The Beer Garden

It’s getting toward the end of the season, and gas prices are ‘way down from summer, so we went a bit further afield than usual — all the way to Milford, whee!

Didn’t find any big stuff, but we both did pretty well on small items.  A couple of color-changing novelty tumblers (free handouts at the State Fair from the Insurance Commissioner, but Mr. E said I should’ve picked up more than one, so today I did, at a dime each).  A couple of jigsaw puzzles, a weird oil filter wrench, a small wind chime (I’m a sucker for wind chimes), some pretty seed beads to use in my tatting, a nice pair of star-shaped earrings, that sort of thing.  

I figure we’ll have till about the middle of next month, then no more — except maybe a few orphans — until about mid-April.  It’d be nice to find a decent exercise bike before winter, but I’m not holding my breath. 

Rosebush stump #4 is gonna be a sumgun to get out.  I didn’t expect to be able to do much as it was, so I dug a big hole around it, dumped in a couple of gallons of water to soften up the ground, and still couldn’t budge it, even by solid kicking.  And given the root structure,  Mr. E says pulling it out might not be a good idea, or I might damage the pond liner.

That’s a good point, and if the rain and more water I plan to dump in tomorrow don’t loosen it up either, I may decide to whack off the roots as deep as I can, then plan to hit anything that shows up with the strongest weed-killer I can find.  Given half a chance, that particular rosebush would take over the entire bed, so I don’t dare give it such a chance.

Other than that, I didn’t get a great deal of cleanup done on the rest of the bed.  Which is a bit disappointing, as I’d like to get that one done this fall, so I only have the one around the wisteria (doing fine now I’ve staked it up) and the small pond (which is going to turn into a strawberry bed) to take care of come spring, along with — of course — the vegetable garden. 

Well, today I finally got started on one of the projects I’d planned for last April or May.  Given how often we go out flying when the weather’s good, I haven’t been able to keep up with the flowerbeds, so I’d planned to convert all three of them to perennial (preferably evergreen) ground cover of a type that chokes out most weeds.  Naturally, after major surgery I wasn’t able to — and I spent a good part of the year being extremely thankful that Carl and Audrey are so understanding!

But at least today I was able to start cleaning out the biggest bed, the one around the big pond.  It’s way too big to do in one day, but I’d estimate I got about a third of it, including yanking out three of the four rosebushes that’d reverted to rootstock and looked downright pathetic.  The fourth, I think, will be beyond my abilities, and maybe a bit much for the lawnmower; if Mr. E. thinks so, I’ll ask Carl to come over and yank it with his tractor.  

Audrey recommended picking up some pre-emergent weed preventive, so I’ll definitely be doing that — I think the name she mentioned was Preem, which is sometimes combined with a fertilizer, but I’m not positive.  She said it worked on the bed around her big pond, and I sure didn’t see many weeds there, so I didn’t take much convincing!

Now I’m looking forward to the gardening catalogs arriving.  Besides the usual drooling over veggies, I’m going to be scheming about ground covers and decorative stepping-stones (I picked up a couple cheap at yard sales this year, painted them, and really liked the results, so I got another one at the hardware store — it looked like a really faded ladybug — repainted it, and am eager to find more.  They look a whole lot better than the plain slate I was using (still am, till I can get more pretty ones), and even if I can’t get much winter color from the plants, they’ll provide some.

… at not blogging as regularly as I should.  It’s a lot more fun than exercise or cleaning house, but just as easy to be distracted from, and lately (for no real reason I can identify) it’s been happening more than I like.

I suppose distractions would be less so if this had an overriding subject, but I can’t keep up with the religious and political blogs and forums I like as it is, so the Beer Garden is (as its name suggests) my on-line spot to goof off and occasionally, when the mood strikes, rant a bit.

The fact that I’m back to language study doesn’t help things a bit, since I start wondering about how I’d express the same thing in Esperanto, get the dictionary out, along with Being Colloquial in Esperanto, and playing with how I said things in English, trying to translate and keep the same flavor.  So far I haven’t had much luck — I’ve been away from it too long, and lost too much of the feel.  I should be able to do it again in the not-too-distant future, but right now, I’m feeling irritated and frustrated at myself that I let it slip. 

LATER:  Okay, just got in from cleaning up the dog droppings — turned out it was my week (something I can never remember because I always clean before he mows), and whoof!  The wind is so fierce it was making a mess of my hair, short as that is, and unless I was careful, actually blew the messes out of the scoop!

It’s still bright and sunny, but with that wind, I’m beginning to believe the overnight forecast of severe thunderstorms.  As long as the rain isn’t too intense, I’m in favor of it, if only to dampen and start soaking in the iron sulfate I put around my blueberries.

On that subject, I’m hoping the farmer doesn’t lime before he plants the winter barley where the corn used to be.  For most of the garden, I don’t care if some misses the field and comes 5-6′ over into my garden, but it’ll make keeping the soil acidy enough for blueberries somewhat more difficult.

 

At what feels like very long last, I finished sewing the last of the trim on the last T-shirt early this afternoon.  As you can imagine, that gives me a considerable feeling of accomplishment!  8 T-shirts, with hand-tatted trim around neckline and sleeves … there were a few times I felt like calling it quits and going back to something simple and fast like bookmarks (or Christmas ornaments when I feel like playing with beads), but right now, I’m glad I persevered.

Still … WHEW! 

Looks like it’s about time to get back to studying Esperanto.  I dug out a book I’d gotten about half-way through earlier (the Esperanto edition of Harry Harrison’s A Stainless Steel Rat is Born), and was having some problems.  Not with the grammar — I don’t seem to have lost any of that — but my vocabulary’s slipping, so I need to do at least some reviewing, and preferably improve it as well while I’m at it.

Why Esperanto?  Well, I like learning things, and I like languages, but the national languages take so darn long to learn enough to read anything except kiddy books!  Esperanto is a good compromise (as well as being the language spoken in my Terran Empire stories, though I admit to starting out with Imperial English), with a simple, very regular grammar I could actually read at grown-up level after about a month and a half of studying.  Also, my patron deity keeps urging me in that direction, though I haven’t the slightest idea of His reason or reasons! 

I hadn’t planned on doing any yard work today, but ended up mulching most of the vegetable garden.  Mr. E had said he was planning to mow, plus pick up the grass from his last mowing, yeah — but given the wind and the 60% chance of rain today, I was caught by surprise when he started it about ten this morning!

Naturally I wanted to get it spread out as he dumped it — much easier that way than waiting even a day or two, especially with the rain predicted — so I grabbed my gardening hat, went out to the shed for the small rake (much easier for me to wield than the big one), and started spreading grass.  He’d put some down a week or so ago, when I was doing something else (can’t remember what) and couldn’t get it spread, so I was actually working both batches.  At a guesstimate, I’d say I got 11-1200 of the 1400 sq. feet of garden mulched before the starter gear on the mower lost a tooth or so and we had to push it into the shed.  Only got sprinkled on a little, and the sun was actually starting to come out by the time we got done, so I promptly headed for my TV to watch the race.

Turned out to be a good one, and the rain was still holding off — till about half an hour after the race ended.  (I find myself wishing TNT would maintain coverage of the post-race traffic trying to get out of town, but that’s pretty much chaotic from everything I’ve heard, so I can’t blame them for not.)  I suppose I really ought to pick myself a driver to root for, just to add to the interest, but with an ending like today’s, that would just be frosting on the cake.

Looks like it’s going to be about the usual — probably messy.  From the NOAA forecast:

+++ 

Saturday: A slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 8am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. Southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Saturday Night: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 68. Southwest wind between 9 and 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Sunday: A chance of showers, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 83. West wind between 11 and 18 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

+++ 

Of course, race weekends tend to be like Fair Week in that respect; once you’ve lived here for a while, you learn to expect bad weather at those times.  Though sometimes Fair Week only has a little bad weather, rather than the whole week … but even during a drought, you can count on at least some rain then.

Me, I’m just hoping the nasties hold off till after we do tomorrow’s yard sale running; it’s getting to the time of year there won’t be many more weekends for them!

Of course, when the yard sales end, the gardening catalogs for next year usually start coming in, so it’s not all bad. 

 

It’s been a busy couple of days here on the farm.  Not a great deal
accomplished, but it did get done, and parts will show later.

One of the visible things was yesterday, after doing routine errands and talking to Audrey and Carl.  I mentioned I’d gotten the blackberry canes I wanted to salvage and planted them, and asked Carl the best way to get the remainder out — I ached from digging the 8 canes, and really didn’t want to have to use a shovel or a grubbing hoe to get the rest (lots more than 8!) out.  I must admit I was half-hoping Carl would take the opportunity to use his tractor, and he did.  Rather more enthusiastically than I’d thought he might, at that, because while Audrey and I were walking over to look at the canes I’d transplanted, here comes Carl on the tractor, with front-loader!  Audrey was barefoot and I was still in dress clothes, so there wasn’t much we could do to help till Carl left to take the first load out back, then I changed clothes and grabbed some work gloves, while Audrey went after some shoes and gloves so we could lend a hand cleaning up the uprooted canes while Carl re-leveled the area he’d dug up to get them out.  The whole thing took less time than it’d taken me to transplant 4 of my salvaged canes!

I got the weeds sprayed for what I hope is the last time till spring — I won’t know whether I got everything or not for a week or so, since the stuff I’m using isn’t quite as fast-acting as Round-Up.  But I’m confident enough that I cleaned the sprayer for winter, and put it up in the shed till spring (or I find out I missed enough to justify going after it and then re-cleaning).  I’m also cleaning the rest of my gardening stuff to get it ready for next year, but I’m not in a terrible hurry about that.  There isn’t that much that needs done, for one thing!

Hand-washed the T-shirts I have the tatted trim on — after all that work, I’m not about to throw them in the washer and chance messing up the tatting!  Cooked up a lot of chicken we picked up on sale today; some will get eaten right away, but some will be frozen and taken up to the big freezer in the shed as part of the storm stash.  And so the last couple of days have gone — busy, but nothing really spectacular.

… and seems I’m pushing the season to work comfortably outdoors, since tomorrow it’s not even supposed to hit 70!  And the forecast wind is going to be a bit high to do my (hopefully) final weed-spraying of the year, but Friday looks promising so far — also warmer!

At any rate, it was nice enough today that after we got done running errands and doing a bit of shopping, I changed into my grungies and headed for the garden.  First step was measuring and marking where I want to put the rest of my blueberry bushes before I started moving the blackberries into the perennial area.  I haven’t always done that, estimating instead, and that’s got a bad habit of not working out well.

I started out with one row, holes for four canes, since I wasn’t sure I could find more nice upright ones than that, the way these blackberries were sprawling, but I ended up with 2 rows (8 canes), so even if I lose some, that should be enough to give me a decent blackberry patch again in a couple of years.

Even with pulling that many canes, I was surprised at how much was left out front.  And given how difficult it was to get some of the transplant canes out of the ground, I’m going to need to talk to Carl about how to get the rest out.  I have a feeling it’s going to end up with him pulling them with his tractor — which would probably make his day; he does love using it!  I’ll probably ask about it tomorrow, since I’m planning to go over tomorrow anyway to show Audrey the first tunic before I start into #2, and maybe chat about the Senior Center’s craft show/sale in November and how much of what of my tatting they might want as donations.