the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

we just named our cell-phone. it's been a few years since we changed from the landline to this newfangled gadget (or is it a gidgit? )...

as Mom was talking to a few nieces this evening for a while taking some of the charge of the battery down when she plugged it back into it's little cradle it starts blinking red (indicating that it is charging). so i told her it was sucking juice to recharge and then a moment later the phrase, "Juicy-Juice" comes out of my mouth. this is a common phrase between us over the years used in various contexts (and another "Shoot the juice to me Bruce!" happens at times too, we have our own language, don't you with your old friends? ).

 

[flowerbug]

making progress. almost have the last bean garden weeded so i have a chance of getting it planted this week depending upon the weather and other things coming up.

the other day i was feeling rather blah because i felt so behind and the weather was looking like too much rain for me to get outside and so many weeds, etc. just felt piled up and non-useful at all...

today, cooler this morning and now sunshine, weather more tolerable, a few rounds of weeding done today, looks better, etc. still so much to do but perhaps i just needed a good nap that day, and i did get one yesterday so that really did help.

 

[flowerbug]

at last the beekeeping people removed their carpeting and metal barrel from our property so i can get that area taken care of and i won't have to worry about disturbing the hives. they did put about a dozen hives in another area that doesn't block access to the back part of our lot.

 

[flowerbug]

it rained buckets yesterday, a long skinny storm lined up so it went over us end to end and we got all of it. i don't think i'll be doing much in the gardens today.

 

[Mini Horses]

Good of an excuse as any We had those off/on showers yesterday & into daybreak this morn. Too wet to do much. Grass needs a mow, ain't happening.

 

[flowerbug]

back out to work today, weeding and i really should get more transplants done along those edges so i won't have so many weeds to deal with, but then i also could move a yard or two of dirt back to the other garden (where transplants of thyme are coming from) and that's not weeded yet...

way too much dirty water got moved around in that storm and it would have been so much better to have plants growing than bare dirt...

 

[flowerbug]

peas and pea pods are out there to harvest but i've hardly gotten that far back in the gardens lately as i'm trying to get the gardens outside the fence weeded and in better shape.

i did get some more creeping thyme transplanted so that is progress of the kind i really wanted to get done.

other progress i didn't want to get done was some testing out of the new brush cutter attachment for our new 'lectric power tool. it works but not for everything i'd like so today we'll be back out to try the string trimmer attachment instead.

as suspected Mom just can't manage the brush cutter so far and it is way too destructive if you make a mistake (way too many rocks, carpets, wood and other things here to go along). the string trimmer will be more gentle in case of errors so perhaps Mom can do some of that, but i'll need to switch the attachment and also see if the string is biodegradeable or not as i don't want to have to keep finding and removing bits of string from gardens... a charge lasts about an hour and that's plenty enough to get done.

in some ways these tools might help me garden but as of yet they are mostly going to be distractions from what i'd much rather be doing (actual gardening and not lawn or edge types of finickyness). i can however use the string trimmer to knock back some areas of weeds that i'd like to reclaim for the ground covers mixed in them and we'll see how that turns out. i do like that it is more pointed than the lawn mower... oh, and yes for certain brush areas too like along the big ditches... those thistles, creepers, grape vines and poison ivy can all use some smack downs...