stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

i can't upload to my website (for the past several days i've tried) and thought it might have been me not having the right setup or password or something changed. well the something changed was actually at the other end and they are "working" on it. not sure how long it will take them to fix it.

ah they did have a fix in last night and it's uploading now...

one of the first things i did last week to celebrate getting my first official retirement check was to write a note to the ISP asking them to upgrade my connection to the next level up. that hasn't kicked in yet but when it does it should help these uploads finish faster...

 

[flowerbug]

yay! uploads worked...

Field Pennycress - tiny thread...

Morel (something ate it soon after this picture was taken)...

the whole mulched area is a few inches of crushed rinsed limestone over black plastic, whatever dust and bits of stuff that comes off the pine tree is all that's there, a very thin layer of not much but it gets enough moisture dripping off the roof and the east exposure seems to be what they like so that it will sprout a few mushrooms.

Old pics from 2007 of the crocuses in the north garden

and then if you get too hot and want to think cool thoughts...

Winter | Anthive

Snow, Shadows, Sparkles...

www.anthive.com

 

[flowerbug]

i wasn't even planning on being able to get outside today with the forecast for rains and that it had rained last night and this morning, but the rain stopped and i needed to get some honeysuckle tree and grape vines cut up and dealt with. nice to have that pile taken care of.

and of course while doing that i see the neighboring garden had a lot of grass seeds sprouting in the area i'd cleared about a month ago (and haven't finished because it is now planting season) so i grabbed the scraper and got that half of the garden weeded enough to hold it for now. the other half i need to finish sometime but that may happen as soon as tomorrow.

 

[flowerbug]

was able to hunt the groundhog today and so i hope that was the one using the burrow that i'd been trying to trap for a while, but no luck there until i saw it out in the back lawn eating some green stuff.

plugged up the burrow entrance good and used a lot of wood stakes to make it very hard for any groundhog to dig in that location again. had to fish a few rocks out of the water and used them to plug up the other entrance that was barely open and there was no fresh dirt around that one so i'm wondering perhaps if there is yet another entrance someplace but hard to tell without cutting back all the grass, etc along that bank and i'm not going to do that.

 

[flowerbug]

we're still having to run the heat and it is June 1st! two more nights of cool enough weather and then the forecast goes up to 81F for Monday and 86F for Tuesday, 81F for Wednesday...

[amused at me not noticing that today was not June 1st ... ]

 

[Vanalpaca]

we're still having to run the heat and it is June 1st! two more nights of cool enough weather and then the forecast goes up to 81F for Monday and 86F for Tuesday, 81F for Wednesday...

Wow. We have rains starting Wed and for Thurs Fri...Great way to start out June... My garden is always planted by now. Instead with the barometric pressure we've been staying inside way too much. Still hitting the garden hard on stuff we should have done weeks ago but it was rain then....It's been a very odd spring!

 

[flowerbug]

i see no hard frost this morning and i don't think it got down as low as i was worried about so the tomato plants should be ok. i'll take a look at them later when we get going outside. i don't even want to open the garage up for a few more hours and hope it warms up more rather quickly. we have plans for working together today on some problem areas inside the fenced gardens but i'd sure like to get those cosmos planted i went outside yesterday to plant...

the garden in the horseshoe really needs a lot of weeding and the soil is pretty crusty and hard to do anything with. mostly clay out there and not much amending over the years in that particular spot. you know it's always a bad sign when you walk on it and you make no impression at all in the garden soil... i do have three bags of bean pods still from last fall's shelling i could work in there but i really don't have that much time and it is a garden outside the fence. that is why the gardens inside the fence are the priority and get most of the goodies. and if i'm going to put a lot of time in outside the fence i really need to get the end of that pathway edge project done before any other project, but before that the north garden will need to be weeded and that happens after all the beans are planted and the peppers have to happen before the beans and then mowing and watering and emergency fixes and honeydo projects that pop up and ...

there is good news though, as i make progress on fixing certain things and getting some garden edges under better control that does free up time for other projects and i also gained a lot of time back by not having to mow so much of the area to the south that i was doing before.

 

[Vanalpaca]

Cannot believe I was already out to the garden at 6:15 am this morning. There is a cow tied outside the fence at one corner. I closed up the entrance to the bee hive nuc in the greenhouse with 4 sprigs of mint wrapped in a comfrey leaf so they cannot get out and I can move them later when I'm dressed for it. Went back out a second time to feed the turkey hen and her chicks who are NOT laying on my new bean sprouts...The borage in the greenhouse is ready to bloom. I guess I need to soak it really well today so they don't go shocky on me...2 turkey hens are nesting 2 feet from the garden gate outside of it. Some of the strawberries have a couple blooms on them. Seems slow to me this year...