Brambles Be Gone

I had arranged for a person with a serious brush-cutter to come and cut down and remove the 1/8 acre of trashy undergrowth last month.  When I called to see why he hadn't called for a day to do th work, he said he was in the hospital with appendicitis.  No more hard work for him this year...

I expressed my sympathy.  I had the same operation at 18, so I knew how he felt. 

But that didn't solve my problem.  I need those brambles removed.  And he was the only person I could find willing to do a "small" job.

I guess I am going to have to use the gas-powered steel-bladed I've had sitting around for 3 years.  It scares me.  The instructions suggest that using it can injure the operater unless used perfectly and with fancy leggings to clog the blades.

Lovely...

On the other hand, most injuries are caused by carelessness, and a certain level of fear is a good protection from carelessness.

Those brambles have to be eliminated.  I want that part of my yard back!  They grew when I cut down a few tall trees that were blocking some sunlight to my veggie garden.  It's the Law Of Unintended Consequences".

Improve the sunlight to the veggie garden improved the sunlight to the rest of the backyard.  And apparently, the brambles were just WAITING for a little extra sunlight. 

I have 4 specimen trees waiting to be planted in there.  They will grow to about 20".  Not enough to shade the veggie garden, but enough to shade out the brambles again... 

The weather forecast suggests warmer than average temps around Christmas here.  I hope to take advantage of that to cut down the brambles.  After that, I can mow them.  The terrain is uneven back there, but a regular old manual rotary mower I have can handle it.  Push the mower, tilt it up on the back wheels, lower it down on the bramble shoots and move on.  It will take an hour a day for a week, but that should kill all the brambles.

If not, I'll keep doing it.

Last Gardening

I've done about all I can do outside until about March.  The ground finally froze (it got down below freezing for several full days and nights).  The surface will thaw and refreeze for a few weeks, but I can't do anything useful with that.  I thought I was done 2 weeks ago after I cleared off all the garden debris and filled the framed beds and planted 250 daffodils.

But I discovered that 450 crocus bulbs that I ordered last year and never got around to planting because I wanted to make wire cages to plant them in to protect them from the voles and squirrels were still solid and seemingly sound after sitting in my garage for the whole year.  So I set about planting them everywhere I could think of.  Some 150 went into a bed I plan to move hostas to next year.

Most ended up in containers, though.  I used to grow Yukon Gold potatoes in 4 large plastic bins, but the grocery store started selling them, so I stopped.  I just buy them now.  That gave me 4 bins.  And several years ago, the County switched from hand-carried recycling bins to bigger-than-trash-can sized ones, so I had 3 of the old ones.

I filled them all with 4" of topsoil/compost mix, planted extra daffodils, covered those with 2" of soil, planted crocuses on top of that and added another 2" of mix on top of that.  So I have about 100 daffodils and 300 crocuses in 30 sq ft of those.  Hopefully they will grow and I can reharvest them in Late Spring for more permanent locations (in wire cages for the crocuses).

I don't know if they WILL grow after sitting around for a year, but I know for SURE they won't if not planted.  

Solstice And Gardening

One of my favorite days of the year!  It is the most natural holiday I know.  The days start getting longer.  It means the next season is Spring.  Spring means light, warmth, and gardening.  And I am planning a lot for next year.

25 years ago, I was deeply into perennial flowers.  I bought from an online place that sold 3-packs for $5 and planted a dozen here and a dozen there, etc.  Some perennials aren't very long-lived; they kept dying out slowly and there would always be holes in the flowerbed.  And even at 3 for $5, they aren't cheap.  My flowerbed is 75'x8', so 300 perennials would cost $500 and half died out after 3 years.  And perennials only flower for a few weeks.

So I switched to annuals after I retired.  Annuals flower all season, they are available as seeds, and they are easy to grow.  Planting each year is a bit annoying, but I have time and 40 sq ft of lighted shelves (a 5 shelf 4'x2' rack with 4 4' fixtures in the basement).  Plus a 4 shelf 3'x2' stand at the southern-facing deck glass doors upstairs for germinating seeds that want warmth.

Anyway...  I can grow a lot on annuals from seeds.

But I still want some more permanent plantings.  I discovered "cottage garden" planting this past month.  It's a combination of long-lived perennials and self-sowing annuals.  And you plant stuff at random.  No big patches of one flower here and another there.  The idea seems to be that what thrives thrives and empty spaces self-fill.

We'll see!  I am going to give it a try.  Large portions of my flowerbed were flowerless last year, so most of it needed to be re-done anyway.

I have a large serious roto-tiller for work in large areas.  But this will take some detailed tilling.  So I bought a 10" wide electric tiller in September.  My first attempts using it were dismal!

The grassy weeds wrapped around the tiller blades.  10 minutes tilling meant 10 more minutes cutting and pulling grass off the blades.  I learned to use my string trimmer to cut the grass tops off and rake them away.  Then use the tiller to chop up the soil.  There were still roots that wrapped around the tiller blades, but easier to remove.  Better than manual shovel work, anyway!

I have a catalog from a company that offers a wide variety of cottage garden plants and seeds.  It is from 2011 (I keep interesting catalogs), and I have arranged to get a 2017 catalog in early January.  I have some long-lived perennials that will suit a cottage garden (coneflowers, goldenrods, daylilies), and I will be ordering seeds of self-sowing annuals when the catalog arrives.  I may order a few plants for which growing from seed is very complicated.

And I have 2 planting areas in the middle of the yard that I didn't do anything with this year.  Nice edged areas I can mow around to control invasive flowers.  I want one to be for Lysimachia ‘Firecracker".  It's invasive.  I tried to kill it for 2 years and it keeps coming back.  So next Spring, I'm going to transplant it to a 10' edged circle and mow around it.  That should stop the "invasiveness".  It's annoying but lovely.  Purple foliage and bright yellow flowers most of the Summer.

The 2nd edged area will be a wildflower patch.  I scattered seeds from a packet I bought last Fall.  The instructions said to raked the soil roughly, scatter the seeds and smooth soil over them lightly.  I got a few flowers, but not many.  Most are perennials that need 2 or 3 years to flower, so I will give them time.  

But another old catalog I have offers high-quality seeds suited for scattering on bare ground in Winter.  That's actually the way they normally grow, so I'm going to give that a try.  And they offer a flowering enhancement packet for $10 to give some flowers the first year.  I'm going for 2 of those.

The 3rd edged area is mostly planted already with caged tulips, caged hyacinths, and lots of daffodils.  I added 2 dozen daylilies, some common and some fancy.  

This year, I thought I would remember exactly where the tulips and hyacinths were.  HA HA HA!  Next Spring, I will mark the spots with landscaping flags so that I can plant flowers in between the spots.  I want no spot to be un-planted if I can manage it.  The bulbs like to stay dryish most of the year, so I need to plant Summer flowers that don't mind dry conditions.  So I may plant 200 marigolds of various varieties among them.  They like hot dry conditions too.  The point being that I will never deliberately water that 3rd edged bed.

They will do fine with normal rainfall, I just won't add to it.

A cottage garden bed, a wildflower bed, a purple Lysimachia bed, and a Spring bulb/Summer annual bed...  Should be a good view from the deck!

Trailer Tires

Some things are just frustrating!  One of my trailer tires went flat 2 weeks ago.  It was just rubber fatigue.  They are 20 years old.  There are cracks on the sidewall.  So...  time to replace both of them.  I called a tire store and they were all snooty about "trailer tires".  They want to sell you high-end all weather tires for cars.  They said they could special order them for $150 per tire.

So I went to a trailer company.  THEY were overwhelmed by putting snowplows on trucks, but did have a combination tire and rim available for $120 each and they had 5 of my size in stock.  I said OK and drove right over.

They didn't have 5 in stock.  In fact, they had none.  The person I had talked to was embarrassed.  Her computer said they had 5 and they didn't. 

I mentioned to her that I had worked for a tire store once and as assistant manager (responsible for tires among other things, we came up one tire short in inventory check and they took that out of my salary.  She was amazed but apparently that doesn't happen these days.

So I had to special order 2 tire/rim combinations for delivery last  friday.  Prepaid with an assurance that I would be called immediately when they were received.  Guess what didn't arrive Friday?

So I asked about the next delivery and that was Monday.   On Tuesday, they were still unloading the truck into the storage area.  Sure to have it complete Thursday.  But certain my tires were on the truck. 

Haven't heard from them yet.  Tomorrow I'm calling again.  Fortunately, my need for the trailer is not urgent.  But I hate unsettled matters.

Spring Bulbs

I always order too many Spring bulbs.  I'm overly ambitious (well, that's better than being underly-ambitious), and estimating the number needed is always tricky.  So this year I had ordered bulbs to add to an existing bed.  Some of the same 2 varieies I planted last year to enlarde the are, and a new variety for a 3rd section. 

It turned out that the additional bulbs of the existing varieties used up all the space and I had 150 of a 3rd variety to plant.  "Somewhere"...

I love daffodils!  They are truly perennial.  There are hillsides in Washington DC where Lady Bird Johnson had them planted in the mid 1960s!  Nothing bothers them.  Voles and mice won't eat them, insects don't bother them, and their spot would have to become either a swamp or a desert to kill them naturally.

But they are just combinations of yellow, orange, and white.  So they can be a bit boring.  I wish some geneticist would make daffodils as colorful as tulips and hyacinths.  But they haven't, and some daffodils are getting better over the years.  Some have fancier flowers, some have contrasting colors, some bloom earlier or later.  I have to admit they are pretty good plants.

But still, I had 150 of 'Hillstar' to plant "somewhere.  Where, where, where?

And it hit me.  The front border of my main flowerbed has always been a problem.  Nothing I put there seemed to last.  My last attempt (planting alternating blocks of yellow and purple crocuses with a space left every foot for Summer annuals didn't work.  The voles ate them all.  And I have tried some perennials that never seemed to look right and died anyway.  The soil seems fine, BTW.

AHA, space to plant the Hillstars!  The planting was relatively easy.  My drill auger went down easily into the soft improved soil.  But still, it meant kneeling down to set the bulbs in the holes, backfilling with 50/50 topsoil and compost mix, sprinkling some 2-6-6 slow release organic fertilizer, raking over the augered-out soil across the top, and watering deeply to hydrate the bulbs so that they can slowly grow roots over the Winter before blooming in April. 

I came up 8' short of the border!  Darn.  But I ordered another 25 and they arrived in 3 days and I got THOSE planted.  Which left me with extra bulbs of Hillstar and one other from the main bed. 

Before I explain what I did with those, I should mention that I had 500 crocus bulbs I never got around to planting last Fall.  I intended to make wire cages to protect them from the voles.  But by the time I finally made cages for tulips and hyacinths in the main bed and got them all planted last year, the ground was frozen and I was worn out digging in the bad soil (rocks, tree roots, clay).  The tulips were buried in wire cages and in great soil and came up wonderfully this past Spring.  I never saw a hyacinth.

Because of that, I carefully dug up one of the hyacinth cages.  No easy task.  But I finally cleared off the top of one and the tops are hinged with wire so I could open it.  I pulled out several.  They were hard and healthy, and had roots growing.  Why they didn't send up shoots and flowers is a mystery to me, but I rebuyied them and will hope for blooms next Spring.

So I just set the boxes of the crocuses in the garage and left them.  Last week, after most of my regular garden shut-down chores were done, I thought of those crocuses.  I brought the boxes onto the tool bench.  There were  few leftover hyacinths.  They were like paper husks, utterly dead.

But the crocus bulbs were all hard solid and no signs of mold.  Well, I hate to waste living things.  So I thought of what I could do to give the crocuses and leftover daffodils and chance to live. 

I keep stuff.  Not "hoarder keep stuff" just useful stuff.  So I looked around.  What I wanted to find were cat litter boxes.  Something shallow to grow the crocuses in and harvest the bulbs next Fall when I found a good place.

What I realized was that I had 3 old recycling bins and 4 old storage bins I used to grow potatoes in.  I used to grow Yukon Gold potatoes in them before they became readily available in the grocery store.  And they were filled with rich soil!

So I wheelbarrowed all of them to my patio.  The cinder block wall is a perfect height for gardening work.  I dumped all the soil out into 35# kitty litter tubs (very useful as buckets),  put 4" of soil back in the recycle bins, set in the extra daffodils and added 2" of soil and sprinkled 2-6-6 fertilizer on top.  Added another inch of soil and crowded in crocus bulbs 2" apart.  Covered THOSE with 3" of good soil and sprinkled on a slight amount of fertilizer.  Added another inch on that. 

I filled 7 tubs and used up 300 crocus bulbs (of 500).  Watered them well. I'm hoping for a great container display in Spring and to be able to plant them someplace permanent next Fall.

I STILL have more crocuses.  I will be planting them in 6" black pots just to see if they grow.  I'll stick the pots in my veggie garden to give them some "normal" temperature and rain/snow.

Hope springs eternal...conditions. 

A Difficult Errand

I have a watch that is 50 years old this month.  It was a gift in 1966 when I was 16.  It is the only wristwatch I have ever owned.  It was one of the earliest cheap digital watches.  I love it! 

It doesn't do anything but tell time.  Well, I mean it shows the day with a line over a row of letters and there is a smaller number for the date.  And if I press an awkward button, the date goes away and shows seconds.  And another push shows m/d/y (12 8 16).  But that's all.  No timer, no weather, no footstep count, no anything else. 

I have to have the battery replaced about once a year.  Any jeweler will do it for about $10.  It requires  weird tool to get the back off or I would do it myself.

So I went to me usual place to have the battery repaired.  There was no jewelar there.  There was no building.  The spot had been scraped clean.  Wow!

So I went to a new place I had found called "Bulbs & Batteries".  Their watchpin removal tool was broken.  Well, I needed to buy some groceries and I knew there was a jeweler nearby, so I did my shopping and stopped there. 

Oh boy, was I surprised!  They wouldn't replace a digital watch battery.  "You need to return it to the manufacturer", the store manager declared!  "Otherwise, the circuits will get shorted out".  I pointed out that the watch was 50 years old and the batteries had been replaced many many times with no ill effects.  He replied that "That's why the battery only lasts a year, it gets shorted - a battery should last 5 years".   It was a high-end jeweler (Jared's) and he looked down his nose at me (and my watch) as if I had walked into his cocktail party wearing dirty gardening clothes.

Well, Exxxcccccuuuuuuujse Meeee!

So I stopped at the last place to replace my battery.  It had only lasted 6 months, so I was doubtful about the freshness of their batteries, but a working watch is worth a few dollars.  They were closed.

At home, I looked up the manufacturer of the watch (Phasar).  They are long since out of business anyway.

The next day I went back to the place that was closed.  They were happy to replace the battery.  By good fortune, they had a new employee, so the main person was explaining about changing watch batteries.   I couldn't have asked for a better refutation of the Jared guy's claim...

She explained the watch back removal tool to the newbie and demonstrated how it worked.  She explained how to insert the new battery without shorting it or the circuits, she showed  a small insulating collar to prevent that.  She mentioned "these old digitals are long-lasting" (so she recognized it's age).  She even mentioned that batteries in new watches last several years, but after some years of corrosion and dust; last only a year.  So much for that snooty Jared's guy's claim...

But upon replacing the battery, the display was pale.  She said they could try cleaning it, failing that, finding a replacement circuit insert.  But I would have to leave it and they would call with an estimate.  She showed me the watches they sold, but they were all analog.  And they were all a bit too fancy and "jewelry".

I don't wear a single piece of jewelry.  I'm not a metal kind of guy.  Even my watchband is velcro...

So I left it with them went home, and looked at cheap digital watches on Amazon.  They all displayed Too Much Information at once.  And that means ALL the info is small.  I don't want to have to put on my reading glasses just to see what time it is!

So I was sad.  First, the watch means a lot to me personally.  I am a dedicated watch-wearer.  It has gone everywhere I have for 50 years.  It has been through below-zero Winter camping, it has gone into Canadian lake water when a friend tipped the canoe over, it has gotten me to countless meetings on time over my career, and it has reminded me when to stop working outside and go inside to feed the cats.  It has reminded me when to turn on the TV for Specials I wanted to see.

How much more can you ask of a watch? 

So 2 days later, when the jeweler called (VM message) and said I could pick up the watch, I was worried.  I assumed they could get the part to fix it.  But I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived.  The watch was suddenly just fine.  The display was strong.  No reason, it just was. 

Hurray.  But gosh, that sure was a lot of effort to find a place that would replace the battery!

BTW, seeing what the watch back removal tool looked like, I went to Amazon to see what one costs.  The jeweler charged $15 to replay the battery.   The battery itself costs $3.  Guess what, the watch back removal tool costs $3 at Amazon. 

I think I'll buy one. 

And I'll NEVER shop at Jared's...

Thanksgiving Dinner

Before and after shots...

Smoked turkey thigh, corn on the cob, mashed sweet potato with honey and butter, tossed salad with italian dressing, asparagus with cheese sauce, assorted garnishes, and wine and a Cavebear Sling (1.5 oz gin, 1 oz of lemon juice, fill up glass with ginger ale over ice)...

 After...

Good holiday meal for oneself...  A bit late posting, but I enjoyed the meal. 

Got Stuff Done

Its been a working week. 

I planted 250 daffodils.   And I did it RIGHT.  I have a drill auger that gets down about 8".  I tossed loose soil back in the holes, set down the bulbs, filled the holes with 50/50 topsoil/compost, and sprinkled 0-6-6 N-P-K fertilizer on the top to seep down over the winter.

100 of them were to fill in the area not planted last Fall.  Guesing where the planted ones were was done by pictures I took last Spring.  I lined up the pictures using background landmarks.  I got it very close.  I only augered up ond existing bulb.  And I filled in the entire unplanted area.  So next Spring should be good.

But that left 150 Hillstar daffs.  I REALLY over-estimated the number of daffs I needed to fill the existing bed.  So where to put the Hillstars? 

Oho!  I have never found a good plant to use as the border for my fence-side flowerbed.  The Dusty Millers died, the annuals had to be replanted each year, and the crocuses got eaten by the voles .  So the Hillstars went into the border.
 
I came up 5' short, but that's OK, I'll fill in.

Meanwhile, I got 2 bucketloads of 50/50 topsoil/compost from the local nursery (about 2 cubic yards).  My framed beds settled since I filled them the first time last year.  That was some work moving the stuff from the trailer to the beds. 

Last year, I shoveled it from the trailer to a yard cart towed by the riding mowers them shoveled it into buckets to carry and dump into the framed beds.  That was a real pain. 

So this time, I shoveled the mix from the trailer into buckets I loaded into the yard cart and drove the trailer to the framed beds.  Then carried the buckets to the beds.  Much easier.  I have 3/4 moved.

And I need to empty the trailer.  One tire finally just broke after 15 years - rubber fatigue!

And now I have a real problem.  I can't drive the trailer to a repair place with a flat tire, and the bolts on the wheels are 15 years of rust.  ACK!

Well, I have to remove the tire (both actually - the other tire has to be about to fail).  I'll soak the wheel bolts in Liquid Wrench (a lubricating oil that claims to loosen rust), heat the bolts to cause uneven expansion that might loosen the rust connection, and then use an air-powered impact wrench to finally break the nuts free.

I HOPE.

And I need the trailer to be working again soon to pick up a mower I couldn't get started and brought to a repair shop...  So that I can mow down some backyard brambles.  So that I can lant 5 specimen trees in the backyard.

Everything is connected.  Empty the trailer, remove and replace the tires, pick up the mower, rent a brush-cutter (hauled on the trailer), use the mower to cut the bramble stubs lower, dig holes for the specimen tree saplings, keep the brambles cut low until they die, and surround the saplings with old carpet so the roots don't have competition until they grow tall enough in a few years to shade out the ivy.

I had the whole backyard cleared out 5 years ago, and I let it go for 2 years.  I'm paying for that lapse now!

Next year is going to be killing all the wild ivy, the unknown vines, and the mock strawberries.

The good news is that I learned how to use my battery-powered string trimmer properly.  Used hard at an angle, it can clear weeds to ground level.  It gets long stringy grass wrapped around it if I'm not careful, and that drove me crazy at first unwrapping them.  But I learned how to disassemble the head in 20 seconds and slide all the wrapped grass right off. 

Experience is wonderful!

Now I think I might be ready to use the gas-powered steel blade whacker on the briars and brambles in the far back yard...  Without losing a foot in the process. 

New Camera

My current camera has been acting oddly.  There seems to be a waterspot "sometimes" near the center of photos, but mostly, it has been showing strange wavy shadows around the edges of pictures.  I can usually do some "straightening" (which in this case means "unstraightening") and/or cropping to eliminate most of them.  But it was obvious I needed a new camera.

So I went to Consumer Reports website to check the recommended point and click cameras.  The cameras are getting expensive $400 and over-featured.  I don't need an 83X zoom lens or 16MB pictures (I resize them all down to 100-250 KB for the blog or emails anyway).  And when I went to Amazon, people didn't like them!  The 1 star ratings were up around 12% and that's getting pretty high.

So it occurred to me that I had liked my previous camera pretty well.  It took fine pictures, the menu was easily to navigate and I liked the non-pop-up flash.  Its just that I left it outside one night and it rained.  So I looked for it refurbished.  Those got REALLY bad ratings!  But I found a dealer (through Amazon) who had new unopened ones.

It arrived yesterday, the battery was charged this morning, and I took a few pictures.  Just got done processing them and they look fine.   Its a Canon Powershot ELPH  130 IS.

Hurray!

Getting Busy Again, Part 3

Tomorrow is  Hosta Dividing and Moving Day!  The deer have "loved" my front yard hostas too much; they have to be moved into the back yard where the deer don't go (good fence).  I have 2 spaces for them.

The first is just under the edge of the deck.  I planted coleus and impatiens there this year , but I stuck in 2 small hostas and they thrived.  So it is a good place.  I will add my fanciest hostas from the front, ('June' and "Paul's Glory' and a few 'Gold Drops').  The larger ones will go into a hosta bed I created years ago along the fence to replace some that have died and increase the number of them.  I have decided having more in the bed is better than just having a few several feet apart.  Well, the originals there didn't grow as big as I expected.

I also have a few dozen Japanese Painted Ferns.  The deer never bothered them, but I would prefer most of them among the hostas.  I love the combination.

However, there was 1 large LARGE hosta the deer never bothered.  It is 'Blue Angel".  It is HUGE!  It is 3' across and 2' high with thick bluish crinkly leaves, slug-resistant and (apparently) deer resistant.  It might get larger.  But the important thing is that each is large enough to divide into 4ths.  And I have 3 of them.  That makes for 12.

3 of the divisions went back into nearby spots a little more spread out.  Instead of 3 across (where they were overlapping), there will be 2 across and 1 centered behind.  They were covering my paver path to the hose spigot, so they needed to be moved anyway.

The good part is that  that leaves 9 divisions for the larger landscaping box to the other side of the front steps.  They will fill that box mostly and I will put some of the volunteer Japanese Painted Ferns between them.

After removing all the existing deer-loved hostas first, of course.  I will leave no plant behind.  I stuck landscaping flags in the center of every existing hosta last month, so I know where to dig even if the leaves are all gone.  I expect 90% will survive the transplanting.  Hostas are tough! 

I had 4 very common boring solid green hostas I removed before a landscaper scraped the soil off a ridge leaving it flat.  I divided each one in 1/4s and stuck them under the stairs from the deck there it is really dim light.  15 of 16 thrived!  I expect all the other hostas I divide and move will do as well.

Getting Busy Again, Part 2

So I had to get the mower to a repair shop.  Home Depot has equipment repair services, but I prefer to support local business when I can.  There is a local place called "Tool Solutions" and I have brought some equipment there in the past.   They got my riding mower running last time, tuned up the engine, sharpened the blades, and just because it bothered their sense of "equipmentness", they scraped all the dried grass clipping from the bottom of the deck.  It is just 3 people, and it is good to support people doing work like that out of a small shop. 

I attached the trailer to the riding lawn mower (it has an attachment on the back for things like trailer hitches and baggers), drove it out to the front yard, and hooked it up to the car.  Got the push mower up onto the trailer, secured it, attached it to the car, and drove the the repair place. 

And since I was going off with the trailer, I put a large tarp and a bunch of bungee cords in the back of the car.  I wanted to get a few bucket-loader loads of 50/50 topsoil and compost from the local nursery.  The soil in my framed beds settled during the year and there is room for 4' more soil (leaving 2' from the top).  And I can always add any extra on other spots. 

2 bucket loads is about 60 cubic feet.  It is sure cheaper than buying "by the bag"!  I have done this before and learned a few things about transporting soil, compost mulch, etc.  The trailer came with boards on the bottom with spaces between.  I used to put a tarp on the bottom to keep stuff falling out through the spaces, and put another on the top to keep stuff from blowing out.  I kept ripping up the bottom tarp shoveling the stuff out.

I got tired of that, and 2 years ago, I fitted pressure-treated plywood on the bottom.  And I figured out a trick for the top tarp.  I set up the top tarp so it was slightly under the front inside of the trailer.  The contents hold the front of the tarp in place, so there is no driving-wind flapping and ripping.  Even the landscaping guys were interested in THAT idea.  Then I just use bungee cords to hold down the sides of the tarp tightly in opposing directions.  Logic is wonderful.

So I left the house with a mower needing repair and returns with 60 cu ft of topsoil/compost.  A good day.

It feels good to get busy again at practical projects...