it had plenty of green tomatoes I was hoping to ripen on the vine. Though it still had some flowers, I thought I'd be limited to what fruit had already set, because of the need for pollenation. Well, Asel Kennedy (longtime Mon county extension agent) sat next to me at the NWVCIL 10th Anniversary dinner the other night, and told me some very interesting stuff about tomato vines. Specifically, they can do quite fine indoors, even for years. And they don't need insects for pollenation, you can do it yourself by shaking the plant. He claims there's a WVU prof who has a years-old tomato vine in his office, that goes around the perimeter of the room 4 times! And there you have it. Next I'll need to figure out what triggers the plant to flower (hours of sunlight, perhaps?) so I can keep fruit year round. Imagine a real tomato in February, the bomb.

permalink posted by cat 9:01 AM

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