Tank Museum, Pumpkin Update

On Friday I took the family to the American Armored Foundation Tank Museum in Danville, about 90 minutes from the house. Being a bit of a history buff, I am always eager to explore a new museum.

The good:
- An incredible stretch of amored vehicles and artillery, the most I have seen under one roof (in this case, a converted factory). All air conditioned, although a little muggy on a hot day, but most importantly, dry. There were vehicles and static displays from the late 1800's up the present day, including a good mix of WW2 and Cold War items.
- An equally expansive small arms display, including a nice mix of WW1 and WW2 rifles. I lost track of the number of times I saw guns that I had read about in books but never seen in person.

The bad:
- The helmet/headgear display was badly disorganized, with 1980's helmets mixed in with 1770's helmets. A little shuffling to make the dates more relevant would fix this.
- The ponytailed, t-shirted, security guard toting a revolver at the front door. Thankfully we ignored each other, but he really struck me as unprofessional. Put on a clean shirt, trim the hair, and hide the gun.

Overall, very much worth a visit.
http://www.aaftankmuseum.com/

The pumpkin plants are growing like proverbial weeds. The largest leaf on one of the plants measured 14" across at the widest part, and more tendrils are already reaching out. I pulled off two flowers from each plant yesterday, in keeping with my goal of delaying fruit set for at least another three weeks. In the mean time, the plants need to concentrate on developing their root systems. With the recent hot and sunny days, I have been watering twice a day - once before I leave for work around 6:30am, and again when I get home at around 5:00pm. I am going to switch the morning watering to a feeding this week, and on cloudy or rainy days possibly skop the afternoon watering if it doesn't look like they need it.