stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

I’m so sorry she is gone Flowerbug. I’m glad you got to love her and her you. Happy that you at least got to see her at Thanksgiving however briefly.

Mary

thank you. we have our memories and will always hold her and Grandpa dear. they were both good people.

i hope you have a great Christmas and New Years there.

we were just talking about something and i said, "If I can't smell it and it hasn't fallen off then it must be ok." that might apply to much of the coming year.

 

[flowerbug]

a picture from the fall cleanup which shows the largest tomato garden and the three trenches i put in to bury all the tomato plants, weeds and whatever else i could fit in there. by next spring those trenches will be mostly compacted back down. i may reshape or level the garden before planting, but that is all i have to do for it other than run the stirrup hoe over it a few times before planting.

if you go to the tasks project page you can see further up the page from the bottom where i combined a few gardens by removing a pathway to get this garden to where it is now. we used to have mint and herbs growing in the lower left part of the area, but Mom didn't want the mint any more so we smothered it with cardboard, black plastic and rocks. my next plan to change this space will be to get those rocks out of there and reuse that space for growing more veggies.

 

[Marie2020]

a picture from the fall cleanup which shows the largest tomato garden and the three trenches i put in to bury all the tomato plants, weeds and whatever else i could fit in there. by next spring those trenches will be mostly compacted back down. i may reshape or level the garden before planting, but that is all i have to do for it other than run the stirrup hoe over it a few times before planting.

if you go to the tasks project page you can see further up the page from the bottom where i combined a few gardens by removing a pathway to get this garden to where it is now. we used to have mint and herbs growing in the lower left part of the area, but Mom didn't want the mint any more so we smothered it with cardboard, black plastic and rocks. my next plan to change this space will be to get those rocks out of there and reuse that space for growing more veggies.

That's awesome!

 

[flowerbug]

so not to plug up the other thread about our phone issues, but we finally reached the end last week of our relationship with ATT.

the landline here has been trouble from the start and how they chose to install it left much to be desired.

24yrs later and probably a hundred or more service calls. the other day before Christmas Eve Mom picked up the phone to call someone and it gave out a horrible screeching noise. so of course she yells at me. i'm right here. i'm an easy target. i tell her to hang up and try again. much worse.

a rational person would hang up and check the connections and perhaps switch phones, but Mom just starts bashing the phone on the counter. so now not only do i have to deal with the phone line being the potential problem, but i no longer am sure i have any kind of reliable phone to use for testing. my other phone is iffy too.

so eventually i get one plugged in but the line is still very bad and the answering machine still works for answering calls, but there is no dial tone on any of the phones and we can't call out.

Mom says, done, no more. i'm ok with that, wasn't planning or even looking at cell phones in quite some time, but at least my internet connection still works and i can tell the siblings via e-mail that our phone is out.

in the meantime we've gotten a few phone calls and the recordings on the answering machine are so bad we can't tell what people are saying but at least we can make out who has called so we can eventually call them back.

fast forward to getting through the holiday and me not wanting to shop on a Monday after Christmas, so i got into town on Tuesday and picked up a basic flip phone that Mom can use and bring it home.

it took some effort to get signed up because we don't have a phone that works so i had to go into town yesterday to finish up what was needed to get the cell phone activated and have the landline phone number changed over to the cell phone, but that won't go through for a few days yet. in the meantime at least we do have a working phone again.

the fun part of getting Mom trained on how to use this new gadget will be coming but i think she'll be ok once she gets over the first negative reactions and resistance.

and then i get a letter from the internet provider saying they want to increase my rate by 66% - hmm, nope. so i wrote them back a note saying i would authorize a 16.66% increase but not any more and that i was already irked i had to pay a 2nd installation fee as it was. we'll see how that goes.

anyways, getting back to this landline and the end of the wire for ATT here. they ran the cable underground through a bunch of neighbors front yards, it isn't buried very deeply. for some reason they didn't use the box that is closest to our property, there's a huge chunk of cable that was run to that box, but that was abandoned. had they used that instead much of our troubles could have been avoided (about a quarter mile and several front yards of people digging and cutting or damaging the cable we're on).

many years ago during a service call the technician said we were on the last two intact wires on that cable and that they weren't even a twisted pair. he had to hunt to find them. at that time the option was for the phone company to replace the cable but they never wanted to do that, of course. with wire lines going aways anyways why would they want to do that work? so we limped along on this as it has been and several times a year we have had to call them because the noise on the line gets so bad or there wouldn't be a dial tone or anything... so, yeah, we're done.

when talking to the ATT person today to make sure there wasn't any issue to hold up getting the phone number transferred she was trying to sell me DishTV and anything else she could but i explained to her that we don't get cable, that our landline connection was very dead, that there was no chance we'd get digital fiber or anything that we'd use. we don't exist in that world. getting a cell phone and being in the 21st century is trauma enough.

 

[digitS']

Be aware ..

. that the ultimate angry response to problems with a cell phone is to throw it.

You may wish to reposition chairs commonly used so as not to be in a direct line when Mom loses her temper with the cell.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Be aware ..

. that the ultimate angry response to problems with a cell phone is to throw it.

You may wish to reposition chairs commonly used so as not to be in a direct line when Mom loses her temper with the cell.

Steve

i'm just going to chain it to the counter. j/k... we've already talked of buying/making a pillow for it.

i'm not sure how this is going to go, but i'm pretty sure neither of us really wants to carry it around much, so it will likely just sit on the counter here most of the time. if i'm expecting a call i may go as far as putting it here on the futon next to me but that sounds kinda lazy. i need to get up and move once in a while.

 

[flowerbug]

for those who don't like spiders this is a warning, spider pictures follow...

these are the small spiders i use to keep the worm buckets from being taken over by fungus gnats, fruit flies and other various bugs that come in with the dirt/humus i dig up when i restart the buckets each spring.


two of them on the left. aren't they cute!

one of their meals. just the reason i have them in there to begin with a fungus gnat.

and a very small one running along who is about 2-3mm total size (including legs).

 

[flowerbug]

[Fixit over on SS mentioned:

"This is a good place to add a resource of mine (Fixit not me)."

DOWNLOAD BOOKS

www.survivorlibrary.com

and so i replied and added my own other source that i've nosed through in the past...

]

thank you! i can get lost in such places for days at a time, like a good library/book.

here is one i have which i've found interesting and useful, and in the context of my last remark i just spent an hour reading some bits of the blogs which were not there before. i'll start with an aside, because, well, why not?

specifically i found this one very interesting:

https://soilandhealth.org/blog-post/the-living-soil-fallacy-and-reconciliation/

note two things, while the person has admittedly read a lot more of the biodynamics stuff than i ever will and claims to be an interested party to soil sciences, he mostly ignores the basic concept of carrying capacity of any area and the related subsoil and thus down to the bedrock. if you are looking at something perpetually sustainable without major inputs you must be aware of these concepts. the connection between the subsoil and bedrock and the topsoil and that which is above it is either mechanical forces or life itself, that is why those who garden must deal with humus, but also the life which needs the humus and in the main case some decent earthworms which go too and fro from both ends of the realm.

oh and i must also give plants and fungi/bactera themselves some credit because these too can also weather mineral rock deposits.


and now back from the aside we get to the link for the main page:

Soil and Health Library – Health begins in the soil

soilandhealth.org

 

[digitS']

Good Gravy. From Astronomy to Rat Control!

Probably a good thing that I didn't have this webpage when I was trying the art and science of brewing and wine making ...

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Good Gravy. From Astronomy to Rat Control!

Probably a good thing that I didn't have this webpage when I was trying the art and science of brewing and wine making ...

Steve

the ex-step-dad brewed many many gallons of wines in his basement all those years ago. i spent some time studying the topic because i did grow grapes and was thinking about turning them into wine. my first experience trying to do that was poorly attempted, the next was even worse. for some reason the other person thought that storing crushed fruit juice was going to be ok in an old fuel container. yes, i'm not kidding... seeing the slick of petrochemicals floating on top just made me shake my head and walk away.