Various Stuff

My side-neighbor lit up Christmas lights last night.  My own house lights  are still up from Christmases ago.  Turned off of course.  The main floor hangs 2' forward from the basement and they hang on cup hooks.  I just never bothered to take them down.  You can't really see them from the street when unlit.

And they are nothing fancy, just a string of small blue lights on a timer.  I have a shrub and a tree I planted 2 years ago and put a cage around each to protect them from the deer.  I may add regular old-fashioned lights around them this year.  Blue.  I like blue.  The neighbors all do red/green lights, so the blue stands out a bit.  I am a bit non-standard sometimes.

I'll light them up December 1st.  I'm not crazy for these 6 week ahead of time decorations.  Too far ahead of time, and decorations seem to lose the connection to the holiday.  And I'll attach the nice sturdy white plastic wreath to the grille of the car then too.  

And I have a door-hanging Nutcracker to remember this year.  I have a top-of-the door hook.  And it doesn't blow around.  The front door is metal and I have a bunch of powerful magnets.

Laid down long strips of packing paper around the front yard island (with the Saucer Magnolia and the 3' boulder).  The paper will smother the grass.  I'm adding 2-3" of soil on that.  That will hold it in place.  Then I'll plant most of the 2 colors of 300 daffodils I received recently through that.

My bulb-planting drill auger will go right through the paper without tearing it up.

Then, with 3" of soil on top, all I have to do is rake soil back over all of them.

The rest of the daffs will go in the back yard to break up the large single-color daffs patches planting years ago.  I thought it was a good idea at the time to plant 4 different types in dedicated squares, but it is kind of boring.  So these new daffs will get planted among them for better and broader coverage and color.  

The hyacinths and crocuses will go in cages to protect them from the voles.  The hyacinths among the daffs around the birdfeeder.

The crocuses with be in cages too, but in the back lawn.  They bloom before I need to start mowing the grass.  I like seeing them in the lawn.

I have 2 forms I use to make the cages.  One is the wire mesh cutting pattern.  I first made small paper samples.  Then, when I got that right, I made a full-size cardboard version to cut the mesh with tin snips.  And then glued some scrap wood together so that I could fold the mesh around the wood block.

It sounds easier than it is, but it sure is easier than fashioning each one freeform!  And it is worth it.  hyacinths and crocuses can live more than a decade if the voles can't get at the bulbs.  In fact I have a few of each (unprotected) that are 25 years old.  

But "a few" is not "enough.  So it was time to replenish them.  

I have completely given up on tulips.  They are lovely but most of them don't live long.  I may try them again next Fall.  I have the thought of pulling up the 6' edging (that is sitting only 3" deep) and re-setting it down to ground level.  

Voles use mole tunnels to get around.  And moles don't usually dig tunnels 6" deep.  So if there is edging 6" deep, the moles won't tunnel there and the voles can't use the tunnels to get at hyacinth and crocus bulbs.  So no mole tunnels, no vole finding bulbs, and long-lived hyacinths and crocuses!

Motorcycle Man hasn't been driving up and down the street often lately.  Maybe he got older or bored.  Maybe he is old enough to drive further away.  I cheer for whatever the reason is!

But no problem goes away than a new one crops up.  The side-neighbors got a yappy dog months ago.  It's not that I mind dogs all that much.  The neighbors on the other side of me have 2 large ones and they bark too.  But they are only outside briefly, so the barking doesn't last too long.

The yappy dog is in their backyard almost all day long.  And barks all day long.  And when I am outside, it runs along the fence barking at me.  It probably weighs about 20 lbs, but it is convinced it has to protect the family from me.  So it never stops barking!  

It makes being in my own yard annoying.  I am a relatively quiet person.  I try not to disturb my neighbors.  As far as I know, it is a rental house.  I keep hoping they will move away and take the dog with them.

That's enough for now.

Good Heated Cat Mat

Can anyone recommend a good heated cat mat?  Everything at Amazon seems to get 4+ ratings an I have not had much luck with the last 3.  It's like a few months and they fail.

Veterans Day

 

Flowers

Last of them except the pansies I need to plant around the mailbox and deck pots...

Asters.

 Balsams.

US Election

In every election, someone wins and someone losses.  My choice "didn't win"...   So we will have President Trump (again), a Republican Senate, probably a Republican House, and a Republican Supreme Court.

I won't get into the politics involved.  I'm not here to start any political or social arguments (I do that elsewhere).  But I will say that I am  thoroughly depressed and worried.  There are likely to be some domestic and international consequences that many people are not going to like.

I will not be watching the political news channels much for a while.  I read The Washington Post newspaper while I eat lunch.  Just skimming the headlines of the various articles will tell me everything I need to know for a while...

There is plenty for me to do in the yard before Winter sets in, and plenty to do in the house after that.  I will post about that.

Standard Time

 Change to Standard Time took time, but went well.   Except the wristwatch!  The evil thing has 4 buttons which are all a bit confusing.  Sure, I keep the instruction pamphlet in the box.  But the instructions are nearly impossible to follow.

I spent an hour Sunday night trying to simply change the hour.  I couldn't get it to work.  

The instructions say to press and hold the A button in Timing Mode.  What, like through the whole process?  Or just for a while?  Then, it says press B (with the A button pressed or released?).  

Supposedly, the hours flash first.  No, it switches to 24 hour time.  The C button is for start/stop.  Should I press that to start changing the time?  The D button is supposed to advance any mode you are in.  Pressing it just changes 24 hour back to 12 hour time.

So I gave up for the day.

Monday, I had some better luck.  Sometimes doing the same thing over and over does result in changes!  Suddenly, I saw the hours blink.  I was able to reduce the hour by one.  HURRAY!

Another continuing problem has been laptops.  My old one had 23 letters that came loose and I coud repair that even with superglue.  A replacement (refurbished) would just not work (and I waited too long to return it).

So I bit the bullet and just bought a real new one.  It is charging up now.  I'll connect it to the main internet connection later to get updates and my personal choices online later.  It will be nice if I can use it in front of the TV replying to blogs again while watching Univ of Maryland men's and women's basketball and Washington Commander football games all Winter.

A Personal Political Statement

 I like to vote on Election Day itself.  It is so easy here, you are in and out in 15 minutes.  And I love the "I voted sticker.  I have been collecting them this century.

I have a preference, of course.  But more importantly I vote.  

I've researched every item right down to the School Board.  I have my choices made.  This isn't a contested State at the Presidential level, but some down-ballot issues are important and those matter too.

So if you haven't already voted, go to the polls and VOTE.

Personally, I would say "vote for the non-Trump candidate of your choice", but vote.  But if Trump is your guy, vote for him.  Just vote!

It matters that you participate.  You can't complain about an election if you don't vote.  

I am about to make breakfast.  Too eggs sunny side up, 2 country links, and two pieces of raisin/cinnamon bread with milk and green tea.

Then I am going off to vote.  If I did nothing else for the rest of the year, that would be OK.  Voting is that important.

And then I'm going to get good and drunk tonight, sleep for 12 hours, and hope to wake up Wednesday with results I hope for...

Some graphics...

I am leaving now to go vote...

Too Much To Do

I mentioned previously that I have about 500 Spring bulbs to plant.   That is going to take some time, but my drill auger does make it a lot easier to create 6" holes.  And that I have about 2 cubic yards of topsoil/compost mix to use up.  I bought it loose-dumped into a trailer for filling 11 ten gallon pots and way over-estimated the requirements.

Well, at least I have good use for the excess.  My raised framed garden bed soil has settled 4" lower over the years.  And I can cast some of it thinly over Fall-planted meadow and pollinator seeds I have to plant soon.

But I messed up an order with the local DIY store.  I have cheap 6" plastic edging around a bed in the front lawn.  It keeps heaving up in Winter and has no strength and is hard to mow around.  So I looked at concrete edgers

that are designed to allow curves (notice the round right and the curved left).  And 12" pavers to both support them and create a "no grass zone" on 4" inside and out of the border.  

Have you ever planned to order something, then decided not to, but discovered you did?  Well, a 4'x4'x4' pallet arrived Wensday while I was still in bed (I never even heard them unloading it).  Now I have to pull up the bad plastic edging, dig a 2"deep x12"wide trench around the bed (about 60') for the pavers to sit at ground level (so I can mow across the edges and have no grass growing there), and pile the edgers on the top.  

And with Standard Time arriving, I have less time for outdoor work.  I may have to start getting up earlier!

I am going to be so totally worn out in the next couple weeks.  

Standard Time Returns

I hate it when Daylight Saving Time ends!  My schedule doesn't change, I just have one less hour of daylight.  Since I watch TV after dinner (and their schedule doesn't change) I go to bed at about the same time.  It just gets dark an hour earlier.  And since I get most active after lunch, I have an hour less to do stuff outside.

I personally wish we would just stay on Daylight Saving Time.  I know it benefits some people, but I am sometimes very selfish.  The change bothers ME.  

It will get dark at 5 PM here, limiting my outside activity.  And I still have lots to do outside.  More about that in a couple of future posts...

But I have so many clocks to change.  The analog ones are not that tricky but I have some everywhere.  And there are a few digital clocks to change.  I've been switching to radio frequency-adjusted ones but there are still old ones around.  And I always forget the one in the car!  

My wristwatch drives me crazy.  There are 4 buttons on the sides and I can never find the instructions, so I have to look it up of the manufacturers website.  And it always takes a few tries to get it right because it is hard to tell when the tiny buttons have been pressed sufficiently.  

And I am a bit obsessed about precision.  I read once that "a person with one clock always knows what time it is; a person with more clocks is never sure".  

OK, I'm just annoyed by the change...  😖

Frustrating Stuff

 I mentioned previously that I couldn't get my CD player to work and kept thinking it was the wiring.  But then just replaced the CD player with a new one and that fixed it.  

But I then discovered that the glass door in front wouldn't close.  Well, the rack cabinet is really old.  It came here with me, so I suppose it is 40-45 years old.  I had recently had to push it sideways to get it to close the door so I assumed the box itself needed some corner reinforcements, which I put off having more urgent things to do.  

But yesterday, I noticed the small box that connects the optical fiber to the TV cable box was on the floor next the the TV stand.  Well, one of The Mews must have jumped on the cable and pulled it off the stand.  But when I tried to put it back, it wouldn't go back.  One cable was too tight, and I couldn't tell by feel what was wrong.

So I had to pull the stereo rack out.  Well, I'm glad I put the stereo rack on a wheeled support stand, but I have to raise 2 levers in the back to engage the wheels.  Which is not really easy to do.  It involves twisting my body around the sides and that usually results in rib muscle cramps.  And I could feel the muscles threatening to cramp as I did it.  Thankfully, I got the levers raised just before they went full cramp.

When I pulled the rack out, I discovered that some kitty had looped a cable around a lever, effectively shortening it.  I got that loose and got the optical fiber box back on the stand.  Hurray!  And pushed the rack back close to the wall.  Then had to release the wheel levers (another threat to my rib muscles).  

And then the glass door still wouldn't close properly.  Since I was dealing with the rack anyway, I examined the glass door.  At first, I thought it was bumping against CDs I had stacked in there.  But when I took them out, it still wouldn't close.  ARGGHHH!

So I examined the glass door.  Hinge on top and hinge on bottom.  Both were tight, so that wasn't the problem.  So I looked at the hinges with a magnifying glass and a flashlight.  The glass door slides into the hinges and is held in place with 2 screws on each (not touching the glass, but squeezing the metal hinges.

The glass went fully into the top hinge.  The bottom was out of fully in the hinge by just 1/8th inch.  Loosened the screws, pushed on the glass door, and retightened the screws.  I still had to push the top of the rack sideways a tiny bit, but at least it closed!  Good enough for now; I have other things to do.

I'm no real handyman.  A real handyman has experience fixing a lot of stuff over and over.  What I have is persistence.  

It almost sounds like a Murphy's Law (of which I am a dedicated believer).  If you recall that, the basic Law is "If anything can go wrong, it will".  Over the years, other people have added to that Law.  In fact, I have 2 books of "Murphy's Laws".  Some are silly things like "You can't fall off the floor" or serious ones like "If you drop something, it will fall to the most unretrievable place possible" or "No matter what you want to do, you have to do something else first".

I will add a more positive Law.  "If you stare at a problem long enough, you will find a solution.  That's MY motto, anyway.

Election

 Well, I guess I'm ready to vote.  Most of my choices were settled months ago, but there were some local elections and ballot questions to research.  Yeah, I even look up Judges and School Board Members...

The Judges are just "retain or not",  I was pleased to find that the 3 current ones had excellent credentials and experience and were on the defense side in the past.  I'd rather have a guilty person get off once than an innocent person imprisoned.

The School Board election was easy enough.  Maryland has 4 year terms.  The one at-large is elected in presidential years, and all the other in the mid-cycle elections.  This was an at-large election, so it was easier.  One had experience, emphasized science and teacher-training, and suggests "slow-retirement of teachers so they can mentor the new ones.  The other (as far as I can tell) manages a day care center.  Nothing wrong with that, but apparently has little actual school-management experience.

That left the 2 ballot questions.  One was for encoding women's reproductive care into the State Constitution.  I'm going for that without any hesitation.

The other was more complicated.  All about changing the County Government.  The choices were the current form ("home rule"), and a  "charter" form with more county-wide consolidation of organization.  I visited 3 sites discussing them and still couldn't really understand the consequences.  But 1 site showed a map of the State counties showing which each had.  The 3 counties I think are best-run all had the "charter type".  The 3 most conservative (and kind of "run-down") counties all had the "home rule" system.  So I'm going with "charter".   Might as well advance with the times and what seems to work best...