Christmas Presents

One of my Christmas gifts from Rob was an AeroGarden. I'd talked about having one for a few years, but what with all the kid clutter in our house, I never made a move. This has six spots for plants, and along with the hardware, he bought a set of herbs for it. It took me quite a while to set it up --clutter really paralyzes me, and Christmas produces so much of it. It's not permanent clutter, but it always takes us a while to find permanent homes for new things, and until that time they sit on the various surfaces --the kitchen island, the kitchen table, the end tables in the living room, etc. 

Once all those things were put away, and then some more time had passed, I finally read the directions. Then it took another week for me to remember to pick up distilled water (you can't use well-water in this contraption). Finally, on February 12, I got my seed pods, water, and nutrients in and turned it on. It makes more noise than either of us had expected (that's the "aero" part, I think), and it took us a while to get the lights timed right so they weren't keeping us up at night, but soon the seeds sprouted. Here's one.

They started to grow.

They continued to grow.

In about one month, they grew into a jungle.

I have lemon basil, globe basil, Genovese basil, thyme, and mint. (Along with a Squishy pencil topper monkey, hiding out --that clutter never really goes away.) I did a little research, and it looks as if hydroponically grown plants can be transplanted into soil, so these guys will be potted up in a month or so and put outside. Then I'll have to figure out what else I want to grow --maybe cherry tomatoes?

Another present Rob gave me is an old-fashioned barometer. I'm an extreme weather geek, and I've wanted something like this for a long time too. However, he found the coolest one I've ever seen --it has the Earth etched into the glass. And it works fabulously!

Since we put this together, we were able to use food coloring to choose the color we wanted, and somehow a medium blue seemed right with the etching of the Earth --in the second picture, you can see north America. I keep it on our mantle, and when the pressure is low the arm is completely filled with blue water, and on high pressure days, the arm almost completely empties. I love its simple and elegant design. 

It's kind of fun to be enjoying and sharing these presents long after Christmas.