This evening, I just had to go out and see how things were in the old gravel pit. It looks like the dugout is done!
The first thing I saw, coming through the trees, was our new mountain.
I’m guessing, at its peak, it’s getting close to 20 feet high.
Check out those rocks!!
And there it is. The deepened dugout.
The guy said he’d seen a bit of moisture as he was moving the gravel, but if there was any, it’s completely dried up, now.
My hopes that water may seep in have gotten lower.
There were quite a few large rocks, loosened, scraped or, like this one, shattered.
Once there is water in here, the cows and any wildlife in the area will have an easy time getting to it.
What amazed me is that, for all that this was a marshy area and sediment had collected, making the original dugout shallower, the top soil is still amazingly thin. Barely six inches, from what I could see.
Of course, I had to check out the patch of fine sand that was uncovered. Just look at that! So soft!
Just a couple of feet away, the sand was much coarser, but still most definitely sand, not gravel.
Here’s the view from the top of the new hill.
Do you see those divots in the gravel, between the tread marks?
Yup. The cows have already been up here! Silly things!
The treads left behind some compacted clumps, and when I first saw this, it made me think of petrified wood.
It’s just clay and sand and a bit of soil. I think how the outside was compacted to such a smooth surface is really neat.
So here we now have access to such beautiful sand and gravel, and I’m at a loss of how to get it. Even if we were able to get a floor on the trailer frame and hook it up to the riding mower, which does have a tow hitch, we could never get it into the pit to where the fine and coarse sand is. The riding mower just couldn’t handle it. The trailer would be too big to maneuver in there, anyhow, but even if we had a small trailer, it would be too much for the riding mower to handle in there.
The only thing I can think of, based on what we actually have, is to bring our folding wagon (lined with plastic) over.
Man, wouldn’t it be nice if we had access to something like a Bobcat, with a front end loader?
:-/
Must. Not. Be. Bitter!
Now, we just need this pit to fill with water. Even just a little! For the cows and all the other critters around.
This evening, our first real harvest of beans was prepared to accompany our supper, and did a taste test. Though we’d picked a few beans before, they were so few, they just got chopped up and added to a hash.
For these, they were first steamed until almost done, then pan fried in butter with fresh garlic (our own, of course!), then seasoned with salt an pepper.
The purple beans turn green when cooked, and I made a point of tasting them individually, to compare the flavour.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. As far as I could tell, they tasted the same! :-D Which was very good, I might add. :-)
I forgot to follow up on how the Dorinny corn tasted. We had those last night, wrapped in foil with butter, salt and pepper, then roasted in the oven, next to a ham.
I really liked the Dorinny corn. If you’re a fan of really sweet corn, it probably wouldn’t be your thing, but it had a good, solid corn flavour. It was also wonderfully toothsome. As much a pleasure to eat as to taste. I don’t think we’ll be able to save seeds from these, there are so few of them, but I will definitely want to pick up more for next year’s garden. In fact, I think I will get two packets this time.
While heading out to check on the gravel pit, I paused to look at the cucamelons and had a lovely surprise.
Hiding behind some leaves are some really big ones! Not quite big enough to harvest, but very close.
We are quite pleased with the new garden beds at the chain link fence. They are working out very much as we intended, and the chain link is providing support for the plants, just as planned.
There is just one real problem.
Erosion.
While scavenging for wood I could use to make raised bed boxes for where the garlic was harvested, I noticed some other old wood in the barn. Today, I decided to grab a few boards and use them to help keep the soil where it belongs.
This is where the cucamelons and some gourds are planted. The ground slopes a bit here, so the bottom of the chain link fence has more of a gap under it. When we lay cardboard down first, we put flaps up against the chain link, but once the soil was added and things were being watered, the cardboard slid under the fence and the soil started to erode away.
It had been intended to place more of the chimney blocks along this section, to use them as planters like the ones we’re using as a retaining wall in the old kitchen garden. We still haven’t taken the last of those blocks out of the old basement (hauling those up the stairs and through the house is going to be difficult enough on its own, never mind no top of having to keep the cats out of that basement). We still intend to do it, though, and once they are in place, this will no longer be a problem. All that’s needed right now is to keep the soil from washing away under the fence, and taking the plants with it.
So for here, I just used a hoe to move enough soil to level things, then pushed boards under the bottom of the chain link from the outside. After that, I just tried to return some of the soil through the bottom of the fence, to hold the boards against the chain link. Otherwise, they would just lean inwards.
The boards were placed as far as the chicken wire critter barrier at the far end, making for a bit of overlap. It only needs to last until the end of the growing season, so as long as the boards keep the soil where it belongs, it’s doing its job.
More boards where then slid between the tomato plants and the chain link fence, though I did need to go back to the barn for another board. Erosion was not as much of a problem, here. There is much less of a gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground, so the cardboard flaps are still holding the soil in place. However, I wanted to add more soil under the tomatoes, and I didn’t want to be losing that.
Once the boards were in place, I was able to add quite a bit of soil, without having to worry about it sliding through the fence.
In time, this bed will get some sort of frame as well. What it will be made of will depend on what materials we end up acquiring. I’m leaning towards brick, partly because we are looking to use paving stones or something similar on the paths along both new beds.
The boards are just a stop gap measure for this season. Like most of the other wood I’m finding in the sheds and barn, it was reclaimed from somewhere, and has various levels of damage. They’re solid enough to do the job for the rest of the season, though, and I’m glad to have it!
Not very long ago, after walking around and seeing that our dugouts were completely dry, I had given permission to the renters to dig them deeper, if they wanted to, to have water for their cows. It wouldn’t be much use this year, but I wanted them to at least know they could.
Since this looked like something that wouldn’t be done this year, if they decided to at all, I forget to tell my brother I did this.
You know. The guy who actually owns the property. :-D
I was talking to him on the phone this morning when I got a message from the renter. They had decided to hire someone to deepen the old gravel pit and I was informed that the guy should be there in a few hours, so I would know what the commotion was. The funny thing is, I was already hearing the “beep, beep, beep” of heavy equipment backing up!
So… I told my brother I’d given them permission, then headed out to take a look.
A pretty good start was made, by the time I got out there.
As I moved around and took pictures, I was noticing that there were some really nice pockets of beautiful sand.
When the guy saw me, he stopped and came over and we chatted for a bit. When I mentioned the sand, he pointed out one area in particular that had really, really nice, fine sand.
I remember, as a child, playing in pockets of sand among the gravel. Those were all on the north side of the pit. I don’t think we’d ever dug that far on the south side before, and that’s where he’s uncovered the nicest sand.
I’m really excited about this.
I asked if he expected to reach water, and his immediate response was, NO! He did mention there was an area that was a bit damp (you can sort of see it in the picture), and that he was hitting clay on the bottom. If there is rain, it might collect in there, and there might even be seepage. He also said it might take a few days to finish. I’ll have to come back later to take more pictures.
Since we were standing right next to what had been a muddy area (of all two places they could have dug deeper, they made the right choice by deciding on the old gravel pit), I mentioned that this was the first time I’d seen this old pit completely dry. I actually do think that, given how deep he’s going, water might start to seep in. Here’s hoping! Otherwise, this is basically being done for next year, and to prevent future water issues like we’re having this year, but if water can start seeping in now, that would be a big benefit to our renter and his cows. I’m sure the deer and other wildlife would appreciate it, too!
Me, I’m just so excited by what I’m seeing. My brother had been told that this gravel pit was basically depleted, but he can’t remember who told him that anymore. Clearly, it is not. The renter may eventually be getting water for his cows from here but, at the same time, we’re going to get sand and gravel we can use. Very much a “win win” situation!
I’m already daydreaming of sand covered paths between garden beds, infill around the house, and if we can get plywood for the floor of that trailer frame we’ve got, we might even be able to get enough gravel to spread on our driveway.
Of course, if the Bobcat were still here, we could have dug into the pit ourselves, though not at this level, of course. Having it would have made getting gravel to where we need it a lot easier.
Of all the things that got taken while this place was empty, that Bobcat is the one that I pine for the most. Maybe because a part of me still hopes it might get returned. Most things we can make do, one way or another, without them. It’s a lot harder to make up for the loss of that one, large piece of equipment. The Bobcat is on the list of items we know our vandal took, included in my response to his suit against us. The optimist in me hopes the judge would see fit to not only throw the case out, but order our vandal to return some of this stuff. Much of it can’t be; the lumber, for example, was used in buildings on his property. But things like the Bobcat and it’s attachments, or even some of the tools he took, would make our lives much easier when it comes to taking care of this place! Since the property now belongs to my brother, all this stuff would have been included with it, so he would be the owner of it all, too.
Ah, well. One can dream, right?
For now, however, I will happily dream of sand and gravel, and the things we can do with it!
While doing my rounds this morning and checking for deer damage in the garden beds, I noticed something odd about our sweet corn.
The middle corn block is the one that’s growing the tallest and developing the most tassels.
But there is only one corn cob developing.
Once it sunk in what I was seeing – and not seeing – I walked around through the corn block, looking for developing cobs, and there just aren’t any. Not a sign. Usually, I can at least tell where cobs are going to start growing, but there is nothing.
This evening, I went over our beans and made our first real harvest!
We’ve picked a couple of beans, here and there, before, but this is the first substantial amount we have been able to gather. The yellow beans, for all that they are the smallest plants, are maturing the fastest.
A few purple beans, at the very end of the row, look to be newly nibbled on, but of the entire row, I could only find these few that looked mature enough to pick. As for the green beans, there are lots of them, but I don’t think they’re quite ready for picking. With the yellow beans, it’s at least easy to tell when they are ready. They turn from green to yellow. The green beans just stay the same green! :-D
After picking these, I stopped to look over other parts of the garden, including the Dorinny corn. These are the ones that were planted before last frost, and are the most mature. With the weather, they have had a hard time, but some of the cobs did seem to be ready to pick.
A whole four of them, including one that had its tip nibbled on by a deer a while back!
Generally speaking, they seem to have had good pollination; just the one cob that got its silks nibbled away has fewer kernels, which makes sense.
I had moved the garden cam to face the Dorinny corn and one side of the squash tunnel, in hopes of seeing what is eating the winter squash. One of the things I’ve done, after the last time a deer got into the Dorinny corn, and the one row of transplanted sunflowers, was move some of the distractions by the tulips, over to these garden beds. Two of those distractions were long strings of twine with jingle bells on them. I took our last couple of bamboo stakes and set them up along the side of the Dorinny corn block, with the bells strung between them.
I didn’t catch anything on the garden cam going after the winter squash, but I did catch a deer on several video files. It was nibbling at the ground in front of the string of bells, but never tried to go past it.
That was encouraging, at least.
Meanwhile, I currently have the corn in the over, wrapped in foil with some butter, salt and pepper, and am looking forward to tasting one! The beans will be enjoyed tomorrow. :-)
Of course, because I actually needed to get a good sleep because I had to head out early for court this morning, that meant I got almost no sleep at all!
Only part of that could be blamed on the cats being destructive in the night. ;-)
Amazingly, it got cold enough that, for the first time in a couple of month, at least, I had to sleep with a blanket! Of course, I could have just closed the window, but I didn’t want to fight with the box fan, which is tied down so the cats won’t knock it over. When I finally did sleep, I was awakened by the sound of our furnace running! We had actually dropped to 8C/46F overnight. Some areas dropped to 6C/43F, and people were concerned about frost hitting their gardens! Our frost date isn’t until September 10, and that’s earlier than the areas the got colder last night.
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to hit highs near 30C/86F or higher, over the next few days.
I turned the thermostat on the furnace way down, so it wouldn’t turn on again. We keep so many windows open during the night, the last thing I want is for the furnace to kick in! :-D
Anyhow.
Since I was up anyhow, I did some of my morning rounds quite early. Which the cats seemed to appreciate. :-)
I was really thrilled to see both Rosencrantz and Nosencrantz, in the kibble house. Rosencrantz ran off when I got closer, but her baby stayed. Even when I topped up their food bowl by their junk pile home, Nosencrantz stayed in the kibble house to eat.
Progress!
I found the canister for the new bird feeder on the ground again this morning. I am guessing the raccoons have figure out how to open it. I might move the garden cam to face the bird feeder, just to confirm what’s going on, so we can use that to figure out how to stop it.
I didn’t have time to check the trail cam files, though, before I headed to the courthouse. I got there good an early, and the only person already there was the security guy.
Starting after midnight tonight, our province is lifting our police state, somewhat. No more mask mandates and a number of other restrictions are lifted, though of course they’re still restricting actual healthy social gatherings, like weddings and going to church, even though there are pretty much no limits to how many people can go into retail stores. It’s all so arbitrary, it’s a wonder anyone takes the restrictions seriously anymore.
I could see a huge difference when I got to the court building. For starters, the security table was right outside the courtroom door, rather than at the entrance. I still wore my Mingle Mask, just to avoid the hassle of having to explain my medical exemption, and no one even reacted when they saw me.
After identifying myself as the applicant, the security guard looked up our vandal’s name, marked that I was there, then told me I could wait there in the hall, where they have comfy chairs to sit on. The last time, people were made to wait outside. While I was waiting, quite a few people that appeared to be staff congregated around the security table, just chatting, or sitting in the nearby chairs with their laptops. I could hear the security guard asking people what they thought about no masks starting tomorrow, but couldn’t hear the responses.
Eventually, our vandal showed up, and I honestly did not recognize him at first, because he was wearing a mask. Of the many things I hate about the masks, the elimination of people’s identities is one that I think is among the most damaging. I’m glad we live as isolated as we do, because being surrounded by non-entities, even as little as I am, is seriously starting to wig me out. As a lifelong student of psychology, I understand the how and the why of it, which does help, but it still doesn’t stop it from happening.
Anyhow.
The main reason I figured out it was our vandal was because, as he checked in, I heard him mention his lawyer’s name. That and the security guard made a point of turning to look at me. Then the lawyer showed up, and they disappeared around the corner for a while. Eventually, the lawyer came over and introduced himself to me, asking if I was okay with talking to him. He assured me he was double vaxxed. I told him I didn’t care. (His personal health information is NONE of my business.) We did have a bit of an issue with him moving away when I got closer to him, and I had to explain that I couldn’t hear him, because of the mask. He accommodated that, though I still had to adjust things. My hearing is actually quite excellent, but I have an auditory processing problem. Instead of hearing words, sometimes I just hear parts of words, gibberish, or even have blank “spaces” where words should have been. Basically, somewhere between my eardrums picking up the sound vibrations, and my brain interpreting them as words, the signal is lost. If there are a lot of distractions, or if there is something like a mask to muffle speech, it makes it that much more difficult. So I do things like close my eyes, so I can “hear” better or, as I had to today, lean an ear closer and not look at the person speaking. Thankfully, the lawyer had good enunciation, so that helped.
What he wanted to talk about was the sort of conditions for the restraining order I would agree to. Much to my surprise, he was the one who brought up our vandal voluntarily giving up his guns. He also said our vandal had mentioned video I had of him doing stuff, and I ended up giving him copies of images I had in my stack of papers. These included screen captures of our vandal actually damaging the gate, both times, doing things like walking up to the gate and giving the finger down the driveway, the glued locks (from his response to those, our vandal had actually told him about that; he’s never admitted that he glued our locks to us before), the barn doors being screwed shut, etc. I even included the partial list of things our vandal took from the property, that we know off. I told the lawyer flat out that, if he could have a “psychotic break” and do what he did to the gate, what’s going to stop him from having another “psychotic break” and coming over with a gun? Or trying to burn the house down?
When I brought up the need for a psychiatric assessment, he started to say, going for counseling or therapy. I said no, and explained that when I pressed charges before, our vandal had done that, by court order, and while he was apparently going to weekly counseling, he was still leaving horrible messages on my mother’s answering machine about me and the property (I explained the property ownership situation, too, since our vandal thinks my mother gave me the farm, for some reason). Counseling clearly did not work. He needs a psychiatric assessment and a diagnosis.
He then went back to talk to our vandal. When he returned to me briefly, before we went into the courtroom, he asked if I were willing to drop the application if our vandal got a psychiatric assessment. I said no. There’s a reason the police kept recommending we go through with this and, as much as I’d like for this to all be over, we can’t trust him. As it was, something the lawyer said in passing tells me he had to convince our vandal to agree to at least getting an assessment.
Which is actually a big step forward, even if he still can’t admit he’s responsible for his own problems. So when we finally went in front of the judge, it was officially recorded that I agreed to not go forward with the application for a month. During this time, our vandal has to get a referral to a psychiatrist and get an assessment. There is another court date in September to follow up, but I may not need to be there at all. The lawyer (with warnings from the judge about potential conflicts of interest) agreed that he would keep me informed, so I don’t have to be calling the court office all the time. I was actually asked to take the stand, where there was a microphone, from the start, so the judge could ask me questions and clarify some details.
After I left the courtroom, the lawyer soon followed and asked for my email address (I already gave him my phone number). He then asked if I wanted to agree on a certain number of sessions with the psychiatrist, but I said no; let’s wait to hear what the psychiatrist has to say, because this is such an individual thing.
Then that was it. We were done.
Now it’s all on him to meet the conditions within the time frame.
In the end, I think this went well. Our vandal may actually get the help he needs. We used to be so close in the past, and I would love to have a relationship with him again, but that can’t happen until he gets that help.
One of the things I made clear with the lawyer is that if he does anything stupid again, I’ll be applying for the restraining order all over again if I have to. He was agreeing with me before I even finished saying it. Our vandal may be in denial, but his lawyer knows full well he has no defense.
We shall see what happens over the next month.
I don’t intend to get my hopes up too much, to be honest. I fear our vandal is a bit too far gone for that, but you never know. I’m just relieved that we finally got in front of a judge and got to move forward. It’s been 9 months since I made the application.
With the garlic all harvested, we’ve got two empty beds that need to be readied for next year’s garden.
With these beds, we had dug into the soft soil we found under the wood pile, mounding soil into beds and making paths in between. This worked out quite well, but there were a couple of issues. One was, for such low raised beds, I found them too wide. They were about 4 feet wide, which would be fine for a high raised bed, but awkward to reach the middles on a low bed. That was partly solved by putting a board across the middle, which served to both mark where the different varieties of garlic were, and to give something to step on while trying to reach into the middle.
What can I say. I’m short.
The other issue was that the soil along the edges would end up in the paths, either from watering or from when the birds were digging around the garlic, early in the season.
The solution to both issues was to build a narrower box frame.
After scavenging in one of the sheds, I found some boards that would serve the purpose.
I dragged them all over to the beds. Here you can see one of them laid at the first bed I want to frame.
In total, I had 17 boards like the one in the foreground, plus 4 more that were the same length and thickness, about about an inch wider.
I decided to keep things simple.
I left four boards as is, then cut another four in half. The boards were all 6′ 1/2″ long and 5 1/4″ wide. Some of the half pieces would be used to increase the length, while the rest would be for the ends of the bed. I cut support pieces for the corners and to join the lengths together from some wood leftover from another project. Those were cut to match the width of two boards together.
The long sides were made by screwing the boards to the support pieces. The boards all have damage to them, ranging from old water damage and some rot, to splitting and cracking from being so very dry. Which is fine. They will do the job, and will last a few years, at least.
What wasn’t fine was flipping a board and almost catching my hand on these!!! They look like the screws were broken off on the other side, so there is no way to unscrew them from the wood. I have to think about the best way to get rid of these, using what tools we have, but for now, we’ll just have to watch out for them!
Once the side pieces were screwed together, making sure they matched in length, I brought over a couple of the wider boards to give a flatter, more even, surface to work on while putting on the end pieces.
Then I quickly tacked it together with just a single screw at each corner, to hold everything together while I worked.
Oddly, one piece was almost an inch longer than the others! Which is okay; the excess can be sawed off, later.
Here we have it! The finished box, next to the bed it will be placed at.
Here, you can see the difference in the dimensions quite clearly.
The box is about 9 feet long by 3 feet wide, and about 11 inches high.
In preparing these beds before planting the garlic, we dug out the soil and buried layers of straw and compost material at the bottom. Since the dimensions are being changed so much, I plan to dig out the beds again, then once the box frame is in position, will start filling it, hugelkulture style, by burying some of the branches we’ve been pruning for the past few years at the bottom, then layering the contents of our compost pile on top of that. Straw decomposes slowly, so I expect to find it when digging the bed out. If I do, I’ll be keeping it separate from the soil, so it can be layered back on again. As for the top layer of soil, I’ll take advantage of the situation to get rid of the weeds by their roots, then mix in some of the garden soil we purchased this year, before returning it to the bed. This soil tested healthier than anywhere else we took samples from, but it was still low in nitrogen, so adding the fresh soil will be a benefit. Once we have the materials again, the top will get layers of mulch to protect the soil.
I have enough wood to make a second box frame just like this one. I plan to build the second box before I start digging out soil. With the wider boards, there is enough to make a third frame for the bed that still has the beets in it, though it will be only one board high.
When this area is done, there will be three longer, narrower, framed beds with wider paths in between. This will make them much more accessible, even at their relatively low height.
Hopefully, I will be able to continue working on this tomorrow, but we’ll see how the day goes. I’ve got our rescheduled court date for the restraining order against our vandal in the morning. Hopefully, it’ll actually happen this time – and if the security guards try to tell me to leave and come back later, I will stay close this time.
The predicted rain never came today, but then, neither did the predicted high of the day, so I went ahead and watered the gardens in the late afternoon.
Having mentioned the Ozark Nest Egg gourds in my previous post, I just had to get a picture when I found this.
A single Ozark Nest Egg flower blooming. Still no gourds, though; all the buds appear to be male flowers, so far. There is nothing on the nearby Thai Bottle Gourd at all. If there are any flower buds, I can’t see them. The down side of having to add the mesh over these is that we can’t reach under it to handle the plants with undoing part of it!
While the Ozark gourds are still just starting to reach a point where we can train them up the fence, the nearby cucamelons have shot their way to the top of the fence and are looking for more height! They are such fine, delicate vines, and you can barely see many tiny little yellow flowers all over them.
Many of the flowers have teeny little cucamelons under them. :-) They are such prolific plants!
Speaking of prolific, the melons are certainly attracting a lot of pollinators to their many flowers! This is one of the Halona melons.
I love how incredibly fuzzy the baby melons are!
I decided to count what melons I could see. Not the little ones like this, but the larger ones, at least the size of a golf ball. I counted a dozen Halona melons, and another nine Pixies! If they keep up with their blooming, and their ratio of male to female flowers, we could potentially have a lot more than that, if they have enough growing season to fully mature.
There’s always that “if” factor, when it comes to gardening, isn’t there? :-D
Today is turning out to be cooler than predicted – as I write this, we are at 16C/61F, instead of the hourly forecast temperature of 22C/72F we’re supposed to be getting.
I’ll take the cooler temperatures. Especially since the predicted rain has not happened. Oh, we’re getting the odd spittle from the sky, but that’s about it. Meanwhile, the humidity level is at 94%! We kept holding off because of the predicted rain, but once I’m done with this post, I’m going to have to go out and do some watering in the gardens.
Unfortunately, it has also been an incredibly smoky day. Thick enough that I can see the haze in the garden when I look out my window. There has been no reprieve for the wildfires all over the province. Most of them are to the north of us, and they’re getting even less rain than we are. :-(
When doing my rounds this morning, however, there was some bright “sunshine” through the haze. The summer squash and everything at the squash tunnel are blooming like crazy, with flowers so bright and yellow, they practically glow in the distance.
The luffa is blooming fairly consistently, though no gourds have started to form yet.
The vines, however, are enthusiastically climbing the squash tunnel, and have even reached the very top. It looks like they grew almost six inches, overnight!
The nearby Tennessee Dancing gourds are also enthusiastically growing and blooming. Unlike the luffa, there are many gourds forming here!
I am somewhat amused that these have such big flowers, yet such tiny gourds!
Then there are the melons, which have such tiny flowers, followed by such hefty fruit – and these are small varieties of melons!
The Little Gem winter squash are also kicking into high gear as they climb the trellis, with many flowers and quite a few squash developing. The plants themselves actually don’t look all that healthy; the bottom leaves in particular are yellowing, with some dying off, but they are still doing really well.
The Teddy squash, however, are not. The plants themselves are looking strong and healthy, but it looks like there has been more nibbles. These are at the very end of the tunnel, and it’s almost as if they are being nibbled in passing, but nothing is showing up in the garden cam. If it were a smaller critter, like a woodchuck or a raccoon, that would make sense, though I would have expected the damage to be more spread out among other things, not just in those two plants. Whatever it is, it seems to have a preference for the flowers. The leaves aren’t showing as much damage. I might have to set the camera up, right on that spot, to find out what’s going on.
The flowers on the Little Gem winter squash have such dramatic, frilly edges to their petals.
While the summer squash are also blooming heavily right now, the Crespo squash, out by the purple corn, has not been. It does not seem to be recovering well from all the critter damage, even though there is no new damage since we added that third layer of protection around them. Thankfully, we still have most of the seeds in the package, so we can try again next year.
The gourds in the south yard, at the chain link fence, haven’t kicked in yet. There are lots of flower buds, though – at least, on the Ozark Nest Egg gourds – so I expect to see plenty, soon. The cucamelons planted next to them are covered with the tiniest flowers, and we are seeing lots of teeny little cucamelons forming. If things go well, we should have lots of them, soon.
All these bright yellow flowers are a cheerful sight to see, through the gloom. While walking outside, yesterday evening, my daughter noticed something about their window fan on the second floor. We’ve got several 20″x20″ box fans set up in various windows. That happens to be the size of our furnace filters, so when the girls noticed their box fan seemed to be pulling tiny insects right through the screen, they put a filter on the back of it. From outside, we could see the filter – and how brown it was, from the smoke!
Today, I finally added a filter to the back of my window fan, too. Usually, when it gets hot outside, I flip it to blow air out instead of in, but with a cooler day like today, I actually want to keep it drawing air in, but that smoke it starting to really affect my chronic cough!
Not that it’s going to be much help while I’m working outside…
The Re-Farmer 