mattie g

Looks like it pissed down rain overnight, but I was dead to the world and didn't wake up.

While today is a little chilly with the wind, I'm generally good with 65-75 until mid-May, then we can crank up the temps to get ready for swim season! I can't believe practices start in a little under five weeks!

Lots of beers are getting a little same-y, but the top breweries seem to always be able to turn it up a notch and separate themselves from others. I've got a mixed 4-pack of Trillium that I'll enjoy this weekend, and I'm hoping to hit up Juicy for a few crowlers tomorrow (again, for weekend consumption), then again on Sunday for some drafts with buddies.

Scratch that. Male showed up at our front feeder early this evening!

Just moved my tomatoes, jalapenos, and basil into a shaded area outdoors to start the hardening off process. Things don't look terribly promising for warm weather in the longer term, but as long as we're not threatened with a frost/freeze or multiple successive nights in the 30s, I'll get them planted in 10 days or so.

Sounds like an awesome garden, and I'm sure you have a ton more space to plant than I do!

I've got a feeder in front and one in back. The front one is new, while the back one is the one I put up last year and was really popular. Haven't seen any yet though.

Because not-nice days in April suck. I guess I don't get why you don't get it.

Rainy, cold day in Burke.

Shh...you'll be told that such a cool departure is nothing compared to our warm departures.

We had sleet that mixed in with rain here in Burke when I checked about 15 minutes ago.

That's because decently below normal sucks this time of year, no matter how big the departures are.

Never in a million years would I want that in April. It's impressive, but I'd never want it. December, January, February, March...sure. April? Nope. Time to move on, so I'm honestly not even moved by these videos.

You know what that means? May blowtorch, which also means a ton of complaining from people who think it's too hot.

Aslin's quality has fallen off a cliff in the last two years. They're so focused on expanding that they've forgotten how to make good beers. From the perspective of a fan of theirs from the early years, it's really sad. It might just be a personal palate thing for me with EQ. Their beers are soft and definitely have lots of haze, but they just seem "off" to me. There's a new brewery - Juicy Brewing Co. - that opened in Aslin's original Herndon location a couple months ago. They're producing some of the best beers I've ever had - period. They're really small and aren't canning (yet?), but you can get crowlers to go. Seriously though...their IPAs are out of this world, their Kolsch and Schwarzbier are truly phenomenal, and they have a line of uber-fruited sours that are getting *all* the hype.

I find EQ beers to be kind of odd. There’s this slightly astringent tea-like quality to them that turns me off a bit.

How we doin’ so far this drought season?

Does anyone track the hummingbird migration so they can be ready to put the feeders out? I didn't know about this site before, so I put out a feeder about three weeks ago when we had that warm stretch. To no one's surprise, no hummingbirds showed up. https://www.hummingbirdcentral.com/hummingbird-migration-spring-2022-map.htm Looks like they generally show up here right around April 10, so I'm going to put another feeder out today.

OK...so I wasn't imagining that there were some rumbles.

Looks like WeenieRadar Plus

This is going to turn out to be the worst weather April in recent memory. I can feel it.

Not even close, river wind or not.

Meh

Yup. You can see them - black pads sitting on top of the white tray - under the plants. Pretty straightforward stuff. Soil temp in my starter pods was about 85 degrees. Quite warm, but it definitely gets the job done. If I didn't have the pad, I'd have a hard time getting anything started since my basement is anywhere from 58-62 degrees or so this time of year (it almost never dips below 56 nor gets above 68 at any time). I also have a timer that I set to about 16 hours of light and heat per day until potting up this second time, at which time I reduce to 13-14 hours in preparation for planting.

Tough group, but certainly nt the worst draw. I agree. Wales is a very good side, so I expect they'll end up in our group. Kind of unfortunate to get them in the first match (if we do play them), as they'd definitely play Bale without worrying about him having played just a few days prior. Iran is no slouch, but they're nothing to fear. England is phenomenal, but they play a bit conservative under Southgate, and depending on the results of the first groups games, I don't know if we'll see them come out flying against us. We have the talent to make it out of this group, for sure. If we're healthy going into the tournament, then I'm going to feel really good about getting into the knockout stages. At that point, we'll just have to see how the chips fall. Turner Dest - Zimmerman - Miles - Jedi Musah - Adams - McKennie Reyna - Ferreira - Pulisic I figure if we have this starting lineup in a knockout match, we'll put up a good fight against pretty much anyone. Of course we can't know who will be in form and all that, and our #9 situation just sucks, but that's a boss of a midfield with two really high-class attackers and two wingbacks who can cause problems. I like it...