The Pumpkin House that Rick built!

I had some troubles last year with the weather and my pumpkin so the solution was to enclose the garden and have more control over the elements. A hoop house was my solution. In October last year I built a "pumpkin house". Here are some pictures that show you what it looks like. With my new sprinkler timer and some new sprinkler lines I should be able to have more control over what happens to my pumpkins this year!

The New Industrial Sized Pumpkin Sprinkler Timer - The Halinator!

Introducing the new I-Core 600 PL sprinkler timer from Hunter! It boasts 4 fully independent programs for customizable irrigation scheduling, a diagnostic dashboard that monitors the system operations, real-time flow monitoring, remote control ready with factory installed SmartPort, seasonal adjustment program, a water window mangement, modular design for up to 30 different watering stations, a weather sensor, a solar sync and the clincher that made the sale....a cycle and soak function that will allow me to water or mist my pumpkins for 1 minute on, 10 minutes off, 1 minute on, 10 minutes off etc....all day long! If Tim the Toolman Taylor had a sprinkling system I'm absolutely certain this would be the device you would find hanging in his garage! I call it the Halinator because last year I went on vacation and asked my neighbor "Hal" to water my pumpkins. A day after I left another neighbor called me to ask me if I forogt to shut off my water because his backyard was flooding with water from my backyard. I called Hal to ask him if he forgot to shut off the water. All I heard was *^#@^ and he hung up. Presumable to go shut my water off. I dealt with a lot of fungus last year and not sure if I ever did dry out. I thought the playset was going to sink. The Halinator eliminates the need for Hal to water my pumpkins! After digging a trench and burying 100 feet of sprinkler wire from my garage to the garden, the Halintor is now ready for watering action. Incidently - my wife now thinks I'm a geek!

The Old Sprinkler Timer

It was time to upgrade the sprinkler timer. I really wanted to add automatic sprinklers to my garden this year to eliminate having to have other people water my pumpkins while I was gone to work or on vacation. The problem was the sprinkler timer was only big enough for 8 sprinkler stations and those were all being used to water the lawn. Sprinklerworld to the rescue! I explained to the guy at Sprinklerworld what I wanted to do and what did he recommend. After he quit laughing at me he gave me some options. The regular ole sprinkler timers weren't going to cut it. We had to go industrial!

Cruise to Mexico

Kendra in her hot dinner dress. Doesn't she look goooood!

Kendra and I went on a cruise January 9th - 16th. We went to the Mexican Riviera. We sailed with Princess Cruise Lines. At the last minute for some reason they upgraded our room to a balcony room. It was awesome. Never to cruise again without a balcony room. We just enjoyed the warm weather, the great beaches and all the bikini's!!! We want our next cruise to be through the Panama Canal. Anyone want to come?

St. George 1/2 Marathon

On January 23, 2010, Kendra and I ran the St. George 1/2 Marathon. We weren't the fastest in the group but we certainly weren't the slowest. Kendra could have done better had she not stopped to wait for me at about mile marker 8. At mile marker 12 I was wondering why we were running. We were very sore the next few days. Now that we are all healed up we think we can do it again and we now have a time that we can beat.

Our next race is the sprint triathlon at the Kearns Olympic Oval on April 24, 2010. Then on June 11th and 12th there are four of us racing in the Rockwell Relay from Moab to St. George. It is sure to be a good time.