Will return to regularly scheduled programming...

... I've been feeling sort of run down and emo as of late and need a bit of a mental break and thus will be taking a short hiatus from life for a while (about a business week).

I will however be having regularly scheduled short posts to fill in the blankness and blankity-blankness of life so please, stay tuned folks.

When I return, there will be thorough goodness on companion planting and no-till gardening! Delicious!

I know that my latest posts have been of the the buggy nature rather than the plant-y one, so I will get back to my roots (pun very much intended)

Allow me to distract you with a plethora of ornamental peppers:
These are a combination of the tri-colore garda and calico ornamental peppers that I so adore. Most of them ripened up to the usually associated pepper red color, so that's a little boring as I wanted to have a bit more variety in my pepper jelly I am going to make from them, but color doesn't change their flavor (aka heat, so I'll live).

I like running the little peppers through my hands... they remind me of tiny gems, rubies, topazes, amethysts and such. Or of brightly colored jelly beans! Wouldn't that be evil to leave in a candy dish?

I am extremely idiotic when it comes to handling hot peppers though. I have a bad habit of rubbing my eyes all the time and as you can guess... yeah, ALWAYS burn my eyes when I handle peppers and I can't bring myself to wear gloves because REAL chili pepper lovers don't use gloves (*MANLY CHEST THUMP* here)!

This recent pepper foray led me to wash my hands 5 various times with dish soap after an initial vodka hand rinse (I read that vodka is good at getting oils off and can be used as a poison ivy treatment too). (I used the vodka to make a killer bloody mary btw).

Even after all that washing and vodka-ing (for Science, I say!) I still was getting some numbing burning in my eye.

CONCLUSION: Chili oil is a stubborn chemical to remove and should be utilized on younger siblings, evil neighborhors, husbands, BUGS & PLANT THIEVES.