Heads-Up!

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Yup. I think the season is past.





They REALLY look like Red Sails now.

How about these Jerusalem artichokes? I dug one up and gave it to my dad a month ago. Back then there was no tuber to be found. I wonder if they have them by now?





I was disappointed in the self-sown marigolds this year. Can't wait to plant a big ol' huge bed of packaged seed next spring!





I have actual lavender this year! I'm really excited about this! Provence Lavender.





And English Lavender, I believe.





And feverfew has some floral similarities to chamomile, I've found.





And that's a very short tour of some of the sorely neglected herb garden. Good thing it's not too demanding. We are lucky that it only needs a bit of work. Hopefully we'll find the time soon.

~Faith

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Little Adventures

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We've had commode repairs.





Nicely done, Michael!





Accidents, just waiting to happen... Yes, those are pockets full of eggs. About 4 in each one. How many of us as children experienced the thrill of running and tripping with pockets full of eggs?





Why did I never think of cutting watermelon this way before? I like it!





More neighborly cows.





And a hastily blockaded fence line until barbed wire can be found.





I baked shortbread cookies for my dad and Michael.





Oh, yes! I'm enjoying this watermelon IMMENSELY, thank you!





Some peas, Swiss chard, and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce to put into the garden.





Those went in this corner.





We attended a Republican meeting at which a gubernatorial candidate was coming to speak.




Does anyone else think that is just a very silly name for someone running for governor?

I attempted a different sort of sun tea.





Dropping a sprig of lemon mint and a sprig of stevia is going to influence this gallon of tea? Such was the premise of several online articles. I was willing to give it a try.





It didn't work. Do people get paid to write articles about things they've never done? Next time I'll do what should have been done in the first place; crush them and let the oils release into the tea as it soaks up that gorgeous sunlight!

About a dozen young adults all had another Airsoft war game. We enjoyed an afternoon and evening of conversation, eating, tours of the gardens, and later, us oldER folks sat around talking politics. Are your tables filled with this conversation more and more lately?

Here are some of our battle hardened troops below.





And here they are later with another creative game they came up with.





And when my head was about to fall on the table, we headed home. I'm looking forward to Michael getting his license so I can sleep while he drives!

~Faith

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Friendly Adventures. May 31, 2010

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We decided to be sneaky and give some plant gifts to a friend who was out of town. She said there was NO plantain at all anywhere on her property. Well, you can't have that!

Michael and I dug up some from our place, and we met some friends who dug some up from their place.





And we drove over to our destination. We parked, got out of the car, and burst out laughing hysterically.





There is plantain all over the place! LOL I guess she wasn't as familiar with this as she thought. Well, now she's got more, and right by her back door, too.

It was a great adventure. We set the day aside to just be with friends. Took walks, took drives, played games, found Mulberry trees, ate a wonderful lunch outside, and just enjoyed being together. Then we had a quick run home, as another friend was coming over for dinner and to watch an interesting video about eclipses and prophecies.

I finally felt just a little rested. And just in time, too. We have to begin school again. Ours is kind of a year 'round school. Michael takes off in the spring when it's so busy around here, then we do school through the summer.

Gladly, he is still ahead of schedule. He's a good student and hard worker.

~Faith

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Yawn....... Update request?

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UPDATE - I would like to add some comfrey and Echinacea to my herb garden. Does anyone have some roots and/or dried flower heads they would be willing to send to me, if I pay postage?

Back to the original post! :o) ~~~

Sorry, that was the best title I could come up with this morning.

It was a big weekend, despite there being two Shabbats to enjoy, they were busy ones spent in our very favorite way, with friends. I wish I had lots of photos to show you, but honestly, I was too busy just sitting around talking and I missed most of the adventures.

However, there was a little work to be done before it all began. Friday morning we really tried to get to get the pool deck done, but we hit a snag.

First thing we did was screw down the outermost deck boards, flush with the joists underneath.





The reason we wanted them flush is because we hope to put umbrella holders on the sides, and deck boards sticking past would get in the way.





Then we had to find the center point and mark it, as well as having the boards lined up straight on their ends.





Here, this board is screwed down right up to the center line. Spacing can be a little intimidating, so I usually lay them out and get an idea for how much spacing to go for.





Screwing them in is both fun and aggravating. Fun ~~ who doesn't like to operate power tools? Aggravating ~~ the boards are rarely perfectly straight, and have to be pushed or pulled in various areas as you screw them down so they line up neatly.

In this photo, you can see the garden tool we used as a spacer to hold the boards apart while I shoved on this end and Michael screwed it down quickly.





That ax head makes a nice wedge spacer as well, anything you can find is handy. Oh, and don't you love the numbers on the boards? LOL Michael did not hear me say "pencil" and instead used permanent marker....

Here is one side of the deck where we did not get the spacing right. The old board just would not give enough. At a distance it is not that noticeable...





But up close you can see the end just would not get over enough. We are trying to economize and not buy new boards, so we let this one go.





But at the other end we had three boards that were excessively tweaked as you can see here. There was no amount of pushing and pulling that I could do, feet braced against the poles, that would do the job.





So we had to call it quits and get some new boards when we went to town for office cleaning, gymnastics, and some grocery shopping for the Big War the next day.

Saturday morning, amidst a bit of house cleaning, I quickly planted some Dwarf Grey Sugar Peas, some Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, and a couple of cucumbers.





I don't know how well the peas will do, but I really wanted to try a second crop. I'm hoping with the mulch the beds will be cool enough to see something come of them. This variety is a low bush type, that trellising is not supposed to be necessary for. I will transplant them closely so they support one another.

The lettuce variety is a hot weather resistant type, and is going to be my attempt to grow in the summer, out in the garden area. I may plant them underneath another crop to shade them.

The cucumber plan for the year is to not harvest a bushel a day, like we did last year! So I want to plant just one or two a week, to have a slow but steady supply of salad cukes.

The eggplants are doing great, so far! At least a lot better than I expected. They are withstanding the flea beetles. I believe the mulch is helping. They all have flowers, though they are still on the small side. This is quite an accomplishment here. Usually flea beetles completely prevent the growing of eggplant.





Then we were blessed to have a good supply of friends over for the afternoon and night. Michael had been planning an airsoft war for months, and about 10 young people came to participate, bringing along parents as well.

I wish I'd taken lots of photos, it was a wonderful time, but I was too busy visiting and being spoiled rotten by help!

This brought tears to my eyes. 10 heads out there, all picking strawberries for us. What would have taken over an hour for the two of us, they all swooped in and got done very quickly. I hope they enjoyed a lot of berries while picking, they are so good when fresh.





They brought in 3 large bowls of berries, and we ladies enjoyed chatting and processing them. Then we went out and picked a salad with all sorts of things from the herb garden thrown in. It was fun to pick and choose what flavors to add.

The young people came back from war for dinner, promptly ushered me out of the kitchen, and proceeded to finish fixing dinner for me. I'm so spoiled!

I did manage to snap a couple of shots of only a small portion of the battle paraphernalia strewn about the house and front porch.









Good times!

~Faith

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Getting Closer

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Sweetheart's Mom mentioned a particular type of plantain that is even better than the regular one I am familiar with.

Here is what we've been using.





And I'm wondering if this is what you were talking about, SM?





We tried to get as early a start as we could yesterday, to beat the heat. With the rest of the metal sheeting in place...





...we turned our attention to digging the French drain above the deck.





Adding a little water to make sure there is a drop in level toward the direction we want the water to flow.





That ended up being perfect. Now we had to direct all the rainwater collection off away from the pool dugout. I made this up myself, so I sure am hoping it will work. LOL





We tried to save the turf for reuse.





Now digging out a bit deeper for the pipe.





I forgot to take photos of laying the special pipe for French drains, but if you go to my tag on French Drains you can see how to do that there.

It's finally ready.





Now to cut the PVC pipe at a difficult angle. Directly above the deck is the normal French drain type of pipe. But out in the open lawn we have to have something that will support the tractor for mowing, and some way to have it out there without it being in the way of the mower blade. This is what I came up with.

Normally, cutting PVC is easy with a variety of tools, but the size and thickness made all of those ways difficult without special tools which we do not have.

I had heard of using string to cut PVC, and we found this video...

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-cut-pvc-pipe-nylon-string-218323/

So COOL!

So off we went to work some magic!





Only it didn't work. The string kept breaking.





I have no idea why. I thought it could have been because we had to get a start on the pipe with the hacksaw since the cut was to be at such an angle, but we also tried it straight across on uncut pipe and that did not work either.

After about 50 failures, I was back on the internet trying to come up with solutions. But while I was gone, Michael did it the old fashioned way. Hack away at something until it doesn't exist any more.





It took a while, but it was effective. Awesome!





So we laid it in, attaching it to the drain pipe.





We tried to get it as flush with the ground as we could. The problem is that in order for it to be perfectly flush, the angled pipe cut would have to be a good three feet long. That is not feasable.





And here it is, all covered up with the remaining gravel from the pile in the driveway, and utilizing only a couple of turf squares we'd set aside. The grass will quickly grow over the remaining earth. We'll have to mow over it carefully to get a feel for how high to have the blades.





Lunchtime!!! Michael went for the dark lettuce in the herb garden, and I went to pick lettuce from the shaded bed.





Some of you wanted updates on this particular project. They are doing fine. They are a little spindly, just getting a bit of dappled light in the afternoon, but they taste wonderful. The leaves are more delicate and tear easily.





I had also taken a couple of pear tree trunk suckers, put rooting hormone on them, and stuck them in this very light and rich soil mix. They seem to be doing well after a month.





We washed our lunch outdoors, enjoying the cool water from the hose.





Then we took turns spelling each other on mowing the place, and continuing digging out the caved in banks around the edge.





I am hoping the more gradual slope of the banks in combination with the redirection of water flow will keep erosion to a minimum. I don't want to buy retaining wall stones as they are too expensive.





Now to focus on the deck. We checked to see where we were at for level on all the boards. Of course, to make it perfect we would have to dismantle the entire thing and redo it. Not gonna happen.





So instead we reset the blocks and added a support post where necessary.





And that was where we had to stop. The deck boards have shrunk significantly over the years and we needed another board to add in, as well as new deck screws. We grabbed those really quick on the way to Men's group and Ladies Night.

Can you pick yourself off the floor at the cost of screws? It kills me!

~Faith

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