Doing Useful Stuff, 4

My back yard has a lot of mature trees, and a lot of volunteer saplings grow as a result.  Vines keep growing all the time, and I am constantly fighting wild ("mock") strawberries.   I deliberately left half of it "semi-wild".  Well, I'm not the typical suburban yard-like-a-pool-table-top with bits of shrubs and flowers type.

So there is always SOMETHING invading the more domesticated parts of the back yard.  Today, I finally got tired of the wild blackberries infesting the astilbe section of the flowerbed.  No, they aren't blackberries worth eating.  They are small, seedy, and hard as dry raisins. 

So...  I got out my poacher's shovel (a curved shovel with a blade only a few inches wide but 12" long - so named for digging up valuable wild plants with the least soilball for transport).  Its a really nice tool for digging up deep-rooted weeds among close-planted desirable plants. 

An hour later, I had a nice pile of brambles.  I had to work at getting as much of the roots as possible without killing the astilbe and baptisia.  The astilbe are well-grown, but the baptisia are just sending up shoots (they are rather like hostas shoots at emergence).  I still snapped a few baptisia shoots in the process, but was relieved to discover that each of the 6 plants had at least 6 more shoots emerging.

And there is not a briar/bramble to be found in THAT section...

I rewarded myself by standing on the deck with a beer, and classical music on the radio while I contemplated what best to do tomorrow.  And I admired the pile of brambles.  I sure wish I could have had the cats outside with me.  I miss that.  

Tinkerbelle (1982? to 1999), Skeeter (1992 to 2008), and LC (1993 to 2010) were always outside with me.  Tink and LC went over the fence routinely and sometimes stayed out for the night, but they always ran home in the morning.  Skeeter seldom left the yard (crawled through a rabbit trench under the fence a couple of times and then hated it cuz he couldn't find his way back and would moan on the other side until I removed a fence board to give him a return point).

When Ayla stayed out several nights because of "in heat" and then Marley jumped the fence, I had to stop their outside fun.  And there are owls around now at night and they didn't used to be around here.

I think I need to make the under-the-deck patio area a "catio".

That Collapsed Storm Drain

Well darn, I thought I had posted this 2 weeks ago, but I saw it was just sitting in "draft" mode...

It lasted 25 years with flood waters pounding it from almost ALL of the rainwater that ran down from the upslope neighborhood of about 1 square mile.

It finally fell apart.


Well, there it was all fallen down.  "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up".  So I called it into the County Maintenance office as a safety hazard that children might fall into.  They came RIGHT out and surrounded by this "child-proof safety fence", LOL!  Yeah, THAT will keep the kids away for SURE.

Well, better than nothing, I suppose.  More impressive, they returned in only 3 weeks to do the actual full repair.  I was expecting more like 4-6 months.  My County is not rich, and I'm sure scattered odd repairs are not their favorite ways to spend tax money.  But they did a really good job.

The first person examined the entire structure.  He decided it needed complete rebuilding.  I asked him about that and he pulled out 1 brick and broke it in half with his bare hands.  Yup, it needed new (and better) brickwork.  And he said he didn't get any extra money for recommending full rebuilds.

Here is the finished product.  I asked the guys rebuilding it if I could take a picture of them, and they said they would rather I didn't.  So OK.  Its not like taking pictures of my cats, who don't have a choice.

But they did good work!

They said the bricks were stronger and the morter more waterproof, so the storm drain might outlast me. 

Doing Useful Stuff, 3

Biannual Trash Dump:

I visit the landfill twice a year.  I recycle and compost so much that I seldom have anything for the trash collectors to haul away.  Maybe 1 bag per month.  And since I have to pay private trash collectors at least $40 per month, that's not a good deal.

And since what IS trash isn't organic, it doesn't smell.  So it can sit in bag in the garage for 6 months.

The kitty litter is the bulk of my other trash.  I can't compost THAT! But with the scoopable litter in plastic bags in the plastic tubs the litter comes in makes a good storage. I can wait on that too.  Seriously, the scoopable litter in the plastic tubs it comes in DOESNT cause any odor.  To me anyway.

So I filled up the car with the tubs of used kitty litter and the bags of  clean trash and drove to the landfill.

I can't BELIEVE I didn't take pictures of the SUV all filled up this time...  This isn't the picture from THIS year, but it is about the same amount.

The difference is that I learned that if I could put it all in the back of the car, I could pay just a flat fee of $5 for the whole load.  A trailer MUST be paid by weight (and that weight cost $10-$15)  So I do that by carload now.

Now I start another 6 months kitty litter and uncompostable, unrecyclable trash collection in the garage.  LOL!

Doing Useful Stuff 2, Planting Tomatoes

Planted tomatoes.  Heirlooms.  Can't wait for the ripe ones.

First, dug nice wide holes with a post-hole digger...  4 per box.

 The hole is deeper than it looks.  They are a foot deep.

Scatter some 2-6-6 organic slow release fertilizer and some pulverized eggshells (for calcium) in the bottom.  Lay the rootball in, add soil and some more fertilizer and eggshell.  Fill it up

Tomato seedling looks happy but floppy from the handling (yes they react to handling).

Add a short stake and a plant clip to hold it upright.

Put a 5 gallon bucket over the seedling...

Put a Wall O' Waters around the bucket...

Put the pointy nozzle on the hose...

And fill up the tubes.  1/2 at first for balance, then 2/3 to hold the teepee upright on its own after you pull the bucket up and out....

Strange as it may seem, the cooling water at night actually releases heat into the center.  The inside is 20F warmer than outside.  I've measured it!   That's great on the occasionally cool nights that drop to 40sF, but the main advantage is that it keeps the soil around the roots warm.  That really matters more.  The soil temperature stays around 60F.

Earth Day

OOPS!  I missed it yesterday somehow...

So, Happy Earth Day, Earth.  Thanks for supporting all of us another year.

It was probably not a coincidence that I saw my first hummingbird of the year Sunday morning!

Doing Useful Stuff, 1

A series of daily  stuff...

Sorted out and filed 2 years of bills and documents...  It was a pile 2 feet high.

Small Victory

I lost a frame screw from my eyeglasses 2 weeks ago.  I looked all over the area where the lens fell out.  No luck.

Fortunately, I always have 2 pairs of glasses.  So I replaced the lens and wrapped rubber bands around it to hold it in place until I passed the eyeglass shop.  But I kept not stopping (mostly because I always had food that would spoil quickly and the eyeglass place is S-L-O-W).

So today, I was typing at the computer and suddenly my attention was drawn to a tiny object...  The missing frame screw!!!  Hurray!

So I took out my set of jewelers screwdrivers and went about replacing the screw.  Damn, I just couldn't get it started.  Not by hand and not by screwdriver.  I even put a magnet on the screwdriver to hold the screw to the tip.  No luck for 15 damn minutes!  I kept thinking the starter hole OUGHT to be unthreaded and the lower one threaded to tighten the screw.

I FINALLY got it started and screwed it in place.  Took off the rubber band...  And the frame popped right open again.  Damn, damn, damn!

Then I noticed the screw on the OTHER side went in from bottom to top.  The BOTTOM is unthreaded.  Ohhh...

15 seconds later, I had the screw tightened.  I checked the other screw; it was still tight.

But then I checked the other set of glasses (which, of course, I had been wearing).  BOTH screws were loose.

I have a reason to mix up a small amount of epoxy for another reason soon.  I guess I will loosen each frame screw just a bit and use a toothpick to add a tiny dab before I retighten then.  I've had to do that before and it works great.

Granted I have reading glasses, so I put them on and take them off frequently, but do other people have this same problem with eyeglass frame screws falling out?  Have you thought of some good solution other than epoxy?

Good Things Happening, Part 2

THE CRAZY NEIGHBORS:  This time they have actually moved away!  Even the outside stuff is gone.  The BBQ grill, the tarp covering the front of the motorcycle shed that FIG used as a minor repair shop (I had no problem with that), and the kiddie pool in the back yard is gone.  There is NOTHING about them left behind this time.

They have actually left.

They brought out the worst in me, but also some best.

The worst is that I reacted to FIG and SNG  (Fat Idiot Guy and Stupid Nutso Girl).  I almost got in trouble with the police because I yelled at THEM to stop yelling outside at 3 am.  Well, maybe I deserved that.  To be fair, I'm not even sure the police knew I yelled at them, they just asked me some questions about the neighbors.  But I felt guilty.

 ---------------------

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE CRAZY NEIGHBORS WHEN:

1.  They scream obscenely at each other every Saturday night (in warm weather) at 3 am.
2.  One drives the only car away,
3.  With the infant in it,
4.  And with the only cell phone,
5.  And the other jumps in front of the car,
6.  Until pushed forward too much,
7.  And then lays down in the middle of the street screaming for an hour,
8.  Until she comes to your door begging you to call the police,
9.  And you do,
10.  And they come when the guy gets back and haul him off to jail for a few days,
11.  And they both HATE you for doing that,
12.  And she comes over the next day to beg for a cigarette,

13.  And FIG gives you the "evil eye" while you are just mowing the lawn,
14.  And you begin to wonder who owns that rental place so that you can complain,
15.  Or maybe even buy it to get rid of them because it wouldn't be THAT bad a deal,
16. And warm weather comes again and they start the screaming raging arguments again.

 ---------------------

And then they ACUALLY move away...  Hal A Luliah!

Good Things Happening

I have to say that I am pleased this past week. 

FIRST, the storm drain on the property line collapsed last month and I called it in for a repair.  Well, I don't mean that I was pleased it collapsed, but that the Count responded in 2 days with some surrounding warning tape.  So at least they reacted fast.

Then only a couple days later, a crew of bricklayers came out.  They tore down the existing brick structure, loaded it into a pickup very cleanly, then started rebuilding the whole thing.  I was amazed and pleased!

I only went out and bothered them with questions twice.  I've learned a few things over the years.  Guys who cut down trees are daredevils and love to show of.  Guys who lay bricks carefully don't.   

They made a small dam on rocks and soil and put a sump pump in the pool.  The sump pump led across my lawn to another storm drain, so the worksite stayed dry.

I looked at the work after they left.  The brickwork wasn't very level.  But it was lower in the center where the water would drain in, so I assume that was deliberate.  But is was level on the other side where water drains in, so I'm not sure.  It is interesting trying to figure out which side was done wrong, if either was.  The level side is against a solid brick wall downward whereas the lowered center side falls into the open pipe.  There MAY be a reason for that.

Quite frankly, I don't want to attend "storm drain school" to figure it out.  LOL!

But there was wet cement on the bottom of the storm drain and they left a gas electrical engine running to keep the water away for a while.  That makes sense.  But the gas engine ran out at 7:20 PM and I went out to look.  The water was slowly topping the soil dam and reaching the storm drain.  I was wondering whether to call the County when some guys came by in a County pickup truck. 

I mentioned it had just stopped and they said they had estimated it wrong.  The water was taking away some of the concrete.  But they said they could pull it all up and do the base concrete again.  They were CLOSE, but the job won't be "the best". 

On the other hand, the previous build lasted 25 years and I won't be around to worry about it in another 25.

SECOND, The Crazy Neighbors.  More about them next time...

My Crazy Neighbors, Part 2

Oh this is even better than I hoped!  The trailer is back this morning and filled with even the recycling bins.  Who needs to take recycling bins when they leave?  They are free anywhere you move to.

Weirder yet, that may be the house heat pump in the trailer too.  Well, might as well steal everything when you are a deadbeat.  LOLOL!  I'm surprised not to see the refrigerator and stove, but then I wasn't watching all night.  Maybe they already moved those out.  Rich theft for evil renters.

This just gets worse and worse.

The high hilarity point was watching FIG and his Dad trying to haul the trailer of furniture out yesterday.  FIG put the hitch side right next to the mailbox.  DUH, ya cant attach it and get it out easily that waythat way...

FIG and Dad finally did get Dad's pickup to the trailer hitch.  That's where the fun began.  They could manage to pull the pickup forward without hitting the mailbox.  I was falling on the floor laughing.  It was SO obvious it would be easy to just back the trailer off the yard.

But I've offerred advice before and got a crashing F*** Y** reply, so I just treated it as a bad reality TV show (but one I watched). 

FIG and Dad manuvered the pickup and trailer in all the possible wrong ways to get it around the mailbox.    I coukd have moved the triler backwards and gotten around the mailbox in 2 minutes.  Their solution?  Beat the mailbox post out of the ground.


I'm sorry, you can't invent stuff like this.  At least, I couldn't.  I watched them struggle for at least 20 minutes, turning the pickup wheels the wrong way EVERY single time.  You had to see it to believe it.

They both seem to be rather mechanically competent otherwise.   Fig repaired "stuff", his Dad casually added flares to his concrete driveway and built a rather nice toolshed in the back yard.  But, oh don't I wish I had a good camcorder...  I'd have a million hits by now.  My guess is that they understand machines but failed 10th grade geometry.

I might live in the USA's weirdest neighborhood.  My next door neighbor guy had an affair with the wife the next house over.  His wife left him, her husband left her, and she killed herself in the house.  The guy abandoned the house, but comes by once a month to mow the lawn.  He busted the fence gate up one day and it remains broken a year later.  The cuckholder guy only comes to the house when his daughter has to stay with him for the weekend...   I hear her laughing with neighborhood friends, so THATS good.

I wonder what SHE thinks sometimes, though.

The neighbors on the other side were always quiet, but strange too.  The guy built a half a garage and then stopped for 10 years.  Then he finished it suddenly and they left.  The new neighbors are strange.  The woman has bright red hair and wears the same black dress every day when outside (well, maybe she has a closet full of them).  The guy only comes out once every few weeks to mow the lawn.  They have a dog that seems to get out once a week, so I can only imagine that they have a dirt basement and clean poop a lot.

I need to move!

My Crazy Neighbors

I know I wrote about thinking my crazy neighbors across the street were moving out last December (and it turned out to be only the Mother of the crazy guy), but I have real hope now!  I call the crazy guy FIG (Fat Idiot Guy).  He seems to be married or otherwise "attached to" SNG (Stupid Nutso Girl).  There are also1 or two other guys and/or gals living there at various times.  FIG is the son of the guy next door.

FIG and SNG have raging screaming relationship arguments outside late at night.  One time he pushed her off the street with his car when she tried to stop him from leaving.  Another time, she asked me to call the police because he had taken the only telephone.  She's not quite normal either; she drags furniture into the street when she is angry and throws clothes into the drainage easement.  Just last week, she dragged some piece of furniture to the Dad's yard (where he burns brush) and set it on fire.  The laughing was a bit scary.

They are the only problems though.  The few times I've talked to the others living there, it's fine, even if they seem to change every few months.

Last December, it was a pickup truck of furniture being removed.  And then the house was dark a week, so I really thought they had left.  But as I said above, it was just FIG's Mom fleeing the insanity.

But TODAY!!!  Ah, it is more serious moving.  And better yet, it involves FIG's stuff.  I have great hopes this time.

1.  The previous renter built a motorcycle shed at the end of the driveway.  It is about  6' wide and deep, but with a front overhang and no front.  A bit odd, but I guess it protected his motorcycle sufficiently for him.  Well, the first thing FIG did was attach a heavy tarp across the front.  It seems he did appliance repairs in there.  Today, he took it down!

2.  He loaded up his trailer a week ago.  Bedframe, mattress, easy chair, tire, tools, trashcans, and (of all things) a kiddie pool I've seen him lay in. 

3.  His Dad came over to help, and no one else did.

4.  Several different cars were there during the day and different people loaded boxes into different cars.  None of the cars seemed filled, so I don'r think it was a group effort to move everyone together to the same place.  Looks like Splitsville to me!

5.  Both FIG and SNG dragged some small pieces of furniture over to FIG's Dad's driveway.  Not enough to move in with, but maybe a few things he could use that they couldn't in some new place.

6.  In the past couple of months, I've seen some well-dressed middle-aged guy banging on the front door (and none of their friends use the front door).  I think he is the owner looking for rent money.

7.  If the stuff in Fig's trailer was going to the landfill (he did leave the furniture in the trailer out in the rain for a few days (see 2), he sure spent a lot of time dumping it.  I know where the landfill is and how long it would take to get there, unload, and return.  He took an extra hour, which suggests he was moving it to a new residence.  Maybe the stuff was all plastic.  I didn't go look.

8.  Even in the dark (as I type) cars are pulling up, loading only a few boxes, and driving away.  Maybe there were a lot more people living there than I realized.  Or maybe they are taking stuff away as fast as it is packed.

I normally do not concern myself overly with my neighbors.  Oh, I'm "the helpful guy next door" when anyone needs any help.  I bring over my extension ladder when someone needs to clean their gutters, I'll lend my lawnmower when someone's breaks, help with advice on planting flowers for novices, help kids get a ball out of the stormdrain, collect the newspapers when some is on vacation, etc.  But I'm not the "hey, c'mon over for a BBQ tomorrow" type.

So these odd folks across the street are the only people I have had the least bit of trouble with in the 25 years I've lived here.

But I REALLY hope this time they are moving away.