Look! A Strawberry!

When I looked out the sliding glass door this morning I got a big surprise. There was a red strawberry! It's not totally red, it still needs a couple more days to fully ripen. There are a handful more strawberries on the plants, and that's even after I removed a bunch of flowers so that the plants would put more energy into setting out more roots.


Another surprise was a runner. According to the information I have been able to find on-line, Seascape strawberries don't send out runners. I found 2 other smaller runners, which means 38% of my Seascape strawberries have runners on them. Hopefully these are the only ones or I am going to run out of space.


Yesterday I planted the pakalana out between the papayas in the back yard, but wasn't able to take any photos because I needed more memory on my phone. Last night I cleared out a bunch of photos so I was able to take photos this morning. When I bought the pakalana I could tell there was 1 nice vine starting, while I was setting it out I found that it actually had 3 vines starting. Bonus!


Yesterday was also Breakfast with Curtis day; we went to Rocky's Coffee Shop in old town Waipahu. This is one of Curtis' team's top 3 breakfast places. But alas, no photos because of the finicky phone. I had one of Rocky's house specials, the Fried Rice Omelet. Curtis had their "breakfast"; you get 2 eggs with a meat, a carb, and your hot drink, all for about $6! And coffee refills are free. The atmosphere is like old style Hawai'i. The food was great!

(Photo from menupix.com)

This morning I planted the catnip in the cat run. In order to give it a fighting chance, I made a chicken wire cover to put over the top of the planter; any parts sticking out can be harvested by the cats but the main stem and the rootball will be protected. I placed the old stove grate that I cleaned up the other day on top of the chicken wire cover to make it more difficult for the cats to get in or to collapse the chicken wire. I expanded the drip irrigation system to include the catnip and also hooked one up for the water dish. I also added a piece of irrigation line tubing to relieve the tension on the line caused by moving the gutter up a few inches so the plants could get more sun.


Now the catrun has a lot of cat-appropriate amenitites. It's 5' wide by 25' long, has a cat door to the family room, a choice of either concrete or grass to sleep on, a choice of either sun or shade to sleep in, fresh air, 4 shelves on different levels for exercise or lounging, an area to sharpen claws, a live catnip plant, a water dish that gets fresh water every day, and entertainment provided by brown anoles & gold dust day geckos running through it, birds that fly by, and people walking by.

Within 2 hours Xander found the catnip and began harvesting it; Chibi found it about 15 minutes later and Shiro shortly after that. I'm glad I didn't plant it out earlier and it had a chance to get much larger; it was able to handle being grazed on better than it would have when I first bought it. Hopefully, this one will do better than the one I tried in Washington. That one got flattened when the cats rolled on top of the chicken wire cage and it collapsed on top of the plant.


Xander also found the water dish. After 5 minutes worth of watering there was about 1/4" of water in the bowl. Although I will increase the amount of time the drip irrigation is running when the weather gets drier, I think I will start with the bowl half full so the irrigation system only has to top it off.


Happy Birthday to Robert, Mark, Neil, Bill, Susan, & Danny! Happy Cheese Souffle Day, HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, No Dirty Dishes Day, and Visit Your Relatives Day! Yesterday you missed Cherry Cobbler Day, Pack Rat Day, and Walnut Day!