Garden/Yard And Other Stuff

Finally got outside and worked hard.  It's been a long Winter and I don't deal with "cold"  as well as I used to.  Today got to the 80s.  So I got some stuff done...

1.  I had covered parts of the fence flowerbed with cardboard.  Lifting it up, I saw that some annoying weeds were still alive.  So I gave it a shallow tilling with a mini tiller and covered it back up.  

2.  Gave the pollinator bed a similar short-mowing and then shallow tilling.  It is about 350 square feet but my seed packet was for 500 sq ft.  Spread it all.  Well, the thicker the better.  Most won't sprout anyway.

3.  The native wildflower meadow bed is larger (700 sq ft) and needs deeper tilling.  I have a larger tiller, but it doesn't want to start.  I'll have to drain the gas, spray cleaner into it, and otherwise fight with it.  I think what I need to do is cover it in black plastic for the year to smother the weeds and grass.

4.  Speaking of equipment, I have a bad habit of leaving old gasoline in them.  I'm engaged on a project to fix everything and not repeat old bad habits like that.  

5.  I have a chipper/shredder.  It easier to just pile all the tree debris into the trailer and bring it to the County recyling site.  I pull the stuff off the trailer and on Saturdays they will use a bucket-loader to fill it with 3-year-old mulch/compost.  Well, it isn't exactly either.  To course for compost and too fine for mulch; but it is good to add to my compost bin or spread on shipping paper to break down further.  I should sell the chipper/shredder.

6.  Should sell some other stuff too.  I have a lawn roller I never use.  

Not that brand, but one like it.  It's actually bad for the lawn.  But it is good for flattening mole or gopher tunnels and someone would probably want it for that.  I just stomp on the mole tunnels myself. 

Someone wants almost anything for their own reasons and their evaluation of things can be surprising.  I bought a bike to get back and forth to the car dealership with my old car and the next month theyt started offerring rides back and forth.  And besides, I well over trying to ride it.  They say "you never forget how to ride a bike.  Yes, you can.  And I sold it for more than I paid.  The buyer was thrilled.  Yeah!  Win-win.

Sold a large air-pressure pump too.  I bought a small portable one more suited to my needs.  But some guy wanted a big one.  Sold!

I have too much stuff I don't use.  Time to start selling.  I don't need the money, but there is no point in just tossing them away.  What I need more is unclutterred space in the basement and toolshed.

Anyway, I spent the day outside, and I am paying for it now.  Hand and rib muscle cramps, finger-clenches, lower back pain.  I better get this place ready for another 10 years soon or I won't be able to soon.  After 10 years, it is going to be a professional landscaper service or just let everything become "lawn".

New Computer

It arrived a couple days ago.  Need to set it up and migrate the old files to it.  Probably tonight but there is always something else to do.  I don't know about Windows, but Mac Time Machine saved on an external drive works well.

I can delay it a bit because (oddly annoyingly) the current one has stopped auto-restarting randomly and is not overheating after an hour.  It's like it knew it was being replaced...  Of course I don't give sentience to a machine, but it is acting as if it did.  Well, maybe some of the efforts I taken  the past month are actually working.

Still can't get the current one to leave comments on blogs with any regularity, though, so that is enough of a reason to set up the new one.  It's not like I don't try every few days, but constant failure gets discouraging.

I may be avoiding setting up the new one for fear of discovering it doesn't solve the problem.  If it doesn't, I will just scream!   And there is the thought that, if I don't open the box, it is returnable for 3 weeks.  I mention that because this "newest version (2020) has a dedicated Mac M1 chip and may require more app changes.

But if I want to continue with Mac, I probably have to.  A former co-worker just told me her office is going to Google software which (apparently) resides totally on The Cloud.  I don't trust Off-site file storage.  The security is probably better than on my desktop, but I am a WAY lesser target.  And if someone wants to see my photos, they are welcome to.  I keep no financial information or passwords on it.

Flowerbeds Part 5

The current view.   The late white daffodils.

Close up...

The edging specimen daffodils.  Separates the lawn from the perennial flowerbeds.

Some lucky tulips that the voles haven't found (yet).

Top shot of the same showing the neat dark centers.

Some tulips planted in mesh cages are still blooming nicely.

A 2nd patch.

I am thrilled about these.  They are a perennial flower called 'Maltese Cross'.  I planted a dozen of them in a temporary space and they all seemed to have died late last Summer.  Seriously, they just died back and disappeared.  But here they are growing early and healthy!

More of the species daffodils (they were on sale cheap).  They love it here.  I planted one per foot several years ago and look at them multiplying now!  I originally had the edging filled with crocuses, but crocuses are mole-candy.  But they don't eat daffodil bulbs!

Close up...

I've been renovating my flowerbeds and fence-plantings.  Some divisions I put into temporary storage hoping they would survive.  The tubs were originally for growing Yukon Gold potatoes, but since they sell them in the grocery stores now, no point to that.

So I have fancy hostas I can replant.

Autumn Joy Sedum divisions I can replant.

More Sedums...

My naturally-growing hostas are emergibng too.

I'm behind, but catching up.  Sometimes, that is all you can do.

Flowerbeds Part 4

The mid-Spring white daffodils were at their best.

The last quandrant of daffidils are yet to come, but starting.

One later planting of late yellow daffodils are blooming.

It looks good...

Some late clumps in the far backyard are nice too.

A closeup...

 

Flowerbeds Part 3

The 2nd blooming of the daffodils... The mid daffodils were opening.

And you can see a hint of the 3rd group at the left.

But the midddle bllom whites were at their best.

I love the changes from week to week.  Changes are better than "one-time-all-at once".

Flowerbeds Part 2

I love my 2 Saucer Magnolia tress.  The early Spring flowers are gorgeous.  But they walk a dangerous line with the weather.  One cold night, and all the emerging flowers die!  If I had it to do again, I would have planted Star Magnolias.  They open their flowers a week later.  So, they bloom more reliably.  

They are lesser in showy flowers but more reliable.  But I chose the Saucer Magnolia because there was a small park across the street from my office and I was awed by their beauty.  And the trees have pleasingly twisted branchs and nice green leaves the rest of the year. But they were in the center of Washington DC and city-centers are warmer.  

This year seemed promising.  Lots of buds, and the weather forecast was for wees of above-freeze temperatures.  Alas, a 22F night snuck in and killed are the blooms.

I was lucky to get this one, starting to open just before the freeze.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes you get frozen blooms!  At least the cold temps don't kill the tree.  And I have some backups for the future.  2 years ago, I planted 2 korean dogwoods and 2 Sourwoods in the far backyard.  The Dogwoods will bloom a couple weeks later in Spring and the Sourwoods don't exactly bloom, but the leaves turn bright red in Fall.

It has actually been a hard couple of years for trees here.  The drought 2 years ago was harsh.  A Beech tree in the front yard died outright.  I have 2 Golden Rain trees at the street on either side of my driveway.  I died and the other is barely alive (just several small branches with leaves emerging).  I may try to clip some small shoots and root them.  

A huge Sweetgum tree has been falling apart slowly for years.  I don't really mind that (it shades the garden).  But the trunk is going to fall on my fence eventually.  And it has shady siblings.  I hope they die too (I can use the light).  I can't have them cut down because they are actually (barely) on the neighbor's property and they don't care about my garden.  But I can hope they die natural deaths like the falling one.

When I moved here, the backyard was filled with junky trees.  I cut down some and a couple fell over on their own.  Wild blackberries and English Ivy took over.  They are hard to remove.  My hope is that the 4 new specimen trees (2 Dogwoods and 2 Sourwoods) will shade them out between chainsaw and brush-cutting efforts, but it will take a few years.  

I'll get the backyard cleaned of problem-plants eventually (and as the new trees grow).  Then I can try to remake the 10' pond and get the place looking as good as it did 10 years ago!

Flowerbeds Part 1

I've been slack about posting about the yard.  Too much griping about the computer (new one arrive 4-21 I hope).  So this starts 4 posts about the flowerbeds for this year, grouped by dates.

I covered the entire area of the main daffodil bed with black plastic last fall afrer the first hard freeze to try to smother the weeds.  Can't do it earlier than that because rain collects in small pools and mosquitos love that.  

When I saw the first daffodils emerge near the house (where it is warmer and they come up faster) I pulled all the plastic off.  There were some daffodils struggling to find light there already.  I should have realized that the black plastic warmed the soil.

But they recovered and greened up quickly.  So here are the first.

I planted them originally in pie-slice segments.  Daffodils come in varieties than emerge early-middle-late.  I thought the succession would look best that way.  Had I to do it again, I would have planted them randomly so that the entire  bed would be in partial bloom early to late.  But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The earliest ones bloomed rapidly...

In the front yard, the same daffodils were also blooming.  Fortunately, I DID randomly plant early and late daffodils, so there are blooms March-April.  And I chose yellow for early and white for late, so it changes the front yard "look".

The Nandina bushes are lovely and hardy.  And I have 24 rooted and healthy ones growing from seeds I collected.  Some will grow along the drainage easement and some will form a property line with a neighbor.  They are very deer-resistant and around here, that is a very good thing.

A closeup of the early daffodils at their best...

And I have individual clumps in the back yard.  Daffodils are toxic to voles, so they just go on blooming every year.  These are probably 30 years old.

More old clumps.

More old clumps.

A nice hyacinth.  I originally planted 50 in a 4' circle.  They are not toxic to voles.  So this is one of the last (lucky) survivors who haven't been found yet.  They smell AMAZING!

Closeup of the main flowerbed early daffodils...

And from a different angle.  Well, I do walk around the beds.  

Two weeks later, the next batch were blooming and the older ones still had flowers.

Best pic of both together...

A mid-bloom clump.

The fullest bloom of the frontyard daffodils.

A closer pic...

I decided to plant daffodils shortly after I moved here.  Well, I knew they lived long (and prospered).  But there was a yard I drove past frequently (not in my neighborhood, but on a sidestreet shortcut to the grocery store) that had a large daffodil bed.  I admired it a couple of Springs before I realized "I can do that".  It took some work (nothing good is easy, or everyone would do it).

And I planted tulips and hyacinths among them.  The voles ate all of those.  So I bought mesh wire and made cages to protect a 2nd planting.  That worked better, but tulips don't live long and maybe the wire mesh small enough to keep the voles away were also too small for the hyacinths.  I need to mark where the cages are and dig them up to try again after the stalks of the surviving bulbs die back down.

Later blooms next post...

Persistence

 I sometimes don't realize how frustrating computers are to others.  Some people are skilled at them; the hardware or the apps parts.  Some people just have to live with the frustrations.  I'm in the middle, I think.

I know enough to try.  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail.  That may be the most maddening of all.  I sometimes think it would be better to know most all of it or less of it. The first is very helpful and the 2nd pretty much lets you just "accept".

The middle means you struggle constantly.  Knowing what to do is like killing the wolf at the door with a gun.  Not knowing is like just accepting things and throwing a steak at the wolf.  Being in the middle is like just having a knife against the wolf.

*Sigh*

This time, I had to accept the wolf.  I can't wait for the new computer.  It will "probably" solve most problems.  Probably...  I won't know until it gets here and I set it up.  I'm hoping it is a hardware problem, fearing it may not be.  

I both love and hate computers.

Good, Bad

The bad news is that I had to struggle through my tax software with the old Mac Mini.  

The good news is that it still worked.

The bad news is that the taxes were hard as hell because I needed a statement from my Credit Union and my password wouldn't work.

The good news is that the Credit Union emailed me the statement.

The bad news is that it needed a paasword, too and in a pdf format my computer refused to open..

The good news is that I got it open in Preview "eventually".

The bad news is that I couldn't print the whole page full size (needed a magnifying glass to read the numbers).  

The good news is that the numbers were about right.

The bad news is that my inkjet printer decided to run out of ink.  

The good news is that I finally found the dedicated printer cable for the "new" color toner printer that has been sitting around for a year refusing to connect to the Mac Mini.

The good news is that it worked (after "many bad words" at the "add a printer app").  

The good news is that the toner printer printed out the Credit Union statement, full size.

The bad news is that it was so unexpected to work, I almost had a heart attack when it began to print.

The good news is that I completed and printed my tax forms.

The bad news is that I owe some additional taxes to Federal and State.

But in general?  More good than bad.  The color toner printer works great.  Loud, but who cares?  And my taxes are done.  I'll call that a "win".

Bad Day April 3

Sorry, everyone.  I got SO frustrated with the existing computer.  I kind of "lost it" suddenly a few days ago.

It was weird.  The computer had mostly stopped the frequent restarts, but then suddenly got very hot (some heat before for weeks but HOT recently.  I was also noticing that more original-size photos were disappearing from my Photo app.  

I went through an entire "restore" from my Time Machine backup from 2 weeks previous.  It took about 9 hours and I had to be there to answer a few dumb questions (like, "do you wish to continue"?). 

I got the computer "restored".  But I had lost the photos I had taken after that date.  Fortunately, I was able to import them back from a later backup.  It almost makes no sense, but it does really.  I needed the restore from mid-March to avoid some problems, but the newest backup processed photos were OK.  I keep the full-sized photos in Photo, and the smaller (cropped an light-adjusted) ones in a separate set of folders'

The full-sized Photo files (about 1.5-5 MB) are for quick viewing "all at once".  The processed ones (100-300 KB) are for posting.  Both have some value.

It occurs to me that, with a bit of tedious work, I can recover the missing Photo pics (at smaller size) back to Photos.  They look about the same regardless of size.  There are many I would love to have easier access too in Photos.

But they weren't the cause of the problems I have been having.  They were annoying.  What made me snap and shut down the computer and pull out all the cables in anger was the difficulty in commenting on the cat blogs.  And not being able to do that became maddening.

I felt I was just "one-way", receiving comments but not sending them.  Once in a while, they would get through but mostly they wouldn't.  It was either some old apps on my end or the computer was dying.

I gambled on increasing the RAM a few months ago.  That didn't help.  I tried shutting down the computer between uses.  That cooled it off, but didn't really solve anything long-term.  A Mac Mini is intended to be left on in "sleep mode".

I decided to replace it, and that was annoying.  For the price of going from 8 RAM to 16 RAM AND having a technician come out to install it, I could have bought a renewed one from Amazon that would surely have lasted a couple of years.  

But that is spilled milk, water under the bridge, water over the dam, etc. 

I checked Amazon.  For my habits and purposes, I wanted a 1 TB, 16 RAM, Intel 5 or 7 chip, and plenty of ports.  And I was tired of "renewed".  They didn't have one new.

So I went to Apple directly, expecting a hideous price.  To my surprise, I found exactly what I was looking for new and found their prices are more reasonable than they used to be.  Competion is good.

So I will have a new Mac Mini computer April 21-15.  The only difference is that it will have the new Apple M1 chip instead of an Intel.  Well, it must work or they couldn't sell it (famous last words).  I may have to change some apps.  I hope I can still manage to do that.

Meanwhile, I will spend some time importing processed photos back in the Mac Photo app, clean out old docs and gifs, and read friends' cat blogs until I can comment again. 

I HOPE! 

Gone

 Gone.