So, The Flowerbeds, Part 2...

Here are some of the (approximately) same spots that I showed in the last post...

Even the gravel path was covered in weeds...

 

There is actually bare soil to be seen!

 

 The Skeeter Memorial is clear again...

 

The LC Memorial is still hidden, but that by a shrub I am going to relocate this Fall...

 

 This part represents about 1/3 of the flowerbed.  Another 1/3 is Bell peppers and daylillies and is weeded.  I'll show that part next time.  That will give me a few days to weed the remaining 1/3!

So, The Flowerbeds...

At least most of the flowers have survived the drought.  Unfortunately, the weeds did better.  I cringed everytime I walked past them in the brutal Summer heat.  Watering the flowerbeds was almost like feeding lambs to wolves in order to save some lambs, but it was still hard.

In the past week, I have made great progress in weeding the flowerbeds. 

Here are some horrible "Before" pictures...

There are more, but you get the picture. Half the growth is weeds.  Well, a few days ago I started getting at the weeds.  I have a procedure...

Wait for the afternoon shade to spread, bring out the radio, bring out the camera, bring out a beer in a gel-pack, apply mosquito repellent, and start pulling weeds up by the roots carefully.  You would think that, after a couple of years, I wouldn't have a weed problem. 

It doesn't work that way.  Nature brings weed seeds in from everywhere.  There is no stopping it.  I swear that if I sterilized a square foot of soil and covered it with heavy plastic, there would be weeds happily growing a month later!

ARGHHHH!


But I can destroy a month of weed growth in a limited are in a day.  About 50 square feet a day in a tightly growing flowerbed, anyway.  It's tricky weeding a flowerbed with no paths.  I have to carefully slide my feet in between plants I want to keep.  Then I have to bend every whichway following weeds through the desirable plants down to the roots.  Then pull them gently till the roots come up or dig at the spot till I get the roots.

I don't just pull the weeds loose at ground level, I really work at getting the roots.

Well, I made good progress.  Here is the pile for today...

The weed pile was 3'x3'x2'high.  I'm going to let them desiccate there for a few days before I add them to the compost tumbler bin. 

Fortunately after several years, I have the compost tumbler reaching a good temperature.  Enough to kill most of the weed seeds, I think.  But more on that next time...

Well, Finally!

Hurray!  It has been raining several inches the past 2 weeks.  Finally, I am off dedicated watering duty and can pay attention to the weeds again...

The weeds are legion!  They have thrived with the watering better than the flowers and veggies, and they nearly took over the entire garden without my usual lethal attention.

The corn tried to do well.  It grew, but the heirloom variety I tried (remembering it from childhood) "Golden Bantam" was not what I remembered.   I was excited at first...

And it looked really good!

I picked it at the right time (just as the silks dried), but I hated it.  All starch, no sweetness.  And I tried leaving another for the silks to dry longer, but that was worse.  Then picked one ear earlier.  It was all terrible!   Like eating a raw potato, only chewier...

I have been spoiled by modern sweet hybrids.  I'll accept that and will plant the hybrids next year.  Unlike tomatoes, I like the new ones better.

More about the flowerbeds in a couple days...

Jennifer

I figured out the scanner.  Here are her young pictures...  This is my memorial to her.

She was such a happy child.  I delighted in every move she made.

When she was very young, she loved to play peekaboo with me.  The box is where the christmas ornaments were kept.  When it was empty, she loved to hide in it an pop up.

In no particular order...

This is the most precious picture I have of her...Absolute happiness.  She loved that Raggedly Ann doll for many years.

Drinkin the Big Brother drink... Above.  And wearing my hat,  She loved that.  She always thought my hats were special.  Wearing my hat always made her feel great.

One of her earliest moments.  That is Hai U Phin in the doll bed.  Jen loved that cat.  As did I.

Jen asleep in my old bed.  She always liked my red and yellow walls. 

≈

Jen posing for a picture.  She loved to be photographed.  I wish I had taken a 1,000 more,,,

 Jen with Hai U Phin...

 The oldest picture I have...  Jen as a teenager.

 My dear little sister Jen...  44 years old, gone forever...

The spots in the photo are accidents of time.  But I want to think of them as stars in the cosmos.  She deserves to go out with all the stars around her.  She would have liked the idea of "cosmic"...

Intelligent, organic, loving, good mother, friend...

Farewell good sister, good friend...  My life is emptier without you in it.

Casual Police Shooting of Pets

Warning:  Rant follows...

I assure you I am not against policemen in general.  They are important members of our society.  I wouldn't want there to NOT be policemen.

I generally try to understand when policemen feel they have to shoot or taser violent people  Or violent dogs that truly threaten them.  It isn't easy sometimes, but I try.

And I don't care as much about dogs as many people do.  I'm a cat person.  I had to build a high fence around my yard to keep the cats safe from large dogs that roamed free.  So I don't love dogs...

But things seems to be getting out of hand when policemen can can shoot dogs as a matter of convenience when entering a house.  When improperly invading the house of innocent people, for example. In that case, police conducted a full SWAT-quality house assault on a family who were unknowingly delivered a package of drugs as part of a drug pickup trick.  The police casually and routinely immediately shot the dogs who barked at the intruders.

What good dog wouldn't bark at intruders?  They even shot one dog who was trying to run away!  That is wrong.  And I don't even like dogs.

And now, a new example of gun-madness by police.  Washington, DC has named Keith Shephard as the officer who shot Bear-Bear on Monday night. Bear-Bear was a Siberian Husky who was playing in a community dog park when Shephard, allegedly fearing for his life, shot the husky in defense.  Dog Park, get it?  A place where dogs get to run around together and be a temporary pack.  That involves a rare chance for the dogs to see who is the Alpha Dog!

Maybe it is true that the shot dog was aggressive.  But it was a dog park.  They are supposed to run around.  If you don't like it, you leave.   I once grabbed a large neighborhood dog by the spike collar and led him home.  He was scared, I was scared. But it didn't require a gun.

This is going beyond dogs.  I'm getting REAL pissed about too many policemen using lethal force on people and animals who don't really deserve it!  Tasers are killing too many people.  Policemen are shooting people too casually.

Do people have to start carrying guns to protect themselves from POLICEMEN?

It starts with shooting dogs casually.  Then Tasering people.  Then shooting people.  I don't like the way this is progressing.

I understand that police work CAN be dangerous, and that too often, policemen become used to dealing with criminals.  

But when they start to assume that everyone and even every dog they meet is a criminal or lethal threat deserving to be killed on sight, that has to stop...

Refrigerator Problems

I replaced an old refrigerator in 2000.  Mainly, I was tired of the fridge section on the bottom (I reach into the veggie tray a lot and the bending over was getting really tiring), and the door opened the wrong way.  Laugh, but I didn't know doors could be reversed at the time...

Well, right after the new one was installed, I learned the door stayed open unless deliberately closed because it was mis-leveled.  I could adjust the levels.  No problem.  Right!

I ended up detaching a wheel and having the whole thing fall on my hand (10 years ago).  I escaped serious injury, but ended up with a front corner on a block of wood.  There it sat for 10 years.  I kept meaning to have a repair service fix it properly, but I let it go.

Well, last year, the cooling started to fail.  I kept moving the control knob to more cooling.  Two weeks ago, I reached the maximum cooling setting.  I'm not stupid, I knew that meant it was running less and less eficiently, probably due to dust bunnies around the cooling tubes behind the fridge.  But I could pull it out to clean it because of the missing wheel.  I even found my owners manual and wrote down the repair telephone number to have the wheel replaces and the unit checked next Monday..

I waited a week too long.  The fridge failed last night!  This morning the fridge temperature was 60F.  The freezer is working just fine, which saved me about $50 in frozen foods.  I know it stayed cold because I keep an ice cube in a small sealed container.  I've done that for years, and it is a good trick.  If you are ever away and the power fails then returns, you will know because the ice cube melts then refreezes flat.  My ice cube was still a cube.

Fortunately, the old refridgerator is still working and down in the basement.  I moved everything I could to it, but there was a lot of stuff I couldn't feel safe about.  All stuff like mayonaise, salad dressings, and raw meat had to be trashed.  And I through out some stuff that was probably safe to keep (mustard, ketchup, tartar sauce).  Why take any chances for cheap stuff?

The old fridge warmed up in the time it took to fill it with the sodas and veggies and fruits and pickles from the upstairs fridge.  It took hours to cool down below 40F.  I suppose I can't even trust the milk I bought today.  So it goes tomorrow.  I guess I put too much volume at 60F in the old fridge for it to cool it all down quickly enough.

The aggravating part is that the soonest brand name repair appointment I can get is next Thursday.  Another generic repair place might be able to come out Tuesday, but I won't know til Monday.  I won't blame them for that because they keep appointment slots open for people who have refrigerated medications to deal with.  Those they take immediately.  That actually says good things for them.

But I may be dealing with awkward cooking arrangements for almost a week.  Blah...

At least I'll get the front wheel replaced so that I can pull the refridgerator out every few months and clean the coolant tubes...  But it serves me right for not dealing with this last year! 

More Problems

Well, I have to apologize.  I haven't really been doing anything worth mentioning lately.  Everything has just been to maintain the yard and house, and nothing worth taking a picture about.  I water the garden, spray some weeds, do laundry. Wow, how exciting...

OK, I have a few pictures but they are embarrassingly routine.

Here I am watering some plants...

I get bored holding the hose for 6 -7 minutes, so I jam the spading fork into the lawn and stick the hose nozzle in it.  It really works quite well, and I can pull weeds in the next part of the beds while the hose does it's thing.  Or sit in the shade and drink beer.  Guess which effort has been winning out in this heat?

Here is the groundcover I am watering.

It is called 'snow-on-the-mountain' and not happy in this MD heat.  It loves NH!  But it looks good April-June, survives July-August, and looks good again September-October in the shadiest areas.  Mostly, it is tenacious and keeps sending up fresh leaf stalks.  Each of these clumps were mere single leaves last Fall.  Next year, it will be a full groundcover.

The front hosta bed is looking good...

This is from May, but they haven't changed any (well, they have some flower stalks).  Watering 2x weekly has helped.

I picked some tomatoes 2 weeks ago...  Those were eaten up in 4 days.

Sadly, it was so hot in June that I only have small fruits developing now...  It was too hot for them to pollinate.

And it hasn't been much better in July.  So far, I have had 20 days over 90F degrees this month.  Today actually dipped below 80F, but I wasn't able to take advantage of that.  More about that tomorrow...

I picked my first ripe bell peppers of the season yesterday...

I was surprised the purple ones ripened before the red or orange ones.  I've grown purple ones a couple of times in the 90s, but these are the first to grow well.  They aren't as sweet as my Red Lipstick variety, but they look good in a salad.  They turn gray-green when sauteed, so I use them fresh.

Gee, I guess I did have some things to post about...

Raingutters Again

Well, at least I cleared the gutters over the deck today.  I have a mesh screen over them now.  I think I will pull them off.  They don't work!

They get covered with oak flowers, leaves, and twigs.  It finally occurred to me today that the rain runs down the roof, hits the debris on the top of the raingutter mesh, and flows right over it onto the deck.


Now, when I originally built the deck, I installed a proper flashing against the house.  In spite of that, rain got into the basement wall below.  So when I had the deck door replaced 5 years ago (believe it or not, but LC the cat cracked the double pane seal by head ramming it - I was there when it happened), I had the professional replace the nearby boards and the flashing.

Then again, the gutters fill with debris even with the covers and block the downspouts, so maybe the rain is backing up into the walls from there.  I don't know.  So I am going to take the covers off so I can clean them out a couple of times each year until someone designs a gutter cover that actually works.  From the research I've done, NO gutter cover actually works...

So I used a stepladder to clean out the gutter and downspout hole over the deck.  The cover made it a miserable effort, but I managed it.  Then I got out the old extension ladder.  The nylon rope had rotted (nylon rope rots?).  I found a replacement rope at the Home Depot.  I put it on wrong the first time and had to re-install it while it was up because I couldn't lower it because it was caught in the gutter (stabilizer bars wedged in the gutter covers).

Don't laugh yet, it gets better...

When I had the rope attached correctly, I pulled on it.  The pulley popped off.  I'm going to buy a new one as soon as they go on sale.

Meanwhile, the gutter has loosened right over my corn, and the washout beat several plants right out of the ground back when it rained in early June.  I replanted them and placed a sheet of plywood at an angle against the house to deflect gutterfall (naturally, that was the last rain for a month).  I only had to do that because my attempts to install new gutter nails was useless.  I think the board on the roof is rotted.

Meanwhile, 3/4 of the raingutters are clogged with debris.  I fear it is time for a roofing/gutter professional to do some repairs. 

Poison Ivy and Hoses

1.  The last of the poison ivy is turning a lovely shade of yellow as it dies.  YAY! 

2.  I finally moved different lengths of hoses around to get them matched to the lengths most useful.  I have a 4 outlet gang valve at the house.  2 of the valves hold hoses. 

1 hose goes to a post 20 feet from the gang valve (so I don't have to drag the hose through my flowerbed).  The hose there now just reaches another post and hose that extends the reach into woods (where I have astilbes and hostas  and ferns).  The hose there reaches a 3rd post and hose that reaches to the back of the yard where there are goatsbeard shrubs (Aruncus dioicus) that need more water than nature provides.  I got tired up coiling and uncoiling 150' of garden hose just to reach the back of the yard...  But the last hose broke and the repair coupling leaked in spite of my best efforts.  So I needed to replace it.

The other hose goes along the fence to the garden way in the back yard opposite the wooded area.  I only needed 50' of hose there and had 100'.  Well, that hose is now at the last stage of the woods hose train.

The front yard hose was too short to reach the corners, so I bought an additional one a few years ago.  Great, now I could water the neighbors' yards.  That one alone is long enough for the front yard.  So the older shorter one there is now in the garden area!

Don't worry, it all works out perfectly.  But It sure took a lot of stretching hoses out and pacing off their lengths to figure out what needed to go where...  And a lot of moving them around and sealing the new connections with plumbers tape.  I think the neighbors were quite entertained watching me drag hoses back and forth.  LOL!

3.  I did buy one new hose.  I regret it though.  I went for the best.  An industrial quality unkinkable 3/4" hose that is UV and mold immune.  Sounded great!  But the hose is as stiff as a board.  It is nearly impossible to coil on a hose holder.  It is now the first hose in the front, where it will almost never have to be uncoiled move than a couple of coils.  Meaning that if I have to water the mailbox daylilies (a rare event) I will need to undo only 2 coils of it.

The good news is that, in case of nuclear war, there will be 2 things left on the property - moles and that garden hose.

RAIN!!!

Finally, it rained yesterday!  And not a thunderstorm of 20 minutes where a lot of the rain would wash off the concrete-like lawn.  It was a nice steady drizzle 3 separate times.  It only totalled 5/8", but every drop soaked into the soil! 

Merely 1 hour after the first morning rain, I could see underwatered plants perking up all around the yard.  Even plants that I had been watering every few days looked happier.  It takes a LOT of watering to match even a meager rain! 

Still, we are just entering the traditional dry season, so I expect it is going to be a long hard Summer...

I'll try to put a good spin on it:  The mosquitos are having a harder time of it than I am.  Even those damn Asian Tiger mosquitoes need "some" water to lay their eggs in.  May they all die unreproductively...

Back At Work

I meant this to post July 8th, but typed 18th, so it didn't show when I expected.  The reason I'm doing this will be obvious when I post about "today" tomorrow...  LOL!

July 8th - Well, with the beastly temperatures of the past month, plus straining an ankle (twice) so that I was limping around pretty bad for 2 different weeks, I have gotten back on some projects the past few days.  But first, some summary about the weather:

High temperatures - The average high here is about 80-85 degrees in June.  We had only 2 days that were (barely) below average.  We had 12 days in a row where the temp got above 90, and we set local records on 2 days (99 and 100 degrees).  There is a measurement called "degree days" where the daily high degrees above 65 are accumulated (a high of 85 means there were 20 degree days for the date).  The "normal to date" is 431.  The "actual to date" is 713!  In June alone, there were 472.

Rainfall - We haven't reached the average rainfall for any month this year.  Normal to date is 19".  So far, we have had 13.6".  My lawn already looks like it normally does by mid August.  Ive seen poison ivy plants dying from the lack of rainfall.  I seldom water the flowerbeds, but I have had to do it every few days for the past 3 weeks because the plants wilt so badly. The garden veggies do get regular watering, but that is routine in any year. 

I don't use large water-sprinklers, mainly because I can live with the lawn grass going dormant for the summer, and because little of my flowerbeds and garden (non-lawn) benefit from large rectangular watering patterns.  So I water by hand in specific spots.  Standing in one place watering is too boring, so I have learned that a D-shaped spading fork handle holds a hose nozzle quite nicely.  Stick the fork in the lawn, aim the hose nozzle to fall only on the flowerbeds, leave it in one spot for a good 5 minutes (quite a lot of water in one small area), then move it 6' to the next spot.

The downside is that I have to stay outside the whole time (about 2 hours).  The upside is that, instead of holding the hose, I get to sit in the shade listening to the radio while sipping on a beer (or two).  And while sitting, I get to watch the local wildlife.

For example, today I watched a hummingbird feed from the butterfly bush, some salvias, a cardinal flower, and a daylily.  I watched the finches feeding at the thistle seed feeder.  I watched cardinals at the sunflower feeder.  I saw squirrels chasing each other through the trees.  I watched hundreds of bees at the various flowers.  Most are bumbles, but there are also a fair number of honeybees around my flowers I'm organic and I think that helps them), and I have learned to recognize a number of smaller less-common native bees.

I have even noticed that many of the "bumblebees" are actually Sphinx moths (aka hummingbird moths).  Sadly, the Spinx moth caterpillar is the dreaded tomato hornworm, which can really chew up tomato leaves.  But they aren't originating here, because I thoroughly inspect my tomato plants for them every week.  So I can enjoy the adult's graceful nectar-feeding habit at the flowers without worrying that their babies are eating my tomato plants!

Speaking of the tomatoes, they are doing very well.  I have 8 plants of 5 main season heirloom varieties this year (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and Tennessee Britches) plus one regular cherry tomato growing from a hanging bucket.  There are a few fruits "breaking color", so I should have my first ripe ones soon.  I can hardly wait!

I did the 3rd (and possibly last) poison ivy spraying for the season today.  There is an overgrown corner of the backyard I have been clearing out gradually.  I would dig up scrub saplings and regular vines for a few feet across and 20' wide, then expose another large clump of poison ivy and spray it.  Then 2 weeks later, rake those away and dig up a few more feet.  I will reach the fence next time!  Then I can decide what to do with the spot.  I think I will plant azaleas.  The spot seems good for them, and they are relatively low maintenance.  I sure don't want any more lawn...

I was lucky with that area.  It was originally for stacking firewood.  But I don't use the fireplace much anymore and the wood started to rot.  It got overgrown in the first place because I didn't need to get at the old firewood and it became a dumping space for cut saplings.  I was afraid there would be hornets or yellow jackets in there, but thankfully, none.  No termites either, which surprised me.  I think I can just spread the decayed firewood around on the ground as mulch for the azaleas.

I am hoping to get back to projects with some photo potential this week...