Bored Out of My Mind...

Emma is welcoming the newest group of Peace Corps Volunteers to Azerbaijan. The host family is at their home in Baku. I am bored out of my mind. Everyone has been gone since Thursday, October 1st so I have been occupying my time with various, time killing, pursuits.

First, on Thursday I started working on a cat house for our two adopted cats. Baby Cat, who turned up in late June, has been featured before. She is lovable, considerate and can take care of herself. Precocious Kitty, or PK, turned up in late August. She is whiny, mischievous and won't leave me alone. Either way, they have adopted us as surrogate parents and we in return have given them a US postal box in which to sleep. The problem is Samaxi is getting pretty cold and the box isn't going to do much good come November. Thus, with the wood left over from my Ping Pong table (scroll down) I fashioned them a home.

Here is the house.

Nothing fancy just wood and nails. It does serve it's purpose and that is what matters.

Baby Cat is on the left and PK is whining on the right.

Okay so Thursday and Friday were fine. It did take a while to put the cat house together as my hand saw is from 1960, rusted and I am pretty sure soviet built (burn). Still, the process of working everything out was fun.

Today however, I slept in, fried some chicken, then went 'Forrest Forrest Gump' all over the afternoon. The following pictures and videos should help explain how very unproductive today really was.

The ping pong table when more than one person is at the house.

The ping pong table when I am home alone. I used our grill to prop up the other side.

For the table I took two 5 by 5 pieces of plywood and trimmed them down to 5 by 4.5. I connected them with hinges so that I can fold up the table top and move it if we need to. The host family loves it, doesn't want me to move it, so there it sits. However, the hinges also help it become a one man ping pong court. The videos that follow show you what joy it brought me. If you have a slow connection don't wait for them to download. I am warning you now, what brings me joy is probably not what brings you joy. I must have done this for at least two hours... Sad really. very sad, ha ha.

Later.

Mathias

Chillin...

It's Still July...

I am so sorry this garden update is long overdue. One of the reasons I've held off on blogging about the garden is that I don't know how it's going to go. Some days I think everything is dead and a few days later its all ok. My cucumbers have been doing a great Cher impression with several goodbye tours and surprising comebacks.

The downside:

A lot of this has to do with the fact that it is hot and it never rains here. I water at least once, sometimes twice a day. But we've also had guests and trips to Lankaran to work at sports camp and during those times its gets quite grim. Also I recently read that our walnut tree may be to blame for some of the stunted growth-apparently walnut trees release toxins through their roots that are terrible for vegetable plants! Who knew?

The upside:

I'm starting to harvest things! This means not having to buy veggies at the bazaar, which my Scottish side loves. And it comes with a great sense of accomplishment (even if the tomatoes are the size of my thumbnail).

In the past month I've also gained a new garden helper. Introducing Baby Cat:

We are trying really hard not to adopt baby cat, but she hangs around most of the day and has a fabulous personality. When I pull weeds she helps too-sometimes tapping my hand with her paw to say "good job!" She has a mom who takes care of her though, so for now she's just my friend, not my own cat.

Update: Since the original writing of the post, I harvested a kilo of tomatoes from the garden and with the help of my dear friend Julia did a super special project that deserves a post of its own. More to come!