Muchacho Polaco

We have never had septic before. We know very little about it. We were told to clean it every three years, so here we are. The smell is something awful.

I bought another little starter system weeks ago. Seeing a different layout than a bucket was helpful. I’d really like to build a system out of PVC.

I started out with some habaneros and the others are all lettuce.

The lettuce that I started in the bucket weeks back has been doing really well.

My sister surprised me with a gift from my past today! This was my first SLR back in the 80s when I was in cadets. I used to load my own film and develop my own fotos.

It is so foreign now. She got me some film as well. I loaded up some black and white and took my first couple of shots moments ago. Film is not cheap and you have to wait a long time to see the results!

Here’s my camera shelf. I need to take more photos!

I found this app for my phone that connects various dog rescue groups. I’ve been looking at it for week. On Sunday I found a couple dogs I thought we should at least go see. So we got in the car early and drove an hour north to Casa Grande. Those dogs were not for us, but we found two others that were.

This guy was called Rex and he was such a calm little guy.

This was Klaus, with three of his siblings.

They seemed like a good match and although had never been together, played well in their yard. So we decided to bring them home. On a Sunday afternoon. Before me leaving out of town for a week for work. We didn’t think that through well. It has been 2 days now and a rough transition. They are great dogs, but it’s a bit much for Yun to deal with alone.

We renamed this one “Berlin”. Rex was a really lame name. He clearly has some shepherd and is perhaps a bit of Husky (they call these Shepskys).

This one we now call “Rome”. He is an intimidating one, but affectionate.

We tried to avoid anything that looked like Scout or Tila so as not to compare them. I think we were succesful with that.

I have been interested in growing plants in water for years. I have watched numerous videos online and have just never gone further until last weekend. I happened across a nursery in town, near the house, that I’d never visited before. Quite an impressive place. They had a hydroponics building and this little 5-gallon bucket starter kit for $50, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was excited until I got home and found there were no instructions. With a bit more research, I think I figured it out.

I bought some lettuce since it was in season. It was growing in dirt, so I had to rinse that out of the roots.

Then I put in the plastic basket surrounded by these little clay pebbles. I’m not sure I did that exactly correctly, but what I did seemed like the only option. Plop it in and add the pebbles around it.

The kit came with a pump to aerate the water. Seemed to work well.

I have a lot of LED plant lights that have timers, so I am using that to light this thing up for 12 hours a day. I need to drill a hole tomorrow for the hose to get into the bucket so I can seal the lid tight. I assume this will reduce the amount of water loss from evaporation.

I brought in our summer plants from outside given how cold it has been. I have lights set up for them, but should be able to return them outdoors in the near future. The plumeria and desert roses don’t do well with the cold. They got destroyed last year and it’s take a year to recover. I also brought in a jalapeño that we started far too late last year. It’s been doing well with a full grown pepper and a few more small ones on the way.

The basil behind the peppers we have had for years. It seems resilient to our neglect. Basil is not affordable at the store and this thing grows more than we would ever use.

Madrid is an impressive city. The architecture everywhere is beautiful. There are so many things to see, to do, and to eat. The food from Spain is getting pretty boring, so we mixed it up a bit.

We got to Madrid airport 2 hours early but waited at wrong gate…I could have sworn it said S37…turns out it was S7, so again full sprint through the airport to board last and now drenched in sweat.

Toledo is an impressive city. The medieval architecture here is incredible. We have spent the last 2 days touring around the city. So much to see. We went to the El Greco museum this afternoon and loved it.

We went to another Michellin star restaurant in Toledo. It was good and we enjoyed it quite a lot, but the idea seemed much bigger in our heads. The food was great, but nothing amazing.

I had the rib eye with carrot.

We left Cuenca early this morning but had a full day yesterday that we quite enjoyed.

We arrived to Toledo this morning. Too early for check in, so toured around town. This is a much bigger city than Cuenca and Yun tells me it is the former capital. There are a lot of jewelers here. We found a place that had things Yun liked that were hand crafted, so we took a photo with the guy who made the piece. He showed us the process and tools.

I found a random place to visit called Cuenca, so that’s where we are. It’s an hour east of Madrid by fast train. It’s a nice little town.

We stayed at Posada de Cuenta, the former convent in the background above. It is a beautiful place with great rooms and spectacular food.

The city is known for these hanging buildings…casas colgadas. It’s low season which means colder, but we have everything mostly to ourselves.

Saturday was warm, Sunday dipped in temperatures and started raining.

Some impressive architecture here and 4 Michelin star restaurants in town. We have reservations at one tonight and another Michelin star restaurant tomorrow in Toledo.