Busy Day

Finally started cleaning the basement to start planting seeds soon.  What a MESS it had become!   I could barely move around in parts of it.

Part of it is Loki.  He's an explorer and a real climber.  And when he jumps up of some places, they aren't as sturdy or stable as he thinks.  Appearances can easily deceive a cat.  They think that anything that looks solid is solid.  A stack of stuff can fall over.

So my stack of soil-filled planting trays (ready for planting) wasn't as sturdy as he thought it was.  It all crashed down and spilled the soil out everywhere!  

But most of it is my fault.  Last year, I had a bit of a return to some of the results of falling off the extension ladder.  Sore back, sore knees, some general fatigue.  So when finished with yard/garden work, I tended to put stuff in the basement wherever I could fit.

Well, you run out of space eventually.  Things don't get put away as they should.  Buckets stay a bit dirty.  Seed packets sit out and expire in the warmth (I usually keep them refrigerated).  Fallen soil collects on the floor.  And I fell into a habit of just laying in bed every night for 10 or more hours (mild depression, long covid, aging?) and that didn't leave much awake time for other than basic stuff (and blogging, which I just have to do).

I'd been meaning to tackle cleaning the basement for a month, but there was always something more immediate to do.  The seductive comfort of the heated waterbed, doing laundry, cooking, shopping, etc...  

But I've been getting myself up earlier lately.  Yesterday I made lunch fast, just skimmed the newspaper (must read the editorials and comics), and got myself down the basement.  Where on earth to start?  Well, if I am going to cook dinner, I want the kitchen clean.  I know I will make some mess cooking, but I need it to be clean to start.

So, in the basement, I picked stuff up off the floor, then swept it (I have a shop-vacuum, but I don't like the noise).  And sweeping is rather "meditative".  Quiet, repetitive, calming...  I knew I would mess it up again cleaning higher spots later, but it gave me a good surface to work from.

I mix my own potting soil.  When I run out of it, I mix more.  Which means I have bags of various stuff (peat, sand, compost, lime, fertilizer) left over.  I also used to buy kitty litter in 35# tubs.  They make great containers for the leftovers.  

So I combined 1/2 buckets of some of those and stashed them under my potting bench after sweeping that area clean.  Then brushed the empty buckets clean.  Stacked them up and set them in the garage.  That got me some space.

Collected everything that should really be out in the toolshed and set them next to the patio door for moving there by wheelbarrow (today was for organizing, not moving).  That got me some more space.  Took the trays I grow lettuce and other small crops in and dumped them all into a large shallow bin.  Broke up the chunks of soil and mixed it around with some organic slow-release fertilizer.  Refilled the trays and stacked them aside for planting in a few days.  

That got me the small TV-Tray-size worktable back.  It sits next to the basement refrigerator.  I use it for  holding bulk fresh food while I fit it into the fridge and I also use it for planting.  I was glad to have it available again.

I have a large planting stand, 2'x4' and 5 shelves high.  Bought it many years ago and added fluorescent light fixtures to the underside of each shelf.  Fluorescent lights last well and are energy-efficient, but at 14-16 hours per day, they last only months and even then, they collectively use about 800 watts!  And the fluorescent tubes aren't free either.

So, 1 1/2 years ago, I bought special "grow-light" LED) panels to replace them.  I haven't done that yet.  I need to take all the fluorescent fixtures off and install the LEDs, but I didn't have space (or energy) to do it before.  I am ready to do that now.  The LEDs use 1/4 of the energy and should last many years.  That almost starts to feel like "free", and the seedlings will get better light!  

But it will probably take an entire day to get that done.  I will remove the old fixtures one half-day and install the new ones the next half day.  Because I know my hands/fingers will cramp if I try to do it all in one day (and may anyway in 2 days).  

And I still have to clean the potting table.  The soil from the stacked trays Loki knocked over a couple months ago is still all over it.  The seed packets are still sitting out on the table and are probably useless now.  I have a pile of seed labels that need to be sorted out.  I rinsed out the old 6-pack cells a few days ago, and they are dry and ready to reuse.

Aside from basement-cleaning for planting,  I need to re-order many seeds.  It's a bit late, so some I want will be "out-of stock" now, but that's my fault.  Vegetable seeds will be easier to replace, but flower seeds become unavailable fast.  

But at least I am making some serious progress in the basement.

 

A Productive Day

Some days, I get up, make lunch, read several days of newspapers,  check computer stuff, pay a few bills, putter around until dinner, and then watch TV afterwards and go back to bed.  But usually I am more active.  

This was an active day.  I actually got up in time to make breakfast.  A pancake with 2 soft-fried eggs on top (so the yolk mixed with the pancake, 2 sausages, a mug of cocoa (OK, OK, Nestle's Quick in warmed milk), a mug of green tea, and some Coke for fizz.

I read the newspaper fast (editorials and comics) and decided to work in the yard.  The Weather Channel said I had 3 hours before some "possible" moderate rain.  And I had bought 3 small pots of coleus to plant in 3 hanging pots.  I wanted to get that done because it was the last of the flowers to plant and Fall veggies will need to be planted soon.

It of course immediately started to rain hard!  So I spent the afternoon in the basement.  It is a mess!  So it wasn't wasted time.  Cleaned litter pans (always a daily priority).  I've been using Tidy Cats for years.  But it is sticky to the sides of the pans.  I had bought a box of Arm&Hammer "Slide" to try it out and it is easier to scoop and doesn't stick as much.  

Tidy Cats is the size of sand.  A&H is more like sugar-sized.  I like it better.  But it is more expensive.  Something like 57 cents per ounce vs 80 cents per ounce.  But it does scoop more easily.  I'm still deciding which to use regularly.  The Mews don't seem to care.  

So that down for the day, I went around the basement just cleaning, arranging, and fixing stuff while it rained.

First thing was to make a small LED Mag-lite flashlight magnetically-attachable to the metal basement door.  I had an old flashlight that was pathetically dim even with new batteries, but it had a magnetic attachment.  It took a few minutes to figure out how to get the magnet off.  Pounding it didn't work, but a screwdriver tapped in under the magnet pried it right off.

I tried superglue and clamps on the Mag to start.  Superglue just does not hold to plastic.  So I tried contact cement.  I'll know if that works tomorrow.  

Second, I had 12 really heavy-duty boxes from wine shipments and was saving them because they were so sturdy and just seemed useful.  But I wasn't using them and they were taking up space.  But I value large pieces of cardboard for smothering weeds in garden paths and unplanted areas in the flowerbeds.  So I took out the 6-pack dividers and stacked them up, and saved the big 2 boxes the 12 came in to cut open later.

I have an invasive periwinkle vine that is taking over the yard.  Roundup doesn't kill it (waxy leaves).  But covering it with the cardboard will, eventually.  And this heavy box cardboard should last long enough to smother them.  And I think I will cover the cardboard with black plastic to make it last a couple years.

I have too much junk.  I actually have 2 dead microwave ovens, a dead wet/dry vaccuum, and an old chair in the garage.  I have a 20 year-old computer and some dead monitors sitting in a closet.  I have an entire closet of stuff I will never fit into again.  I collected all the electronic (recyclable) stuff in a corner of the garage.  I can't dump it in the general recycling bin, but the County Landfill has a special place to leave that kind of stuff for free.  

Some of the clothes are quite fine, just will never fit me again.  They go to Goodwill.  But I could easily gain 4' of closet space at no loss.

After that comes actual junk.  2 ancient cheap chairs (I save the swivel bottoms - oddly useful things).  I got them in the 90s and I loved them.  Took some work to get them too.  Light rocker/swivel chairs were kind of hard to find then.  And the place I found them had the in peach, aqua, and lavender.  And those wouldn't work in my dark red TV room with black equipment.  

But I really liked the chair.  So I contacted the manufacturer and asked if I could get 2 in black.  They were pleased that I liked their chair so much.  They said that if I would sent them fabric (I seem to recall it was about 13 yards), they would make 2 just with it just for me.  Plus shipping of course.  But the fabric (good or bad) was my choice to send.  It took a week to find a fabric store that had that much jet black fabric.  

I loved those chairs for 20 years.  But they were actually cheap chairs and wore out at the springs.  I got rid of the worst one years ago, got the one remained in the garage.  Time to let it go!

I spent an hour sorting out planting pots, plant labels by type of plant, and arranging my potting bench for starting Fall crops.  After that, I divided up a mosquito BT killer donut and spread it around in the small pond and a few trap jars I keep.  The stuff works well and a pack of a dozen lasts a Summer for $13.

I collected all of my tool chargers in one spot.  I needed to see how many there really were and how much room they would take.  I plan to make a dedicated charger shelf soon, but at least I managed to write the tool on each charger for future reference.  Why chargers don't come with the name of the tool they are intended for is annoying and should be a standard practice.

Swept the basement floor.  I have a wet/dry vacuum, but the noise annoys me.  Sweeping is sort of "zen".  And you wouldn't believe the amount of cat-hair in the basement,  It all seems to gradually float down the stairs and collect there.  I would compost it, but there is always uncompostable stuff mixed in.  Bits of wire clippings, scraps of plastic, etc.  I don't want small sharp stuff to end up in the garden soil while I handle it while planting.

A very good 4 hours work.  And ironically, the rain stopped exactly when The Weather Channel predicted it would start.  LOL!

So I made dinner.  Pork smothered in sauteed red and green bell peppers, and ear of corn, and 2 home-made shrimp eggrolls...

Garden And Yard, Part 2

The light stand in the basement is filled with trays of flower seedlings...  The lights were off for the night, so it looks a bit strange.

I think I missed watering those above recently.  They look a bit wilted.  So I watered them after taking the pic.

 The tomatoes are large for the small pots, but I gave them an organic fertilizer last week and yesterday, so that should help the roots grow.  When I plant them tomorrow, it will be deeply (they send out roots from any buried stem).  And I mix a slow-release organic fertilizer in the foot deep and foot wide soil I dig out and then mix back in.  Along with crushed eggshells (the calcium helps prevent blossom-rot).

Monday Monsoon

I had stayed up late Sunday night (blog, Civilization2 game, a discussion forum).  So I went to bed about 3 am.  As I curled up in bed, it started to rain and I was happy to hear it.  July and August are historically dry to the point where the soil cracks open, so rain is appreciated.  Plus, I'm one of those people who find the sound comforting when I sleep.

So I had only positive thoughts hearing the rain...

Well, sometimes you are just plain wrong!  When I got up about Noon, I looked out the window to see how much rain had fallen.  I have a large rain gauge that tops out at 6" with large 1/4" markers and there is a floating red plastic button so you can see the level.  I couldn't see the red button.

So I got dressed and went outside to check the rain gauge.  The rain gauge was filled and the button was hidden under the top.

So I drained a little water out so you can see the button

I don't know how much MORE than 6" we got here...

I had gone out from the deck and gone back inside the same way.  Then I went into the basement.  Now, I've had wet basement problems, in the past (there is a 12'x10' sunken patio with a 3' high cinder block wall on 2 sides and sliding glass doors, and the patio was poorly built.  It should have been very slightly sloped toward the lawn, but it isn't.

After a couple of hurricanes  that caused rainfall to seep into the basement, I dug a 6" drainage trench downslope.  It worked well, but they fill in eventually and you don't notice such gradual changes.  Normally, in heavy rainfall, I check to make sure the water is draining through the trench.  But I was asleep this time.

Rainwater got in.  I don't mean a foot of water filled the basement, but 1/4" is bad enough.  It gets everywhere.  Have I mentioned that Iza has the bad habit of pooping just outside the litterboxes even when they are utterly clean.  I often just pour a bit of clumping litter on the poops and scoop them up later.  Guess what happens when water collects around kitty-poop covered with clumpable litter?

So I set one litter box in a dry spot and cleaned it every waking hour while the litter-poop dried (and The Mews have been VERY good about using that one).  I used my wet/dry shop vac to collect most of the standing water (avoiding the poop mess until it dries).

So having done what I could in the basement, I went out and looked at the front yard.  I have one storm drain on my property and one shared with a neighbor .  I live at the bottom of a large downsloping neighborhood.  The shared storm drain is almost the end of the line of several drainage easements from the higher lots (just before the last drainage into the swamp across the street).

There is actually a storm drain under this gravel!

It is routinely covered with plant and tree debris and when I can, I pull junk of the grate covering the drain.  But it usually drains well enough.  Any storm drain can be overwhelmed by enough water but what doesn't drain there flows across my front land near the street to the one actually ON my property.  A few hours after even a hurricane the standing water is gone.

Not this time!

Usually, I get small tree debris.  THIS TIME cubic yards of clay and gravel flowed over the storm grate and covered it completely.  The lower 20' of the drainage easement was previously 3' wide and almost 2' deep.  It is filled with gravel now, almost up to lawn level.

I met my neighbor there Monday afternoon.  He had called the County Government about the problem.  I took pictures and will email the County about it (pictures help).  He is new here and was surprised.  He is direct and used to contacting authorities.  His SO (uncertain and he didn't volunteer) has been here about 10 years ( asked if she was the same person who was metalic red hair and black dresses and he smiled and said yes.  I only aksed to make sure it was the same lady I had seen years before.  He's cool.  He admits they tend to stay by themselves...  Well, so do I.

After I went back inside, I decided to check the basement (drying nicely) and went out the sunken patio glass doors.

AACCKKK!

The 3' high cinder block wall around it was broken in half like a potato chip and pushed out 1' in the middle!  I was stunned.  It wasn't like I had much flowing water over the surface.  As best I can tell, it was just that the soil got SO saturated that it expanded and pushed the cinder block wall away.  I'll call my insurance agent tomorrow, but I bet that is considered uncovered "flood damage" even though a tree that fell over from soil saturation would be covered.

See that board in the back?  That was on top of the cinder block wall.  That's how much it moved.

I'm going to try levering the pushed-out cinder block back in place and using construction adhesive to hold it in place.  I'm going to wait a few days to allow the broken edges to dry.  If that doesn't work, I will have a few masonry repair companies come by for cost quotes.  And it may be time to have the patio drainage problem solved permanently.  I had in mind to add perforated 4" pipe just below ground level with a regular pipe draining downslope but a professional might have some better solutions.

It has been a rather unhappy 36 hours.  It could be worse.  In the grand scheme of things, these are minor.  But they sure are ANNOYING!

Basement Cleaning

Here is a real "Before and After"!

At the end of the growing season, I've accumulated a lot of stuff "out-of-place".  Well, I get busy, you know?  So it was needing some work to get ready for the new planting season.  And amazingly, the new planting season starts in 3 weeks!

So, I had to get to work.  The clutter was bad. 

Even my light stand was clutterred!  It's the old rule of "any horizontal surface gets covered"...

After 2 days work, I had it down to this...

And to show I didn't just move stuff "out of sight", here is the other previously clutterred space...

That old refrigerator is my "root cellar".  I keep bulk veggies in it at 40-45F.  And my seeds are in the tray there too.

Next, I need to clear out and get my light stand ready to stat seedlings...

Some Good Things

I complain sometimes.  Well, the things that go wrong bother me.  I don't like failures.  But some things have been going right.

1.  In spite of all my measurements for the new double compost bin,  I failed to  account for the 1/2" hardware cloth on the top accurately enough.  I missed it by an inch.  And an inch is enough for mice and even rats (though we don't have rats here to my knowledge).  A rat in the yard?  Marley would catch those easily.  LOL!

So, today, I added 3" boards to the top . I found 6" wide pressure-treated boards among my collection of excess wood.  I cut them to length and then ripped them in half the long way.  I glued and screwed them under the top frames.  That narrowed the gap to be covered with 36 inch 1/2"mesh to 32"'

Even a mouse can't get through 1/2" mesh wire.  Tomorrow, I attach the 1/2" mesh.  That will complete my compost bins.  Well, OK, I can add some chain to hold the tops at 110 degrees when lifted, but for now they can rest on the fence and that is fine.  I'm declaring the project "complete".

2.  The first compost bin is now a foot deep of kitchen waste and cut weeds.  I have a trash barrel full of old soil and dumped an inch on the top.  That will encourage worms to move there.  I am also setting a small area of good lawn covered with a tarp.  That will stay damp and encourage more worms to the surface.  And I will pound a metal stake into the edge.  When I pound it later, the worms will come the surface.  A trick I learned from Dad.  I will collect them and drop them in the compost bin where they will think they have gone to Heaven.

3.  I had the trailer full of old pressure-treated lumber from the old framed beds of 20 years ago and more from the original 25 year old compost bin.  I hesitated to bring the load to the landfill when it was raining every few days because of the mud and then just never quite got around to it this month.

I finally went there yesterday.  The landfill is more user-friendly!  Small customers like me get to just drive a few 100 feet to a dumpster and toss it in.  They haul it to the real landfill area later.  They don't want cars stuck in their mud.  And there was even a guy there to help me unload my trailer!  OK, I know he was doing "community-service work" paying for some minor crime, but he was friendly and I didn't ask for details.

4.  I took out my electric chain saw and tested it to check that the chain was properly tightened.  In the coming few days, I have 6' long  6" diameter oak logs to cut up into 1" "coins" (like cutting a carrot into round pieces) for use in the smoker,  2  dwarf apple trees to cut down (the squirrels steal all the unripe apples anyway).  More good smoker wood there.  And a bunch of shrubs I no longer want and never loved.  And there are new junk trees that have grown 5' high and must be stopped.

5.  And speaking of unwanted stuff, there are the wild blackberries covering an 1/8 acre after I removed a few trees shading the garden..  You can't win sometimes.  I am debating on how to remove them.  Cutting them down with a hedge trimmer works, but drops them all on me thorns and all and they are hard to pull off.  The chain saw is worse because it is shorter and I have to really get under them.

No brush remover company wants to accept the job.  It is either too small a job for them, or they want to use equipment too large for the area (there are spots I don't want scraped clean 6" deep because there are 100s of daffodils planted there.

I think I need crazy handyman with a steel-bladed weed whacker.

6.  I took 4 wheelbarrow-loads of garden pots out of the basement to the new shelves in the old toolshed.  Every wheelbarrow load makes the basement easier to get around in.  I am even close to being able to have a fire in the fireplace.  I have piles of old scrap wood waiting to be burned.

Between the garden stuff being moved to the toolshed shelves and the scrap wood being burned, I will have 100 more square feet of usable space.  That will be wonderful.

One small improvement every day...

7.  I made pizzas 2 nights.  Hadn't made one for a few years.     They weren't round, but they were good.  And I had dough left over, so I made a calzone filled with bell peppers, cubed smoked pork, an italian cheese blend, and crushed simmered canned tomatoes.

I've never made one before.  It was an experiment.  I made it way too stuffed and large.  Crimping the edges was tricky.  And getting it onto the pizza paddle was delicate.  But nothing broke and with the cornstarch on the paddle, it slid off onto the 400F pizza stone perfectly.

I would normally have cooked it at 500 (and the recipe DID say 400), but I had beets baking on the top shelf so I waited.  The crust was supposed to be "golden at 14 minutes".  14 minutes came and went.

I finally accepted the crust "done" after 24 minutes.  And it turned out GREAT!

On the other hand, why bother?  It is just a pizza folded in half.  I'll just make pizza more often.

Funny story:  My sister and hubby visited me 10 years ago and I made pizza then and referred to them having made it for me when I visited them a few years ago.  She kept trying to "shush" me and I didn't catch on at first.  Oops, 2nd marriage...  It was the first guy who made pizzas...  Yeah, I'm dense...

8.  The Washington Nationals baseball team won a playoff game!  They are notorious for losing them.  So when they were losing in the 8th inning 3-1 I was expecting the worst.  But when they scored 5 runs suddenly, I was shocked.  Maybe they have a chance.

I try not to refer to the home teams as "we".  I'm not on the teams.  But I'm glad when they win.   Not sure "why".  Yeah, it is a bit irrational.  Maybe it is because the core of the team are long-term members.  And it is a "built" team, not a purchased one.  Even most of the new guys are from the AAA farm clubs.  That makes an odd difference.

Projects

Well, I got the toolshed shelves finished.  Sometimes you have to stop seeking perfection and "just do it"!

I got the shelves to match up in the corners.  The bottom left shelf ended up 1/4" out of level.  But its a 25+ year old shed, nothing about it is level or square anymore, and it needs a new roof.  So I'm not going to worry about it.

I had to put 2x4 boards behind the shelves to keep small items falling out the back (the sheves are on exposed 4" studs).  I would have used 1x4 boards, but I bought 10" wide boards instead of 12" wide boards and the brackets would have stuck out otherwise and not allowed me to use the front screw hole in the tip of the bracket.  A 10" bracket IS 10" long; a 10" board is only 9 1/2".

Just moving some pots to the new shelves gained me 16 sq ft of basement space, and I have lots of garden stuff still to move.  I expect to recover about 50 sq ft when I transfer more "stuff" from the basement to the shelves.  And there will be more shed floorspace  to store power equipment I seldom use (but use a lot when I need it) when I take small amounts of some stuff out of large boxes and add them to the shelves. 

That will make more sense when I fill the shelves and get some of the equipment stored in there.  I'll take pictures.

In 30 years, I've accumulated a lot of equipment.  Snow-blower, tiller, chipper/shredder, lawn-roller, aerator...

Those things are cluttering up the garage and the REAL shed.  Yes, I have 2 sheds.  More importantly though, it frees up room in the basement for woodworking, and I am determined to make the basement easier to do work in. 

And with Winter coming on, I have some wood-working projects in mind to occupy my time

Productive Stuff

Some days I just have to catch up on household stuff.  And yesterday and today were good for that.  I let things collect sometimes and then get through them all at once.

I made bread today AND rolls.  I make bread every couple of weeks.  I've tweaked the bread machine recipe until I LOVE my own bread and visitors who have any comment in surprise at the taste (yes, I'm bragging).  I use beer instead of water; and I add 2 tbls of dried oregano and a tbls each of garlic powder and onion powder.  It really makes a difference!  Making rolls is a bit new to me so I follow the recipe exactly, but I will probably start changing the ingredients in those too.  Bread and rolls freeze wonderfully, so I can store them.

The IRS sent me a notice that I owed them some money a couple of weeks ago.  I was surprised since I use tax software.  The notice didn't say exactly why.  I called them yesterday and got to an agent after 45 minutes on hold.  After going around in circles a few minutes with IRS terminology, I finally realized that I had simply forgotten to include a CHECK for the amount I owed above the withholding.  50 years of paying taxes and I finally messed up!

I figured out why afterwards.  I had intended to use the electronic payment the software offerred but decided not to because of the fee.  And then sent the tax form the next day thinking I had paid electronically.  At least the penalty was only $13.

Next on the list was a recurring fee on my credit card for an anti-virus software for the Windows computer I bought in March and then promptly stopped using because I like Apple better.  Researching the company, I found a number to call with questions.  The area code made me suspicious, so I looked up the software name and discovered it was a scam.

The recurring fee was $8.99 per month and that is almost $100 and I have never paid that for anti-virus software.  The scam-busting site stated clearly that it was indeed a scam program that prevented its own removal and also prevented other software from detecting it.  Further, it gave false reports of infections.   It could be downloaded directly OR unknowingly by a user visited a legitimate but hacked website without the user knowing about it.

Anyway, I contacted the credit card company and spoke to an agent who said they were removing the charges (I read them the scam-busting site description).  But they warned me the company could dispute my claim and then we would all have to argue about by letter.  I doubt the company will contest.  Meanwhile, I have printed out special instructions for how to remove the software.

You can't remove the software from the infected computer directly, but you can download removal software to another computer and transfer it to the infected one at boot-up with a USB thumb drive.  It's an annoying process, one of those deals where you have to press a couple of keys at start to enter a safe mode and do about 10 things after.  I've done that sort of thing a few times.

The last annoying thing was to change my Federal tax withholding so that I wouldn't owe anything next year.  I had printed out an IRS form and sent it to them in April, but it turns out you have to send it to the company that pays you.

I got to them online and struggled to log in.  They are one of those places I visit once a year and the password expires in 3 months.  So they wanted me to answer some previously given security questions.

I keep a printed list of all sites I visit with the user name, passwords, purpose, and security question answers in a notebook.  I keep the list in Excel on a computer not connected to the internet, of course.  My list didn't have the security question answers!  And my best guess to the one they asked was not accepted.  ARGGHHH!

Turns out I had an old page of sites in my notebook and found my password on a newer page.  I really need to redo the list.  It is full of hand-written changes and arrows to new passwords, etc, that it is nearly unreadable.  That a new project...

But I found the newest entry and signed in.  The site was so slow, I fed the cats while waiting for it to load.  But after that, I changed the withholding easily.  Yay!

Having taken care of the serious things, I balanced my checkbook, then turned my attention to the clutter on the dining room table.  I have piles on clipped out newspaper recipes, interesting sites to visit, DIY ideas, and gardening suggestions.  I have several boxes full of that stuff.  One of these days I will go through them and save no more than a 6" high stack!  But not today.

With enough space on the dining room table to actually eat at, I turned my attention to the basement.  Lots of work to do there.  I have been working on the new compost bin few a few weeks, and things clutterred up in the basement.

So, do the projects that stuff was sitting around waiting to be used.  None took a lot of time, but there were many.  First, mark the places in the Spring Bulb garden where I can plant more bulbs without disturbing the existing ones.   You may have seen pictures of cardboard covering the tulip cages.  Well, I had to wait longer for the hyacinth and daffodil foliage to die back naturally..

I surrounded the daffodil areas with rope and held it in place with tent stakes.  Then I added more cardboard to the hyacinth cages held down with more tent stakes.  I have daylillies arounfd the front of the bed, but they will still be growing when it is time to fill the rest of the area with more daffodils  In a few days, I will cover the entire non-daylily area with black plastic to kill the weeds. 

The Spring bulbs like to stay dry in Summer, so they will be happy.  And I should be free of weeds there by October.  The voles will like the cover, but they can't eat daffodils or lilies and the tulips and hyacinths are in wire cages!  When they emerge looking for food, the cats will have fun...

Next was to put the 3 Venus Fly Traps into proper containers.  I researched it.  Those tiny 2" pots they come in are no good.  They need deeper containers and more soil.  Not "dirt" soil, but  a mixture of relatively sterile peat moss and sand, 2 parts to 1 part.  The containers for each one are 6" deep and wide.  They also need at least 4 hours of direct sun (a surprise to me) and water "with few dissolved solids" (distilled or rainfall water).  No wonder most people who buy them are unsuccessful at keeping them alive. 

So I bought a gallon of distilled water, and I'm saving the rain from the large rain gauge.  I'm also making a rain collection device.  It's a plastic trashcan lid with a hole in the center attached to a 1 gallon container.  Distilled water is only 88 cents at Walmart, but free rain water is even cheaper.  I LOVE to make useful things!

Speaking of the Venus Fly Traps, I have had a blast feeding them.  They catch some insects on their own, but I want them to grow well and send off baby shoots.  Eventually, I want to have a wading pool bog of them.  So I've been catching flies and small cabbage worms for them.  Heh-heh-heh!

I and the cats are in and out of the house often enough so that houseflies get in.  I've learned how to catch them by hand,  I sneak up on them against the window and their escape paths are limited there.  I catch them about 25% of the time.  A quick flick of the hand close to the floor and they are stunned.  Into the Venus Fly Traps they go.  Watching the traps close on them (a slight rub with a toothpick triggers the trap hairs) is darkly fascinating...

The next basement project was to plant lettuce and boy choy and celery in windowsill boxes.  I don't keep the boxes on a windowsill, but those are good containers for the top of the deck rails.  I tie them down so Summer storms don't blow them off.  I harvest individual leaves so they keep growing, but eventually they flower and are bitter, so I needed new plantings. 

I have endive, red romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and arugula in 3 containers.  Another container has bok choy (the grocery store stuff is old and tough).  Another has celery that was already growing in small pots but I transplanted to give them more space to grow.  If you have never just added celery leaves to a salad, you should try it.  They are MUCH tastier.

Refilled the regular bird feeder with black oil sunflower seeds (a weekly thing) and refilled the finch feeder with nyger seed (a daily thing).  Topped the 3'x5' pond with water; we haven't gotten much rain in June.  I have Sweet Flag and Oriental waterlilies in there.  I should add some goldfish.

Saw a groundhog in the backyard a few days ago, so I set up my live trap baited with a 4" piece of old honeydew melon.  They love melons.  Baited the squirrel live trap with peanut butter.  They can't resist that.  They get relocated.

I'm way late on planting the deck pots with flowers, so I reluctantly went to Walmart and bought 3 pots of marigolds; they were cheap.  They are all just 4 individual plants in each pot and easily separated, so I will have 2 in each small container and 3 in the larger ones.  I also have self-grown seedlings of Zinnias and Salvias which I'll add to the hanging baskets. 

I also found 4 matching 16" pots at Walmart and I will plant some Australian seeds in those.  The old pots are falling apart a bit and I wanted new ones that could stand being brought inside for the Winter.  I would have planted them sooner, but they need a lot of sand in the soil mix and I kept forgetting to buy some (my pre-printed shopping list somehow doesn't have "sand" on it, LOL!).

Finally, I went out and measured the tops of my new compost bin.  In spite of my best efforts, the 2-bin container isn't perfectly square and the tops have to be fitted to match what exists.  So I will be constructing deliberately non-square frames.  "Square" is theoretical; "Fitted" is reality. 

So after all that, it was time for dinner.  I splurged...  Thawed out a 4 oz beef tenderloin steak, cut up fresh asparagus, made a nice tossed salad, and de-silked a bicolor cob of corn.  Chopped up some cremini mushrooms, vidalia onion and red bell pepper.  Cooked all.  Got the steak to a perfect 130 degrees, the salad tossed with ranch dressing, and the aspargus and mushroom mix cooked al dente.  The corn was perfect.  Used the steak juice to make a sauce with horseradish, red wine, and garlic.

I think I earned it...

Been Busy, Part 3

Getting rid of old pressure-treated lumber and boxes...

When I busted up the 25 year old garden beds last Fall, I collected them in a corner of the yard.  And there they sat.  Meanwhile, thinking I might move, I was collecting boxes that were of same shape.

This past week, I decided the old lumber had to go, and I wasn't going to move.  It was time to bring stuff to the landfill and the recycling center...

I did the old lumber debris first.  I was surprised at how much I had.  480 pounds of the stuff according to the landfill scale.  1/4 ton almost...  It took some work.  First, I had to haul all the 480# from the far backyard to the front yard.  Then into the hauling trailer.

Then drive it all 10 miles to the landfill.  Then drag it all out of trailer into the landfill disposal area (with dinosaur-sized bulldozers screaming around me barely 2 meters away).  And it cost $16 just to get rid of it.

And THEN I had a basement nearly full of identical boxes in 2 sixes.  One group of 4 dozen wine boxes and a group of 10 chewy.com boxes.  I was going to store them all in my attic, but decided "why".  So I packed those all into the back of the Highlander SUV.

They never would have fit by themselves into the car.  So I got inventive.  The chewy.com boxes could hold 3-4 wine boxes.  But there were still wine boxes left over.

I am spatially creative.  I looked at the leftover wineboxes and thought for like 2 minutes.  It hit me that a little reshaping of the wineboxes might fit them into the existingly-packed ones.

I crushed the narrow sides like paper grocery bags fold, and darn if they didn't fit right down into the other boxes!  Two boxes in the space of one and 2-3 pairs of boxes inside the larger ones

I filled up the back of the SUV and drove to the recycling center.  Free riddance of reusable materials!  There were even guys there so bored that hey emptied my car for me...

Getting rid of 480 lbs (1,056 kilos) of old lumber debris at a reasonable cost and 58 boxes for free is a good day!

Rain, Good And Bad

Well, we got some heavy rain here Tuesday.  Almost 3" all day, but almost all of it in 1 hour.

I'm not going to complain bout it much.  I needed some rain.  It hasn't been as dry as in some years when the soil cracked open, but on the other hand, the soil surface and grass was dry this afternoon, so I mowed the lawn.  Other places got more rain though, and not the kind that would just get soaked up by the lawn.  Places in Maryland got 9-10", and In New York, it got up to 14".  I saw pictures on TV of cars floating around in streets and parking lots.  So it could have been a LOT worse here.

Still, I had some problems with water getting into the basement, and I thought I had solved that with the extra-large raingutters installed 2 years ago and a drainage ditch I dug from the sunken patio.  The sunken patio has been a problem for a decade at least.  It properly slopes slightly away from the house.  The water that collects at the lower end for a day or 2 is a minor (but annoying) problem.

It's the fact that the lawn level has raised over the years that really creates the problem.  Grass grows, I mow it, the clippings become topsoil, etc.  Well, that's why praries have dozens of feet of topsoil.   I need to lower the lawn level at the edge of the deck, but that is back-breaking work and I keep avoiding it.

Instead, I dig a drainage ditch.  3"wide, 3" deep, and the lawn slopes downhill from the patio, so it works great.  It can drain off even the heaviest rain.  The problem?  Soil moves.  The ditch slowly fills in very slowly and I never notice when it is QUITE not capable of handling the occasionally heavy rainfall.  So I have to run out in the downpour and rescrape the ditch with the grubhoe deep enough to drain the patio.

But I had an additional surprise this time!  The raingutters ARE working just fine.  But, apparently, the soil level raised just enough this Summer to direct the outflow back toward the patio instead of out into the downslope lawn.

I'm generally an optimist (though maybe not a rational one).  I always expect things I fix to STAY fixed.  To show the flaw in that, I also expect weeded areas of the garden to STAY weedless, repaired cars to STAY working, and structures I build to stay standing.  Obviously, there is a flaw in my expectations.

So when I dig a ditch to drain rainfall away from the patio, I expect it to STAY a ditch...  Even though I'm the smartest person in the house, I have some errors in my assumptions.

So I'm going to fix this rainfall-in-the-basement problem once and for all!  I'm going to build a sealed 1' dike in front of my basement!  Just kidding... 

Seriously, I'm going to lower the lawn level 3" below the edge of the patio/lawn.  I will dig a 1' deep trench along that edge and toward the downslope lawn, and I will install perforated drainage pipe buried in sand and landscaping fabric (however it is recommended).  And I will attach a 4'  extension to the existing downspout to get the rainfall from the roof away from the patio.

Drainage pipe...

Gutter extention...