Saturday, August 31, 2019

GOOD BOY!

Saturday and it’s lovely and warm but cloudy and the clouds make it eerily dark. There was even a brief sprinkle of rain that brought the sweetest of fragrances to the air. I seem to love every day, no matter the weather. But that’s easy to say in summer. We’re expected to have more hot sunny summer weather all next week, so no seeding.
I’ll putter in the gardens today and stain the last of the lumber for the pathway. It’ll be a nice easy day—a big change from yesterday. I worked hard all day on Friday, starting early, and earned myself GOOD BOY status—maybe even VERY GOOD BOY status. 
What made me good? I wired anti-bird netting all along the bottom of the fence surrounding my vegetable garden! Not only that: I had to do it on my hands and knees or lying on my side; it wasn’t easy. I had long been putting off this job but it had to be done to stop those cute little fuckers (Deer) from sticking their beautiful slender noses through the holes in my fence to eat all my Raspberry bushes.
And  …. And … Wait for it: Big, big news: I handled the skill saw … well, not like a pro, but like a determined inept person. I thought I’d only get half of the lumber done but it was kind of fun being purposefully destructive.
I reduced four very full wheelbarrows full of long lumber to short burnable pieces. That was enough to earn me the rest of the day off. But no: Good Boy did some baking before climbing into the spa to begin winding down for the day.
I’m lucky I like to be active/productive, otherwise the amount of work it takes to maintain this place might defeat me. Something makes me keep going. All I did today, had to be done; I can’t really rest when there’s essential work needing doing. 
My neighbours are growing Marijuana. I saw their plants by happenstance yesterday and they are lush and dense. Mine look like Iggy Pop; I think my plants are all males—so no buds, no smoke.

















Friday, August 30, 2019

Days of Rest Ahead


The real photo of my backyard is posted below; in this one, I used Photoshop to turn the ground green to look like grass and I love the look. I’ll add plants in the future and I’ll feel like I’m living in my own private park.
As the photo shows, I got a lot of pathway laid yesterday before I ran out of landscape pins. But what a truly lovely day I had now that the backyard is really coming together. The tree surrounds and pathway make it look so close to being done.
I’m way past the halfway mark now. Today, I’ll fill the gaps that aren’t done between the planks and clean up all the wood from the palettes that I won’t be using. I’ve got to saw it up so that I can burn it.
I’m happy to not be using the wood preservative today and working in the hot sun. I’ll get back to it next week when more pins arrive, but I don’t have much more to do before I run out of wood.
I also have to tidy up the studio. I have a billet arriving today to stay during the performing arts festival here this weekend.
It was supposed to rain this weekend but the outlook has changed. That’s good news for the festival here this weekend, but bad news for the gardens. And all of next week is predicted to be sunny and hot so seeding the lawns ain’t gunna happen.
I’m glad I ran out of landscape pins and that I’m almost out of wood. I can rest today, doing normal light duties and all next week will be a holiday for me too—and I’ll keep holidaying until the rains come and then it’ll be time to seed the new lawns.

















Thursday, August 29, 2019

This Morning's Progress


This Project Never Ends

I got up at 4:00 this morning. I haven’t done so for a long time but for decades it was my normal time to rise. And I discovered I’d left the gate open last night. That’s the way to lose a lot of plants to hungry Deer but I seem to have escaped any damage.
Yesterday, something very strange and scary happened during the dog walk. All of a sudden, I started stepping sideways to keep from falling over. I thought I was losing my balance; I was scared I was having a stroke. It stopped as suddenly as it came on but all the rest of the day I was nervous. 

Working on the pathway and keeping the gardens watered kept me very  busy yesterday. It’s so hot right now, days and nights, that water evaporates at a furious rate and I have to water some plants in the morning and again in the afternoon. But I got another good long section of the pathway done. 
I kind of ran out of steam in the afternoon. I wasted time waiting for the water that arrived late. (An accident that closed the Island Highway.) But once the hot tub was working again, I went back to work on the path and filled all the gaps. That’s the time consuming part—filling the cracks between the planks with compacted soil.
And today will be more of the same but work will be slower because I’m almost out of clean lumber and I’ll have to clean more before I use it. 

For a change of pace, I’ve been putting gravel around the trees and plants that I’ve scattered through the yard where I’ll be seeding. I watched a master gardener video on YouTube that says letting lawn grow right to the plants reduces the water the plant gets by 30%.
One magnificent thing about today is that my spa is back in working order. I had a spa very early this morning and will certainly have another at happy hour.