stubbed toes and mud pies

[digitS']

The birds in the strawberries was a problem. And, the slugs ...

Really, I put them in the wrong place in the yard. Lawngrass seems to harbor slugs around here. It took me a few years before I decided to never, ever transplant my tomatoes near a lawn ... and let 'em sprawl.

Birds (English Sparrows) will keep me from planting the strawberries. The tree squirrels are making constant trips along my fence to the neighbor's millet and sunflower seed. I bet that they would have an appreciation for a strawberry snack along the way. That they leave my meager crop of peaches alone this year is probably too much to hope for.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

not too many slugs in the patch here as it is surrounded by the limestone mulched pathways and areas.

it still gets way too many weeds as the area is downslope from some other spaces that do have some weeds and seeds. i also gets flash flooded at times. something i don't really like, but that is just how it is right now...

English sparrow seems to bring up House sparrow and i don't see that many of those here. i do see some House Finches though and other birdies too... a few of the other species are not as welcome, but i also can't keep them away. i don't have that much fence or $$$ !!!!!

 

[digitS']

I don't know that there is much to worry about with house finches. Dad used to specifically feed the finches by having thistle seed and deliberately NOT feed the sparrows by not feeding millet seed.

I call them English so that responsibility falls on the right shoulders .

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

today weeding along the edge of the north garden, making good progress. had to relocate a few praying mantis youngsters to where they could have more cover and food chances. they were about 3-4cm long, very cute!

i'm very happy with the quality and content of the weeds. almost all are usable as worm food with me only having to discard a small amount (which goes to the back weed pile where the birds can pick through for seeds). most of them are wide leaf plantains and those are prime worm food (once they've dried out for a few days) and some purselane which i really should be taking to the back weed pile too but i hate doing that and i'm not sure they are too far along in their seed making to drop seeds so i'm taking a chance to let them fry where they are at. next year i won't have any big projects going at this time of the year so i can scrape 'em if they do end dropping a lot of seeds.

not much oxalis or grasses.

at the rate i'm going i hope to have it done in three or four more rounds (a few hours each is all i can do in the morning before it gets too hot outside). and then i get to start all over again. but much easier the next rounds now that the daffodils are mostly dying back and the beans are getting bigger.

i'm glad to see the comfrey doing ok where i put it. another good chop and drop crop for worm food once it gets filled in better.

 

[flowerbug]

a few pics

creeping thyme in bloom along the north garden edge. filled in nice. first year the whole area bloomed.

a shy blue face.

a more open smiling face.

 

[Marie2020]

I don't know that there is much to worry about with house finches. Dad used to specifically feed the finches by having thistle seed and deliberately NOT feed the sparrows by not feeding millet seed.

I call them English so that responsibility falls on the right shoulders .

Steve

Hey

 

[flowerbug]

i feel so dumb.

we've had this whining noise when the AC runs for quite some time. the last time this happened i was able to figure out which pipe it was coming from and then go under the house and wrap that tube with a towel or something to remove the resonance/vibration. this time i tried all the vents.

when we called the AC/Heating company we normally use they had a problem even putting us on the schedule because Mom was sick and they didn't want to risk anyone getting the virus. so we had to get to the testing place and get tested. the doc checked her out and all vitals were fine and her lungs were clear. the doc said they were being silly.

well anyways, after a lot more time than needed we finally had someone show up last night who walked in the door and said they knew exactly what it was - walked over to an area and said it's this vent here.

sure enough.

ok, i've lived here some years and we built the place, but i wasn't here when they did the heating/AC install. i also painted most of this place twice over, but i never did some of the lower down walls because those were easy enough for someone else to do. i did most of the hard stuff up higher or harder to reach areas.

well anyways, i didn't even know that vent was there so i didn't check it. it just so happened that Mom cleaned that vent yesterday morning and i told her that i didn't even know that vent was under there, but i still didn't think that the air return vent would have enough flow to have that amount of vibration.

so i was wrong and ignorant to boot.

he put his hand in front of the vent cover and it stopped whining. took the vent cover off and then applied a strip of putty on the backside of the grill to make sure it wouldn't do that again.

he'd been here a few times before and had never had a chance to look at the gardens so we took a quick tour and then he was off again. very busy time for them with a lot of people who don't even have AC running at all so we are lucky that it wasn't a tougher or more expensive problem.

no charge for the service call. thank you sir!

nice to no longer have the noise. Mom was really annoyed by it for so long. i'm usually here in my room and not able to hear it much. when it first started up she said it didn't bother her but that tune changed...

today we moved her bed out from the wall where there was another air return vent i didn't know was there and cleaned it out of the dust that had accumulated over 24yrs. yes, it had been that long. wow was it packed full of dust (a few inches thick). took that cover off and made sure it was cleaned out behind too. all ok there. no whining noise at all.

hot, dry, no rain, groundhogs raiding gardens, raccoons even uprooted an onion (the first time they've done that in many years). set up the live trap to see if i can get one of the groundhogs captured. it's a smaller one. there is also a larger one. they ate some of my peas last night.

tomorrow morning will be watering and more watering. i need to soak everything down well.

i got a lot of weeding caught up on the past few days, but still plenty to do, always plenty to do...

mowing, not needed as it has been so dry and most things are brown and going dormant - except some weeds i don't care too much about for the moment.

i'm going to go out and see if i can get a few pictures and check the trap before the evening hours come along - make sure it has some bait in it. the chipmunks have been getting a lot of the sunflower seeds... i'd put some alfalfa or birdsfoot trefoil in there but it is so hot it would be dried out too quickly to attract much of anything.

oy, so hot, trapped a small black kitty with some white on the feet. semi-feral or feral. it's been seen around here before. it was small enough to fit through the fence when i let it go. it hissed at me a few times.

took pictures. not sure what will turn out...

 

[digitS']

FlowerBug,

I can't figure out where sounds are coming from, if'n I can hear them at all. It's a combination of difference in ears over time and which hearing aid is giving more amplification.

I will turn a complete 360° trying to find a bird ... or, a person. Generally, I'm tolerated because I'm olde and try not to spill things and leave a mess.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

big pod peas.

the north garden beans.

small bean garden, including comparison of four Purple bean varieties planted side by side (first four rows from left to right, the front half of the row). From left to right: Purple Diamond, Purple Dove, Purple Rain and Purple Rose.

link to full sized image.

http://www.anthive.com/img/beans/DSC_20200708_164835-0400_528_Some_Beans.jpg

combined garden beans.

south fence beans.

 

[Trish Stretton]

What is that black thing in your garden in the last pic...is it a smoker?