The Digging Edging Trenches Blues

I am getting rather tired of digging trenches for edging around the new landscaping areas...  So I'm writing about it.  So here are "the blues".  Or at least, "the aquas"...

"I'm grabbin my shovel,
And digging the ditch.
All round the outside,
Then inward, kapish?

Its tedious working
And boring as Hell.
Can't wait til it's over, 
I'm sure you can tell.

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....*

The shovel's 6 inches
The edgings 80 feet.
That's 160 times,
Foot and shovel must meet.

And sometimes there are rocks,
And the pounding repeats,
It aint nice at all 
Pounding shovel with feets.

 I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

First it looks like no progress,
Just a few feet at most.
But then its some more feet,
And the ending is close.

But I'm fooled by the shadows,
And I finally see.
I'm just half-around,
Can that possibly be?

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

I wish I could do
Like Paul Bunyan did.
Drag a huge axe behind me
So a ditch I could dig.**

But I finally finished,
Halalluah I said.
Now all I have left,
Is to grub-hoe and dredge.

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

I'll wait til tomorrow
The grub-hoe work instead.
For now I have cramps
So I'm going to bed!

I got the busted cramped left foot jambed down on the shovel blues....

* Some things I do are lefty, some righty.  I think I was a natural lefty as a tot but taught to be a righty.  Sometimes I think that affects my thinking too.

** Legend says Paul Bunyan got tired of carrying his huge axe on his shoulder so he dragged it behind him once, creating the Grand Canyon.

But seriously, the end is in sight.   I did finally finish digging both around the outside and the inside of the edging and tomorrow I can scoop the loosened soil out of the trench and put the edging in.  There are a few shallow spots with largish stones that need to be cleared, and there are apparently 2 places where there are tree roots.  I'll cut the edging to fit over those.  Just one more bit of work, LOL!  But backfilling the edging is the easiest part and will only take half a day.  

Then I can finally plant!  I sure didn't expect it to take this long.  But I routinely under-estimate the time projects take.  Maybe that's what allows me to take on some projects.  I suppose if I knew how much time each one would actually take, I would never start any.  And then where would I be?

I guess I would rather under-estimate the effort and DO the projects then accurately estimate them and NOT do them... 

Solved It

OK, so the planting timing problem was caused by my wanting to plant lots of spring-flowering bulbs where I was planting wildflowers earlier and not wanting to walk on the sprouting wildflowers.  I had to think on that a while. 

Solution?  Walking-boards and cheap plastic tubs. 

The walking boards will be some pieces of 2"x12" boards left over from the deck construction last year.  With small pieces of 4"x4" scrap wood attached to the bottom, the footprint will be minimal, but allow me to walk out to the pre-dug holes for the wire cages for protecting the spring flowering tulips and hyacinths from the voles.

Each spot for the spring flowering bulbs will have a predug hole with a cheap plastic tub of the soil there.  I will walk out on the supported boards, lift the tub, set the wire cage down, add an inch of soil, set the bulbs down, add the rest of the soil, walk off the board and lift the board off the wildflower sprouts.  

Every problem has a solution...

Crocuses Border

While I was oredering spring floering bulbs (daffodils, tulips, hyanciths) for the new plantng areas, I also had the great idea of replanting the border to the older flowerbeds along the property line.  Sure, why not?  Like I had nothing else to do.  I get myself in these situations where work seems easy when I'm looking at plants online and "gee, how hard could it be to do that"?

ARGHHH!

So...  I used to have a border on the old flowerbed with alternating 1' sections of yellow and purple crocuses.  The voles ate most of them the first year.  But one section survives (for reasons I do not know).  So I want to replicate the gorgeous look of the row of alternating yellow and purple crocuses, but protected from the voles.

The solution is 1/2 "galvanized steel mesh wire cages buried just under ground.  OK, that requires building the cages, digging up the soil, and filling it back in.  It could be a lot worse.  At least THIS soil is well aged and loose, so digging it up is easy.

The real work will be making the cages.   But I am pleased to say I have solved that.  In design anyway.  I planned the cages 8" long, 6" wide, and 4" deep.  But then there was the problem of cutting the shapes out from the existing 3' width rolls of 1/2" wire mesh I bought. 

Well, I started drawing out shapes of unfolded cages.  You remember those IQ or SAT questions about "what is this shape unfolded"?  I got those every time.  Easy Peasy...  So I sat down with graph paper and started laying out the  shapes foldable into cages.  And because the stuff is a bit expensive and I'm cheap, I kept playing with shapes until they worked out with NO wasted material. 

Took an hour of updating software to get the sketch to scan, LOL!  My printer/scanner drivers always seem to be out-of-date...

I'll try to clean this of on some drawing program, but it basically means that I (or you) can make twelve 8" long x 6" wide x 4" deep cages from 5' 4" of 1/2" hardware cloth.  But it means I found a layout of mostly foldable parts and some few ends that need to be wired in place to make cages with NO WASTE! 

And I've made a form for the bending out of scrap 2"x6"x8" wood.  Its simple enough.  Cut a nominal 6" wide 8" long and screw and glue supports under it.  Or just screw and glue 3 stacked onto each other. 

If you have questions about that, email me at cavebear2118 AT verizon DOT net.

My plan is to have an 8" cage, 4" space for an annual plant like a marigold or zinnia, then another 8" cage along the entire 75' flowerbed edge.  So I'll need 75 cages for 75'.  12 cages per 5' 4" = 64' of the cage mesh, and I have 150' of it.  The rest will be used up in 18"x18" cages for the tulips and hyacinths in the new areas.

It all comes together, see?  :)

With apologies to The Beatles:  

"And, in the end,
The flowers you grow
Are equal to the work you do... "

Or to put it another way I read once,  "If you like bacon, you need to get down in the mud and keep the hogs happy".  Meaning that whatever you do, you can do it poorly or well.  Poorly lasts a couple years.  Well, lasts a lot longer.  Doing things well takes less work in the long run.

The Three New Planting Areas

You ever get yourself planned for more than you can do  by the time you should?  Of course you have.  Think of that last party you threw...  For me it is planting stuff.  And the order of planting stuff can get awkward too.

I'm tired of digging ditches for edging.  It's harder than I thought for the 3 new planting areas.

Perspective is strange.  That far one is as big around as the near one.  They are 80', 40', and 80' respectively.  So I had to dig narrow trenches 5" deep to set the edging down mostly in-ground.  The far area ground has a lot of gravel and rocks.  Half the digging required a leverage fork to dig dirt loose along the perimeter, a pick to loosen the rocks, a trenching shovel to scoop the loosened mixture out, and a grub hoe blade (the other side of the pick) to chip away the bottom to get in uniformly 5" deep. 

Naturally, all those tools have short handles, so I was either bent over or on my knees the whole way around with each tool.

OK, it's getting easier as I move toward the house.  The soil is better.  Maybe.  Fewer rocks, but more heavy clay.   The clay stick to the tools and I have to bang them on the ground to get the stuff off!  I was going to say I can't decide which is worse, but actually they both are.  :(

Then of course, the edging has to be set in the trench and the trench has to be refilled.  More fun...  Well, it's easier to backfill the soil than to dig it up, but it still takes some work.

So I have the far area finished (took 3 days of off-and-on work).  More "off" than "on" because I'm way past 30 (my vague recollection of when I was at my physically best).  At 65, I'm at the point where I don't mind working hard with rest in between but darn don't want to die of a heart attack just to plant some flowers.  At 30, that possibility never even occurred to me.   So I make sure to stop every 15 minutes and relax for 5.

I finished the middle edged area today.  Just the nearest one left to do, and I am pretty sure that area as the easiest soil to dig in.  I might get that last edging in in 2 days.

But today, it occurred to me that I have a timing problem with the plantings.  The far area will have a natural wildflower area and some transplanted purple coneflowers, goldenrod, and black-eyed susans.  The smaller middle area will have only the invasive Lychimastria Firecracker.  The nearest area will have half-shade wildflowers.  So far, so good...

But 2 weeks ago, I had the great idea of planting a lot of spring-flowering bulbs among the areas for early color (and most enclosed in below-ground 1/2" wire mesh cages for protection from the voles and squirrels).  Well, the daffodils don't need protection, but the tulips and hyacinths do, and that causes a problem. 

If a plant the wildflower seeds in the far are now (as I should), they will be JUST growing when it is time to plant the spring-flowering bulbs in mid November.  Ack!  I would be walking all over the new plants.  I can't plant them now, as they won't arrive until early November. 

The middle area isn't a problem.  The Lychimastria can't be transplanted until they go dormant, and that will be early November.  So they and the spring-flowering bulbs go in at the same time.  The near area isn't a problem, because the half-sunny wildflowers will get sown in Spring and I can easily walk around the emerging bulbs then.

I'll have to think about how to manage the planting of that far area some more.  I'm not worried; there is always a solution to any problem.  I just have to find it.

And I have more on the landscaping To-Do-List.  200 crocus bulbs to plant in vole-proof cages.  But that's for the next post...

Change In Wildflower Design

I was looking at the 2 areas I was surrounding by inset edging, and realized an error.  I had intended the Lachymistra Firecracker, a very pretty purple-leaf and yellow-flower plant, to be enclosed in a small area I could mow around and prevent from spreading. 

But I laid out 2 large areas.  OOPS!  So I had 5 40' lengths of edging; 3 in one shape and 2 in a circle.  Time to change that.  I changed things to a 40' circumference circle for the Lachymistra Firecracker; an 80' circumference circle for the transplanted Black-Eyed Susans, Purple Coneflowers,  Dwarf Butterfly Bushes, Knockout Roses, and Goldenrods; and a kidney-bean shape of 80' circumference for the wildflower seeds and some local weeds with rather nice flowers (they may be volunteer Pinks from some other yard). 

So now the edging looks like this...

The spaces between the edging are mowable widths...

And nice walkable paths...

I finished the digging of the trench to set the edging down in for the farthest back part today.  It was exhausting.  The trench had to be edged with a garden fork to get through the stones or regular spade where the soil was stone-free, loosened in the center with a heavy pick, and loose soil removed with a trenching shovel.

And I'm only 2/5ths done! 

But an hour a day gets things progressing.  3 more hours will do all the edging-trench digging, and who can't use more exercise? 

Appliance Failure

I hate it when major appliances fail.  They're "major" appliances not just because they are large, but because they are expensive and important (My M/V might object to being left out of the group since I use it daily).  And it takes some research and time to replace them.

Minor appliances are easy.  Your M/V fails, you get another anywhere in 30 minutes.  Same with toasters, slow-cookers, fans, radios, clocks, etc.  But try to replace a dishwasher in less than a week...

Anyway, I noticed after my usual dinner binge of opening and closing the refrigerator a dozen times for this or that, that the thermometer was up to 50F.  I keep it at 35-37F, and that is the middle cold setting (4 out of 7).  But I use a lot of fresh foods and it warms up briefly inside being opened so much.

But when I went to put leftovers away an hour later, it was still 50.  Uh, Oh!!!  Hoping it was the refrigerator thermometer, I also stuck my digital cooking thermometer probe in there.

I checked for internal airflow blockages, but it is designed so that blocking the internal airflow is nearly impossible.  I distinctly recall from the manual that no cleaning of external coils is required, and indeed after pulling the refrigerator out a few inches and shining a flashlight behind it, there is nothing to clean.

This morning, it was still 50!  *GLOOM*

I've gone through a few refrigerators in my time.  It's always the condensor, and replacing the condenser is most of the cost of a new refrigerator.  But you pay $100 for the serviceman to tell you that.

So I jacked up the cooling button to max.  After 4 hours, it got back down to 37F.  I can live with that for a week while I choose a new refrigerator.  But it does mean that a lot of stuff was held at 50F for 36 hours.  Which means stuff like mayonnaise and salad dressing are dangerous.  I don't keep fresh meat, so no loss there.  Veggies and fruits are safe.  You can tell when they go bad anyway.  So I haven't lost much food.

With the cooling selection on "maximum" I can wait a few days.  At least it's not like having the A/C die in the middle of Summer or the Furnace die in Mid-Winter...

The choice for a new one is ongoing.  When the previous refrigerator died (sadly only 5 years ago) I replaced it immediately without doing much research.  I like bottom-freezer models and I went to one store and bought the cheapest most energy-efficient model they had in black.  Bad move...

This time, I'm going for the largest, best temperature-recovery time, bottom-freezer, with slide out shelves, in black, high-reliability-rated refrigerator I can find that will fit in the space.  Right now, according to Consumer Reports magazine website, that seems to be a Kenmore Elite 79043.


I decided to ignore the energy-efficiency rating.  I don't do that lightly.  But I discovered something surprising about refrigerators.   The big low-efficient refrigerators cost about $59 per year to operate.  The best-efficiency (with slow temperature recovery times) cost about $40 per year.  The difference is irrelevant.  Why would I want a refrigerator that ages my milk faster each week to save $19 per year?

Its not like choosing a car that saves $1,000 in gas per year...  $19 is the difference between most and least energy costs?  Who cares?

There is more to the decision.  I keep an older refrigerator in the basement for bulk veggie and fruit storage, garden seeds, beer, wine, bird suet, sodas, etc.  I bet it is so energy-inefficient that I've paid for a new one several times over.  I should have replaced IT years ago...

So the new one will go in the kitchen, the current one will go in the basement (where 50F is just fine for the things I keep there), and the deliverymen will haul away the oldest one for junk.

Looks like I am going shopping at Sears tomorrow!

New Wildflower Enclosures

I've mentioned that the newly leveled areas in the back yard are being made into mostly wildflowers and some selected shrubs.  The first thing to do is set the edging into the ground.  I'm delayed on that because of the rain.  That newly-exposed soil is so loose that the rain has made it too muddy to walk on. 

But at least I can plan on what I'm going to plant there.  First, the nearest edged area is going to be mostly wildflowers with some existing  Goldenrods, Purple Coneflowers, and Black-Eyed-Susans transplanted from existing locations for structure.  The rain has been a good thing for that.  The soil is now deeply moist and that will encourage roots to grow deep rather than shallow.  And when you dig up existing plants, the rootballs hold together better when moist compared to dry dusty soil like I had until several days ago.  And the plants will be full of moisture themselves and less like to suffer transplant shock when some of their roots are cut off in the move.

And it occurred to me that I could plant a LOT of Spring-flowering bulbs in that area for blooms before the wildflowers grow and bloom in Summer.  But the wildflower seeds need to be scattered and raked in soon, while the transplants and bulbs need to planted in early November. 

So that left an awkward situation.  I didn't want to waste a lot of wildflower seeds by planting them next week, and then digging them up to add transplants and bulbs later. 

I love problems like that.  Really, I do.  Solving problems is fun!  So I bought a pack of 150 styrofoam plates.  Sound strange?  I'm using them as markers where transplants and Spring Bulbs will go.  So I can spread the wildflower seeds without wasting them (I'll just brush them off the styrofoam plates).

The Spring bulbs will by mostly Daffodils, but there will be Tulips and Hyacinths too.  The Tulips and Hyacinths around here get eaten right out by the voles, but I'll fool THEM!  I'm making barrier cages from 1/2" hardware cloth.  More on that in a future post...

 I can't wait for the soil to dry enough for me to get started!

Heavy Rain On New Lawn

After more than a month without and measurable rain, I was beginning to think I could ignore the possibility of rain in my new lawn plans.  Silly me...

I got the new lawn soil leveled and planted in the front yard in plenty of time for the soil to settle and the new grass to emerge and set down roots.  The back yard waited.  I got the back leveled and seeded about 10 days ago.  The grass barely emerged when we finally got some rain.  And of course, not just some rain, but a lot of it.  We have had 3.75" so far.

That left me 3 concerns for the front yard.

First, would serious heavy rain overflow the drainage easement and wash some of my new soil away at the edge?  Second, would the heavy rain wash some of the new grass away and/or create runoff ditches?  Third, would I discover new places of standing water (part of what my soil-raising efforts were intended to stop)?

The first is uncertain.  I can't see any drainage edge erosion, but I can't get too close to it to be sure.  The new soil is too soft to walk on to go investigate.

The second worked fine.  There was a full day of light drizzle and that settled the soil a bit, and the soil was so dry it soaked up almost all the rain.  The grass seems to have stayed in place.

The third isn't so good.  I have a 4'x10' standing puddle in the front of the lawn.  OK, there is supposed to be a "swale" there ("a slight depression for directing water runoff", in my case to storm drains at either side of the front of the yard).  But it ISN'T supposed to have a low spot that holds water. 

It wasn't obvious by eyeballing the new soil level, but water never lies.  There is a low spot that won't drain in either direction.  So I need some more soil to add there.  I don't need much; a cubic yard (cubic meter) should do fine.  I just need the rain to flow off toward either drain.  It could be worse; my adjacent upstreet neighbor has an actual concrete channel for a swale (makes for awkward mowing, it keeps filling with dirt and debris, and it is ugly).

The back yard did not fare so well with the rain.  I planted the grass seed there 8 days ago and it was barely up when the rains hit.  The day before the rains, there was a uniform fuzz of new grass.  Today, there are large bare spots and a few channels 2" deep where the rainfall flowed downslope.  I'm going to have to relevel that and plant new seed.  Fortunately, a local garden expert addressed that very question online Saturday and said there was still time to plant new grass seed in a week after the soil dries out a bit.  Of course, that's assuming we don't get another hard rain in a week (none forecast though).

Well, nothing is ever guaranteed when planting anything.  Sometimes, you have to do it again.  At least I'm not depending on grass as food, LOL!  If I was a cow, this would be a lot more serious.

Baseball

Well, The Washington Nationals season is effectively over.  It was a real crash...

Baseball can break your heart.  It just isn't like other sports.

In American football, a team can go 14-2 or 2-14.  The better team just always seems to win over the season by quite a bit and every time.  The good teams win and the bad teams are horrid.

In Basketball, the best teams are so far above the worst teams that you can predict the winners ahead of time easily.

Baseball just doesn't go like that.  The best teams only reach 60% wins; the worst, well, let's say 33%.  On any given series, the same teams will have games of 14-2, 5-6, and 1-2.  There is almost no sense to it.

And the sad part is that so many favorite players will be traded away as a result.  And some new ones will arrive.  

It drives me crazy. 

Busy Day Doing Boring Stuff

Not all days can be exciting.  Today was errand day... 

First, I needed some supplies.  And for cheap brand-name supplies, I go to Wal-Mart.  And when I shop at Wal-Mart, I go at mid-morning on a weekday.  So off I went at 10 am...  Some visits are better than others; I barely found half the stuff I was looking for.

So I went home, dropped off the few items, had a quick lunch, fed the Mews their 2nd meal, and went grocery-shopping.  I went to a store I usually don't shop at because the last time, they had the best peaches I have had in years and I was considering changing store loyalty.  The last visit was a fluke!  So I went to my regular store.  The produce was a bit better.

That doesn't mean "great".  I don't know why grocery stores put out peaches and plums etc that are hard as rocks, golden delicious apples and pineapples that are green, melons that you could pound nails with, and strawberries that are nearly white.  I guess most people don't know what "ripe" is for most fruits and just put up with it.  No wonder most people don't eat enough fruits; unripe fruit isn't worth eating.   Fortunately, I've grown enough stuff to know the difference, so I buy was is "tolerably" ripe, enjoy the truly ripe, and ignore the rest.

Sorry, I'm really gripey because the quality seems to be getting worse.  I love fresh fruits and veggies and wish I had the space, sun, and time to grow all my own.  But its not like I'm ever going to grow oranges and pineapples here in Maryland!

Fortunately, the veggies are easier.  Most can be eaten at any stage of growth (there is no such thing as "unripe" broccoli or mushrooms, for example).  That's why I try to grow crops that DO need ripening, like tomatoes and corn.

So I did my produce shopping and then went to Nick's (meat, deli, liquor).  I love that place.  They custom-cut meat and have great prices, discount liquor, and a great deli counter.  And they special-order my favorite inexpensive (under-appreciated) zinfandel wine.  I'll give an example:  They had Filet Mignon on sale at $10.69 per pound.  That sounds expensive, but it is all meat.  I end up with 7 small steaks at $4 each.  Doesn't a Filet Mignon steak at $4 sound good to you?  And large fresh-frozen shrimp (deveined) 2 lbs for $10. 

Beat THAT at any restaurant...  Well, it DOES help that I like to cook, and after 45 years I do it tolerably well.  I'm never going to be on any TV cooking show, but I haven't complained about my cooking lately.  When you start out adult life broke and doubling up on Hamburger Helper, a $4 Filet Mignon steak is pretty darn good.  Surrounded by sides of homegrown tomatoes, cucumber, and mesclun lettuce salad, corn on the cob, and italian flat beans...

Tonight's dinner was actually stir-fried red and green peppers, onion, celery, potato cubes, and pork I smoked on the offset grill.  And the same salad and grilled pineapple slices.

So today turned out to be the first non-yardwork day in 2 weeks.  I needed the day off.  The front yard grass is up and growing, the backyard grass is down and moistened for germination, and everything else can wait til tomorrow.

It was a good day!

To Lawn Or Not To Lawn

There is progress on the newly bared areas in the front and back yards!  I never intended to plant grass everywhere (and I'm not).  There is something about bare soil that makes me think more of flowers and shrubs than grass. 

The only thing lawn is really good for is croquet and mowing.  But tradition (and community rules) require lawn, so the front yard area has been totally reseeded.  I rototilled the soil, leveled it, raked it so the surface was rough, put down grass seed (Rebel brand turf-type fescue), then raked it all again carefully. 

The 2nd raking was to slightly cover the grass seed (helps to hide it from hungry birds).  That was Tuesday of last week.  I've watered it lightly every day since, and yesterday I saw the first grass sprouts.  Hurray!  It seems to be coming up quite nicely. 

Before...

And After...

I'll keep watering it lightly for a couple more days until I'm sure all the grass that is going to sprout has done so.  Then I'll water more deeply to encourage the roots to grow downward.  We might get some steady rain Sunday/Monday, so maybe that will take care of the watering.

So I turned my attention to the back yard.  There won't be much new grass there!  I plan one large part of it to be a home for the invasively spreading Lysimachia Firecracker (2' high with purple leaves and small yellow flowers), Coneflowers, Goldenrod, and Black-Eyed Susan.  It will be surrounded by mowable grass, so it is welcome to try to spread, LOL!

The 2nd area will also be surrounded by grass but will have perennial wildflowers.  The wildflower package I bought is rather vague on the types of seeds included, so I hope to be happy next year.  If not, I can spread seeds of other wildflower mixes.

I laid out 200' of edging yesterday (view from the deck)...

The hard part is setting the edging in the ground.  The far side is the hardest; mostly gravelly soil.  I've had to use a pick to loosen the soil (in spite of having rototilled it) and a narrow trenching shovel to scoop the material out.  It's been tiring.  But my practical rule of projects is "Do the hard parts first and it gets easier as you go".  Only part of the area is gravelly; the rest is the softer soil from under the former ridge and woodland area.  So I'm suffering through the gravelly part first.

Fortunately, there is no rush.  The perennial wildflower instruction say to plant about 3 weeks before the first hard frost, and that is usually in early November.  And I can't transplant the existing Lysimachia, Coneflower, Goldenrod, and Black-Eyed Susan until they go dormant about then either.  The good part about waiting a while is that I can water the soil now to encourage weed seeds to germinate and then use my scuffle hoe to cut them off just below the soil.

 

The transplantings mean good news for the existing flowerbeds.  With the transplants gone, there will be several areas free for new plants.  I plan to start more annual plants inside next Spring for those areas.  I went with perennials years ago for "lack of maintenance".  Hah!  Weeding around individual plants every year is a lot harder than just turning the whole area each year and sticking new plants in.  Besides, annuals bloom all season long... 

It Worked, Part 2

So here is the soil-scraper thing I made.   A close-up first...  The aluminum plate has 2.5" to dig in.  And it is definitely sturdy.

The board isn't warped; that's a macro camera setting effect.  It's a 2"x10"x4' board; heavy and straight.

Here it is upside down so you can see it.  Its wider than the lawn mower.

 Here it is as used.  The front of the board and the aluminum plate both help drag soil around from the high spots to the low ones.  I didn't plan for the board to help, I just got lucky. 

Sorry I don't have a "before" picture, but imagine 6" deep furrows...  Here is the "after" picture. 

There are mower treads there, but there is 4" of soft soil under it.  I will soak the soil with a lawn sprinkler and then transplant some existing tall perennials before scattering wildflower seeds.  I have 250" of plastic edging to define the wildflower area.

It Worked!

Yesterday I mentioned having a neat idea for an easier way to level the 3,500 square feet of rototilled soil in the backyard.

Well, my first idea was to use a rake, but not in the usual way.  I have a 24 inch wide "leveling rake".  Meaning that the non-toothed side has a strong straight metal edge.

My idea was to tie it "upside down" behind the riding lawn mower and drag it around to drag dirt into the furrows.  And maybe put a cinder block on the top to dig in a bit.  But even at 2' wide, that would take all day and only scrape about 1/2"!  What I needed was a BIGGER RAKE.  I didn't have one...  But then I thought about dragging a heavy 4' wide board behind the mower.  I tried that by hand and it just slid over the top of the soil.

Hmmm...

What I needed was an edge for the board at a 90 degree angle.  Another board would just slide too.  A sharper edge was needed.  Think, think, think...

AHA!  I had some 1/4" aluminum strips left over from making floors for my jon boat years ago (I keep stuff).  Well one piece was 4"x4'!  I drilled some holes in the aluminum plate and screwed it to the 4'x2" board.  That left a 2.5" scraper lip under the board.

I tied the contraption to the back of the mower so that it would drag 3' behind the mower  and prepared to try out my creation.  And the mower battery was dead!

ARGGHHHHH!

I carried a boat battery out to the shed to jumpstart the mower and IT was dead.  So I charged up a portable battery jumper (not this brand but same design).

And THAT wouldn't charge!  I finally took the battery out of the mower, took it in the basement and attached it to a regular car battery charger.  Being a small battery, it charged in an hour (enough to start the mower, anyway).

So I started dragging my home-made soil-grader around the furrowed soil.

IT WORKED!!!

In only 1 hour, I had the entire 3,500 square feet leveled.  I went north-south once, east-west once, and diagonally once.  Then I went around just for fun looking for high spots...

The dust was horrible though.  The soil WAS 5' below ground before the ridge was removed.  I was surprised at how utterly dry it was.  Fortunately, there was a slight breeze and I figured out how to stay mostly upwind.  Not always, of course; I did cough a lot.

Obviously, I needed several beers to wash the dust out while I stood on the deck admiring the level soil...

This was longer than I expected, so "tommorrow"...

The Yardwork

Summary:  5 weeks ago, I had 2 large trees removed.  All the equipment tore up the front and side lawns.  But I was planning excavation and lawn-raising work any a few days later, so I wasn't worried.  That contractor begged off and I had to find another (who was booked for 2 weeks and would only do half the job).  Before the 2nd guy could come out, the 1st one called and said they had a schedule change and were available for the whole job the next morning if I was still interested.  I had them do the jobs.  The work went beautifully, but of course all the equipment compacted the added soil in front, so I needed to rototill and level it.  I got that done after several days work.

I know return to the story in progress...
 -------------------------------------
The first priority was to plant grass seed on the raised front lawn.  Because of all the rototilling, it took a LOT of raking to smooth it all.  Plus I wanted loose soil to lightly cover the grass seed after spreading it around.  One, it helps the grass stay in place; two, it keeps the grass seeds germinate; three, it hides the seeds from the hungry birds.

Second was to start watering the seeded lawn.  You can't just set up a lawn sprinkler, the big drops of water land too hard and the heavy watering floats the grass seeds into uneven puddles.  I had to water gently by hand.  The first time went REAL slow.  My showerhead wand puts out nice small drops but not much water at a time.  And I had to walk on the seeded area to reach the farthest parts.  It took 2 hours for just 2,000 square feet!  And the experts recommend you water twice a day for the first week.

The next day, I used a fan sprayer.  Wow, I did not realize how much more water that one sends out!   And with so many small holes in the fan, it falls gently.  AND reaches to the farthest spots without me standing on the seeds.  I've done that twice a day since Tuesday.  And as a test, I planted some grass seeds in a pot indoors to see when the grass would sprout in perfect conditions...

Third, I set my sight on the backyard where the ridge was removed.  That area has better soil (well, softer at least).  But it is lousy with gravel and small stones (to baseball size).  First, I rototilled it.  More stones and gravel...  Then I tried raking them out.  That was like trying a sweep a dirt road clean!  After I moved 4 wheelbarrow loads of that behind the toolshed, I realized I could fill a pickup truck and not make much difference.  So the surface will stay gravelly.

Fortunately, most of the backyard bare area (about 3,500 square feet - really, it's 70x50') is going to become a flower meadow.  I have coneflowers, lysimachia, goldenrod, and black-eyed susans to transplant there.  I have a dwarf (3') butterfly bush to take cuttings from and multiply and a dwarf rose (Knock Out) for the same multiplying.  In between them, I'll spread perennial wildflowers and leave a curvy path through the middle.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.  Rototilling the back area left deep furrows.  And with all the gravel and stones, I didn't want to have to rake the whole area smooth by hand.  So I stood on the deck staring at the furrowed soil and thought for a bit (with a beer for inspiration).  And I had an interesting idea...

Tomorrow, "A Solution"...

5 Years Gone

Mom died 5 years ago today from common old age problems.  I miss her as a friend.  She "mothered" me for 18 years, and she became more of a friend after that.  Does that seem strange?

For almost my entire adult life (18-55), we corresponded almost weekly.  She and I are writers, and letters were our "talk".  We both loved words, their origins, and their changing meanings.  It runs in her side of the family; one of her sisters worked on a major dictionary.  If there was a pun to be made, we made it.  If there was some older meaning of a word, we played it.

It ended 5 years before she died.  She could no longer write even with the help of a machine.  I suppose it didn't matter, her mind was going wrong along with her fingers.  The last 5 years, she couldn't communicate.  I kept writing letters that Dad read to her until he said she couldn't understand anything anymore.

I miss her as my Mom.  But I miss her as my friend more.  I don't want that to sound wrong.  Its just that we had a special similar sense of humor-wordplay, and top-this-doggeral poem that lasted for so many years..

I got my sense of the dramatic from her.  When she was middle-aged, the social group she was in had theme parties.  One was Wild Hats.  Mom had Dad take a straw hat and add a big plywood ring around it.  She took our Ben-Hur chariot set and glued them around the ring.  First Prize!  I learned from that. 

Thanks for everything, Mom...  I carry on the tradition.

Good and Bad Day

Discovered I could transact business with my far away credit union through a different local one.  They call it Credit-Union-Sharing (real original, right?).  But it beats driving an hour and back.

Picked 22 ripe cherry tomatoes and 3 large heirloom tomatoes in the garden. YUM!

Raked 10 piles of rocks out of the new leveled backyard.  Not sure what I will DO with the rocks yet.  But they have to go before I can plant anything there.  And I have a cool tool for raking rocks.  Get ready for the name - Rock Raker!  Maybe "Stoned Today, Gone Tomorrow"?


Actually, it works.  The front tines are curved slightly backwards, so it catches rocks and lets soil slide through.  I suspect some clam-digger adapted it to New England farming.

Fired up the charcoal offset smoker.  Cooked pork ribs and chicken.  The ribs are delicious; I'll have some chicken tomorrow.  And I have enough leftovers for 10 more meals.  Those hickory chunks make great smoke and flavor.

Watered the flowerbeds.  We aren't technically in a drought, but the recently-removed ridge soil was dry as dust 4' down and that's not good.  We we forecast "heavy rain" Thursday/Friday, but I got less than 1/4".  That doesn't even register on plants.  In fact, it's bad for them.  It encourages the roots upwards, where they dry out faster.

So I try to water deeply once a week.  We aren't low on water supply here (for the hoses), just not much rain  and lots of plants transpiring it from the soil even deep down.  Its the lack of water deep in the soil that worries me.

Watering is easy.  I have this thing I built...

 I bought 2 plants that I want more of.  One is a Knock-Off Rose and the other is a dwarf butterfly bush.  I hate buying plants that cost $25 in a 3" pot!  But I know how to take cuttings and root them.  So each of those plants will be 5 plants at least next Spring.

Call me cheap, but its the fun of doing the rootings I like...

And the cats are loving being outside.  Marley misses his mousies (destroyed when the ridge was leveled) but he accepts my promise that the new plantings will probably bring even more mousies around and he will have more hiding places.

I better deliver on that promise...

9/11

Never Forgive, Never Forget...

Annoying Neighbors

My neighbors had a Labor Day party.  Good for them, that's fine.  They weren't loud or anything.  But we don't have curbs on the streets here.  So parking off-street means parking on lawns.  In this case, mine. 

I looked out the front windows in the afternoon to see 3 cars parked on my front lawn.  That would normally annoy me a bit, but I had just rototilled that area to un-compact the soil so I could plant grass.  Argh!

Yeah, yeah, they have to park "somewhere", but I noticed that they DIDNT park on the host's lawn...  THAT'S what annoyed me.  It's like that was intructions from the host neighbor "park on the neighbor's lawn, not mine"...

I let it go...  I don't like to start fights about small things.  I can run the rototiller over the crushed soil again.  Small things can start bigger arguments.

But the next day, I discovered that the guests backing their cars out from the line of other cars, backed a dozen feet onto my loose soil.  Tire tracks don't lie.

Mumble, grumble, mumble, vague swear word, mumble, grumble...

I hope they don't have another party soon.  Otherwise, I think I may charge for parking.  ;)

Rototillering the Back Yard

Well, the back yard was sure a change from the front!  The front was delivered "topsoil", the backyard was existing soil from the ridge.  What a difference in quality, and not the way you would think!!!  The ridge in the backyard was better soil...

When I finished the first 2" tilling of the front packed soil, I was worried about the backyard because they drove the equipment around there a lot more than in the front.  But when I finished the 2" tilling of the new front soil, I did one experimental row through the back.

The back soil is WONDERFUL!  In spite of all the equipment driven over it, it is (relatively) soft, loose, and fertile-looking.  The surface seemed also hard, but the rototiller just went through it like a spoon through flour...  That part is going to be so easy that I feel better about having to spend time on the front.

Hurray for an easy part to the project!

Planting in the backyard is going to be easy.

The important part is deciding what to plant.  The front yard is easy - lawn (keeps the neighbors happy).  The backyard is more important to me and the cats.  We live THERE when outside.  And we like bugs and butterflies and birds and bees.

So, I want a small meadow of native flowers that will support locals bugs and etc.  I think there will be an edging of 3' shrubs (some to each flower in Spring, Summer, and Fall) and 2 pieces of 225 square feet (21 square meters) meadow (separated by a mowable path).  I have some suitable plants I can divide and plant in clumps (coneflowers, black-eye-susans, goldenrod, and I will buy a large packet of native meadowflower seeds to scatter among them in 1 patch .

The other patch will be the Lysimachia Firecracker that has been bedeviling me in the regular flowerbed.  In a patch I can finally mow around, it won't spread easily.  I love the purple leaves and the yellow flowers, it just isn't a friendly neighbor to other plants.  So it gets it's own spot where it can be controlled.

For the Spring Summer, and Fall blooming shrubs, I am choosing Azaleas for Spring, a Rhododendron for Fall, and I'm not sure about a small Summer-blooming shrub, but considering Knock-out Rose and or a dwarf butterfly bush.  Suggestions for USA Zone 7 are welcome.

When I measure the new area for a scaled layout, I'll post it.

 ----------------------
I do have to add a minor accident.   I was guiding the rototiller along the edge of the drainage easement in the front yard yesterday and I hit a rock.  The rototiller tilted, and of course it tilted in the direction of the drainage easement.  You know how somethings tilt and, just for one brief movement all is seemingly balanced?  And then it falls...

In the wrong direction, of course.

Before I go further, I should mention that it seems to me that everyone has some particular problem that happens to them more often than to others.  One of mine is that gas equipment doesn't like to stop when set to the "stop" position.  They just sputter and cough along refusing to actually stop.  My regular lawn mower does that and I have to use a screwdriver to short-circuit the spark plug to the chassis to stop it.  My gas chain saw does that (when I can get it to start at all).  The rototiller has the same problem.

So there it was, balanced on the digging parts trying to fall into the drainage easement.  It succeeded!  My first thought was DAMN!  My second was "I hope nobody saw that"!  But I set the lever to the stop position and it wouldn't stop.  Of course...

At least the lever that disengages the digging blades (tines) worked.  So there I was with the rototiller on its side in the drainage easement, sputtering.  And besides, in trying to hold the thing up out of the drainage easement, I fell into it myself. 

Need I mention that there are brambles along the edge of the drainage easement at that ONE spot?  Probably not, what else would be there with my luck?  So I picked myself up out of the muddy bottom, pulled the rototiller upright, and got it into reverse and backed it up the side of the drainage easement side.

It's OK to laugh.  I wouldn't be telling you about this if I was easily embarrassed by the occasional failures in daily life.  After I had the rototiller back out of the drainage easement (and turned off), I sat down and laughed too. 

If you can't laugh at yourself, you have a problem...  LOL!

Rototillering The Front Lawn Soil

My Troy-Bilt Pony rototiller is the type with the digging tines at the rear.  The first kind I bought 25 years ago was a front-tine tiller with free-moving wheels, and those are AWEFUL.  The front-tines jump over everything and you mostly have to hold it back to let the tines dig into the soil (It's like making a mule go backwards).  30 minutes of that, and you have put in a full day's work!

The Troy-Bilt (and this is not an ad for them - I'm just really happy with it) has geared wheels and the digging tines behind them.  So the wheels have a set speed and actually prevent the tines from pushing the whole thing forward (mostly).  So you are steering it more than horsing it around.

There is also a sled-like bar under the chassis that controls how deep the tines can dig down.  Trust me, when the soil is hard it sure is easier to let the tines dig down just 2" rather than trying for 6". 

So I went over the entire front area 1-2" deep for a first shot today.  The area is about 2500 square feet (232 square meters).  It took 1.5 hours.  It was difficult to break down the track treads, but I got most of them turned into pellets.  I stopped for the day.  I was exhausted...

That doesn't mean I wasn't pleased with the results.  The hard-dried track-tread marks were all ground up, and that was all I hoped for on the first run-through.  Tomorrow, I will set the depth sled-bar another 2" lower and see how that works. 

I would LIKE to get the new soil tilled up loose to 6" deep (the maximum depth my hand-managed rototiller will allow) so that the grass will grow deep roots and hold the ground against heavy rains. 

There will be some annoyances.  I already discovered there is a large rock firmly in the ground (meaning I couldn't pry it out with a shovel).  And there are a few places where the rototiller just jumps up suddenly suggesting others I don't see yet.

In hindsight, I wish I had just had the contractor dump the 2 truckloads of soil and spread it out myself.  Spreading the soil by rake and shovel would have been easier than the rototillering.  But it seemed a good idea at the time.

But it will all get loosened enough for planting lawn grass while the weather is warm, so all will work out in the end even if I have to do more after-work than I expected.  Looking at the most positive view of this, I'll just say "Who can't use a bit more exercise"?  LOL!

More tomorrow...

New Soil Harder Than I Thought!

I got outside to prepare the bare front yard for new grass seeds, and the condition of the new topsoil wasn't as good as I thought!  It seemed loose enough when the contractor left on Tuesday, and I thought the track-tread of the spreader was light enough to not compact the soil, but I was wrong.

Yesterday, I realized the new soil had hardened like cement and there were deep tread-tracks embedded on it.  YIKES!  I sure can't plant grass on THAT. 

Well, I had expected to have to haul out my old Troy-Bilt Roto-Tiller anyway. 

I did that today.  I hadn't used it in many years, and equipment that sits around unused for 5-10 years doesn't like to start up right away.  But I filled up the gas tank, checked the oil, set the lever to "choke" (that's a good thing, if you don't know), set another lever to "start", and pulled the starter cord. 

Nothing!  20-30 tiring pulls later, nothing!  No big surprise, but I had hoped to get lucky.  I'm no expert with gas engines, but I know some basics.  So... I checked the levers to make sure they seemed to be working.  They were.  I checked the spark plug wire.  It was firmly attached and clean.  So I removed the spark plug itself.  Naturally, my socket set didn't have the right size cushioned spark plug socket, but fortunately it is slightly raised (sensible design) and I could loosen it with a regular wrench. 

I fully expected it to be fouled with old oil or needing to be cleaned and gapped, but it looked perfect!  Damn...  One always hopes for easy problems to fix.

Well, whenever I have repairmen around, I watch them carefully.  The last time I had a guy here to get a different piece of equipment (lawn mower) running, he said the fuel line/carburator was probably gummed up.  Now, you can either take the parts off and clean them, or get them running sneakily and they will clean themselves.  He did a "sneaky". 

He took the air filter off  (exposing the carburator) and sprayed a (flammable) cleaning solvent into it.  It loosened a stuck part and the lawn mower started right up on the next try.

Well, I don't have any fancy cleaning solvents, but gasoline is a basic solvent for old gasoline.  I took the air filter off to add a little gasoline into the carburator.  But I sure couldn't just pour gasoline from a big 5 gallon can into that small hole when I only wanted about a tablespoon of gasoline. 

I could have gone back into the house and gotten an actual tablespoon.  But I like to be resourceful.  So I decided that the socket that didn't fit the spark plug would work as a small container if I kept my finger tightly on the bottom.  It took a little work to splash just a small bit of gas out of the can, but I managed.  Then dribbled it into the carburator.  Puttng the air filter back on I pulled the starter cord.  Nothing.  Damn...

A second pull, and I'LL BE DAMNED, IT COUGHED A COUPLE TIMES, TRYING TO START.  ANOTHER PULL AND IT STARTED...  I had to play with the choke lever for a minute, but it settled down running smoothly.  I could barely believe it! 

Since it was running, I decided to use it on the hardened soil in the front lawn.  More about that tomorrow...

Bye Bye Ridge!

There has been this ridge in the backyard since I moved here 29 years ago (and by coincidence, this is the very week I moved here).  It has always been a problem.  Too sloped and uneven to mow.  A few years after I moved in, I was able to get it mostly cleared of scrub trees and vines.  But they kept growing back and English ivy slowly took over.  I cut back the tree seedlings many times and even painted herbicide on the cut trunks, but it hardly slowed them down.

I finally contacted an excavator who came out and gave me a quote for leveling the ridge and raising a portion of the front yard that flooded after heavy rains.  I accepted the quote on the spot and they said they would do the work the following week.  When they didn't arrive, I called only to be told they were too busy.

So I contacted some other excavators who decided the job was too small.  Only one agreed (reluctantly - he is 45 minutes away from here) and would not come out to give a quote - I would have to accept the cost afterwards. 

Then, Monday afternoon, the original contractor called to say they had a break in their schedule and could do the job the next morning if I was still interested.  I was, and they did!

I am delighted with the results.  They did even more than I thought they could (considering 2 small trees I wanted to save).

It looked like this to start...

They started by scraping the scrub tree seedlings and ivy off the top and sides.

Dumping it in a truck for disposal.  You can see the amazingly long ivy roots hanging down.  No wonder that stuff is so hard to kill!

The ridge was already nicely lowered from just that.

I would have had them just pile the scraped ivy all up in a corner to compost, but there was enough soil mixed in that they probably would have just kept growing.

See the soil dust rising from the bucket?  We havent exactly had drought here (lots of rain in June, but almost none since then).  Even 4' deep, the soil was dusty-dry.

The equipment is cool (literally).  The Bobcat cabin is sealed, air-conditioned, and has a stereo system inside!

They carefully worked around the 2 trees, watching for the 1st sign of main roots.  This one is a holly tree.  It's hard to kill.  When I first cleared the ridge so many years ago, I accidently cut it down and it regrew multiple trunks from that mistake. 

After all the scrub tree saplings and ivy were gone, they heaped up the remaining soil to examine the quality.  We had expected the ridge to be unusable gravel and clay, but it turned out to be good sandy loam so they moved it out as a base to raise the sunken front lawn.

Then they dumped 2 truckloads of topsoil on that!  They spent a good bit of time grading it carefully.   The whole area is now a foot higher than the drainage easement at the property line.  Unless we have a really severe hurricane before the grass I'll plant sets in good roots, my front yard flooding should be over.

They even spent time carefully smoothing the added soil to the existing lawn.

Here is the new front lawn...

And here is the new back yard!

I don't plan to cover the entire area in lawn.  Lawn is boring...  I plan to put a mix of Spring and Fall blooming azaleas around the inside edges of the trees and wildflowers and some long-lived perennials in  between them.  It will be fun to decide exactly what to plant where...

I need to drag out the roto-tiller first.  Even though the Bobcat has track treads to reduce soil compaction, the new surface is still too packed to just plant in.  The front yard will just get grass.

I wish I had had this done 20 years ago!

Excavation Back On Track

To summarize, after the two huge trees were removed weeks ago, I had an excavator scheduled to arrive the next week to remove a 6'Hx50'Lx15'W ridges covered with English ivy, poison ivy, wild grapevines, and various 3' weedy tree saplings that I have never been able to kill.

The excavation contractor came out, provided a quote for that work and raising the sunken front lawn.  I accepted their quote on the spot and we shook hands on it.  They said they would arrive the next week with a day's notice.

Near the end of that week, I called to see when they planned to show up.  They decided they were "too busy".  I think that they simply got better jobs and didn't need my smallish one.  I wrote a negative review on Angie's List (a contractor review site) and found another person who was slightly reluctant to do the job ( I was on the far edge of his work are) but agreed to to the excavation and plant removal (but not the lawn raising.  Well, I can get topsoil locally, so OK.  But it would be 2 weeks...  It bothered me that the person would not come out to provide a firm quote, but the person had an "A" rating in all categories one of which was "fair pricing". 

Meanwhile, I emailed the original excavator pointing out that they had offerred a firm proposal that I had accepted and we shook hands on it.  I expected a "sorry, we really are too busy".  Guess what?  They called yesterday afternoon and said they could come out this morning if I was still interested.

I was, and called back immediately to confirm I wanted them to do the work.  For one thing, they had come out to look at the work so they knew what was involved.  And they proposed to do the lawn-raising too.

Groundhog Update

First, if you just can't stand the idea of destructive suburban yard varmints being "eliminated", don't read further than this paragraph.  No pictures, and I won't be detailed about their fate, but I don't exactly "adopt them out to loving families". 

So, last post, I was seeking to capture the groundhog who was eating my garden melons.  I have 3 sizes of hav-a-hart cage traps (small, medium, and large - what else?).  The small one is good for squirrels.  I was using the medium cage for the groundhog (it seemed smallish), but apparently it was too small.  The cage doors kept being closed, with the bait pulled out, so the groundhog must has been able to back out of the cage before the doors locked on it.

I brought out the large cage trap  2 days ago.  It has only 1 door (the medium size has 2) and the trip lever is father in.  The groundhog has to be entirely inside to step on the trip-level.  I baited it with one of the melons only nibbled on.  I stepped on the melon to break it into pieces.  One small piece was at the entrance for enticement; a larger piece was inside the cage just beyond the trip-lever.

The next morning, the groundhog was in the cage.  It is "no longer with us".  I thought that was the end of the problem.  I've never had more than one adult groundhog here at one time before.

Wrong!  I stepped outside quietly to do some yardwork after lunch and to my surprise (you saw this coming, right?) saw a larger one running away from the garden.  I even heard it moving around among a serious bramble patch where I assume it has a burrow. 

I rebaited the trap and out it in the path I saw it run in with some of the remaining half-eaten melon.  And I made sure to put it where I could see it from the house.  Nothing like trying to see into my house from cage level...

An hour later, I saw another groundhog in the cage.  It is also "no longer with us".  It is late in the season for young groundhogs, but I will set the cage trap up again in a few days.

The good news is that I have an excavator arriving tomorrow, and the cage would be in the way of excavating equipment, so I have to wait.  The arrival of the excavator is surprise good news, but I will post about that tomorrow. 

Today was about the groundhogs...

I do want to say that I do not have an special dislike for "varmints" in general.  If I could look down across the street to some large field where groundhogs and rabbits happily ran around living their lives eating meadow plants, I would enjoy watching them and I would leave them alone.  When the squirrels used to be here just eating and burying acorns, I never bothered them.  When the rabbits contented themselves eating the plentiful clover in my organic lawn, I did not bother them.  I'm not sure what groundhogs eat that isn't damaging, but if they did, we would co-exist. 

But any common varmint that gets at the things I value, I will rid my property of them as humanely as possible and at no threat to wandering pets (no poisons, no snap-traps).  If there was such a thing as a "Golden-Eared Groundhog" that was endangered, I would catch it and offer it to whoever cares about them. 

But anything that eats MY food is asking for it...

Good and Bad News

The good news is that I found a residential excavator who is willing to come some distance to do most of the work I need.  I'm at the edge of his regular service area.  He'll do the leveling of the 6'Hx50'Lx15'W ridge and haul away the brush and gravel/clay soil, but he really isn't into bringing in topsoil and raising the front lawn level.  Well, I can get THAT done locally.  It will be 2 weeks before he can arrive though.  At least he assures me he WILL arrive to do the work.

The bad news is that I was a bit casual about finishing the garden enclosure and left some small seams open while I fussed around with getting the enclosure door  to fit (it kept getting out of square each day as the posts settled and the soil around them dried).  And then I had the tree removal crew here for several days and spend time after that cleaning up (they cleaned up, but there were still piles of ground-up tree stump chippings for me to spread out and such).  And I wasn't seeing any varmints bothering the garden.

Well, the varmint situation changed overnight several days ago.  I walked quietly into the backyard one late afternoon and caught a glimpse of a groundhog running away.  There were a few melon leaves nibbled off nearest the enclosure door, so I set up a live-trap cage in the barely-open doorway.  I didn't catch it, but there was no further damage.  So I figured it was both suspicious of the trap AND baffled about getting in otherwise.  The other open seams were way around the back of the enclosure. 

Foolish me!  I went out yesterday afternoon and found my 2 small (unripe) dwarf watermelons and 2 of my 5 (unripe) honeydew melons completely gone, and another half-eaten.  It had obviously found the backside openings!  I closed the enclosure door and set the baited cage trap closer to the path it must have taken to the back with a part of the half-eaten melon (a trapping website said to use whatever is being eaten as bait - though melons were usually best).  So melon was best for bait of both counts. 

This morning the cage trap was sprung but no groundhog.  But the bait was pulled out, so it must have reached in carefully and tripped the lever while still outside the cage enough to get free.  Well, I've never thought that varmints were exactly dumb; if they were, they would be extinct.  The idea is to use their habits against them.  I set up a "V" of upright 2"x12" boards to "guide" the groundhog to the trap.  That has helped in the past.  and I covered the cage trap with landscaping fabric to make it look more like a safe tunnel.

I'll bet it doesn't work.  But I did finally lock the enclosure door frame in place and seal the chicken wire seams around it, so that's no longer and problem.  There are still 2 more opening in corners, but it was dinnertime today and I was starving!  So I put a piece of chicken wire over the remaining melons, piled some melon leaves (which it also seems to eat) at the remaining openings (for distraction bribes) and called it a day. 

If I don't catch it by tomorrow morning, I have pieces of leftover chicken wire cut to size to seal the remaining openings.  After that, my garden area should be safe anyway. 

I still need the groundhog gone.  It will eat flowering plants too, and I can't protect everything.  In past years, a groundhog would show up in Spring, I'd trap it and relocate it.  Or find it's burrow and dump used cat litter into the hole until it fled in disgust.  But this August appearance is a surprise and I can't find the burrow (it may be in a neighbor's yard).

That melon-eating varmint has GOT to go, one way or another.

Mild Underved Destruction

One of the things I had to do when I expected the excavator contractor to show up "any tomorrow" was remove the birdfeeder.   It wasn't easy.  Try setting a pipe 3' deep in the ground for almost 30 years and see if IT is easy to pull out! 

It took work.  But I did it.  But then I had this thing with a 24" saucer under it and a 18" baffle below  (successful squirrel baffles) and no where to put it.  So I set it against the deck where the 24" saucer fit in tight.  Seemed safe.

Nope!  I went out today and the whole thing had fallen over.  And falling over, it broke!  I don't think it is repairable.  I'm going to have to build a new one.

Now, on one hand, I'm sad it broke.  It lasted 20 years (all cedar) and the cardinals and finches loved it.  On the other hand, I wanted to improve it a bit anyway.  I'd rather it had stayed intact, but I'll take advantage of the damage to build it better. 

A lot larger to begin with, and with an interior slope to make the last seeds go down to the feeding tray. 

But I wouldn't have to worry about this if the excavation contractor who said they would be here had come here instead of begging off for better jobs.  I'm still p&*@ed about that!

I hope the new feeder is as well-built as the previous one.  Some things just go better the first time around and you can't duplicate it.  So maybe the new one will be better and maybe not.

We'll see...

The Yardwork Excavation Contractor Blues

"GLOOM*

I spoke to the excavation contractor early today.  I'd been patient.  They (Della & Son) said on August 14 that they would be out to do the work "next week" (Aug 17-21) with a day's notice "because some jobs go way faster than others and some way slower, and to keep the crews busy they have to juggle the schedule".  OK.  Well, it isn't exactly urgent, like plumbing or roof repair work.

But when I didn't hear from them all last week, I called.  It seems they are no longer interested in doing my work.  They are "busy".  Good for them.  I suggested keeping me on their list, but they said they probably wouldn't get aroubd to my little job this year.

Stunned silence on my part...

I asked if they had decided their job estimate was too low; they said it wasn't, they just weren't going to be able to schedule the job.  And didn't want to keep my job on their list.  So, like "goodbye, and don't call us again".

Wow!  I was disappointed that they wouldn't do the work, but worse, it left me kind of out of options.  There are 2 kinds of businesses who do yard grading work.  One is excavators, the other is landscapers.  And all the others of both types had not been very interested. 

Excavators want to move around a lot more soil in open areas.  Landscapers are more used to residential grading, but their main thing is to plant the new area.  My job doesn't quite fit either.

The Della & Son proposal was perfect.  They would scrape off the plants (English Ivy, Poison Ivy, vines, and 3' tree saplings) from the surface of the ridge and dispose of the material.  Then depending on the quality of soil beneath that, they would either move it to the sunken front lawn, or haul it away as "fill dirt" (used to fill up ravines or to level under parking lots, etc).  If required, they would bring in topsoil to raise the front lawn above the height of the drainage easement.

No one else I talked to was willing to do that.  I was so pleased, I accepted their proposal on the spot, and we shook hands on it.  I am considering trying to shame them into doing the work anyway.

But I found another residential excavator today (Cornerstone Excavations).  His ratings are "A" in all categories and no one who wrote a review has been displeased.  Unfortunately, I am on the far edge of where he will travel to for work.  He won't travel to provide a firm quote.  He won't do the entire job (the spreading of soil on the sunken lawn isn't stuff he does).  But he does have the light equipment sufficient to scrape the ridge level and dispose of the unusable ivy and saplings without tearing the entire backyard up and he does the work himself.

The Della & Son proposal for the whole job was $3500.  While Cornerstone can't give me a firm price ahead of time, he estimates $1000 to scrape the ridge and $350 per truckload (estimate 2 truckloads) to dispose of the material.  He said I would get a much better deal having the topsoil to raise the sunken lawn done locally, and I think he is right.

Hoping that his estimate of $1700 doesn't suddenly become $3000 when it is done, I've agreed to send him pictures of the worksite and schedule the work.

Now, back to "shaming" Della & Son...  They gave me a written proposal and I accepted it, pending only a one-day notice for them to show up.  And they backed out.  I got their name off Angie's List (an independent contractor rating site).  Contractors care about their ratings there.  Della & Son have a straight "A" rating (price, quality, professionalism, punctuality, etc).  I'm going to give them a negative review.  Contractors often respond to reviews there.  I would still like them to do the whole project, because they had seen the work to be done onsite, described the work to be done perfectly, and given a firm quote.

We'll see what happens...

Waiting

Stream of semi-conciousness, "day-in-the-life" stuff...

And waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  For what?  Oh just the excavators who gave me a quote for scooping off the backyard ridge.  Why am I waiting?  Oh because they said they would be here "sometime this week" with  day's notice and "this week" is pretty much over now. 

OK, I actually needed some time.  It's amazing how much stuff needs to be moved to prepare for destruction.  I had to dig up 12 daylilies and pot them up for later replanting.  THey wren't happy where they were anyway.  And there were all those leftover posts and boards from the deck rebuild last Fall.  One can always use big chunks of lumber for "something".  I had to drag about a ton of THAT away from the ridge.

And then there was the birdfeeder on the pole in the ground.  Had to pull THAT up.  It wasn't easy.  It's been 3' deep for 20 years.  And just figuring where to PUT it during the excavation work was a trick.  I eventually did some minor repairs (well, as long as it was there, you know?) and propped it up against the deck.  If they get THAT close to the deck with their equipment, I want to know anyway.

Oops, I forgot the pots I sunk in the ground to make the stepldder level for refilling the birdfeeder.  Had to dig them up.  And, oh lord, the vinyl-coated wire cages I used to support the pepper plants last year were buried under wild vines, so they had to be cut loose with pruners. 

Wow, I forgot about the old heat pump support base that I used to help support the stepladder,  AND the old cement base that used to be a boot scraper and I'll-repair-that-someday.  Yeah right, but I had to move it.

So I'm ready.  Oh blast, the side of the slope is covered with flagstones from a previous project and I NEED them to make a stepping-off point for the new deck when I get around to THAT!  And dang, they are buried in vines.  So I need something to cut the vines and expose the old flagstones.  Ecxept the sickle is dull and needs to be re-sharpened. 

So into the basement I go with it to the grinding wheel.  2 minutes and you could dismember a mean bear with it.  Not that I have anything against bears, you understand, just a metaphor.  Or is that an analogy? 

Anyway, I start chopping vines with the newly-sharpened sickle.  Works great.   I can see the flagstones again, first time in years.  Woah, what if there are snakes under those flagstones?  Better go get the leather gloves.  Where DID I put those?  Oh yeah, in a sealed tub so that spiders wouldn't crawl in.  You laugh?  I have black widow spiders around here.  And I'm not allergic to MUCH but I don't want to stretch it too far.  Just in case, I stomp on the gloves a few times...

So, with leather gloves on (and nothing wet inside), I go after the flagstones.  Oh damn, there's poison ivy growing in there and I'm wearing shorts.  So into the house to put on long work pants...  That being done, back out to the flagstones.  Oh wait, where are the gloves.  Back in the bedroom where I changed into long pants. 

So now I'm at the flagstones (really finally).  I lift them up, one by one and toss them onto the lawn.  Something is weird about that.  Not only no snakes but no ant nests or anything.  I check...  The dirt is oddly solid. 

Whoa, there is carpet under the flagstones!  I forgot about that.  Old stuff to supress weeds.  I can't pull it up; the vines have sent roots through it, nailing it to the dirt below.  I think I will just let the excavators take care of that part!

So now I have 3 dozen flagstone pieces sitting on the open lawn, I'm drenched in sweat (yes real salty sweat - my maternal grandmother would have been offended "animals sweat; people "perspire" - yeah right)),  and the wiping towel I have with me is as soaked as I am.  Time to go inside.

Inside, I collapse.  So it starts to rain.  Oh damn, I have a radio outside.  Up I jump to retrieve the radio.  With that in the basement, I go out and look around for other items.  While I'm out there the rain stops suddenly.  Not even 1/8th inch...

So... I decide to try an save some azaleas.  Noyt to dig them up (there is way too much poison ivy around them) but I can try some cuttings.  Even THAT was tricky.  The poison ivy is thicker than I realized.  But I get branches cut off of 3 bushes that I think I recall being one each red, white, and pink.  Maybe. 

I'm starving.  When did I eat last?  Lat night.  I don't bother with breakfast much and I think I skipped lunch to get the worksite ready.  So I eat a whole peach, a plum, a handful of grapes.  And brew a cup of green tea to keep me going...

Its not enough and it is close to dinnertime.  I feed the cats a LOT more regularly than I do me.  So I feed them and then look in the fridge.  I have cooked hot italian sausage, so I can make sausage stew. 

Don't laugh, its good.  Coined sausage, sauteed green peppers, minced onion and carrot for sweetness, and cannelini beans (OK white kidney beans), tomatoes and tomato juice for broth.  OK, its more a soup than a stew.

So I decide to change my usual recipe to a true stew.  Hot water, flour and chicken paste. 

I cook for myself.  Have done it since I was in college.  Not having any criticism is nice.  I know what I like to eat.  BUT!  You know how sometimes things don't come out as planned?  Well, I eat it anyway.  But sausage SOUP is good and sausage STEW is horrible.   Don't EVER add a flour-based thickener to sausage.  *I* sure won't ever again...  Worst meal I've made in a YEAR!

The meal was sort of saved by the salad I made of 2 heirloom tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and shaved carrot with Italian dressing.  And an ear of corn.  And 3 chocolate truffles...  And another peach, plum, and some strawberries.  And more wine than I usually drink.  I deserved it...

And I'm STILL waiting for the excavators to call me about the proposed schedule for removing the ridge!

Good thing I'm finally ready for them to arrive...  Finally.