Speaking Of Sports

When I was new to my first real office, the boss loved having a slow-pitch softball team in the Agency League.  I had been on one before (a temp in a Navy Office) and was good enough at it, so I joined.  The Navy guys were pretty fierce about it, so I understood playing hard. 

And I was good enough at slow pitch that I could pretty much hit the ball wherever I wanted.  Mostly way over the right fielder.  Which was a serious turn-around from Little League hardball where I seldom even swung at a ball at 12.  I had changed a bit...

We had a good team.  Lots of young guys and a few women willing to play.

I'm writing this because we played a team with a blind pitcher.  The catcher would keep up a steady stream of talk to let him know where to toss the ball.   And another player stood next to him in front after the pitch so he wouldn't get hit. 

My immediate supervisor (call him "Bill") was a pretty athletic type.  Bill hit a line drive that caught the blind pitcher right between the eyes.  No one could have reacted fast enough to prevent that.  The pitcher was completely cold-cocked. 

The blind pitcher got back in a couple innings,  the teams kept playing.  Bill kept playing.  I understand that.  The pitcher refused to limit himself, the players did the same.

But I went home...

Sports

I'm not a general sports fan.  On major events like the US Football Superbowl and Baseball World Series, I sometimes watch the last half hour out of curiousity. 

But apparently, I'm a "Homie".  I watch the Washington National baseball team games and am glad when they win.  I watch my University of Maryland women's basketball team games (but not men's because that is just a crude elbow-flying cage fight).  And the US women's soccer team...

So, I've been enjoying watching the Washington Nationals baseball team crawl up from a bad start to .500 today.  They had a tough start with several starting players injured.  But now that they are returning, the team has been doing much better and may even be in contender status by the end of the season.

Why this matters to me is a mystery.  I actually don't care a whit about my State University (a paper degree on a wall proving that I wasn't TOO stupid to get one), and professional teams trade players like brokers trade stocks. 

I suppose that part of it is that they are winning.  But part of it is that they play a game in a way I understand.  Not that the women players are soft (any of them could beat the crap out of me at almost anything), but they play in a way I "get".  More skill than elbows... 

And the Washington Nationals baseball organization seems to value skill more than power.  I admire that.

So for whatever it is worth, here it was...  Just some thoughts.

A Gripe

I finally got my riding lawn mower back yesterday.  The first thing I did was mow the front lawn of course.  It seems to be working.  I brought it the the local mower repair shop because it was suddenly hesitating and then stalling.

I told them I suspected a fuel line blockage because (bizzarely) I found bits of a leaf in the gas tank last year.  And though I got most of it out with an aquarium net I bent into a shape to fit in, the engine was sure acting like there was something in the fuel line.  I can do some basic stuff, but I don't mess with fuel...  Plus, it needed a tune-up, a blade-sharpening, and oil and filter change. 

When I got home that day I looked at the repair ticket and all it mentioned was "Service 1 - hesitates and stalls but will start again after about 15 minutes".  So I called them.  I was told "Service 1 is the basic tune-up and oil and filter change.  The rest was the additional problem". 

OK... "Service 1" WOULD be the basic tune-up stuff and blade-sharpening.  So I waited for an estimate.  after a week, they called and said the hesitation and stalling was due to a failure of both ignition coils (2 cylinders, 2 coils, 2 spark plugs).  Don't worry, I had to look that up.  Its what sends an electrical charge to the spark plugs.  They gave me a price and I accepted it.

I wondered though why both would fail at the same time, but I thought back to when I was so broke I had to struggle to repair my old car and there was a single ignition coil that controlled all 8 cylinders. 

Funny short story:  I had a friend who worked at a car dealership.  One day, he opened my car hood and showed me all the parts (most of which he said were to reduce the performance of the engine for emission control reasons).  But one part he showed me was the ignition coil.  It couldn't be sealed tight for heat reasons.  But if you ever drove through a puddle and the car stalled, it was because the ignition coil got shorted by the spray.

So I understood about the ignition coils on the mower.

So they went about replacing those 2 parts (apparently they are separate on a mower.  Falling asleep yet?

Well, they called Thursday and said they were going to have to clean the carburator and fuel line (another $25).  Yeah, yeah, just do it...

So I picked it up Friday.  The experience was not good.  First, they had to jump start it.  When I asked about that, they said I needed a new battery.  Well, I had to do that too, but I thought a tune-up would solve that. 

So I asked the mechanic "This is a repair shop, right"?  He agreed.  "Shouldn't that have been something to be fixed"?  He said it wasn't on the repair ticket.  OK, he is just the mechanic and he does what the repair ticket says to do.  But they sell batteries!  Why wouldn't they have offerred to replace it?  Fine, I can buy a new battery anywhere.

But the engine gave a whiff of smoke and I asked about that too.  He checked the oil level and said it was a bit high and should probably be changed.   You want a definition of a lawn mower mechanaic?  He wiped the oil dipstick clean ON HIS PANTS, LOL!

And that's when the horrible truth hit me.  There had been no oil and filter change!  I went back to the front desk and asked about that.  The guy there said it wasn't on the repair ticket.  So I asked about the tune up.  Ditto! 

I told him I had specifically asked for that AND called the next day asking about it.  AND was assured that "Service 1" included that.  He said no, the "service" numbers are just a list of problems the customer mentions.  He said the woman I talked to just writes up repair tickets and wasn't there at the time to ask.  But they would be happy to do the tune up and oil change.  For more money.  And they were backed up for a month.

I took my mower home and I will never ever bring anything to them again.

I can change the oil and filter.  And the tune up probably wasn't necessary.  I had removed the spark plugs and cleaned and gapped them last month. 

But Jeez, what a bunch of idiots!

If I was younger, I would set up a competing business on the side.  No customers should be treated like I was.  The mechanics seem OK; it's a management problem.

A Thought

I watched the last half of the movie 'Arrival'.  I didn't understand it all, but grasped that it involved alien linguistics and apparently things worked out in the end.

But what stayed in mind afterwards was that the heroine finally came up with "zero sum game" when her daughter was seeking a "sciencey" phrase for "not lose-lose".  And I got to thinking about that.  I often do that when watching TV and completely lose the next 15 minutes deep in thought.  Which is a good reason to watch DVDs because you can just rewind them.  And see how old I am?  You don't rewind a DVD, LOL!  But I digress...

So I was thinking about "zero sum game".  Too many politicians think of life as zero sum; "if you win, I lose".  And that actually annoyed me.  In the movie, there were alien ships in many nations and all nations were trying to solve the language problem on their own for individual advantage.  One minor character dared suggest that everyone share what they knew and was ridiculed.

So back to reality and "zero sum"...

We have to stop thinking that way.  It's just causing too many problems.  We all know some things but no one knows everything.  We need to start sharing better.  If Nation "A" knows more about building wind turbines and Nation "B" knows more about storing that energy, shouldn't we share?  And why not tell Nation "C" about both parts so they can make life better for their own people?

I once read about 2 Chinese villages that both made hoes and were fiercely competitive.  As they were about to go to war, the Emperor stepped in and demanded that one village make the blades and the other make the handles and share the profits.  It a myth of course, but makes a good point.  We are all one species and should help each other.

Suppose we detected actual aliens approaching Earth 5 years away.  I bet we could all get along better then, huh?  And if they arrived and looked like 8' squirrels with tentacles, we wouldn't think we were all that different either. 

Why wait?

My paternal grandmother used to say that if a flying saucer ever landed on Earth, she would be the first person aboard.   On the surface, that reflects the fact that she and Grampa had rather "hard-scrabble" lives.  But I knew her better than that.  She was a brave and forward-looking person who thought our human progress was too slow and needed a better challenge.  A good kick in the butt...

And I agree.  We have gotten too locked into to group competition.  That's the "zero sum game".  No one wins that way and I'm getting damn tired of it.  We need to go from "zero sum" to "win-win"!

This is all because of the current political nonsense here in the US.  Be on any side you like domestically or internationally, but things are just not working as they should.  It isn't that one side should win and that would solve everything. 

Too many people feel a need to "win" at the expense of "the others" just to get ahead.  But isn't reality the idea of everyone getting ahead?

There is a reason we all don't live in caves today.  We traded knowledge.  One group showed another how to use animal sinews to hold hides together to make a portable shelter, and the other group gave them some seeds they saved that grew better grains.  And the next group had a better flint-knapping technique.

Everyone benefitted.  When did we stop?

Let's start doing that again.

And Happy Summer Solstice Day in the North and Winter in the South...

An Awkward Afternoon

OK, so it was about 5 pm last night and time to start preparing dinner.  I do a lot food prep.  Not like sliding a knife guided by my knuckles (as seen on TV), but I slice and dice pretty well.  I'm careful with knives and tools.

I love most veggies and one of those is beets and I mean fresh beets.  I bake them or m/w them, and I've always peeled them first, which works pretty well.  But I decided last night to bake them first and see if the skins would just slip off afterwards.

Well they didn't.  Worse, trying to peel them after baking was like trying to peel a damp sponge.   The beet was hard to hold, and the peeler couldn't get a grip.  In fact, as I was struggling with it, I said to myself "Self, you could hurt yourself this way".  You know what's coming right?

Yeah, one last peeler-pull and it slipped.  It didn't hurt in the least.  In fact,  while I sensed something was wrong, it wasn't until I rinsed off the beet juice that I was sure I was bleeding.  My left middle fingertip  was bleeding and by pressing on it I could tell I had taken a (small) piece of the nail out as well. 

It is amazing how hard it can be to open one of those individual-wrapped specialty band-aids (fingertip-type in this case) when one hand is bleeding.  I had the bleeding fingertip pressed against a wadded tissue, so I had to use my right hand and teeth.  Fortunately, I wasn't worried about sterility, I just needed to stop the bleeding. 

I finally did manage the get the fingertip bandage ready to apply, the fingertip dry of blood, and anti-biotic ointment applied to the finger, and the band-aid ON.  Which was done pretty awkwardly, but it stopped bleeding.

Which was confusing because there was still blood dripping...  It turned out the ring-finger  was similarly-but-less injured.  So I had to go through the whole process all over again.

So then I had the fun of preparing dinner (chicken, tossed salad, M/W potato, stir-fried peppers and mushrooms without getting my left hand wet or oily.   Its like typing with 2 fingers on one hand... 

Now all I have to do is wait to see what things look like later today.  I stop bleeding fast, but I need to look at the fingernails.  I've never damaged one before and I don't know what happens when you do. 

Fun and Games in the kitchen,  LOL!

And my semi-annual Dentist visit is later today.  Sure, why not?  And tomorrow I "get" to pick up my riding mower from the repair shop after 3 1/2 weeks for $350.

It could be a LOT worse. I could have pulled a fingernail partially or completely loose.  The dental visit could be about a root canal.  The riding mower could be essentially unrepairable and require a new one (and the new ones aren't actually as good as the old ones). 

Baseball

All my life, I have preferred to play sports rather than watch them.  I too old to play now, and when I watch sports, it is usually baseball.  So I've been re-watching the Ken Burn's series about the history of baseball on DVD.  I love the history of the development of the game.

The original players were all amateurs, and (being one) I enjoyed that.  Later, the first professional teams arose.  Those guys were rough men, miners, farmers, construction workers.  As one said "I wanted to escape those damned cows". 

There were only still pictures back then, but they were amazing.  One showed a closeup of a guy gripping the bat.  His skin was like leather and he had knuckles like walnuts!  Another picture showed a player shirtless (for the point of the picture, I assume).  His arms were like things.  I would almost bet he could have crushed a weightlifter.

That's not my point here, just saying those guys were amazingly strong, and very determined not to go back to the mines or cows.

What struck me was that so many of them were completely illiterate and couldn't do simple math.  Money paid to them was sort of a mystery that they could only understand as "spending money".  If I understand it, a farmer got a loan from the bank which went directly to the seed company who delivered the seed.  No bank would trust the farmer to actually manage the money even briefly.  Many did and could manage money, but I'm talking about the many ones who couldn't.

So I wondered, what was it like to look at a written contract and not be able to make any sense of the symbols, depending on some manager to tell you what the terms were, and knowing you got cheated by such people all the time?  What a difficult way to live...

Which brings me to the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series.  The Chicago White Sox were one of the best teams ever.  They were all horribly underpaid (about $3-5,000 each) compared to other teams at the time getting 5-10k),  they were mostly illiterate, and a Big Time gambler came after them with promises of wealth. 

Long story short, some of them went for the money.  The smarter of them demanded their money up front.  The others trusted to the honesty on the gambler (simpler souls).  The gambler (he is mentioned in 'The Great Gatsby') got away with it and got lots.  The players got little.  As Shoeless Joe Jackson said afterwards that they promised him $20,000 and he got $5,000.  Some got less and some got nothing.

All the players involved were banned for baseball for life.  Consider THAT Pete Rose...

Sad story:  Jackson was reduced to working in a liquor store.  One day Ty Cobb came in and recognized the player he had modeled his swing after.  Cobb said "Don't you recognize me Joe"?  And Jackson said "Sure I recognize you Cobb, but I didn't think you wanted to recognize me".

And then there was Babe Ruth, one of the best pitchers ever and the best hitter too.  When he wasn't pitching, he playing outfield so that he could hit.  The Red Sox owner was more interested in arranging Broadway plays and was not very good at it.  So everytime he had a failed play, he sold one of his star players to The New York Yankees.

Eventually, he sold Babe Ruth (well technically, he sold the contract).  The 1920s Yankees were build on Boston Red Sox stars.

But I mention that to say this... Some people say the home run ers started because the ball was made "livlier" which is true in the sense of the ball.  But in20, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs and that was more than any other whole TEAM but one.  So it wasn't just the ball. 

Another thing I like about the Ken Burn's series is that he related the past to the present.  One thing about baseball is the consistency of player statistics.  Not what one did today as opposed to 80 years ago, but as ythey did against each other.

And I think I will stop here...

An Irregular Curious Event

This blog does not get many visitors (and I sure appreciate you all).  A typical post gets 0-6 comments and a dozen or so views.  I don't mind that, I'm basically tossing bottles into the ocean (or, if you have ever seen the movie 'Conneger', tying messages onto tumbleweeds).

But sometimes there are suddenly 50-200 views days later.  They never leave comments, so I have no idea who they are.  And this never happens on the cat blog.  Many years ago, the cat blog suddenly got 100s of comments on really old posts that advertised products in Chinese that (as far as I could tell with Google Translate) were only for local sale in China. 

It baffled me, and I spent some days deleting as many as I could (and some were undeletable).  But this is not the same thing.  These visitors never leave comments (that I can detect).  And when I try to search keywords and phrases in those posts, none show up as one-off oddly-popular flash-group interests.

My antivirus programs (I have 2 I run alternately) never find any problems.  It is entirely weird. 

Just mentioning this in case someone has any ideas about what is going on...

Random Thoughts

If the weather forecast says a 75% chance of rain, it won't.  But if it says 25% and you decide to cook something on the grill or decide to plant flowers, it will.

You can look at your riding mower tires every week and they seem inflated, the day you don't, they aren't.

Any typo you make is assured to be a real word that is embarrassing in context.  And I don't use autospell.

Lawn grass grows faster when the mower is at the shop for repairs.

If there is a spot of plants who die at the least time of inattention, they are ones you wanted to save.  If you didn't like them, they are impossible to kill.

Speaking of which, why is it that the slightest bump to a sapling you are trying to grow kills it, but chopping down a "junk one" only makes it regrow faster?

I am convinced the mailman sits at the top of the hill just waiting for me to go out and check the mailbox.  Because 10 minutes later, he always arrives.  I need to check the mailbox for a "secret sensor".

Poison ivy always knows where you don't think it is... 

Dry holly leaves are pricklier than you expect.

Never build one fence gate larger than the other.  The larger one will pull the posts over and make the gates hard to open.  On the other hand, the way to solve that is with a chainsaw or Saws-All run between them.

RoundUp kills wild blackberries.  And they curl down from the top.  It's a pleasure to see the next day when you don't want them. 

Iza won't poop in a litter box unless I am watching but always pees in them.  I think she knows pee spreads.  Ayla will come in from outside to use the litterbox and then want to go outside again.  Marley prefers going outside.

Marley hates walking on dry leaves.

In math, constants aren't, variables won't.

I can't tell which way to tighten things when they are upside down.

If I watch my hometown sports teams on TV, they usually lose.  Well, they usually lose anyway, but if they are winning, my watching them is the kiss of death.  I stopped watching the Washington Nationals baseball team a couple weeks ago and they have won something like 10 of 13 since.  Is this a marketable skill?

I like a dish brush that holds liquid soap.  The bottom half came loose.  I bought a new bottom half.  It was the top that was bad.

If I mailed myself a letter, it woudn't arrive.

I could put my car in an empty parking lot and there would be a new dent when I returned.

I have no luck at cards or dice.  I lose a 50-50% chance 75% of the time.  If all I needed to win a game of Yahtzee, and needed only 7 pips, I would get four 1s and a 2.  If I wanted four 1s and a 2, I would get all 6s.

Ayla is terrible at Backgammon; she only wins 1 of 5 games.

The car dealership sent me an ad saying I was due or my 100,000 maintenance.  The car has only 28,000 miles.  And its 13 years old.

Hope you enjoyed...

Frozen Indecisively

Have you ever hit a decision where you kept changing your mind?  I had that problem the past week and that sort of thing really gets me locked-up internally and I can't really get anythng else done until I resolve the issue. 

It doesn't have to be a really serious problem like a decision about medical treatment or a big financial decision.  Just something where you can't make up your mind.  Military training teaches you (I have read) to deal with a 50-50 decision by just choosing one.  But my profession was an an analyst and the thought there is that nothing is "50-50".  That there has to be some additional information that will make it at least 51-49...

My issue this past 2 weeks was my riding lawn mower.  A little background...  I mowed the family lawn starting at age 12 (and hated it).  I got several summer jobs at 15-16 (and hated it).  My first serious Summer job was mowing lawns at an army base during Summer Vacation (and I hated it).  And I still had to mow the family lawn (1/2 acre) until I left for college.

Not-very-fun story:  The month I left for college, Dad bought a riding lawn mower because my brother (who was only 2 years younger) simply refused to mow the lawn, and Dad sure didn't want to use the push mower). 

At my first 2 rental houses (with other people), part of my contribution to the general maintenance was (naturally) mowing the lawn.  When I bought my house, I had to mow the lawn.  When I bought the house, I was broke and owed my parents money for the down-payment.  When I paid that off in a year, I had to replace the old car. 

So, don't be surprised that my first voluntary purchase was a Riding Lawn Mower!  I was thrilled.  It was a rather cheap model but I kept it going for 11 years.  By that time, I could buy a GOOD One.  It is 18 years old and needs serious maintenance.  I can do the basics, but this time it is suddenly hesitating, then stalling.  If I let it sit for about 15 minutes, it starts right up again and runs well for another 10 minutes, then hesitates and stalls again.

I decided it was time for a new riding mower, and equipment always gets better, right?  I am a True Believer in Consumer Reports magazine ratings.  They never steer me wrong.  So when I looked and saw that Jogn Deere riding mowers were the top 4 rated ones, I felt certain that I should choose one of them.  I found 2 that seems to suit me.

But, as I've mentioned, I'm an analyst, and I read the negative reviews of those mowers on other sites.  I was shocked by what I read.  Apparently "new" is not always better.

The first thing I learned was that virtually all riding mowers made in the US are made by a single company with minor differences (according to brand names) about the engine and deck construction.  Like major brands and store brands of canned beans etc all mostly coming from the same producer.

The complaints I saw involved 3 problems.  Most new riding mowers use "hydrostatic transmissions".  I won't pretend to understand the details, but it seems that they are cheaper to build.  The cons are that they lack durability and require frequent maintenance. and are not good under load (hauling a trailer or mowing up even mild slopes.

The 2nd problem was that most of the newer engines are damaged by ethanol gasoline (the routine gas at gas stations).  You can by premixed gas at auto shops or a stabilizer yo add yourself.  Either way, it doubles the cost of fuel.  That adds up.

The 3rd problem is they are more expensive to maintain and repair. 

I didn't just look at one site about this.  I searched several.  They all said about the same thing.  And some were so technically detailed about the problems (many by repair-persons), that I had to accept their negative opinions about the newer riding mowers. 

So my option was to have the current one repaired again, hoping that in a few years, the current problems would be solved.  Basically, up to $400 for the current one this year vs $2,000 for a new one that would be more expensive to run and maintain and could well be expected to last only 5-6 years.

So tht has been keeping me uncertain in the day and worrying at night.  I had "bad lawn mower dreams" 2 nights.

To make it worse, "Angies List", a site that collects user ratings of business and denies business postings gave the only local repair shop I have used for lawn mower repair a C rating.  But I looked at that closely. On the lawn mower repair only, they got seventeen 5 ratings, seven 4 ratings, one 2 rating, and one 1 rating.  And the bad ratings were for "promptness".  And they got a good rating for price. 

So I delivered the riding mower to them Tuesday.  Sure enough, they said it would be a week before they got it up on their bench to provide a detailed estimate and a week after that before the work was completed if I accepted their quote. 

The good parts were that the desk clerk you writes the repair ticket seems to know exactly what I was describing about the hesitations and stalls.  And the guy "around the back" where I actually turned over the mower  asked a few good question and wrote down my answers.

So...  I bet it will take 3 weeks and the mower will be working great for a few more years.

Meanwhile, I'll have to use the battery-powered push mower a couple of times.  A battery lasts 20 minutes on that (but there are 2 of them).  So I'll have to mow the lawn in pieces. 

But at least I finally made a decision about whether to replace the current mower.  I slept well that night and got busy outside the next day.  Nothing like having a weight off your shoulders...

I'm going to send Consumer Reports a letter asking about their ratings.  But I suspect they will say they rate existing products and are not really in the business of comparing then to older ones.  Seems fair.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day (observed) in the US.  I honor this day.

Memorial Day was first widely observed in the US in May 1868. The celebration commemorated the sacrifices of the Civil War and the proclamation was made by General John A Logan. Following the proclamation, participants decorated graves of more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers.

President Ronald Reagan said in 1986, "Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It's a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It's a day to be with the family and remember."

President Barack Obama said in 2015 that "On Memorial Day, the United States pauses to honor the fallen heroes who died in service to our Nation. With heavy hearts and a sense of profound gratitude, we mourn these women and men—parents, children, loved ones, comrades-in-arms, friends, and all those known and unknown—who believed so deeply in what our country could be they were willing to give their lives to protect its promise.”

I usually post a small graphic to recognize the day.   I am of an age who had uncles who fought on the battlefields and aunts who spent time giving and collecting blood, working in the factories, and keeping the home fires lit...

But I think we sometimes forget why they did that beyond the usual "defense of country",  and I was reminded of that yesterday watching a history DVD.

The Statue Of Liberty (full name "Liberty Enlightening The World") was a gift from France.  It took a couple decades for the US to settle on a site for it and to construct a pedestal and to assemble the parts.  But I only mention that because of the poem.  Because the part of the poem by Emma Lazarus we know best is:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

That's why my uncles, aunts, and forefathers fought.   And that is why I honor this day.  And not that my past generations succeeded in all, but they tried.  Sometimes honor is doing your best, knowing you are imperfect...

  ...................

BTW, do you know what is inscribed on the tablet?

"JULY IV MDCCLXXVI"  (July 4, 1776)

And the full sonnet written by  Emma Lazarus is:

"The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!".

France gave the U.S. the Statue of Liberty in 1886; Americans gave Paris a smaller version of the same statue in 1889.  The two face each other across the Atlantic...

Stuff

Today is my 69th Birthday.  Whoppee...  NEXT YEAR I will feel officially old.  I got a nice card from my Sister.  They are usually humorous, and I love those.  This one was kind of serious about appreciating a Big Brother.  That was nice too.  My Sister and I have always been close.

But I mostly enjoyed the day planting some flowers.  Not the mass yearly annual plantings of zinnias and salvia and marigolds (those are the rest of the week as I had to soak the soil today so I can pull weeds out tomorrow).  These were specialty flowers for the hummingbird/butterfly/bee bed.

Last year, I bought seeds of less-common flowers that were self-seeding for a cottage garden bed.  But I didn't plant them and the places they were to go were too over-run with weeds (and poison ivy and invasive vines).  So I planted lots of them this year, intending to clear those areas.  I didn't.

But I had tilled up the hummers/butterflies/bees (HBB) bed (it grew few flowers last year).  So I looked up the flowers and found that most of them were very attractive to the HBB bed.  So I spent the day repurposing the seedlings planting those. 

It made sense.  The commercial HBB seed packets haven't worked 2 years in a row; time to try something different.  But I HAD spread a commercial mix around the bed and there were plants coming up.

So I had to stand in the beds VERY carefully to plant the seedlings and bend around so as to not move my seedling-stomping feet.  I planted 4 Cleomes, 4 Cosmos, 9 Maltese Cross, 5 Butterfly Weed (Asclepus or something like that), and 4 of one that I forget.  And, of course, I have hopes for the seedlings that are emerging from the HBB packet.  I know some are weeds and I tried to pick them out while planting the good flowers.  I gave them a good watering.

My back is KILLING me.  That used to happen a few times a year before but it is becoming a daily annoyance.  Aspercreme helps a lot.  The heated waterbed helps at night, too.  The more common problem is hand-clenches.  If I grip things too long too hard (like mower steering wheel or loppers or pruner handles) I pay for it 2 hours later.  My fingers clench up just when I'm preparing dinner and (aside for being painful) it is really awkward.  I do a lot of fresh food prep, so when I can't hold a knife firmly, I have to be REAL careful.

While I was planting the seedlings, I was watering the weeded parts of the older garden.  I have a sprayer mounted on a tripod I built years ago and that is really good for watering a defined area for 15-20 minutes to really soak the soil down to root level.

But there is good news.  I harvested snow peas. I love those in stir fries and I get to pick them when they are fresh and tender.

Planted 15 sunflower seedlings too.  I placed 5 each around three 2' high cages for support while they adjust to sunlight and the real world.  Helps them in windy conditions too. Support 2' high is better than none.

There is also good news in the backyard where the brambles used to grow rampantly.  The brush mower really killed most of them last Fall.  Individual wild blackberries succumb to a small controlled shot of RoundUp.  I don't like that kind of stuff, but things got out of hand and I've been very specific about what I sprayed.  It is nice to see a 1' high blackberry shoot falling over.  I've targeted wild grape vines and poison ivy too.

The wild english ivy is harder to kill  and takes a couple shots.  I finally identified the invasive vine from a neighbor's yard as Vinca Major.  It is hard to kill, too.  Mowing it and then spraying the new growth seems to work well.  But it will be several attacks before it is dead in the open areas.

The hard part is that the Vinca and poison ivy have slowly infiltrated my old fence flowerbed.  I can't spray there as there are still good perennial plants.  THAT is either going to be slow careful "dig out one weed at a time" or try to dig out the plants I want to save, move them temporarily, and kill the whole area for the year.  RoundUp degrades in 3 months, so I could re-establish the plants I save (and there aren't all that many left) in late Fall.

There are shrubs along the fence and I can't move THOSE, but I was planning to cut them down anyway as they are really too large.  So my plan for those is to take new-growth stem-cuttings, dip them in a rooting hormone, and set them in 4" pots to regrow.  I have some ideas of where I can plant some along the fence in the far backyard where they are welcome to grow large, some along the drainage easement (fake creek), and some polite ones (nandina) along the edge of the front yard to make a border.

And I had a nice discovery!  In the backyard, there was a bramble plant that that I thought was wild blackberrybut it had a slightky different flower and a nice scent.  I did some research and discovered it was an old wild rose I think is called 'Hawthorne Rose'.  It was a casualty of the "clearing of the wild brambles". 



But last week, I noticed what appeared to be wild blackberry flowers growing up through a Burning Bush and went to get the loppers to cut it out of the shrub.  But then I was thrilled to smell the scent!  It was a volunteer of the Hawthorne Rose I had lost...  I will take a few dozen cuttings of it hoping some will grow.  Meanwhile, the Rose and the Burning Bush will live intertwined for a year.  I don't want to risk losing it again.

Back to the wild blackberries...  Looking over the fence in all directions, it seems that my yard is the only one with wild blackberries in it.  I recall that there was a single patch in a corner of the front yard when I moved here.  It must have spread from there.  I love rasperries.  I mention that because wild blackberries carry a virus that doesn't harm them much but it is death to rasperries with a about 200'.  So If I can kill off the wild blackberries, I can grow raspberries again.  I'd like that!

That's enough for today.  I'm going to feed the cats, clean the litter boxes for the night, and haul my weary back into bed...