Tulips And Other Flowers

The tulips were generally at their best yesterday.   

I used to have a lot more, but there are 2 problems.  First, the voles love them!  They find them almost anywhere.  Second, the fancier ones have short lives.  They are hybridized within an inch of existence for color rather than length of life.  Even if I plant them in wire mesh cages  (small enough to keep voles out but large enough to allow the stems to grow through), they still die younger than standard red ones.

Years ago, I planted perhaps 100 tulips in 2 years.  The first were among the daffodils around the backyard woods.  And some near the deck.  The following Spring, all I found were holes where the voles dug down and ate the bulbs.  The last 2 pics are of the only survivors (and notice they are solid colors). 

You can see how many there used to be...

So, when I established the 25x25' daffodil bed around the birdfeeder, I put the hyacinths and tulips in wire mesh cages.  But even that didn't help much.  At  8 bulbs per cage, about 10 cages, 80 bulbs...  I have 8 left and a few that are just leaves this year but might bloom next year.

I plan to dig up the cages in June when the leaves die back and try again.  But this time with standard old red tulips in the Fall.  They will stand out among the daffodils better anyway.

I have no idea why the caged hyacinths all died out.  They are usually long-lived if not eaten by voles.  Maybe the hyacinth stems are too thick for the wire mesh.  Maybe I'll try putting them in slightly larger mesh and surround them with sharp gravel chips.  I've read that deters voles very well.  

I want more hyacinths.  The fragrance is wonderful!

Why Few Posts Lately Here

I used to post more often here.  Mostly about projects, sometimes about world events, sometimes about complaints.  Well, I kind of got inactive for a while.  I simply stopped doing projects for a while...

It's health issues.  I'm not ill, but I've been having increasing physical problems that make it harder to just "do stuff" and it is really annoying .  Let me make it clear that I understand many people my age (72) have far more serious problems and a significant % of the world population would dearly love to have "only" my problems.

So this isn't a competition.  But my issues are MY issues and I'm having some difficulties adjusting to them.  A bit of background and a list:

1.  Back in the early 1960s, my town sent out DDT fogger trucks to kill mosquitoes.  No one thought DDT harmed humans.  We kids rode or bicycles in and out of the fog behind the truck just for fun.  Shortly after, I started to develop slight hand tremors to the point where building plastic models became difficult,  "glue everywhere". The past decade, those have been getting worse.

2.  Two decades ago, my right knee started failing occasionally.  I had to be careful on stairs.  Thge past 2 months, my left knee has been a problem and it has gotten worse.  I even bought a velcro strap knee compression support.  It helps, but I walk kind of stiff-legged lately.  

I'm pretty sure I know what the cause is.  I sit with one ankle up on the opposite knee (either way).  I think it used to be called the "English Sitting Position".  Which is probably OK in itself, but when you have cats on your lap, it puts a torque on the knee (of the ankle on the other knee).  After decades of that, I think I have ruined both of them.

But the result is that I don't exactly run around the house or yard "doing stuff" lately.

3.  I'm getting too many muscle cramps!  At night in bed, I get them in my thigh, calf and ankle on either leg (randomly and never more than one place at the same time.  But they feel like my muscle is about to tear loose from the bone.  I say "bad words" when that happens.  Sometimes no problems for a couple weeks, them every night for days.  Doesn't happen in daytime.  I can't think of a cause for them.  I get enough water.

In daytime, I get rib muscle cramps if I twist around to look behind me or lift something awkwardly.  

I get finger-clenches, too.  Holding anything tightly for even short periods can cause it.  Which means most garden tools can cause it.  Just holding the steering wheel for a while can cause it.  But it doesn't happen immediately.  Usually doing that stuff is OK at the time.  I pay for it in the evening making dinner.  I  prepare a lot of fresh food, which involves a lot of knifework.  All of a sudden, my fingers on the holding hand clench and I can't hold the knife.  Typing for an hour or more also causes problems later the next day.  I don't know what causes the delay, but it is predictable.

I use a lot of Aspercreme and Lidocaine ointments these days!

4.  I've been sleeping badly.  Not that I'm not in bed.  I am sometimes in bed 10-12 hours but getting maybe 6 hours sleep.  Partly, a heated waterbed is addictive and comfy, but I've had heated waterbeds since I was 25 and kept normal sleeping hours most of that time.  I used to be a morning person, but now the idea of getting up at 9 am feels weird.  Sometimes after being up 10 hours, I just want to go to bed again at 9 pm but that means I would be getting up at 6 am and I don't know what to do at 6 am.  I don't know what has changed.  

5.  So I haven't been as active lately as in the past.  And therefore have less to post about here.  But I think I need to take advantage of my medical insurance.  I got a card from them encouraging me to visit a doctor for a "basic exam".  I think I will take them up on that big time.  

My primary Dr (geriatric internist) didn't seem to understand what I was asking for as a "physical" 2 years ago (may have to change Dr).  But I'm thinking of many things to be done.

Full scale physical exam and many tests.  I made a long list based on several websites (I may post it separately in another post).  It may take months to get it all done.  But I've put some things off too long and my New Year Resolution is to get them all done this year.  If there are problems, better to discover them now than later (and it is really already "later").  

Maybe some things that trouble me now can be fixed.  But more importantly, maybe some things that would trouble me more in the future can be fixed or avoided.  

Eating small amounts of meat and lots of fruits&veggies doesn't prevent all problems.  It helps, but isn't a cure-all.  😟

Undergrowth

Three years ago, after failing to find anyone who would clear 1/8 acre of wild blackberries and small junk saplings, I bought a brush mower.  It is like a super-heavy-duty lawnmower.  The blade is bigger and heavier.  It has forward and reverse powered wheels.  It cuts down sapling 1 1/2" thick.  It grinds up debris like a chipper-shredder.

It worked great!  Cleared that whole area in 2 hours.  But all gas-powered machines need some basic maintenance and I am terrible about leaving old gas in the tanks.  It goes bad in the tank and leaves some parts sticky with dried gas.

That Spring, there wasn't much new undergrowth, so I thought I had killed it.  There was some growth  that Fall, but I planted 4 decorative trees (2 Sourwoods and 2 Korean Dogwoods) expecting that the shade of the trees would keep the undergrowth down (I used to have junk trees there that did that) and I would just brush-cut again THIS Spring.

Couldn't get it to start.   I gave a half-hearted try of soaking up the old gas with an old towel and then spraying carburetor cleaner into the tank and carburetor and adding a small amount of new gas.  No luck.

I probably could to a complete carburetor removal and cleaning.  I've done it before.  It a pain.  And I have a regular lawn mower than needs the same work.  I decided to just let a professional do them both.  Which requires delivering them to a repair shop.  Remember a couple days ago I mentioned my trailer was full of yard debris and I was waiting for the recycling center to dry and it won't because of all the rain?  I kept waiting.  And waiting.

I guess I am just going to have put on my mud boots and get rid of the yard debris.  Then bring the brush mower and regular mower to the repair place and wait for a month for them to fix them.  I can clear the brush in Winter as well as I can today.  And maybe that makes the blackberries die being cut down out of season (one can always hope).

One thing I am ceetain of is that, after years of this, I will either drain the gas from all my equipment or add gas stabilizer to the tanks!  

My "TO DO" list has gotten too long for me to mess with gas engines.  I'm losing ground on it the list.  It is probably the thing I CAN do that I like the least.  There is too much to do inside the house easier to do the than the things I like least.  And that would cost the same for professional help.

I also am making a list of professional improvements I want for the house (I'm not even going to TRY to install linoleum floors or wall tile).  But that's a future post. 

Taking A Break From A Break

I'm still trying to catch up with house and yard work.  It's not going well.  But it's Friday night and there isn't much I can do right now and I just can't stay out of communication forever.  And not much I will be doing outside Saturday or Sunday.  It is going to reach 100F or close both days.

1.  My initial efforts to lever the broken cinderblock wall back into place failed.  Levers are great, but I can't seem to get enough pressure to move either side of the broken wall.  I have a scissor-jack on order to arrive tomorrow. 


I'll put it on its side and place a 4"x4" post against the post at the house foundation and see if that works.  It only cost $80 and it might save me several thousand.  If I am able to push the broken cinderblock wall back toward straight, I will cover all the broken edges with construction adhesive and make the final push to press the edges together.

If THAT works, I will drill holes in the top to secure a board on the top to help hold the wall straight and cement and bolt a brick on the bottom.  The one masonry repair person who visited said it wouldn't work.  But he wanted to rebuild the entire patio and walls for $15,000 (saying "I ONLY do quality work").  Well, congratulations to him for having enough work to be fussy, but I don't need a whole new patio.  I just need a repair job.

If my attempt doesn't work, I will hire a less-fussy repair mason.  I called 5 repair companies (through a centralized repair website) asking for email contact.   I had to provide a phone number to so.  I got 2 responses by phone.  Unfortunately, I could not understand what they were saying (which I expected and why I asked for email contact).  I do not have a good ear for foreign accents (and I blame myself).

So, if my own efforts fail, I have to start again with contractors.

2.  The 1/4 of the backyard that became a wild blackberry thicket after I removed a couple trees and that I cleared last Fall is driv8ng me crazy.  All Spring, I went around weekly spraying the blackberries that regrew.  It was a pleasure seeing them bend over and die a day later.  And I had some piles of tree saplings to remove.

But I also had gardening and flower-planting to do and poison ivy to fight.  And I did plant 4 specimen trees that would shade the area but not cast shade on my garden.  So one day, I noticed that the entire cleared area wasn't clear anymore!

Not many wild blackberries, but lots of OTHER stuff.  Some large plant with purple berries I can never remember the name of.  Wild grape vines.  Virginia Creeper vines.  So it was time to use the brush mower again.  Except I had to find the piles of sapling trunks and the garden hose buried under all the junk growth before I could use the brush mower.

I spent 3 days (30 minutes a day - it was HOT outside) using the cordless hedge trimmer to cut the junk down searching for the piles of saplings.  I knew approximately where they were, but it took a lot of cutting.  The hedge trimmer worked better than I expected.  I pulled 2 of the 4 piles out to the lawn.  Those are worth cutting into kindling for the fireplace.

The rest is too small to be worth burning and I started filling the 5'x8' trailer.  Its piled higher than the top.  The County has a site to deliver stuff like that and I can get free mulch (from mine and other residents' deliveries).  I can use the processed mulch on flowerbeds, my compost bins, and garden paths.  But I'm sure not going to attack the entire new overgrowth with a couple 100F days coming up.  So I'll be working in the house.

3.  My basement has become a clutterred mess!  Well, I've seen worse where people just used the basement for storage, but mine is supposed to be a functional work area.  Partly, I have stuff I need to get rid of.  Not junk, stuff that has some value.  Like an air compressor I haven't used in 10 years, the bicycle, the old shop vac I replaced with a better one, the boxes of newspapers I planned to use to smother weeds in the garden paths (more than I would ever need), an old refrigerator, etc, etc, etc.

There are also things down there for projects I've never gotten around to actually doing.  Things like metal shelf that fit around and above a bathroom toilet,  bolts for hanging heavy cast iron pans on a wall, shelves to install to hold seldom used kitchen appliances in the cat room (they won't mind), additional to-assemble bookcases for the computer room, etc.

The older I get, the harder these things are to do.  I think I will leave the car out of the garage for a few days and collect all the stuff to sell in the garage.  Craig's List works well for that.  But I need it all in one space to make a list for posting.

We used to be able to donate that kind of stuff to charities, but the new tax laws don't count donations unless the get to many thousands of dollars, so it just makes sense to sell them for "something".  I don't have enough for a yard sale, so individual sales are the only way I can get anything for them.

4.  The house needs work.  The computer room and cat room have cheap carpet from 32 years ago.  I want linoleum for ease of rolling my office chair around and cleaning the cat fur.  But to do that, I have to empty the rooms.  So I've been saving wine boxes to put my books in (about as heavy as I want to lift and they are all the same size so stacking them is easy).  Other boxes will hold original software disks and computer books.  Others will hold random stuff.

The kitchen light fixture has got to go.  It is tight to the ceiling and the heat from the attic makes it not work after a week of 90F.  The TV room ceiling fan stopped working a few years ago.  The Living room 2-bulb ceiling light is too dim and I have a nice stained glass replacement 3-bulb light.  But the last time I messed with a ceiling light I almost electrocuted myself (only felt "pulses" as I was sitting on a wooden ladder, fortunately).  And the kitchen faucet is leaking...

I want to tile the kitchen walls.  And I'm not going to do that myself.  20 years ago, I would have.  Not today.  There are things I CAN'T do (plumbing).  There are things I CAN do (most other things).  And there are things I can do but just don't want do anymore (anything electrical).

I'm spending time trying to create a detailed list of things that need to be done.  Some will be things I could do myself, but most are things I can't or don't want to do myself.  I would be very happy if all the things on my list were done.  I would like my home better and be happier here for another decade at least.

5.  The drainage easement...  In past years, the drainage easement (the water drainage from upper properties to the swamp below me) have brought tree debris and odd yard junk.  This is usually clearable though sometimes the County has come out for serious intertwined branches and silt.

But Monday last week, we got something new.  The storm drain was covered with gravel and clay and debris and the entire easement filled with gravel 40' up.  Essentially, it no longer flows much and is almost at yar level.  A future strorm would leave me with standing water in the front yard.  And that is after having soil added to my front yard several years ago to raise it 1'.

The easement is a shared responsibility of my neighbor and I (8-12' not sure) from the storm drain.  We need to have the easement dredged, but we can't tell what area until the County comes and does whatever they will around the storm drain (some crews do more than others).  And I can't get them to tell me when they will come and do their part first.

So I'm frozen in place waiting for them to do their part.  I've emailed them asking A) Are we currently on your schedule?  B)  If so, what is the scheduled date?  C)  If not, when will we be on your schedule?  D)  When our repair is scheduled, will we be advised of the scheduled date?

So I'm mostly doing inside stuff for a couple days but also outside stuff and I feel exhausted sometimes...

I'm letting the Mews outside at times in this hot weather (briefly), but calling them back inside after about 15 minutes and making sure they get water.  The next couple days at 100F, they aren't going out at all.  They'll hate that, but it is too hot for furries.

Compost Bin, Part 1

Well, I got started on the compost bin I mentioned a couple days ago.  And it was about time!  I originally made a quick-and-dirty one not long after I moved here.  It was just 6 upright posts sitting at ground level with boards nailed around them and a divided to make it 2 bins.  Needless to say, it didn't last long.  Nails don't hold, pitchfork activity and leaning on the posts made it tilt over, boards came loose.  It wasn't a total failure; it did function for 10 years.  But I expect more than that.

I built a better one for a friend.  Posts set in the ground with cement, screws, removable angled fronts.  I always do better work for others.  For myself, I take shortcuts.  *sigh*

So I bought one of those big rotating barrels set on a stand with a handle to turn the barrel.  That lasted 10 years, sort of.  The gears to turn the barrel broke after 5 years, then a side can loose.  I was leaving grass clippings on the lawn, mower-shredding fallen leaves into the lawn anyway, so I used the barrel just to let kitchen scraps decompose.

But I'm changing back to making real compost again.  So I looked up a couple plans online, mixed some features together, and improved on them.  It has 2 bins each 4' deep and 4' wide and 3' high.  The 2 back, 2 sides, and 1 divider are made of five 4'x3' frames of 2"x4" pressure-treated lumber with 1/2" wire mesh attached to the inside edge.  Well, the divider is a little smaller to fit between 2 posts.

The 5 wire mesh frames are made with half-lap joints.  They aren't elegant joints, but they give plenty of surface space for gluing and screwing so they are very sturdy.  This isn't living room furniture; strength is better than appearance, LOL!


You can dado-cut half lap joints, but I have a tenoning joint gadget I've never used and that makes smoother cuts, so that's how I'm doing it.  I'll show actual construction pictures later.  But it takes some effort to make the half laps fit together perfectly.  You can't just find the center of the board; the saw blade removes material.  And the tenoning gadget was new to me.  Fortunately, I had scrap pieces of the 2x4s and got the cutting depth right after only 3 tries. 

The half lapped frames will also have a diagonal brace inside the frame.  I'll do that the easy way.  When the frames are glued and a perfect 90 degrees (clamped to some squares I have for that purpose), I'll put in screws for long term holding.  Even exterior glue doesn't hold forever.  THEN, I'll simply put a 2x4 under the frame, pencil the cut, and use a taper jig to make the brace fit into the corners.

Then I'll attach the brace with pocket hole screws.

I bought a pocket hole Kreb jig a few years ago and I love it.  Talk about SOLID!  I have tightened squeeky floor joists in the basement and loose deck posts. 

So my compost bin parts are modular.  Pre-constructed 4'x3' frames to be attached to in-ground posts I will space as I go.  Hey, I know my likely failures; if I dig the post holes first, they will be off a couple of inches by the end.


The posts will be set a foot deep.  With my clay soil, cement is not needed.  But I will use a tamped-down brick at the bottom of each hole to prevent settling and frost heave.  With the posts set in a foot, on firmly-settled bricks, and diagonal braces in each of the back and side frames, this compost bin will not tilt over.

Which leaves the front...  With most compost bin designs, you have to reach over the front to spear the material to shift it from one bin to the other (to keep it aerated and mix it well).  That gets awkward and tiring.  I build my friend's compost bin with angles slats set into cuts in the posts, but that weakened the posts (we had to fix that after 5 years). 

This time I am constructing posts for straight up slats to drop into.  I am sandwiching a 2"x2" post between wider boards to create a slot for the removable front slats instead of cutting one and weakening the posts.

The idea is that I can just lift the slats up through the space between the wider boards for easy access to the bin contents.  And the slats will have 2" long spacers under each end for aeration.

The top will come last after the whole thing is installed.  I know all too well from past experience that planned measurements can get off more than one would think on rough projects like this.  The top will be custom-fitted to whatever the exact constructed size of the bin is.   And quite frankly, I want to see the finished compost bin before I decide what kind of hinges to use.

Tomorrow, pictures of the half lap cutting, and possibly the first assembly of the back and side frames...

Moves

My sister (and hubby and daughter) are moving far away.  She's the 1st of us elder children to leave MD.  They are really going "small" in the new place.  Some people do that after retirement.  I wish them happiness.

My neighbor has moved away.  He said he was coming back to get a trailer he can't store at his new place, and to cut down 2 trees that shade my flowerbeds as they grow larger.  But I'm betting he abandons or sells the trailer and doesn't cut down the trees.  I know how it is when you leave a place.  You leave and forget about the old place.  I wouldn't blame him in the least for "moving on" with his life.

I don't think he actually owns the place now, and I sure can't just go over and cut down a couple trees myself.  Unless I buy the house...

I COULD.  I've accumulated a lot of stocks over the years and they are at a high right now.  Selling some to buy a rental property MIGHT be a good idea, but you never know.  I'd really only be buying the house to control who is my neighbor and get rid of trees shading my flowerbeds and garden.

Yeah, they mean THAT much to me.  Not that I would expect to LOSE money, but breaking even on rent and maintenance over the years and making sure I didn't have a crazy neighbor there sounds good.

I would have the tall junk trees cut down and plant flowering ones, like dogwoods and star magnolias (to match what I am doing in my own yard).   And since it is a smaller 1 story house, I might move there someday and sell my split-foyer (2 level) house when I can't handle the stairs anymore.  I like to plan ahead.

But it is all just thoughts for now.  For all I know, the bank has already auctioned it off or something.  The neighbor doesn't even know who owns the mortgage now.  After several hours trying to find out by phone and internet yesterday, I can't tell either.  Everyone I talk to says it may take weeks for the records to catch up with the foreclosure as these things get sold/traded around very fast.

I could find someone moving in next week, or it could sit abandoned for months while some investment group collects a 100 foreclosed houses to sell to a commercial group.  All *I* can do is wait to see a foreclosure notice on the front door or a For Sale sign in the front yard some morning.

Arghhh!