Inside The Perimeter

I’ve been casually watching World Cup games with the sound off. I am glad that I am ambivalent to almost all sports these days and that my mood changes little based on the outcome of a sporting event.

I think in reaction to my poor pepper plant performance (try saying that fast) this year I’ve turned my attention to beans. I have been planting a lot of beans, and I have many more to plant, in hopes of eating some fresh as well as drying some for future consumption.

Yesterday’s Faux Homestead (Fauxstead?) accomplishment was to make a couple jars of bread & butter pickles from WLF cucumbers, as well as one purchased from a grocery store; which should be ready to eat in a week or so.

After a couple of false starts, dinner was a bastardized version of chicken stroganoff. On hand I had egg noodles, pre-cooked chicken meatballs, a jar of beef gravy, some mild German cheese, and sour cream. The meal was surprisingly satisfying.

I welcome the rain which fell yesterday and overnight. Thankfully no apparent damage was done to Wee Little Farm nor the ITP Estate. This rain, as well as any that falls over the next week will help me store about as much water as I’ve gathered from the HVAC condenser. I’m sure you Cobb county residents are tired of rain by now…

My buddy Hank is coming into town tomorrow, so naturally I will doing some beer consumption over the next handful of days.

Wordle: four, my starter was USAGE

Fun and annoying fact about yesterday’s Wordle solution: According to my stats I previously used ENTRY as a starter sixteen times! Motherfu…..

Other than walking over to WLF@UFO to plant some bush bean seeds, which in all likelihood will get dug up by something, I didn’t do a heck of a lot yesterday. It was nice to get to meet another fellow UFO gardener.

Yesterday I learned that the Spanish speaking world calls England Inglaterra. I said it before, I will say it again, even though they now the call their country Türkiye, I still call it “Turkey”. After all we don’t call Germany Deutschland, do we?

Today is new bike day! This morning I will be driving up to Smyrna to pick up my new bike. I have a little regret that I am no longer in a financial position where I could have sprung for a higher-end model, like many of my fellow riders have done recently, but that’s a “me” issue. What I am picking up today is generationally better than the bike I took to BRAG, so there’s that. And, when Allan is done putting all of my old components on the new frame I will be a four-bike man! Then I will owe both Allan and Steve meals for their generosity. I knew BRAG would be expensive, I never realized how expensive… I’ll have bout a month for getting used to riding the new bike before I take it to Brevard for NC Mountain Ride this year.

Wordle: three, my starter was COUPE.

Good day yesterday, some rain fell upon Wee Little Farm.

Later Allan was able to extract my Excalibur pedal from Steve’s crank, so I rewarded his efforts with beer at Schoolhouse Brewing. We were joined by ITP-Reader Sal, and my buddy Chip.

I am considering crashing Trees Atlanta’s volunteer day today. The signup says that it’s full this week, and next, so I might show up and see if they turn me away. If I don’t, I will wander over to WLF@UFO and see how that raised bed is doing.

I may be picking up my new, as yet unnamed, bicycle tomorrow.

Though it won’t renew for another month, I’ve run out of Audible credits. Since I have enough audiobooks to last me until my demise, I decided to cancel my account and save the $150/year cost.

Wordle: five, my starter was CLAIM

Jenka, if my data is correct today is your birthday? If so, Happy Birthday!

Last night’s dinner was zucchini meatloaf. The zucchini was from Wee Little Farm. I intended to eat meatloaf with WLF potatoes, harvested from grow bags, but I forgot to prep them while the meatloaf baked, so I pivoted and cooked up a can of green beans instead.

Here are some things that should have made it into yesterday’s post:

On Friday Kroger didn’t have and pork ribs, but what they did have were pork shoulders at a significant discount, so I bought the smallest one, which was 8.5 pounds! On Sunday I cut that chunk of meat in half and plopped one half into a slow cooker to make shredded pork. It was (and still is) amazingly delicious.

Over the weekend I also started a batch of fermented cucumbers (to turn into pickles) using WLF cucumbers. Additionally, I made a batch of pimento cheese, for which none of the ingredients were from WLF.

Since inheriting it, I finally used my mother’s tabletop oven for the first time. I used the oven to make a zucchini bread. It took much longer to bake throughout resulting in a burnt top. I’m not sure this oven is the best thing for such a task, but I will try again with something else in the future. This oven’s biggest asset is that it’s in the basement and won’t heat the house the way my kitchen oven does.

Allan found an acceptable Trek bike frame, ironically the same model as the bike (Red Rocket) which was replaced by the one that broke on BRAG (Black Beauty). I have removed my components from Steve’s frame and will deliver the, to Allan at Schoolhouse Brewing today (shocker, since is is a BOGO day for me).

Wordle: six, my starter was CABIN

I feel as if 2026 has introduced a War on Credit Cards with so many people charging extra when paying with one. Additionally the other day I attempted to purchase a gift card in the Ibotta app using my credit card, something I have done many times, and was told that they are not accepting credit card payments and I should use a debit card; um, no thank you.

I spent most of the weekend at home cleaning, organizing, avoiding the heat. I need to do a lot more of each.

Wordle: three, my starter was FRAUD

I have been so busy, and so mentally exhausted that it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized just how lucky I was to have my frame break during BRAG, where I could get picked up and driven to the end. I think of the many times I’ve done solo long rides, and though I’ve attempted to limit disasters, don’t exactly know what I would do if my bike became unrideable. AAA? Uber? Lyft? Walk? I hope I don’t have to find out in the future.

At Nam Dae Mun I bought seven ears of corn for $2 the other day. So, with the Korean cabbage I also bought there and some WLF zucchini I made a fry up, and served it over some Asian noodles and an Asian sauce I mixed up. It was delicious, and only wish that all of the vegetables came from WLF.

Speaking of WLF, I think I am going to pull the few corn plants which are growing because there are not nearly enough to pollinate the silk in order to turn into ears of corn.

I’ve read that CHaRM will be vacating their Hill Street location at year’s end. I don’t know if they own or lease the land, but either way I’m sure a new housing development will be put there since it’s directly on the Beltline. Pity. This means I will probably stop making the effort to recycle electronics and glass. This planet is fucked, and my efforts are making little impact.

Wordle: four, my starter was OILER

Today’s excursion is to take my broken frame to Marietta where I will pick up Allan and head to Atlanta Cycling. If I can get a deal on a new bicycle I might buy a new bicycle (remember when I wanted to stop spending so much money?), or if they simply offer me a replacement frame I will go that route. If they don’t offer a discounted new bike, and no conditioned are made to compensate me for my broken frame, I don’t know what I will do next.

A rouge, small storm cell made its way ITP and barely over WLF yesterday afternoon, providing some much-needed rain. WLF could soak up a lot more, but at least I won’t have to run the sprinklers today.

Wordle: four, my starter was DRUPE

Yesterday’s irrigation workshop was very educational, and included an amazing lunch. Afterwards I drove over to Schoolhouse Brewing and was pleased to see my favorite employee, Gabby, behind the bar. With two beers in belly, and a four-pack in hand, I tipped heavily and spent the next hour driving home.

My busy week continues. After doing laundry this morning I will be driving down to Luthersville, where I was briefly during BRAG last week, to pick up my broken frame from ITP-Reader Steve’s house. If I can time it properly I will also be revisiting Karvelas Pizza Co. in Hogansville, where we Chattahooligans consumed a few beers during our ride.

Looks as if I will be watching some ad-laden tv soon as I have discovered that a new season of “Clarkson’s Farm” has been released. Unfortunately for me the next season of “Severance” may not arrive until 2027? WTF…

Wordle: three, my starter was CRASH

Unfortunately I may have picked up a bit of a repetitive stress injury doing BRAG. For the past couple of days it feels as if I have an issue near my right Achilles tendon. I will wear my ankle brace and rest it as best as possible this week and see how it goes.

Wee Little Farm at Urban Farm Ormewood has been launched! Yesterday morning I drove over to the Wylde Center Plant Market to buy plants. Unfortunately they didn’t have any pepper plants, so I left with two tomato plants because they were 50% off. From there I went to Lowe’s to buy four pepper plants. The tomato plants and three of the pepper plants were taken over to WLF@UFO and planted into my raised bed. I have enough space remaining in my raised bed to plant some bush beans soon.

For dinner last night I made a hamburger served over potatoes and lettuce, both of which were grown in WLF.

Today I am doing more farming cosplay, this time attending a workshop about irrigation, in a faraway place called “Roswell”, which probably receives inches of rain at a time. Water management, especially when it refuses to fall from the sky, is huge so I’m spending $10 to learn more about it.

Wordle: five, my starter was CLEAT

Another BRAG is in the books. With the exception of my bicycle frame breaking it was an amazing week. Thanks again to ITP-Reader Steve, as well as all of my other friends who helped me complete the task. After almost nodding off a couple of times on the drive home I spent the remainder of Saturday catching up on sleep.

As an added bonus, our very own ITP-Reader Bob was interviewed by Fox 5 when we were in Trilith.

In the process of searching for the receipt for my bike, which I may have tossed last year since I see the folder labeled “Bike Wreck” is empty, I found the receipts for the other two bicycles I have purchased while living in Atlanta. Dangen!

Wee Little Farm is suffering. Most things are not growing, except for the zucchini which were HUGE by the time I picked them yesterday. I also picked three nice cucumbers, four potatoes from one grow bag, as well as a handful of rattlesnake beans. This may be a very lean year if things don’t start to grow soon.

I decided to take a walk to Urban Farm Ormewood yesterday and fortunately ran into someone who is responsible for managing it. I identified my 4’x8′ raised bed, and confirmed that I could start planting. Of course, it’s supposed to rain every day this week…

Wordle: four, my starter was ASTER