better temps, supply run, and garden prep

We did not get any more rain but the temps have adjusted down to mid to low 90s. After this horrible summer it's amazing how tolerable that feels.

My life is so exciting that I cannot remember what I did on Saturday. Apparently nothing. Oh, I guess we finished watching season 3 of Reservation Dogs. I had replied to a comment that it has been canceled but then I read that season 3 was written as and intended to be the last season which is a shame because it is so good.

Sunday I read all day trying to plow through this last book of a trilogy which I'm totally over to the point that I'm just skimming over some pages. Depends if there's action or just the same sort of dialog that has been prevalent through all three books.

I did haul two cart loads of fallen tree debris over to the burn pile and trimmed two small branches off the yew tree over the deck with my little mini chainsaw and picked up the dropped pecans which I hadn't done for two days. When they drop early and with the husks still on they're either rotten inside or empty. I've filled two 5 gallon buckets to the rim and am a little less than halfway on a third. Still, I look up and see plenty of pecans on the trees. My neighbor thinks the ones being dropped are at the tops of the trees getting scorched by the horrible heat and lack of rain.

We did a run to Spec's (liquor warehouse) and Costco today to stock up. Spec's is in the shopping mecca in Rosenberg and Costco a little farther in Sugar Land which is basically an extension of Houston nowadays. When they built that Costco out there it was in the middle of nowhere, standing alone. Now it's surrounded by another shopping mecca and housing developments. Houston is slowly inexorably stretching out towards us. This visit to Costco was a little disappointing. They did not have the cereal I buy, they did not have the samosas, they did not have bird seed, and when I asked about the chia seeds the woman told me she heard they had been discontinued. They did have the spanikopita which they haven't had the last several times we've been though I think it's a different brand. They used to carry the short grain brown rice which I like but haven't had that for years which is why I buy it online now. You know what they did have? A million different versions of moon cakes. OK, maybe not a million. And Christmas. They had Christmas out the wazoo, just passed over Halloween and Thanksgiving altogether though I did see a rack of Halloween costumes. Anyway, I just avoid those isles.

Since this morning was the coolest morning we've had so far I grabbed the shovel and turned the dirt where the tomatoes and zinnias were this spring to start getting it ready for the winter garden. It was perfect for digging, not too wet from the rain, not hard and dry. I'll mix in some compost and fertilizer before I plant.

That 2” of rain after so long without has prompted the yellow rain lilies. The camera would not focus on the rain lilies no matter how many times I tried.

And while I don't have any surprise lilies (yet hopefully) or hurricane lilies as Ms Moon calls them, the oxblood lilies are popping up all over.

Oh, just saw a hummingbird come hover right outside my window looking in.

happy heart but sore hands and back

Checked the rain gauge Thursday morning and we got 4” of rain last Wednesday but Thursday the sun was shining and the wind was howling and the ground was littered with pecans, this after I thought the harvest was dwindling. I might have some to sell after all. I still haven't picked them all up.

I finished filling the anole with 10 petal anemone mold, all the tedious noodling of crushed glass into tiny spaces building it up and shoring it up is done and it and the second hummingbird mold are in the kiln. I have one more mold waiting, the 3^rd of the large Drowned Feathers, but it can wait. I started on the finish work yesterday and got the edge work done on the two pieces I want stands made for if Chuck will ever work me in. Time is getting short before our holiday open house weekends with the glass blowers. This will be the 20^th year and maybe the last. It's a lot of work and age is catching up with one half of their team.

I think I'll work out in the yard today continuing to clear the daylily flower bed. I have two large plants that need to go in the ground because they have outgrown their pots and I'd like to get them settled in before the cold weather stays. Of course, if we have a hard winter they will both freeze to the ground but hopefully will come back.

Many hours later...

The ground is still too wet at the shadier end of this particular flower bed for the digging up of dewberry, evening primrose, and other assorted unwanted stuff after our 4” of rain last Wednesday but I got the pink angel trumpet planted in there anyway. 

Before I could plant the porterweed at the other end where it was perhaps not the perfect dryness but good enough, I had to dig out about 16 square feet of black and blue salvia which is invasive and forms big nodules on it's roots and is just taking over that end of the flowerbed. 

Minnie helped me dig, just not in the right spot

It's all got to come out but today I just took out enough to accomplish my goal. But even before I did all that, I went around with my Dawn dish detergent orange oil soapy water and liberally doused all the fire ants, including the ones that had taken up residence in the porterweed pot. After I got the two plants in the ground and gathered up all the plant trash and trundled it over to the burn pile at the shop in the wheelbarrow, I made a half hearted attempt to get the rest of the pecans and then I took the dog for her (very short) walk and then took a shower. Needless to say, I'm bushed but it was a beautiful day and I enjoyed being outside.

Tomorrow I'll be back over at the shop continuing the finish work on the four castings as it's supposed to be another rainy day.

one woman, one shovel, two yards of dirt

My stab at model making lasted one day. I finally got my yard of the 'magic' caney soil on Sunday and I've been shoveling dirt every day since then.

I drove to the pit and watched as the guy scraped it off the surface, the 'surface' being 8' to 10' below the actual surface. This dirt is reddish blond unlike the expensive vegetable mix from last year, and has no organic material in it at all. Even so, the guy said I shouldn't have to add anything to it. I'm a bit skeptical though. When I got back and started shoveling it out into the raised bed I found that his idea of 'fluffy' is not the same as mine. While it most of it was crumbly, it was also very cloddy and had clay in it. So while I was shoveling I would toss out the clods if I couldn't crumble them and the clay and then when I finally emptied the truck I used the heavy rake to comb out more clods from the raised bed.

I dumped the clods and clay in a sinkhole by the fence that's been developing for the last year or so.

I finally got it all shoveled out Tuesday and it wasn't enough to fill the bed, barely 2/3s, which I knew because I had calculated I would need 1.6 yards and being the skeptic that I am, I decided to go get another yard of the expensive vegetable mix that burned everything I planted last spring. So that's what I did Tuesday afternoon. I figure if it's as hot as last year (though the lady said this was a little different mix and no they didn't have any complaints last year), mixing it in with the caney soil should make it OK.

Back to square one.

A little more than half the second yard and the new bed is finally ready to plant. I mixed the two dirts together and then topped it off with the new dirt as it had settled some during the turning. The rest will go in the big raised bed to top it off and in the other around the potatoes which are coming up but not even a fourth of what I planted.

hands in the dirt

I like to dig. It's one of my favorite parts of gardening. I like to get my hands in the dirt, get out the weeds and crumble the clods, mix in mulch. There's nothing more satisfying than preparing a flower or garden bed, just the pristine dirt at the end waiting to sustain. It's not just plants the dirt sustains. When we get our hands in the dirt we boost our immune system, we breathe in those happy making microbes, we commune with nature, we connect with our roots so to speak.

The dirt was perfect for digging. Not too wet, not too dry, crumbled easily. The day was perfect for digging. Cool, warm in the sun, low humidity with intermittent clouds. So that's what I did. It was my one Saturday a month off, my wild card day so I decided the wait was over and I tackled the end of the little garden in the Big Backyard that had poppies and evening primrose last spring and has been basically abandoned since then. Some of that, a lot of that, was due to, you know, summer. I'd been watching the nut grass slowly take over until one day it had completely colonized that end. So I've been waiting for the weather to cool down enough and Saturday was the day and Sunday as well.

I got all the nut grass out, rousted this spider out. She scurried off and buried herself in the dirt again. 

Shooed away many a toad,

and then reset the concrete blocks that line it which, having been set originally at different times, were not uniform. Now they are which added several inches to the width. Except for the end which I didn't get to. The day ran out and my hands had had enough as well. I'll just square it off next weekend and get it filled with dirt so I can get lettuce and arugula and spinach planted for the fall and winter. Carrots may go over in one of the raised beds. Eventually, hopefully, this fall, I'll get the end rounded out to match what I did this spring on the other end and then foolishly planted the three little banana trees about two feet away which have thrived on the edge of the drain field and the full sun and are now only inches away from the border. You might remember I started this bed as a 4' x 4' for strawberries back in 2011. It's grown considerably since then.

I'd spend the next several days outside if I could but alas, it's Monday and I have to get to work. I'm on the last stencil. Once I get that done, my work on the job is done besides consulting as it gets etched and then cleaning and sealing the finished panels but the bulk of my time will be freed up to work on other things like...yard work and flower beds or new waxes or cold work on the finished castings or housework.

Well, maybe not housework.

yard stuff good, work stuff bad

I think I mentioned previously that I got my two ! raised beds planted at the very end of February and maybe the beginning of March. The tomatoes were definitely in in February, the earliest I have ever got them in and even so, it may not have been early enough. It's an early spring, yes, but it is also getting hotter fast. Tomatoes stop blooming and setting once the nights and days get too warm. My tomatoes are just now starting to bloom and I'm already worried that I won't get much fruit off them.

I have beans coming up though.

Things have sort of gone to hell in a hand basket work-wise. I've been putting off starting my new work in the cast glass waiting for this big job to come through, expecting to be funded at any time which hasn't, so far, happened and now might not. Apparently there was a lack of communication between the art consultant, the client, and the architect. The change in the structure of the wall that was supposed to be made to accommodate the glass as we proposed it and was approved by the client, wasn't made and on top of that, the manner of installation which I had requested details of early on and never received until last Wednesday also put the kibosh on what we proposed, all of which I found out last Wednesday. My installer met with the architect last Friday to see if they could come up with a solution but I haven't heard the result of that meeting yet. We haven't even started this job yet and it has already become a nightmare. I've wasted months of time waiting on a job that may not happen now.

I was thinking about all this last night after spending all day working in the yard yesterday and didn't get even a third of the things accomplished that still needs to be done out there before it gets too hot, already the june bugs have hatched en mass. Thinking I should just get out my model making stuff and start in ernest on some new pieces. But while, normally I would have until about mid-June to be able to work outside, this year with such an early spring and early really warm days I may only have a month so I decided to keep working out in the yard. For today anyway, which I'm already late in starting because we slept til the sun woke us up at the usual time which turned out to be an hour later. I like DST but I hate the transition.

So, I mentioned it's spring here. The wrens built a nest in the birdhouse I put up on the outside of the barn and yesterday I saw a fledgling in the barn. I could hear the little cheeper and it's parent all day.

I discovered this little guy

 

hiding in a plastic pot when I was rummaging through them to pot up some cuttings I had taken for the garden club's plant show and sale next month. Also got my zinnia seeds planted in starter trays.

I dug some stuff up and moved it and put some other stuff in the ground. I had four huge fire ant beds to get rid of and several smaller ones. I use a Dawn dish detergent and orange oil solution, both biodegradable and it kills the shit out of fire ants. I weeded part of the old vegetable garden and need to reclaim it. I cleaned the filter for the turtle pond which is really murky right now as I guess I inadvertently killed the bacteria in the filter. It will recover but it may take up to six weeks to get the water clear again. I dug up sprouted pecan trees.

I got the little water plants back in the filter to the water lily pond which those wild dogs had torn up.

Saw this bee buzzing around the bluebonnets which are coming into bloom.

All the rain early last week has got the frogs all jazzed up and laying eggs. Saw this cluster caught on the chicken wire to keep the wild dogs out.

Another day planned for out in the yard today.

magnolia leaves and garden beds

I had decided that I was going to get these magnolia leaves mounted and done last week and this. I've been bouncing ideas off several of my artist friends hoping that their thoughts and opinions would help me solidify my own vision of the piece. About the only decision I've made thus far is that I am not going to mount the three on a single back board but each piece will hang individually and the steel needs to be more rusty.

My trouble is, I can't decide between two options. Some days I like it with an additional piece of wood behind the metal and other days I like it like this, just the leaf on the metal and this is the original concept.

I'm rapidly reaching the point where I am tired of deliberating about it and am ready to be done with it. When that happens I usually fall back to my original position.

I've been given advice on several ways to get the steel rusty quickly but so far I'm just leaving it out in the open and spraying it with water now and then so that I can control just how much it rusts. Of course, now we are having dry windy spring days and it's not happening as fast as I would like it. And some twiddling needs to be done with the length and position of the sticks.

The other thing we almost have accomplished is getting the first raised garden bed actually done. The pieces have been put together for a 4' x 16' bed and I went and got the first of 3 yards of dirt needed to fill it. It ain't well built or pretty, but it's progress and we will have a garden again for the first time in almost two years.

the dirt yard

Fortunately, our grandson was out working on one of his trucks and when he saw us shoveling dirt, came over just after I took this picture and did it for us and faster than we would have done.

overheard at the country house last night

Today was a good day, I said, sitting on the couch.

Why, asked Marc, because you got to dig?

He knows me well.

That wasn't what I was thinking specifically but it is true. I did get to dig today and that always makes me happy. I like to dig, I like to break up the soil and crumble it with my hands. I like to add compost and mix it in. I like to plant stuff and though I am not always gentle I always have the plants' interest at heart. Sometimes things are so root bound that for the plant to have any hope of surviving, you basically have to tear away most of it's root system away so it can start over.

But today was spring here and is supposed to be all week. It will get cold again but today I had to return my grandson to the city so I had time before and after to just be outside. I had bought a few annuals Friday when I was in the city picking him up so I had plenty to occupy me today, though I didn't get everything in. 

The grandboy wanted to come spend the weekend because he wanted to work on the truck that he is buying from his dad who collects old Ford trucks to work on as a hobby.

I wanted him to spend the weekend because I had a project outdoors I wanted him to help me with. My neighbor Alan, Frank's son, on one side between us and Frank Of The Bountiful Garden has a bunch of storage buildings on the back part of his half acre and he sprays herbicide twice a year back there to keep the weeds down on the packed dirt ground. If you know me at all, you know that this is anathema to me. In the city, my yard was a no kill zone and most especially no poisons and I practice the same here. Alan has been encroaching with the poison by a few inches to a foot over the property line so Saturday, I got the grandboy to help me erect 4 sections of wrought iron fencing back there. It doesn't extend all the way to the native pecan tree yet as I didn't have enough sections but I'll fill it in eventually. The plan is to plant flowering vines on the fencing or large flowering shrubs in the space between the fencing and the long day lily bed.

I have a full day of work ahead today and it's not yard work. Well, I do have several full days of yard work but today is work work. The castings are coming out today.