Catching Up

Sometimes, you get behind plans.  Sometimes, there are just too many plans and too little time.  Sometimes, it takes all you have just to make the daily meals and do the laundry.

I've been lucky lately.  Kind of caught up on some things.  Still behind on others, but "catching up" is good.

On the good side:

1.  Picking beans now.  Yum!

2.  Picking wild blackberries in the backyard.  Yum!

3.  Went loose with the hedge trimmer and lopper.  Cleared out some big weeds and brambles that grabbed at me as I mowed the lawn before.

4.  This will seem weird, but my electric mower has 2 batteries and they don't last long (bought cheap - always a mistake) and they are difficult to remove.  So I tied a twine loop around them.  Those came loose, so I used duct tape to hold the twine in place.  Duct tape solves almost everything.

5.  Was missing hearing old CDs because my connections are all messed up (GOT to pull out the rack and fix that).  But then realized my portable multipurpose portable stereos can play them (DUH!).  Been enjoying Simon & Garfunkle all night.

6.  Gave the tomato plants a good soaking of foliar spray.  If that is unfamiliar, it means adding nutrients to the plants on the leaves.  It soaks in.

7.  Had some newly-leaking hose connections.  So I took every one apart and wrapped them with plumber's tape.  Thin plasticy stuff that gets squeezed into the hose threads.  Works great.  No more leaks.

8.  The cucumber and melon plants are beginning to climb the wire trellis.  

9.  I can expect a Tonkinese female kitten in mid September.

On the bad side:

A.  The back yard is "bramble city".  I HAVE to get the brush mower working again.

B.  I need to redo my Will.

C.  I need to get the car in for scheduled maintenance.

D.  I REALLY need to mop all the floors and they are SO clutterred.

E.  I REALLY need to completely redo the stereo/TV connections.  I mean I still have a VCR attached!

F.  I REALLY need to learn how to clip The Mews's claws.

G.  I am very overdo for a dentist visit, an annual physical, and a haircut.

H.  The kitchen ceiling fixture needs to be changed from attached-to-the-ceiling to "suspended".  It never works in Summer because of the hot attic.  Or maybe I need an attic fan.  I'm not sure which is easier.

I.  Weeds have taken over too much of the flowerbeds.  Periwinkle, English Ivy and Poison Ivy mostly.  Thanks to my neighbors...  I might just dig up the best and cover the whole area with black plactic for a year.

J.  The garden beds are probably infested with tomato-killing diseases.  One plant is already entirely yellow.  The solution is to surround the beds tightly in clear plastic for a year for over-heating the soil from trapped sunheat.  It's called solarizing.  I should have done it last year.

K.  I have old furniture.  Some  much of which is junk.  Time to get rid of a lot of stuff.  I've been living like a broke college student for too long (my desires are simple).  Not that I need "house beautiful" with rosewood tables and granite counters, but I could some better stuff.  

L.  Too many junk trees on the edges of the yard.  One day, there is a spling.   Next thing I notice it is 12' tall.  And the neighbor's maple tree roots are making mowing the lawn like driving over railroad ties.      I need to get them grinded out of my lawn.

Isn't there always more on the "To Do List" than you can do?  I'm just going to hire a general contractor to come in and do everything on the list I'm making.  3 bids, of course....  I think my major D-I-Y days are over.

Busy Days

I've been slacking.  Distracted and sad, really.  I started staying up late and getting up late.  Laying in bed for 10 hours.  Bad weather, Covid-19, not shopping, Iza's departure, repetitive news, clutter, ignoring my veggie garden, 2 crazy neighbors, no sports on TV, etc.

Suddenly, I feel a bit back in control.  I got the bike and air pressure charger and 2 trailer tires sold (less clutter).  I finally purchased a new riding mower to replace the 25 year old one that had been limping along and getting worse.  Still missing Iza so much but accepting that she is gone.  Laz was really difficult the first month, but is doing better (though I am learning he was poorly socialized when young).  I watch science and nature DVDs and listen to CDs more than the news (I understand the importance of current events, but 2 weeks of "Breaking News" on the same 2 subjects wore me out), no longer much worrying about dying everytime I had to buy food, and watching previous sports games.

Friday, I finally had enough of just laying in bed and got up at 7 am.  Which may be late for some, but I spent 35 years getting up at 5 am and I'm not recovered from that yet.  I got up and made breakfast.  For me, that is a weird meal when you normally get up at Noon.  But I make a very good 2x-folded cheese and minced bacon omelet  or 2 soft-fried eggs on a pancake breakfast when I feel like it.

So I was outside by 9 am Friday.  So many things to catch up on.  I had planned for it, charging up all the battery-powered tools.

First thing was to use the electric mower to cut the lawn 2 rows along the property line and around the utility boxes on the property line.  I mentioned recently that the next door neighbor has little concept of property lines and LOVES his big gas weed-whacker.  And I saw him cutting around shrubs and trees IN MY YARD.

He said he didn't know where the property line was So I yelled at him (he wouldn't shut his gas weed whacker off) to stop and I pointed out the property line.  And as I walked back to the house, he went FURTHER into my yard and started whacked one of my trees.  Some people are just clueless.  I ran back out and demanded he never step foot in my yard.  He was offended.  This is the same family that started burning bruch under dry low branched trees last Fall next to my wood fence and only put it out when I said I would call the Fire Department.  Having only a small child's bucket from a wading pool...  I was ready with a hose.

Weed whackers strip the bark of trees.  Diseases and insects get in (that's what bark is FOR).  So, since he is only there on weekends (none of my business to know why) I mowed the lawn and trimmed around the trees with sheers to avoid his temptation Friday...  And I keep my ears open for the sound of him mowing.

And then I used the electric mower.  Trimmed under all the shrubs and around stuff the riding mower can't handle.  That was a lot.  Recharged the batteries.  Powerful electric but the 2 batteries only last 10 minutes each.  But I got a lot done in the 20 minutes.  Used and recharged them 3 times in 2 days.  Lots of trimming needed.

My garden is mostly unplanted.  I think the pH is all out of whack.  So I scooped some soil and added some distilled 7.0 water and shook it thoroughly.   I can use pH strips to check the pH, AND as the soil settled over 2 days, it will tell me what my soil components are.

The soil has settled around Iza's grave.  I will lift all 3 memorials and rake the soil level, put down a cut-up heavy cardboard from a bookcase, and smother all the weeds around the area.  The memorials should show up better.  I don't want weeds around them.

I cut down all the weeds between my garden frame boxes.  I tried te string-trimmer, but the weeds were so tall, they just wrapped around the trimmer head and it was difficult to remove them.  I tired the electric mower, but it won't turn the corners between framed beds and lifting it around the corners was damn hard.  I finally discovered the hedge trimmer worked best.  I will cover the paths in packing paper.  That should smother the weeds.

I carefully mowed the daffodil bed.  There are some pavers there, so it took a while.  I also have briars and weeds between the daylilies, but again, the hedge trimmer worked best.   Stuck it in between the daylilies and moved it back and forth carefully to not cut the lilies.  And it doesn't kill the brambles and wild blackberries, but after I see what turns brown and pull those out,  I can use the razor hoe at the roots of the weeds after that..

I discovered the new riding mower gives a great even cut on 4" grass but fails at 5"  so I will be diligent.  I like tall grass becaus tall leaves mean deeper roots.  But there are limits.  3' is right fo my fescue grass.

The other crazy neighbor is the same guy who was here several years ago having screaming matches with his girlfriend and taking off with their toddler late Summer nights.  But so far they are quiet.  If they are peaceful, I'm fine.

Computer Problems 3

I'm not winning...  I got the NEW computer to load my Photo Library from the OLD one and thought my problems with photos was solved.  Well, sort of.  I loaded the files, but most were duplicated 2-6 times.  So I found  free program that was described as safe and effective on several Mac sites.  One thing ot does is remove duplicate files and you can specify which folders to search.

So I did that.  You click on "scan".  After it scans all the files in the folder, it compares them all to find the duplicates.  Then you click "remove" and hope...

It found about the right size of files (90GB).  It set about comparing the files. After several hours, it offerred "remove".  I clicked. After another several hours, It removed about 25% of them.  Argh!

I'm trying it again, because I still had the New one connected to the OLD one with a usb cable, and maybe that messed it up.

This is almost becoming a game.  Sort of like Tron or one of those old "quest" games where you form a team of characters and search a castle solving problems to get at the treasure at the end.  Well, better to view it that way than go running down the street screaming in frustration.  Though I have often screamed "WHAT NOW?" after some failures, I maintain a determined (and rather surprisingly) good outlook.

My entire Govt career was FIGURING OUT THINGS and SOLVING PROBLEMS, and to be honest, I kind of miss that.  So the game now is "Cavebear vs The Evil Computer".

The NEW computer doesn't have much on it yet (and the OLD one is actually working), so if it chugs away day and night I'm not really losing any functionality.

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But there is more to life than computers (no REALLY, it's true).  So in that spirit, here is my real life To Do list for the next few days:

1.  Feed the emerging spring bulbs with slow-release fertilizer to improve flower growth next month and bulb  regrowth afterwards.

2.  Lay down that packing paper shippers use as cushioning between the garden beds.  I save it.  I must have 100s of yards of it neatly smoothed and folded.  Then I'll cover it with large wood chip mulch.  That should kill the weeds.

3.  Three years ago, we had heavy snow.  There were enough fallen leaves on the top of my chicken wire garden enclosure for the snow to accumulate.  The weight bent the PVC-covered steel pipes I used.

It took a week to pull each one out of the sockets, straighten then, and replace them.  So I bought more steel poles to support all the centers of the existing pipes.  I need to set them up.

4.  I planted a lot of pansies last Fall, but I had some left over and put them in planter pots.  Ivident;y that doesn't protect them from the freezing weather enough (they and small and withery).  So I might as well bury the pots in the garden soil for insulation.


5.  I have briars growing in the front yard landscape bed.  Bad look.  So I better dig them out before they spread .  It rained a lot a few days ago, so the soil is workable.

Cheers...