Stuff

 Random and varied...

1.  I would like to go to bed, but I don't feel like I can sleep.  Yet I have to get up in 6 hours to call the vet about one of my cats (Lori) who is having bouts of diarrhea.

The 2 new ones I adopted in late November (Loki and Binq) came with some difficulties.  Loki had a head infection, eye goop, and lack of appetite.  That's all cured.  Binq was very claw-grabby and finger-bitey but with some steady and gentle discouragement (and me wearing heavy jeans), she is getting over that.

2.  I finally buried Laz last week.  He was bagged in the basement freezer for 45 days.  I just kept putting it off.  I have a dedicated Memorial Garden for past cats.  But the soil is very hard 6" deep and I go for 2'.  Took 2 days, and I have bad knees, which makes pounding on a shovel and jamming a breaker bar miserable.  But he is part of "The Remembered" now.  I miss his good days as BFF with Lori so much.  But that ended as he slowly went crazy.

I still have to build the aboveground marker boxes for Laz and pre-deceased Ayla now.  Like these...

Angled fronts for brass letters of the names and a brown resin statue on the top.  Those simple brown resin statues are getting harder to find.  Best I could find for Ayla and Laz are...

Not what I really wanted, but they will have to do.  

3.  I feel like visiting some obnoxious discussion forum (that I disagree with entirely) but I won't.  I don't live to annoy others.  

4.  Turned off the Holiday lights last nights.  This year, I may actually remove them.  I have some ideas of different ways of using lights in the yard next year.  The lights have been up since 2020, (only lit for the holidays of course).  Time to change things next holiday.  I'm thinking an artificial tree on the lawn with blue lights.

5.  With all the rain lately (so soft soil), I decided to pull the birdfeeder pole more upright (it was leaning slightly).  So I tied ropes around the feeder pole and 2 trees.  By Spring, it should be fairly well set in place.  There is a lot of clay at the bottom, and that 2' deep, it tends to keep things in place.

6.  Need to do the same with the post the hose reel sits on.  When I first set it up 10 years ago, it was upright.  But pulling on the reel pulled it forward a bit.  It still works, but the angled post annoys me.  If I rope it straight up over Winter and Spring, it may lock in place horizontally.  

If not, I will wiggle it around until I can pull it out and than enlarge the hole to set in in concrete with some rebars pounded in at angles to really hold it in place.

7.  Replanting all the lettuce trays.  When a hard frost threatened back in early December, I brought them all in.  But didn't put them under lights.  Most died.  I have to start again.  

8.  But that means a lot of cleaning in the basement.  So that is the primary task tomorrow.

9.  So many things I need to do around the house.  And most of them I can't do myself.  So I have a list of contractor projects.  Windows, doors, linoleum flooring in the computer and cat rooms, new appliances, new water heater, get the emergency electric generator hooked up, change the decrepit asphalt driveway replaced with concrete.  Well that's what money is for.

10.  Get the computer cleaned up.  Get the laser color printer printing in color again.  Get the laptop working.  Learn to use my smartphone.

That's enough problems for a year.

Invasive Vine

I have a severe problem with Periwinkle.  It is a broadleaf evergreen vine that keeps its glossy leaves in winter. It’s fast growing, making a six-inch (15-cm) thick weed-suppressing mat, rooting from junctures in its long tendrils as they spread along the ground.  It has a pretty blue flower, which saved it from immediate attacks.  Had I known what it was like, I would have killed it immediately!

It is very difficult to eliminate.  First, the roots grow several feet deep, so it just resprouts when pulled or cut.  Second, it is basically immune to most herbicides (water-based, like Round-Up) because it has a waxy coating on the leaves that repel water.  It takes an oil-based one (and those are seriously nasty).  Third, even small bits of it will rereoot on ground-contact.  Fourth, the stuff grows more vigorously than English or Poison ivy (and I have those too from the Southern neighbor).

I didn't plant it!  It spred into my yard from the yard East of me.  That place seems to get new residents every few years.  One from 2 or 3 times ago planted it and it came through the fence.  It was a relatively ignored area with a few hardy shrubs.

The neighbors after the one that planted it were able to get rid of it by mowing.  Their yard was void of any landscaping.  Constant mowing exhausts the roots and it dies.  I am not that lucky.  It is growing in a narrow strip between the fence and garden.  A regular push mower can fit, but it is a real pain to maneuver.  A gas mower is powerful enough, but mine died a few years ago and I bought a good electric one.  But it can't handle such a tall thick mat and I have to lift it around a few obstacles.

It can be killed with oil herbicides, deep repeated digging, regular mowing, or smothering under black plastic.  Through my failure to kill it where it entered the yard, it has gotten among my perennial beds.  I can't use any of those methods there very well.  I could dig up all the perennials, pot them, and watch for any growth in the pots.  I'm getting too old for that.  

I may have to redo most of the perennial bed.  It is old, and most of the flowers have been dying off anyway.  The Euonymous and Butterfly bushes need to be removed due to age or growing out of control.  The dwarf apple trees it is growing around have never produced edible fruit (squirrels and insect pests ruin them every year).  In fact, if I cut down the dwarf apples, I can use the wood in the smoker/grill.

That would allow me to get in the whole area to mow the periwinkle rototill it, and then cover it with black plastic for a year.  Apparently, that would be sufficient.  Or I could just get a landscaping service to do it.  And then replant it myself the next year.  

I can still do that myself.  And I know a lot more about good perennials and bushes than I did when I planted it 25 years ago!

But dang, periwinkle is an evil vine!

Tomorrow, the perennial bed at its prime...