Storm!

A dramatic half hour last night, with a tornado warning, brief electrical outage, more lightning crammed into five minutes than I've ever seen before, and brief 60 mile per hour winds. Whew!

Only when it had passed did I remember I'd canceled my house insurance the morning before. I lucked out with no damage, but you can be sure at 9 a.m. I was in line at the agent's to sign a check for coverage before the next one hits. (And oh, the claims they were processing.)

from radar. It was crazy, honestly how much lightning!

I intended to weed-whip a weedy section of the yard tomorrow, but as I was picking up this morning, I realized there many dozen baby frogs in it! The neighbors are going to have to suffer through taller weeds, I'm afraid. I'm not going to kill baby frogs.

115 degree heat index forecast the next two days. And probably two months until it is pleasant to work outside again.  See you soon!

2 big yard days

We've just had probably the last two decent days until September, more than likely, and I spent ten hours over two days in the yard. I mowed everything, I turned compost, I put glyphosate on various weeds--and at the chain link fence line as I can't possibly mow or weed-whip there. I hoed up some other weeds that are in beds I don't want chemicals in because there's at least one good plant I didn't want to risk harming. I finally transplanted the roses I dug up--though they were growing so well in the bucket I had them in, maybe I should have left them there! I set up the outlines of a second vegetable raised bed and finally gave up on a few kinds of seeds coming up in the first and planted other items there (chives and this odd stuff called strawberry spinach, which is not technically a spinach, but has both leaves and fruit you can eat.)

I'm going to plant potatoes and green beans in it. The beans will definitely do well, but depending on first freeze, the potatoes may be small when I harvest them. When the beans are done, I'll put in more chard, lettuce, and when the potatoes are up, I'll put in leek starts if I can find them and mulch them super-well for the winter. If it gets down to sub-zero again here, as it did last year, I may lose them, but I'll give it a go, buy a bale of straw, and hope for the best.

I was about to water one of my hanging baskets of annuals when I looked into it (luckily, I had taken it down first), and there was a nest of seven sparrow eggs. Oops! I put it right back up and checked five minutes later and mom or dad was back in there already. The flowers will die from lack of water, but I should be able to see the activity in the nest from my kitchen window, which is nice. I didn't take a shot of MY nest, but wikipedia has a photo of a similar one.

An hour later, I almost ran over my snake with the mower but stopped in time. I stopped, he stopped, I said "shoo," which apparently is not snakese for "move your butt along." I finally had to poke him gently with a stick to get him slithering off. I like taking care of the wild animals. Frogs sang me to sleep last night, which was lovely.

I think this is the last time I'll mow until September. Climatologist are predicting a terrible July from Kansas to Boston, hot and muggy, and I don't want to die from mowing. So I'll hire a guy to do it twice a month in July and August and hope that much mowing keeps the neighbors from complaining. Expensive, but far cheaper than a heart attack for someone without insurance like me. I will say, though, I'm getting the hang of it. It's a fiddly thing, that electric mower with a cord, but by next year I should be able to get through the mowing in less than four hours spread over two days. If I can find the money, more vegetable beds will go in and there will be less to mow!

July 10 my sister is taking me to the middle of nowhere Illinois to visit a market farm of a friend of hers, a 76-year-old man who tends 2 acres alone, mostly by hand (and he has a greenhouse, I believe). I'm taking my gardening gloves so I can help him. Must be a lot of work. I want to see if it's something I really might be interested in doing, as I keep saying I am. He sells at two farmer's markets. I'm close to two "tonier" farmer's markets where you can charge a lot more, especially if you plant "weird" and heirloom crops, like elephant garlic, blue potatoes, black tomatoes, and so on. I could get a lot of vegetables out of a quarter acre.

Still a big item on the list: taking down two dead pine trees. BIL #1 and I want to do it, but he has projects, I have projects, and we need a cool morning when we are both free...and that might be September before it happens!

again, a wikipedia image

Monday through Friday will be increasingly hot, and I need to get back to writing, so that's what I'll be doing those days. Probably won't post then...but who knows. Maybe a big limb will hit my roof or something exciting that gives me something else to complain about!

rainy days, organizing garage

The last two days have been rainy, and while I went outdoors, both days the skies opened up on me!

I'm in a really bad phase with poison ivy, by the way. The only saving grace is that it's not as bad as west coast poison oak, which I also had in Oregon. Bad enough, tho. Week 2 of it, and by Week 4, I guess it'll be gone.

So the last two days I've spent my work time on the garage. It was a laughable disaster. For one thing, I have 10 new electric tools and want to keep the boxes in case they die quickly so I can return them. That pile of boxes is still there and not pictured.

But the tools hanging against the wall are up now, so that shovel will quit falling on my noggin every time I grab something else!

The white cabinet on the right (free, from Sister #2) is filled with garden stuff--tiny tools, poisons, plant markers, tomato and flower food, extra gloves, and whatnot.  Getting just those two things done is a big improvement. And third from the left of the tools, the smallest of them, is a gift from BIL #1, FENCE PLIERS, which are like my second favorite tool EVER. I had some in Oregon but sold them. So smart a design! My favorite tool ever is to its left, a hand hoe/straight claw, heavy enough to also kill an attacker with. I took out a big bush stump with only that and the loppers. I've never seen another, and you couldn't buy it from me for a thousand bucks. I had it with me the whole time in the RV, not because I needed it but because I knew I'd never replace it if I gave it away.

The next two days are supposed to be cooler and dry, so I get to mow again. I actually haven't quite finished the mowing from last time, but it's time to do it all over. However, the weather is forecast to be cool enough I can stay out five or six hours each day and catch up. My BIL keeps telling me if I buy a rider mower, I can knock the whole yard off in an hour. I don't want one tho. I'll kill myself on it.

Every ten days, I have a task list to get through:

1. mow front, side, & back
2. weedwhip/edge ... and turn the compost pile
3. leaf blow the driveway
4. pick up the GD sweet gum balls, which never ever stop until I murder that tree
5. clean the house
6. shop for groceries

And then the other four days, I get to do maybe one fun thing, and I write most days, check the veggie garden daily and water containers every other day if it hasn't rained and leafblow the back patio....whew! With the time left, I have to try and make headway on the flower beds that I've barely touched, spray Roundup some more, etc. (That poison ivy is fighting for life, so it'll take two doses at least.) I have a list of other chores, repairs and high-priority improvements. It's long. Between being rained out some days and "heated out" on others, I may be done with the list by the time the ground freezes in December.

Bad news in cleaning out the garage: they left me over 20 empty paint cans. (or cans with two inches of paint in them, which is worse).

Good news in cleaning out the garage: I'd been frustrated at thrift stores looking for cutlery. I finally bought a 20-piece set at a Ross for $9, but that really won't help me if I have a crowd here (and I have a crowd of relatives that would overwhelm 8 forks. But among the paint cans and casters that go to furniture that's long gone and curtain rods I don't want, I found this:

Aha! Ask and ye shall receive, apparently.

watering at dawn

The only 75 degree (95 heat index) moment in the day, so I watered. In the low light, I grabbed a couple blurry pix--one of four little tomatoes and the crown of the crookneck yellow squash that's coming along. There is also a pak choi in the background of the tomato pic with its true leaves.

No human I've spoken with here likes this awful heat/humidity right now, but the tomatoes sure do!

squash, planted seed 23 May

mystery variety of tomato, small plant put it 23 May

so hot

It's unbearably hot, and I have to mow at least two days out of every week, and I think by the end of those days that it's literally going to kill me By the time I stop, the weather people tells me it's a heat index of 95 or so. Old people shouldn't be pushing mowers around on hills in such conditions!

Today, realizing any headway I make on the days it is not raining and I'm not mowing will be slow indeed, I used off-brand Round-Up on some weeds. I never thought I'd do that, ever! And yet the weeds--some of which were poison ivy--were just taking too much of the "cooler" time I have left.

I'd love to have all gardens. I'll happily weed once they are rehabbed and mulched. But the lawn and me, we're gonna have problems.

It's raining!

You know what's great about rain? I don't have to feel guilty for not being outside in the yard. :-D

I've heard many compliments now about the work I've done so far--directly, and when relatives mention what house I bought and someone in my locale says "oh yes! Someone has really been cleaning that up!" How nice that the work is appreciated.

I like working in the yard for its own sake...but I'd like it a bit more if it wasn't 85% humidity when I go out there at 5:30 a.m.

Planning for the fall

I don't yet have a year's neglect fixed, I have loads of summer tasks ahead of me, and it's crazy to think about autumn, and yet I toured Sister #2's perennial garden today so I could pick out what I wanted her to give me in the fall, when one transplants perennials. She has about six hosta varieties and six sedums, some lovely red yarrow, but I'm not sure I have sun enough for all of it yet.

I also liked her Plumbago. ("Lumbago?" I asked. "Isn't that a disease?" No, PLUMBago.)

I found three roses in the round bed I need to rescue before I tear everything else up (and probably follow that up with a chemical weeder, and I know, that's awful...but far easier than weeding every week!)

Weather is back to crazy hot and humid. There were only the two nice days, and the whole rest of the time (three weeks) I've owned the house, work has been ... well, WORK! Mowing in 95 degrees and 85% humidity is not for someone my age.

Today's tasks were cut short by a day of thrift store shopping, but I moved dried grass to the compost bin, moved piles of still green cut grass to the drying shed, and watered all the perennials, hanging plants, and vegetables well. I can (barely) get by with watering every two days in this heat, but only that long.

Finally, my patio. Yews, lots of concrete, the shed (which I'm only using for grass drying so far), a bluebird house (a gift from my only remaining aunt), and a lone cherry tomato plant.

I'm my father and mother's daughter

Dad: "I swear I'm going to pave over this whole lawn and spray paint it green."

Mom: truly enjoyed spending two hours sitting in the grass and pulling out weeds and picking up things like sweet gum balls.

I'm both. Though what I want to do with the side lawn, on a slope, is not pave it but turn it into a terraced market garden. Elephant garlic/leeks, and parsnips, I think. Just two crops per year, a winter one and a summer one. There are lots of farmer's markets here to sell at.

Tomorrow will see the end of the work required by the year's worth of never picking up the sweet gum balls by the previous owners. I have collected four big trash bags of those, plus two of pine needles and cones. Here's where I started today:

Like Mom, I sit cross-legged on the ground and feel around for the ones that have been driven into the roots of the grass and toss them on the pile. And I find it therapeutic.

And bless the weather gods, today was finally a spring day, 70 and not humid. Even the mosquitoes weren't bugging me as they have been on those humid and aiming-for-90-degree days we've had since I bought the place. A great morning to work outdoors.

And this--this is the kind of thing that makes me want and love a real yard and garden. Isn't it a beauty?

A frog!

I know both honeybees and frogs are in trouble, but I have both in the yard. Not sure the frog will outlast the snake, but I'm rooting for him.

1.5 hours to mow half the lawn today. 85 degrees when I quit, and I was soaked. I am learning how to use the corded electric mower without running over the cord! (good thing. Splicing is boring.)

And yes, once I saw the frog, I walked around the patch I was about to mow and kicked at things to make sure I didn't run over him.