I'm Back, I Guess

But I have some unfortunate habits.  One is that when I stay up late on the computer, I drink and smoke too much and ruin my next day.  If I get up at 10am one day and then stay up til 10 am the next, sleeping even just 8 hours brings me to dinnertime and a whole day is shot.  Not to mention any normal sleeping schedule...  So the next day is pretty well shot to hell, too.

I went offline in order to focus on some house improvements, some yard work, and some outside repairs.  I did that because I was spending too many whole nights til dawn and beyond on very interesting computer sites (blogs, discussion boards, how-to sites, etc).


I was doing that more and more often the past few months and I decided to try to re-establish some normal schedule in order to get some work done.  Don't get me wrong, the online hours are important to me.  I enjoy blogging, I enjoy debating topics in discussion boards (and I'm not at crazy screaming adversarial sites - one is a gardening site and one is an atheist site where we just want freedom to discuss science and society without a lot of creationists arguing about Noah's ark and humans living with dinosaurs).  And I play a computer game where you build a space-faring society from a single settler in an unknown location.


But that was using up a lot of time.  And I have a lot of practical things to do that were getting away from me.  And I have used the time away reasonably well.  I spent a full day going around the house and listing all the things, by room, that needed attention.  I've been here 32 years; the list is long.  I did a few of the things on the list that I could do myself.  A lot of them were small things not worth listing, that I had put off.  Some were things that caught me by surprise, like the sudden regrowth of vines and underbrush that happened rather suddenly in June where I had cleared last Fall and seemed under control in May.

The County came out and cleared the storm drains that were buried under tree debris, clay, and gravel.  That was good, but they weren't willing to dredge the drainage easement above the storm drain (they had in the past).  New rules about being ultra-cautious around buried electrical and cable lines...    I will have to hire a professional excavator.  My neighbor is equally responsible for the drainage easement, but he doesn't care because his lawn is 1' higher than mine so all the flooding is on my side.  And according to the County, that is not their concern.

Well, I can afford to hire an excavator to scoop out the washed-in gravel to improve the drainage.  It would tear up the lawn some, but I know how to fix that.  I might raise my front lawn at the same time to match the neighbor's.  That's not a "competition", just making our lawns the same height.  Practically speaking, raising my lawn height effectively makes the the drainage easement deeper, which solves a problem.

One problem I have is "too much stuff".  There are things I bought and never used, things I bought that didn't do what I thought they would do, and things I bought that became useless when I changed a habit.  I am making a list of things to sell.  Two good examples are the bicycle I bought 8 years ago thinking I would ride it for getting back and forth to the car repair shop and the air compressor I bought 15 years ago that was way more powerful than a needed.

RIGHT after I bought the bicycle, the car dealership started a van service to bring customers home and back after repairs, so I don't need the bicycle to get back home and back.  And recently, I bought a small air compressor that is all I need and I can even carry it around (the old -but more powerful one) is good for someone with greater demands.

OLD...
New...

So I am going to fill the garage with stuff to sell and leave the car outside for a coupe weeks.  Good opportunity to wash the car, too...  Once every couple years whether it needs it or not, LOL! 

I'll be mentioning the outdoor and indoor projects as I get to them...  I just can't stay away much longer.  I'll find the time to describe them.  The discussion boards will have to live without my brilliance for a while.  ;)

Taking A Break From A Break

I'm still trying to catch up with house and yard work.  It's not going well.  But it's Friday night and there isn't much I can do right now and I just can't stay out of communication forever.  And not much I will be doing outside Saturday or Sunday.  It is going to reach 100F or close both days.

1.  My initial efforts to lever the broken cinderblock wall back into place failed.  Levers are great, but I can't seem to get enough pressure to move either side of the broken wall.  I have a scissor-jack on order to arrive tomorrow. 


I'll put it on its side and place a 4"x4" post against the post at the house foundation and see if that works.  It only cost $80 and it might save me several thousand.  If I am able to push the broken cinderblock wall back toward straight, I will cover all the broken edges with construction adhesive and make the final push to press the edges together.

If THAT works, I will drill holes in the top to secure a board on the top to help hold the wall straight and cement and bolt a brick on the bottom.  The one masonry repair person who visited said it wouldn't work.  But he wanted to rebuild the entire patio and walls for $15,000 (saying "I ONLY do quality work").  Well, congratulations to him for having enough work to be fussy, but I don't need a whole new patio.  I just need a repair job.

If my attempt doesn't work, I will hire a less-fussy repair mason.  I called 5 repair companies (through a centralized repair website) asking for email contact.   I had to provide a phone number to so.  I got 2 responses by phone.  Unfortunately, I could not understand what they were saying (which I expected and why I asked for email contact).  I do not have a good ear for foreign accents (and I blame myself).

So, if my own efforts fail, I have to start again with contractors.

2.  The 1/4 of the backyard that became a wild blackberry thicket after I removed a couple trees and that I cleared last Fall is driv8ng me crazy.  All Spring, I went around weekly spraying the blackberries that regrew.  It was a pleasure seeing them bend over and die a day later.  And I had some piles of tree saplings to remove.

But I also had gardening and flower-planting to do and poison ivy to fight.  And I did plant 4 specimen trees that would shade the area but not cast shade on my garden.  So one day, I noticed that the entire cleared area wasn't clear anymore!

Not many wild blackberries, but lots of OTHER stuff.  Some large plant with purple berries I can never remember the name of.  Wild grape vines.  Virginia Creeper vines.  So it was time to use the brush mower again.  Except I had to find the piles of sapling trunks and the garden hose buried under all the junk growth before I could use the brush mower.

I spent 3 days (30 minutes a day - it was HOT outside) using the cordless hedge trimmer to cut the junk down searching for the piles of saplings.  I knew approximately where they were, but it took a lot of cutting.  The hedge trimmer worked better than I expected.  I pulled 2 of the 4 piles out to the lawn.  Those are worth cutting into kindling for the fireplace.

The rest is too small to be worth burning and I started filling the 5'x8' trailer.  Its piled higher than the top.  The County has a site to deliver stuff like that and I can get free mulch (from mine and other residents' deliveries).  I can use the processed mulch on flowerbeds, my compost bins, and garden paths.  But I'm sure not going to attack the entire new overgrowth with a couple 100F days coming up.  So I'll be working in the house.

3.  My basement has become a clutterred mess!  Well, I've seen worse where people just used the basement for storage, but mine is supposed to be a functional work area.  Partly, I have stuff I need to get rid of.  Not junk, stuff that has some value.  Like an air compressor I haven't used in 10 years, the bicycle, the old shop vac I replaced with a better one, the boxes of newspapers I planned to use to smother weeds in the garden paths (more than I would ever need), an old refrigerator, etc, etc, etc.

There are also things down there for projects I've never gotten around to actually doing.  Things like metal shelf that fit around and above a bathroom toilet,  bolts for hanging heavy cast iron pans on a wall, shelves to install to hold seldom used kitchen appliances in the cat room (they won't mind), additional to-assemble bookcases for the computer room, etc.

The older I get, the harder these things are to do.  I think I will leave the car out of the garage for a few days and collect all the stuff to sell in the garage.  Craig's List works well for that.  But I need it all in one space to make a list for posting.

We used to be able to donate that kind of stuff to charities, but the new tax laws don't count donations unless the get to many thousands of dollars, so it just makes sense to sell them for "something".  I don't have enough for a yard sale, so individual sales are the only way I can get anything for them.

4.  The house needs work.  The computer room and cat room have cheap carpet from 32 years ago.  I want linoleum for ease of rolling my office chair around and cleaning the cat fur.  But to do that, I have to empty the rooms.  So I've been saving wine boxes to put my books in (about as heavy as I want to lift and they are all the same size so stacking them is easy).  Other boxes will hold original software disks and computer books.  Others will hold random stuff.

The kitchen light fixture has got to go.  It is tight to the ceiling and the heat from the attic makes it not work after a week of 90F.  The TV room ceiling fan stopped working a few years ago.  The Living room 2-bulb ceiling light is too dim and I have a nice stained glass replacement 3-bulb light.  But the last time I messed with a ceiling light I almost electrocuted myself (only felt "pulses" as I was sitting on a wooden ladder, fortunately).  And the kitchen faucet is leaking...

I want to tile the kitchen walls.  And I'm not going to do that myself.  20 years ago, I would have.  Not today.  There are things I CAN'T do (plumbing).  There are things I CAN do (most other things).  And there are things I can do but just don't want do anymore (anything electrical).

I'm spending time trying to create a detailed list of things that need to be done.  Some will be things I could do myself, but most are things I can't or don't want to do myself.  I would be very happy if all the things on my list were done.  I would like my home better and be happier here for another decade at least.

5.  The drainage easement...  In past years, the drainage easement (the water drainage from upper properties to the swamp below me) have brought tree debris and odd yard junk.  This is usually clearable though sometimes the County has come out for serious intertwined branches and silt.

But Monday last week, we got something new.  The storm drain was covered with gravel and clay and debris and the entire easement filled with gravel 40' up.  Essentially, it no longer flows much and is almost at yar level.  A future strorm would leave me with standing water in the front yard.  And that is after having soil added to my front yard several years ago to raise it 1'.

The easement is a shared responsibility of my neighbor and I (8-12' not sure) from the storm drain.  We need to have the easement dredged, but we can't tell what area until the County comes and does whatever they will around the storm drain (some crews do more than others).  And I can't get them to tell me when they will come and do their part first.

So I'm frozen in place waiting for them to do their part.  I've emailed them asking A) Are we currently on your schedule?  B)  If so, what is the scheduled date?  C)  If not, when will we be on your schedule?  D)  When our repair is scheduled, will we be advised of the scheduled date?

So I'm mostly doing inside stuff for a couple days but also outside stuff and I feel exhausted sometimes...

I'm letting the Mews outside at times in this hot weather (briefly), but calling them back inside after about 15 minutes and making sure they get water.  The next couple days at 100F, they aren't going out at all.  They'll hate that, but it is too hot for furries.

Busy

Surprises, And Not Good Ones

This is becoming a really difficult few weeks.  Some of which I have mentioned, but it is worth listing all of  it (and positively noting that none are matters of life and death)...

First, I got the riding mower back from the repair shop after a month with only half the work I THOUGHT I was getting done.  Granted, they didn't try to charge me for what they didn't do, but they wanted another 3 weeks to get to get at it, so I passed.  I CAN actually change the oil and filter and sharpen the blades (the undone work) myself but its a pain and they could have done it so easily while they had it.  I had even called them later in the day I brought it to them to confirm it was on the repair list (they said yes).

Second, the monsoon damage (6"+ of sudden rain) Monday flooding the drainage easement.  When I moved here almost 33 years ago, I knew my new street was at the bottom of a large sloped neighborhood, but it seemed that the drainage was well-managed with drainage easements and storm drains.  I was wrong.  Also, I was not aware that property owners were responsible for the drainage easement further than 6' from the storm drains.

Storms usually bring tree debris down that covers the storm drain grate.  That can be removed easily sometimes, and the County willingly does it when stuff is all wedged together and called about it.  This time was different.  For reasons I do not know, cubic yards/meters of clay and gravel flowed down the easement for the first time ever.  The storm drain grate was entirely covered with it.

The easement itself (which WAS almost 2' deep) is entirely filled to lawn level with gravel about 20' upslope and most of that is NOT County responsibility.  I spoke to my neighbor about it (we are co-responsible for the easement maintenance).  I have no idea what it would cost and return the easement to full functionality.  My neighbor is upset because they are they are nearly broke.  I can legally enforce shared costs, but I'm not looking forward to having to fight about it.  But if it isn't dredged, future storms will make matters worse and they care less about their yard than I do.

Third, the monsoon damage again. My basement got soaked an inch.  The builder did poor work on the sunken patio originally (no drainage), and I've had water in the basement several times over the years.  I learned after the first time that if I dug a 4' deep ditch through the lawn downslope, all was well.  But those fill in over time and I usually redig it each year before hurricane season.

We are getting heavier rains here earlier each year and I waited too long.  Climate change is real.  The last Spring frost of the year is about a day earlier each couple years and the first frost in Fall is later.  The first heat wave of the year  comes sooner and occurs later too.

I need to at least bury some perforated drainage pipe along the lawn edge of the patio and attach it to solid drainage pipe emptying into the lower front lawn.  But it always seems there is something more immediately to do.  So I didn't do it earlier this year or last year.

The basement was a real mess!  This time I had a lot of boxes on the floor.  The stuff like lawn fertilizer have plastic bags inside, so they weren't damaged, but I had some boards standing up against walls, cardboard boxes I was planning to use to store books while the computer room going to be changed from 32 year old carpet to linoleum.  And Iza likes to poop outside the litter boxes, so that was a real mess.

I used the wet/dry shop vac to suck up most of the water and moved the litter boxes to dry area where Iza wouldn't "go" is the wet spots.  Today, it dried enough for me to scrape the cement floor of all the kicked-out scoopable litter and poops.  I love Iza dearly, but pooping in the litter boxes is not one of the things she does best...

After that, I mopped the whole litterbox area with soapy water, mopped it with clean water, and sucked up the remaining water with the shop vac.  It wasn't a thrill.  I rinsed out the mop frequently in the laundry tub, but it wasn't exactly dry,  and I don't have a mop-wringer tub so I had to squeeze the mop dryish by hand.

I should mention that I was the oldest child at 15 when my younger sister was born.  I changed a LOT of diapers.  And that was when you had to slosh soiled cloth diapers around in the toilet before you could even put them in the bucket the diaper cleaning truck came by to pick them up for professional cleaning.

Fourth, monsoon damage again.  I had a masonry repair company estimator here today.  Here is what he told me after investigating all the broken cinder blocks and spaces around it...

The wall is a "retaining wall" (there is soil filled in behind it).  A retaining wall should be set outside of the cement slab and 3' deep so that water pressure cannot push it in.  The top caps need special  grout to help hold the top solid.  My retaining wall was built ON the cement slab and the tops were attached with regular grout.

He said the entire 2 1/2 sides needed to be removed, a 3' deep trench dug outside the cement slab, and that there was rebar involved and removal of the old cinderblocks.

Quick estimate - $15,000

And I should have a drain installed to prevent future basement next to the sliding glass doors $2,300.

I said no way!  I could have my failing asphalt driveway removed, the foundation rebuilt and pounded solid, and a new concrete driveway installed for that.  I have an estimate for that...

I asked about just forcing the existing cinder block wall force back into place, using construction adhesive against the broken edges and bolting a 2"x10" board or serious metal bar on top.

He said he wouldn't do that as a professional and that his insurance company wouldn't warranty the work if he did.

I thanked him for coming by to explain all that and that I understood his reasons for not doing some cheap patchwork and that I might be back in touch because the repair does really have to be done.  I might add that contractors generally hate being the first ones on site because the customer learns things about what to ask the next estimator.  And it's true...  I learned a lot.

So after he left, I decided to see if I could lever the broken wall parts back in place.  There are 2 6"x6" wooden deck support posts in the patio set 3' deep and surrounded by 2' wide in cement.   I found a 4"x4" post that straddled them, and a 4x4 post that just reached  cinderblock wall.  I figured that with the right angle of leverage, I might be able to push the broken parts back in place after liberally covering the broken edges with construction adhesive.  That stuff is stronger than the grout used between cinder blocks so it ought to hold.

I understand how levers work most effectively.  The longer the lever, the more force is applied.  I set 4x4 posts up as efficiently as possible.  I couldn't move the wall at all!  30 minutes work at 92F and 95% humidity and pulling as hard as I could left me exhausted and drenched in sweat.  I may take the car jack and see if I can get some better force tomorrow.

If that doesn't work, I think I will find some less-perfectionist company to suggest something less expensive.

I have several home renovation projects in mind.  But given the numerous ones and these new problems, I think I might be better off combining them into a large list and hiring a general contractor.  I did that once and the total cost was about half of the estimated costs from individual contractors.  The downside of that is that I need to empty whole rooms (and OMC the cluttered basement!) at the same time (almost like moving out)...

I wish I had had the nerve to move away 5 years ago...  Maybe I should consider that again and leave it as a fixer-upper.  I get offers in the mail every day.

Monday Monsoon

I had stayed up late Sunday night (blog, Civilization2 game, a discussion forum).  So I went to bed about 3 am.  As I curled up in bed, it started to rain and I was happy to hear it.  July and August are historically dry to the point where the soil cracks open, so rain is appreciated.  Plus, I'm one of those people who find the sound comforting when I sleep.

So I had only positive thoughts hearing the rain...

Well, sometimes you are just plain wrong!  When I got up about Noon, I looked out the window to see how much rain had fallen.  I have a large rain gauge that tops out at 6" with large 1/4" markers and there is a floating red plastic button so you can see the level.  I couldn't see the red button.

So I got dressed and went outside to check the rain gauge.  The rain gauge was filled and the button was hidden under the top.

So I drained a little water out so you can see the button

I don't know how much MORE than 6" we got here...

I had gone out from the deck and gone back inside the same way.  Then I went into the basement.  Now, I've had wet basement problems, in the past (there is a 12'x10' sunken patio with a 3' high cinder block wall on 2 sides and sliding glass doors, and the patio was poorly built.  It should have been very slightly sloped toward the lawn, but it isn't.

After a couple of hurricanes  that caused rainfall to seep into the basement, I dug a 6" drainage trench downslope.  It worked well, but they fill in eventually and you don't notice such gradual changes.  Normally, in heavy rainfall, I check to make sure the water is draining through the trench.  But I was asleep this time.

Rainwater got in.  I don't mean a foot of water filled the basement, but 1/4" is bad enough.  It gets everywhere.  Have I mentioned that Iza has the bad habit of pooping just outside the litterboxes even when they are utterly clean.  I often just pour a bit of clumping litter on the poops and scoop them up later.  Guess what happens when water collects around kitty-poop covered with clumpable litter?

So I set one litter box in a dry spot and cleaned it every waking hour while the litter-poop dried (and The Mews have been VERY good about using that one).  I used my wet/dry shop vac to collect most of the standing water (avoiding the poop mess until it dries).

So having done what I could in the basement, I went out and looked at the front yard.  I have one storm drain on my property and one shared with a neighbor .  I live at the bottom of a large downsloping neighborhood.  The shared storm drain is almost the end of the line of several drainage easements from the higher lots (just before the last drainage into the swamp across the street).

There is actually a storm drain under this gravel!

It is routinely covered with plant and tree debris and when I can, I pull junk of the grate covering the drain.  But it usually drains well enough.  Any storm drain can be overwhelmed by enough water but what doesn't drain there flows across my front land near the street to the one actually ON my property.  A few hours after even a hurricane the standing water is gone.

Not this time!

Usually, I get small tree debris.  THIS TIME cubic yards of clay and gravel flowed over the storm grate and covered it completely.  The lower 20' of the drainage easement was previously 3' wide and almost 2' deep.  It is filled with gravel now, almost up to lawn level.

I met my neighbor there Monday afternoon.  He had called the County Government about the problem.  I took pictures and will email the County about it (pictures help).  He is new here and was surprised.  He is direct and used to contacting authorities.  His SO (uncertain and he didn't volunteer) has been here about 10 years ( asked if she was the same person who was metalic red hair and black dresses and he smiled and said yes.  I only aksed to make sure it was the same lady I had seen years before.  He's cool.  He admits they tend to stay by themselves...  Well, so do I.

After I went back inside, I decided to check the basement (drying nicely) and went out the sunken patio glass doors.

AACCKKK!

The 3' high cinder block wall around it was broken in half like a potato chip and pushed out 1' in the middle!  I was stunned.  It wasn't like I had much flowing water over the surface.  As best I can tell, it was just that the soil got SO saturated that it expanded and pushed the cinder block wall away.  I'll call my insurance agent tomorrow, but I bet that is considered uncovered "flood damage" even though a tree that fell over from soil saturation would be covered.

See that board in the back?  That was on top of the cinder block wall.  That's how much it moved.

I'm going to try levering the pushed-out cinder block back in place and using construction adhesive to hold it in place.  I'm going to wait a few days to allow the broken edges to dry.  If that doesn't work, I will have a few masonry repair companies come by for cost quotes.  And it may be time to have the patio drainage problem solved permanently.  I had in mind to add perforated 4" pipe just below ground level with a regular pipe draining downslope but a professional might have some better solutions.

It has been a rather unhappy 36 hours.  It could be worse.  In the grand scheme of things, these are minor.  But they sure are ANNOYING!

US Independence Day

Today is one of the most important holidays to me.  It isn't the actual establishment of my country, it is the day we declared our INTENT to become one (and why).  The difference matters.  Upon the actual signing of The Declaration Of Independence (from Britain), it was an utterly uncertain thing.  A bunch of unhappy British colonists complaining that they were represented in British Government and deciding that they were willing to fight about it.

And quite frankly, a bunch of rich colonists who were landowners and merchants who owed a lot of money to British banks and the Government and could conveniently be free of them if they got separated.

My first college textbook was 'The Economic Causes Of The Revolution' and while 'Government And Politic Science' was my major, history was my love.

But when push came to shove, it wasn't just the rich (indebted) landowners who fought.  The colonists were of British descent (mostly) and shared a common past and social structure.  A lot of poor colonists had little to gain except freedom from taxes they had no say about.

A lot of fighting went on, the British found less support over here than they expected, The French Navy turned up at a good point, and Britain discovered that fighting a war across an ocean using sailing ships didn't work very well.

Example:  One British General asked for 950 horses.  Half died on the way and most of the survivors were too ill to be useful.

Example:  The British Generals decided that fighting the colonists in New England and the Mid Atlantic States wasn't working, so they went to the Southern colonies where people were "more British".  Seldom was a worse decision ever made.  The Southern colonists didn't fight stand-up battles like the British army was used to.  They attacked in swamps, in woods, anyplace where there couldn't be a decisive battle.

Eventually, Britain decided it had more important places to fight about.  And they were right, because the former colonists had few places to trade with but Britain and France and France wasn't the major trading power.

So why do I honor this day above almost all others?

Because of what we said in our Declaration Of Independence.

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Etc...

We have not met those goals completely; it is possible we never will.  There will always be challenges.  But they ARE goals we keep closer to our hearts than some realize.

In spite of occasional presidential flaws like Donald Trump (there have been some real fails in the past too),  the majority of US citizenry holds to those goals.  We will weather this current error and recover from it. 

But for today, I mostly want to honor the start of the US, with some background...

And, as is my habit on this day, I will read the entire Declaration out loud on the deck (quietly)...

Chili

I make some of the world's worst chili.  Too bland, too hot, too many beans, not enough beans, too much or too little tomatoes.   But I got it right tonight!

A true chili affectianado woudn't like it.  I'm a New England boy and "hot spicy" is not part of growing up there.  My favorite fast food chili comes from Wendy's, LOL

But this one was perfect for me.  I think it was the leftover brown sugar carrots that I added.  Go ahead and laugh.  I had some scalp sweat...

Computer Security Surprise

I downloaded a new version of a Software Security I like. and the first thing that came up was "Privacy".  It sat there for an hour reading  "52kb, 62 Kb, etc" and I thought OMG this could take weeks.  So I called the tech desk.  Got right through to them BTW. 

It took the person a couple minutes to understand that I was seeing that as a search of my entire hard drive and wondering why it was so slow.  She finally caught on and explained that it was a real-time processing rate, not a whole hard drive search. 

And it took me whole minutes to get OFF the phone while she tried to explain how that worked.  The INSTANT she said it was a processing rate not a search, I understood exactly what it was doing.  But she wouldn't let me go, LOL!

Now I just have to go through the rest of the security program, which DOES search the hard drive as i expected (and doesn't show a progress bar - which would be nice).  Apparently, you are supposed to just turn it on every so often and GO TO BED.  I'm not good at not watching security programs as they operate.  The good part is that the program doesn't care if you stay on the computer while it goes along it's merry business.  But that it exactly what I want to watch it do.

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...

Been Busy

I haven't posted here in a while.  Not that I didn't have things to mention, just didn't do it.  I've been busy...

On the outside (and some of this may not be new but I'm too lazy to check, so forgive me):

1.  Transplanted 4 specimen saplings (2 dogwoods  and 2 sourwood) in the cleared area where the wild blackberries, virginia creeper vines and wild grape vines used to rule.  The saplings will stay about 20' tall and NOT shade the garden like the trees I removed did).

2.  Straightened and re-attached bent PVC tubes (with metal pipe inside) on the garden enclosure (I built it to keep squirrels, groundhogs, rabbits, and weird birds out.  Pollinating insects get through the chicken wire just fine.

3.  Been carefully spraying individual wild blackberries and vines to kill them.  New stuff is growing now that the blackberries aren't shading them, but a string trimmer cuts them down well.  When the sapling start to grow they will cast enough shade below them to prevent new growth.

4.  I used to have a compost bin next to the older shed.  I removed it a few years ago and built another one that is better.  But there was a foot of rich soil left over on the old site.  I moved most of it to the new garden beds.

5.  Years ago, I ordered a dozen seedlings of a nice perennial flower with purple leaves.  They sent me the wrong plant.  But as it also had purple leaves I didn't realize the error.  The wrong plant is VERY INVASIVE. (lychimastria 'Firecracker' I think).    I spent 2 days pulling up all that I could.  I'll have to do that several times, but progress is progress.  And there are some volunteers a 100 yard away.

6.  I have 2 toolsheds.  One I built when I moved here 32 years ago and one I had a contractor build (larger, with a cement floor, and a garage door).  I reorganized everything in both.  Now the equipment I seldom use is packed tightly in the old one and the stuff I use often is in the new one.  And I added shelves to the old one for odd stuff that was clutterring up the basement.

7.  I spread seeds for the meadow garden bed.  Some were saved seeds from last years plants and some were new from a packet.  Supposedly, they are are surface-germinators (well, like a natural meadow WOULD be).  I will be interested in seeing if the bed flowers better this year.

8.  The hummer/butterfly/bee bed was a failure last year.  So I tilled the whole area and spread a new batch of hummer/butterfly/bee seeds.  I also have a few dozen seedlings of the same sort to plant in there.  The seedlings will give the bed a head-start.

9.  I planted 15 annual sunflower seedlings in the meadow bed today.  They were weak last year when I did the same, so this year I planted them around a cylinder of mesh wire (anchored to a stake) and clipped them all the the cylinder.  That gives them 2' of support.  Strained my back doing all that bending-over...  I had 1 left over, so I planted it right behind the mailbox.  Maybe my mailperson will enjoy seeing it.

10.  I've been interested in grafted heirloom tomatoes for several years.  My efforts have always failed.  So this year, I bought 3 grafted tomatoes.  With shipping and taxes, $12 each.  OUCH.  But I really need to know if the effort is worth it.   I planted 2 today.  I have 6 graft attempts I did myself, but I won't know if they worked for a week.  At least THIS time, they are still alive after a week.  And I have 6 more home-grown ungrafted heirloom seedlings as back-up...

11.  I'm fighting some invasive plants.  I get poison ivy coming in from 3 neighbors.  They don't care about it because they don't go into the corners of their yards.  And there has been a vine from deliberate plantings of a 4th yard (2 residents ago).  I finally figured out it is Vinca Major.  It is almost impossible to kill.  My veggie garden is organic.  But I'll use napalm on the Vinca and poison ivy if I have to.  By "napalm" I mean Roundup.  I hate the herbicide, but the vines have taken over half my fence flowerbed.  I'm desperate.

12.  The daffodil/tulip/hyacinth bed is fading, so I gave them a good dose of organic fertilizer suited for bulbs.  That should help them improve for next year.  When the leaves turn brown I will cover the whole bed with landscape fabric to smother the weeds.  Next February, I will remove it.  I tried using regular black plastic last year but all it did was collect rainwater in low spots and Asian Tiger Mosquitos developed there.  So I was constantly going around and poking holes in the plastic to drain rainfall.  The landscape fabric is permeable, so it won't hold puddles.

13.  I planted corn in a bed under the roof edge.  It doesn't get much natural rain, so I'll have to water it regularly all Summer.  But it is rich soil and safe from wind, so the bi-color corn will like it.  I plant a block of 9 corns (3x3, fewer gets poor kernal development) and the bed is 4 blocks long, so I'll plant a new block every 2 weeks for continued harvest.

14.  I pruned my front yard saucer magnolia tree.  For some reason, the backyard one grows just fine with minimal pruning in Winter, but the front yard one grows oddly with lots of suckers and internal shoots.  By the time I was done, half the tree was gone, but it looked a lot better.  With careful future pruning, it should get more balanced.

15.  When I originally cleared the backyard back in the 90s, I discovered that I had a wild rose growing there.  It has small white flowers and a nice scent, and I think it is a 'Hawthorn Rose'.  Unfortunately, it looks just like a wild blackberry, and was overgrown with them among its canes.  I was sad to mow it down with the new DR Brushcutter I bought last year.  But I HAD to get rid of the wild blackberries.

Now, the main area in the backyard is cleared of wild blackberries, but there are some that spread to odd spots and I have to dig them out.

So when I saw white flowers suddenly blooming among a Burning Bush I love, I was depressed at the effort it would take to remove it.  But when I approached, there was The Scent!  The Hawthorn Rose had established itself 150' away from the original plant!

I have to remove it from the Burning Bush shrub, but I'm going to take 36 cuttings (a flat of 6-cels) and try to grow some first.  The rose never spread much from its original spot, so I'm not worried about it taking over like the blackberries did.  I can think of several spots where it would be happy (and I with it).

I think that is more than enough for today.  I still have the inside projects to discuss...

I Did It!

I finally made a good egg roll!  Laugh if you want, but I mastered the 7 parts...
1. I cooked the contents to "just crisp".
2.  I put down a pak choy leaf where the contents would go.
3.  I wetted all the edges so that when I
4.  Tightly rolled it up and folded the sides and
5.  The egg roll wrapper sealed with water from a bowl!
   ----------

6.  Then after they sat sealed for several minutes
7.  I dropped them into my Frybaby (375F) until they were golden.
    ---------------

No oil inside, and the wrappers were "just right" crunchy.

And only took an hour., Best I've ever had!  I'm gonna make them tomorrow night and until I'm tired of them ...


2 were shrimp and 2 were minced pork.

I wonder what a pepperoni pizza egg roll will taste like?

A Stroke Of Good Luck

My camera sticks the lens out when I turn it on.  I suppose all digital ones do.  But 2 weeks ago, just as it was shutting off and the lens going back flush, I stood up an leaned on it.  Bizarre accident.  Since then, it goes halfway in and stutters and clicks, so I have to manually push it closed. 

Today, it suddenly went back to normal!  Sometimes random events work in my favor...

Special Chicken

I forgot to mention the "Special Chicken" in Canada.   As we were driving toward Algonquin Provincial Park, we stopped to buy a chicken to cook over a campfire the 1st night we were spending there at the regular family tent area.  The small store didn't have much, but then we didn't need much either.  The owner asked us where we came from and were going and then said he kept frozen chicken just for travellers like us. 

We had a cooler full of ice, so there was no chance of the chicken spoiling.  When we got to the campsite and opened the package and started to thaw it, it was so rotten that we gagged at the smell.

That guy KNEW we weren't coming back his way (we had said so), so he sold a frozen rotten chicken to us "Yankees".  Fortunately, the tiny campground store was still open and they had some canned beef stew which heated up fine by the campfire.

I hasten to say that everyone ELSE in Canada were unfailingly kind and helpful...  

But to this day, if any store-owner mentions "special", I twitch, LOL!

Algonquin Provincial Park, Canada

So there we were canoeing 12 miles uplake to the primitive camping area.  I was in the back to provide the power.  My friend and he was supposed to steer and I discovered he didn't know how to do that.  In other words, I paddled and he made me work harder.

It took all day.  I was disappointed that my friend had exaggerated his canoeing skills, but maybe he underestmated mine and thought we were more even than we were.  And when you are about to spend a week camping and hiking in wilderness, you don't won't to start an argument, you know?

So we found a designated campsite that looked good.  Seemed like a good spot to fish, the wind drifted in from the lake, and there was a flat open spot for heating our dried food.

We put on some mosquito repellent, made a quick dinner of rather boring freeze-dried spaghetti and went to bed.  It was a good thing my tent had a full front mesh cover.  Because we both woke up to see it completely covered with mosquitos trying to get at us!  Seriously, it was COMPLETELY covered.  That is a very scary thing to see.

But they were definitely night-oriented mosquitoes.  Or they gave up getting at us.  The next morning, I said well let's get out on a hike.  He said, why don't we try to catch some fish for dinner first.  Well,  OK.  So we went out in the canoe.  And caught nothing.  I had even caught a few crickets and a few worms.

Then my friend took a nap.  And I realized that if I wanted to hike around, I was going to do it alone.  Which is not safe...  So I didn't.

By the 3rd day, we were out in the canoe again trying to catch some fish.   I don't like fish, but the freeze dried food was pretty awful, so I could have eaten one.  That's when my friend (who was not skilled in a canoe) tipped us over.

I saw it coming.  He leaned too far over.  I yelled at him and tried to balance by leaning to the opposite side, but he outweighed me by 80 pounds.  Over we went!  Fishing rods, tackle, anchor, ropes, all overboard.

Thankfully it was only 8' deep.  But guess who can't swim or dive?  My friend.  And of course he wouldn't know how to get in a canoe without tipping it.  I tossed over the other anchor (attached to the canoe) to keep us at the spot and spent an hour retrieving our stuff while my friend put the stuff I handed to him into the canoe.

That night I said we were leaving in the morning.  It wasn't at all what I was expecting.  I was fine there, but he was completely inept.

We left in the morning.  12 miles can be a fairly long trip, especially when you are basically doing all the paddling.  As we got to the widest part of the lake, a squall blew over.  Suddenly the waves were 2' high.

My friend panicked and started paddling every whichway and I told him that if he did that we were going to die.  I told him to lay down in the bottom of the canoe and I would paddle quarterwise of the waves to the lee shore.

We got there, waited out the squall, and arrived in the main camp after dark (thanks to lights).

I asked the camp manager for a regular tent spot (which he gladly gave after hearing my sad story) and set up the tent.  My friend just fell asleep on the ground in it.  I went fishing...

Sometimes, you are just to worked up to sleep.  So I dropped a 16" bass I caught right at the dock on him,  the only fish caught on the trip, LOL!

When I learn that I do something poorly, I try to improve at it.  And quite frankly, I usually achieve "competncy".  And if it is something I just can't get good at, I admit it (like playing any musical instrument or learning a foreign language).   "Jack of all trades, master at none" is my life...

My friend never wanted to learn anything he didn't already know.  He refused my attempts to give advice on boats and canoes.  In fact, he seemed not to have a simple understanding of basic physical reality. 

Years later, when I had a Jon Boat (basically a rowboat with a sloped front), he stepped off the pier onto the boat.  With one foot on each.  Have you ever seen what happens when you stand one foot on a pier and another on a boat that moves?  Yes, he actually had his feet spread apart as the boat moved away until he fell into the water! 

I always thought that was a joke like slipping on a banana peel.  But it was real...  I watched him fall into the water.  It was only 4' deep there and the pier was only 2' above the water.  But he couldn't even get himself up onto the pier with my help (and he was 6'4") and had to wade to shore.  I'm amazed he didn't drown on the way.

Tax Day

Today is Tax Day in the US.  Many people are shocked that they aren't receiving a big refund.  Well, the Trump tax law changes gave people slightly more money in their weekly paychecks withholding less.  So they get a smaller refund or owe more today.

Most of the tax law changes benefited the wealthiest among us.  By peculiar circumstances I actually owed slightly less.  But mostly, for the first time, my Federal and State taxes refund/owed came out close to nothing.  A few hundred to the State, a few hundred refund Federal.  I'm pleased with that.  It means I don't have to adjust my withholding.

But a whole lot of people are screaming mad about it because they depend on the Big Refund Check.  And I get it.  A lot of people who have trouble saving money use the Tax Refund as a sort of forced saving account.  I feel for them.

Trump and the Republicans thought that people would notice the increased paycheck net.  They were SO WRONG!  They don't understand that people who live paycheck to paycheck don't notice a $30 increase much because they spend it as fast as they earn it.  And mostly on legitimate things like food, shelter, credit card debt, and medicine.

I agree completely that the way to savings is to pay of existing credit card debt.  But when paying an extra $30 per month on a $20,000 credit card debt doesn't make much of a dent in the total bill, it is hard to see how a weekly increase helps.   I am personally fortunate to be debt-free; others aren't.

What most debt-ridden people WANT is a manageable (if forever) debt and a tax refund to splurge with.  That's not the way to managing debt, but it IS what most people do...

There HAS to be a better system for those folks...