Fun With Liz And Ricardo

Yesterday we spent most of the day at our friend's house, Elizabeth (Liz) and Ricardo.

I was hired at a consulting gig about five years ago, in essence to put out a fire – a project had gone bad. Ricardo was running it and it was implied that since he's heading the mess, it's his head on the chopping block. Will you run it?

When I got there and looked at what was happening, it was worse than what was explained and what I imagined. Nothing was usable. Once I got the lay of the land, however, it was clear to me that Ricardo was trying to row as best he could in the right direction and that the developer was the problem, not Ricardo, the project manager. Trouble was, after about four weeks I was rear-ended (not my fault at all) for the second time in about a year and that set me back a couple of months – which set the project back further. Anyway, Ricardo and I became friends when it became clear that the person who brought me aboard was just as much as the problem as the original developer.

Looking back at his reminds me of growing up a teenager in Orange County – but I digress.

So we went over, had lunch, caught up on things and helped to dig them a garden. We dug out a 9 x 12 plot of sod and moved it to a new location. A previous 9 x 12 plot had been dug, so two were available. In these two plots we planted 11 tomato seedlings. Other vegetables were planted by Liz.

Afterwards we had a fabulous dinner. A fun time was had by all! A few pictures from yesterday are already up on Facebook.

Before we left, we did get Husky Gold planted in a container.

Red Currant is looking better. In all the excitement on Friday, I forgot to write that the purchased Red Currant didn't look healthy. My wife indicated it was the best looking one available, and I totally believe her. However, the seedling was yellowing and had several dozen blooms on it. In essence, it had been on the shelf for much too long.

When my wife planted it, she indicated it was very root bound – in other words, too much root in too little a space. She picked off all of the blooms, watered it, and then we just hope for the best.

As of today, all the yellowing has disappeared. The plant is completely green, though a fair amount of it is light green. But that's better than yellow! The seedling is clearly improving. Go Red Currant!