Piolet Light Went Out, Two Times

There is a funeral this morning and the viewing starting at nine.  I helped Carol with the funeral potatoes.  She cooked them yesterday and this morning she peeled the and I shredded them with a salad shooter.  With a spatula, I ate what was left in the bowl.  After pots and pans were cleaned I went outside.  The piolet light in house two was out.  I think that it was the heavy wind yesterday afternoon.

I cut down the perennials that were growing in the kidney.  I hope to kill the grass that is growing there

The lawn needs mowing today, but on the east lawn are tons of leaves.  To many for the lawn mower to get.  I was going to mow this afternoon when the leaves are dry and more brittle.  I decided to rake the leaves this morning.  I made a nice windrow of leaves.  I started with a large push broom and finished with an aluminum scoop shovel.

I laid out the tarp and put a heavy piece of iron on two of the corners.  Using the shovel and broom I pushed leaves on the tarp.  I drug the tarp out to Robert's garden.  I pulled about six loads to his garden.    About this time Carol called and told me that it was time to get ready for the funeral.  That I did.

After The funeral we came home for lunch.  I then hauled more leaves to Robert's garden.  There is quite a pile out there as shown in the photo below.

With most of the leave on the lawn removed,  I started up the lawnmower and began sucking leaves.  I dumped the lawnmower on the place I call the no till or no dig garden.  I filled the grass catcher again, but this time I over filled it and plugged it up.  I unplugged it, I thought, and started mowing again.  I had to unplug it again.  I built a little tool to help remove the plug.  It was a three foot stick with a screw through the end of it which made it easier to pull the leaves out of the shoot.  I made about five trips to the no dig garden.  The front lawn really looks nice with all of the leaves gone.

I found the stepladder after looking for it in every greenhouse twice.  With the ladder under the furnace I could light the piolet light.  The knob has three positions.    !. which is off  2. which is piolet, and 3. which is on.   Every time I try to light the piolet,  I turned the knob to off, thinking that I could push the knob down.  I discovered that I had to turn it to piolet, then I could push the knob down.  I did this and I was able to light the piolet.

Yesterday, Frank and I potted up 37 bush clemantis and we partially covered them with recycled potting soil.  I left a sprinkler running on the all night.  This afternoon I got one more wheelbarrow of soil so I could cover them completely.  I wetted the soil before I covered them.  This is how they looked this morning

The soil is wet and ready to use.

And this is how they looked after I had wetted the potting soil.  When it is powdery dry, the water runs off instead of soaking in.

I checked the piolet light just before dark and there was no light.  After dark with flashlights in hand  I was able to light the piolet.


Comments and questions are welcome

Surprise Visiter From Provo

This morning as soon as breakfast was over and I had watched some of the morning news, we, Carol and I, pulled all of geraniums and a few other plants in the kidney.  We put them on the tarp.  We also pulled the volunteer flowers that in the gravel next to the lawn.  I pulled them over to the new compost pile.  It is getting pretty big.

A sprinkler had run all night on the dahlias. The flower bed was really wet and muddy.    I planned to dig them this afternoon, but decided to do it this morning.  The ground was muddy and soft and it was easy push the shovel into the ground.  I dug all around the dahlia far enough away so not to cut through a tuber.  I then pried back on the shovel at several locations and pulled the dahlia plant out of the ground.  I grabbed it by the stem.  I cut the stems of yesterday and cut too short.  That made it hard to hang on and hard to find some of them.  I dug all of the dahlias in the same way. I dug the rest of them in less time than I dug one yesterday.  Some had a lot of mud clinging to them and others there was not to much mud.  The photo below shows the muddy dahlias and where they came from.  There are three drip lines visible.

Here is a close-up.

I moved them over to the lawn close to a garden hose and a spray nozzle. It took me awhile to get mud off all of them.  The photo below shows them pretty well cleaned up.

I had several ideas about a container to put them in.  I used a large nursery can.

I stopped for lunch and a little relaxation surfing the internet.  The doorbell rang.  Carol went to the door and there stood Frank Williams.  He brought with him a bail of potting soil and some thirty bare root bush clematis.  He wanted to put them in containers.  I thought a two gallon nursery can would be good, then after a second thought decided to use a one gallon can.  It would take a lot less soil.  We worked on that for about an hour.

Where should we put them.  In a cold frame, some where out side.  We decided to put them in house five.  There is no poly on it and a smooth surface.  That is were we put them.  I wanted to have some potting soil that covered the pots up two the top edge of the pot.  I filled the wheelbarrow with two loads of recycled potting soil.  When they were pretty well covered, I a put sprinkler on them and  turned it on for the night.

Frank and I had a discussion on what and how we should proceed next year.  I won't go into detail.  We discussed

• What to grow
• How much to grow
• How to sell what we grow.

Frank picked peppers and tomatoes that he took home.  He may be back some time next week.

The red beets and radishes in the north bed are germinating well.  The seeds that I planted in 1206 tray are beginning to germinate.

Comments and questions are welcome.