Here we (Sit and) Go again: Germanys next grindette is back with SnG, PLO and HOT stuff (chilis)!

Good sporty news ...

Had my first tennis training after 3 weeks of tennis abstinece - and it went surprisingly well!! Of course nobody can expect Speedy Gonzales from me, far from that. But at least I´m capable of hitting balls, making the right steps and the so-called "split step". I cannot do the quick abrupt movements, so I let them be but today, I learned that I still have enough muscle memory to get the techniques right. To speed up the recovery and healing of my leg, Homer and I went also for a 45 Minute walk. Walking a longer distance also went well!! Yesterday, we were on a very nice bike tour with low intensity and this went well, too!

I´m far from the sporty grindette I used to be but that will take a while. I think I will capable of running at the tennis court probably in August. Torn muscle fibres unfortunately take longer to heal, until then, I try to keep fit and keep up my endurance.

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I don´t run. I exercise with low intensity and we go for nice low intensity walks.

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Yes, Nazgos! A lot of sports and my leg is getting better and better. Of course I´m far from where I used to be at tennis, but at least I can have some tennis-fun this season (carefully!). At the moment I don´t play poker, will return to the tables after vacation. Very windy and stormy here, we were lucky to find about 2 hours with no rain, at least we could play 1 hour tennis today. On Saturday we will return home.

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Thank you Nazgos!
There´s one more week of tennis work-outs ahead of me, meanwhile I can think about how to build a BR on Party.

Poker summer schedule

Hey guys. We´re still on vacation and my leg is healing very well. But now July is here, this means: midsummer, the sun is burning down, it´s going to be hot and there will be more tennis practice - of course in the evenings! Midsummer means now for me: Cannot go out, but only in the evenings: no lunch break running (or walking), no lunch break tennis, no lunch break swimming. Everything has to be done in the late afternoons/evenings. Well, now got my summer-sport schedule ready and now comes my summer poker schedule. Of couse, there will be a bit less poker due to outdoor-sports in the late afternoon/evening. Tennis will be mostly on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and as the indoor pool nearby closes in July, we have to swim outdoor which can be also only in the evening. So, my Friday lunch break swimming will be shifted to Friday evening and in July, we very probably won´t go on bike tours (we just don´t make it to get up early enough for that at the weekends!).

So, my poker days in summer will be: Thursday (sports free! yaaay!), Saturday and Sunday.

On the way home (almost)

Due to a massive heat wave, we decided to travel home today in the evening instead of tomorrow morning. Today, late in the evening/in the night is our last chance to let some fresh air into our appartment before the heat wave strikes and we get so-called "tropical nights" (temperature does not drop below 20°C in the night). Weather forecast says 34°C for tomorrow which makes it impossible to air our appartment when we arrive and travelling at 34°C is actually a big pain in the bum bum, so that´s why we start our journey home today around 4 or 5 pm. and arrive at home in the night.

Looking forward for home sweet home, our vacations were great and my leg is healing well, even though I played tennis 4x per week, but I took it very slowly, no ambitions, just fun, technique and getting into tennis again, that´s what it all was about. Today, we will have our last tennis practice here and then, after taking a shower, eating a bit and having some coffee, we will start our journey back home.

The plan for tomorrow is doing all the gardening in the morning (quickly!! before temperatures rise!!!) and then just relaxing, staying inside and recovering from all the sports and the long journey. Maybe there will already be some poker tomorrow? Let´s see how fit (or tired) I will be.

Home sweet home - and a lot to do!

One good thing about the month of July (I HATE July!) is the harvest! We arrived at home today at about 00:30 a.m., just did the absolute minimum necessary like installing the "hot air stop" for our mobile air conditioner, putting the food which has to be cooled into the fridge and that was pretty much it. Today, we got up early and started our chores: first, the gardening. It´s about 33°C here and I wanted to have it done before the heat comes! So, watering, harvesting, getting rid of weed, etc. Found that we have a HUGE chard-harvest, a HUGE lettuce-harvest, the first chilis (Elefant, Zimbabwe Bird´s Eye, Turkish Spicy Pepper) are ready to harvest as well, harvested a lot of cucumbers and some herbs. My bike basket was FULL of yummy veggies when I came home! And here, we got even more chard! So, after the harvesting came the cooking and canning.

Then packing out all our stuff! Phew. But first, I wanted to have ALL outdoor-chores done, before it gets over 30°C! And even today in the morning, I was sweating like crazy already!

Good that most of the gardening work is done by now, the rest (ripping out weed) I will do when the heat wave here is over (Wednesday or Thursday).

So, now, let´s relax and play some poker, shall we? :f_biggrin::f_p:

Collecting tickets

As Prince Bowser jr. was screaming that he wants to play poker, I couldn´t deny his wish of course. :f_biggrin::f_ugly:

Decided to take it easy, I have just returned from vacations (which were great by the way) and it´s 34°C here, so just let´s play something which does not require too much effort and concentration. That´s why I decided to play the "Free to play around the Clock" freerolls on Party. We played the 3 p.m., 4 pm, 5 pm and 6 pm freeroll with "cashing" twice a 0,25 $-ticket. The plan for this summer is to collect as many of those "Pokerdollars" as we can, by playing those freerolls. There will be also some CG too, of course and SnGs as well, but you know guys, summer time is always more relaxed when it comes to poker and more intense when it comes to sports and outdoor activities.

No luck for team Holdem today!

Played again a couple of those freerolls on Partypoker today, 37°C here, so not the right temperature for maximal performance anyway. Today, Bowser jr. and I were not so lucky. First freeroll, starting at 3 p.m. we busted AJs < A9o, in the second one (at 4 o´clock) we were pretty card-dead and lost AQ vs Q5s. The 5 o´clock freeroll didn´t go better either. After being card-dead and at least doubling up with AQs vs K9s, we spent the tourney folding junk until a desperate all-in in the BB with K2 vs J8o and winning that one at least. Next hand came AK, one Villain jams and of course, with 8 BB we´re more than happy to call and see AJs in Villains hand. Yes, we were happy - until the flop came: A-J-x. No help for us, AK < AJ, and out we were.

We didn´t play the 6 pm tourney anymore, due to fatigue. Tomorrow, there will be tennis practice - at 32°C and on Tuesday also, tennis is actually sceduled, but as the heat wave still goes on and the weather forecast announces 35°C for Tuesday, it´s not sure yet, whether we going to play or skip that practice. For Wednesday, swimming is planned.

HOT stuff in a HOT summer!

Even though I´m not a big fan of high temperatures, my chilis seem to like that hot weather. So, there´s already some HOT stuff going on here

The HOT ones

Zimbabwe Bird´s Eye

Going to harvest it probably tomorrow.

Habenero

Not yet ripe, but soon to be harvested.

Red Cherry Small

Not yet ripe, but here are the first fruits.

Aij Charapita

Flowering

Ornamental (indoor in my office)

Flowering

Trinidad Moruga Scorpion
Not flowering yet

Carolina Reaper
Not flowering yet.

The spicy ones

Elefant

Time to harvest.

Sarit Gat

Flowering

Turkish Spicy Pepper

Ate already one, this one here has to ripe yet.

Jalapeno (indoor in my office)

Can be harvested soon.

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No! Building site! Our appartment is a huge building site at the moment. We had two burst water pipes, no warm water for a while and now everything is being repaired. As we finally have warm water, did ALL the laundry today. I´m a bit behind my poker schedule, but at the moment there are other things to do. Furthermore, we´re thinking about moving into another appartment.

Also, Primrose took a bit of a mini-break with me over the weekend, including an in-person meetup at my place. We both intend to get back into poker soon. I'm not sure if we will be back at full force until the end of the summer, though. At least I probably won't be.

Havesting and canning

Well, still not much poker going on, but as my "old" readers know, I use to go on "summer break", which means that during summer season I play much less poker. But there´s a LOT going on in the garden! Today, I got rid of almost all the weed and watered the whole garden, because it´s still not raining here. Harvested "Kohlrabi", chard, salads, strawberries, raspberries, green onions, "spanish salad", cucumbers, zucchini etc. With the harvest of course comes the canning. Made Palak Paneer from chard and "spanish salad" (which tastes like spinach) and canned it. Already made some raspberry jam and canned it. In June I volonteered to help with the cherry harvest and got 2,8 kg of cherries for it (froze them down).

And now the tomatoes, sweet pepper and chillis ripe, so going to have my first tomato harvest soon. I don´t have to go to the grocery store for fruit and veggies, I take everything from the garden. It´s really A LOT of food!! So, I´m quite busy with cooking and canning. And today, I just planted more salads and radishes.

Besides, tennis and swimming are also going on, still carefully, but at least I can do sports. No competitions this year, but this doesn´t mean that I don´t do any sports - of course! Summer is sports- and gardening time. Even though I don´t really like summer because it´s mostly too hot for me, I like the outdoor sports and other outdoor activities like gardening.

"Too successful"?

Oh boy, the chard harvest is HUGE! So much chard! Gotta look up for yummy recipes with chard which you can can. I ate SO MUCH chard, I don´t know if I´m going to eat more of it, I guess I´m going to can and/or freeze the rest. And there is even more chard growing! Tomatoes are on the way, they´re about to ripe. Could harvest the first ripe mini tomatoes which are on the terrace and made a yummy rice-veggie bowl yesterday with home made pesto (from last year, was frozen down):

As for my "hot stuff": Waiting for the chilis to ripe.

Two tickets, delicious black berry jam and even more weed!

Hey guys, what´s up? Finally could hit the tables to collect some poker money for off-season. During my summer break I just play those "free to play around the clock"-Freerolls on Partypoker, to collect some poker-money for CGs and SNGs. ♠_thumbsup: I chose to do this little "summer challenge" like "collect as much poker money" as possible because during summer there´s A LOT going on outdoor and when the weather is warm and I´m tired from sports, I don´t have great concentration anyway. So, during summer, I´m building a little "poker money BR" which I can use then to build up my real BR. In those "free to play"-freerolls on Party, you win real money, but you MUST use it for poker. So it´s called "poker-dollars". Perfectly fine to me! I can use this poker dollars and play SnGs, DONs, MTTs or maybe even CG basically for free! A great way to play poker during summer! No risk, not much concentration and not much effort required, you can play those freerolls even if you´re totally exhausted from sports and your concentration is not the best. ♠_biggrin:♠_thumbsup:

And this weekend, Bowser Koopa jr. and I managed to win a 0,25 $ and a 0,5 $ ticket. And we even got "daily quads":

Besides, gardening- and sports-season is going on. Harvested some black berries and made delicious (low sugar) jam!! Yumm!!!! Gonna can it tomorrow. Yesterday, Homer and I got rid of even more weed in our little "Free Time Farmer" garden, harvested cucumbers and zucchini. Next week will be a bit "easier" with sports, my leg is healing very well and I think in a couple of weeks it will be FULLY recovered. Then, it´s going to be all about regaining endurance and strength. There won´t be competitions this year for me, but at least a lot of fun and practice.

I´m planning to play only those "free to play"-freerolls until September, then Homer and I will go on vacation, and afterwards, we restart our usual poker schedule with SnGs, DONs, PLO-CG and maybe some cheap MTTs on Partypoker! ♠_thumbsup:

Last round?

It´s the end of July now, so far the harvest has been really good and successful! Gardening season went way better than expected so far. As I am pretty much a gardening-"beginner", I though probably I would spoil a lot of things, but no, most of the gardening went perfectly fine - except for the potatoes! Potato-bugs! Oh dear! :rage::facepalm: They ate all the leaves! :facepalm::rage: Let´s hope for low potato-prices at the end of summer.

It´s about time to think about fall (yes, it´s July but the veggies take time to grow): We have pumpkins in the garden, even more chard, cabbage, cauliflower (which is still small), planted even more radishes, sweet pepper and tomatoes are on the way, the fruits on the trees are riping, in August I will plant spinach and today, I just sowed the probably last round of salads. Still have some left in the garden, when those are gone (eaten), I going to plant another round of "friseé salad" and guess that will be it. Chilis are on the way and will be ripe by August/September.

Finally!

The first fruits of Aij Charapita:

"Hello! We have moved!"

Not much poker going on now in mid-summer but A LOT of gardening. Meanwhile, I´m a bit worried about the HOTTEST ones. They are still not flowering, all you can see is leaves, leaves, leaves, they´re growing but haven´t started flowering yet. And the fact that the temperatures are "crashing down" does not really help. Weather forecast predicts temperatures below 25°C for the next two weeks, so mid-summer is pretty much over here. Good news for me, but not so good news for my chilis, tomatoes and sweet peppers. :facepalm::rage:

To help the Carolina Reaper (is my ONLY one!) and the Trinidad Moruga Scorpions growing and flowering, I have moved them indoor, into my office. The reason of that is that my office is basically a greenhouse during summer!! There are really greenhouse-conditions here and as it´s going to be cloudy and rainy during the next 10 days, i can support the chilis with artificial light through plant lamps.

So, here they are, please keep your fingers crossed for my HOTTEST ones:

Carolina Reaper:

Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (both):

(Have another Reaper in the "pipeline" as you can see, that one is for indoor only)

A third Trinidad Moruga Scorpion is outside, it stays outside, but still not flowering...

..but now the good (HOT) news

Tomatoes? NO WAY!! Red Cherry Small!

Habanero

What else is going on?

Fruit harvest:

Picked a lot of plums from the tree today and a lot of black berries from the bushes. Cooked and canned some yummy black berry jam:

Even more jam has been cooked, will be canned tomorrow:

(left: Cherry-black berry-plum, right: plum) The cherries for the jam on the left had been already harvested at the end of June and were frozen down. I had helped with the cherry harvest for the whole community and had received 2,8 kg cherries for helping (still a lot of cherries in the freezer).

Tomato harvest:
First tomatoes in the garden don´t look really nice. They had cracks. But so what?
There! A big pot of bolognese with those tomatoes, fresh oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil and minced meat which was on special offer (half price):

Going to be canned tomorrow.

Potato and cauliflower destaster:
The potatoe bug did really a "great job" eating all the leaves from my potatoes and the cauliflowers got some disease (mold or something?). Potato harvest was pretty small, cooked a soup with them, Kohlrabi and minced meat (special offer) to days ago. We ate it.

Chard:
STILL a lot of chard in the garden, gotta look for good recipes, cook and can them.

Strawberries:
Season is over.

"Spanish salad":
Season is over.

Green salads:
Next ones are on the way. Planted new ones.

Radishes:
Sowed new ones, they´re now on the way.

All other veggies (beans, cabbage, broccoli, pumpkins, zucchini...) are on the way.

Coming up next for fall: spinach!
Not sowed yet, but plan to sow and pre-cultivate soon.

If you have plenty of bolognese sauce at home, a decent meal is always just around the corner.