Yellow Jackets

I began the morning by picking cucumbers, and three different tomatoes.  Regular, black cherry, and cherry plum.  I pulled four red beets.  There is a lot of eggplants.  I picked a bunch.   A couple of large ones and a couple not so large.   I didn't get any pictures.

I pulled a lot of salad onions.  I cut off the dirty roots, cut off the tops, and then went to the patio, where I cleaned them with the water hose.  I took them into the kitchen and did the final cleaning.  I didn't count them, but had a nice bunch.  

I washed and wrapped the cucumbers. washed the tomatoes and eggplants, and got it all in to the bucket.

I have a five gallon bucket and trapped a lot of yellow jackets.  They have been in the bucket for nearly a month.  I was waiting for them to die.  I decided to spray them with WD-4O.  They slowly died.  There was one large wasp or whatever it might be called.  I didn't spray it directly.  It climbed the wall of the bucket and fell back down.  I kept doing this.  I leaned the bucket nearly to the ground and got the above photo before it climbed out.

It started walk across the patio where I got this picture.  It is two to three inches long.

Here is another photo.  It walked across the patio and walked under the B-grill.  There were a lot of leaves on the patio.  I got the blower and blew them off.  I didn't see the large wasp again.  It tried to fly and maybe it flew away.

I started to pick plums.  There was one plum on the ground that was covered with yellow jackets.  I put an empty pint peanut butter jar on top of the infested plum and quickly put on the lid.  I didn't get the lid on tight.  I put it in the freezer.  and hour or so later I took it out and dumped it on my work bench.  

I counted twenty-five yellow jackets.

I drove to Fillmore and delivered the CSA bucket.

For the last month or so the water from the kitchen sink slow drained out.  I thought that the sink trap was plugged with some egg shells or something like that.  I took off all the pipes.  The part directly from the garbage disposal was held by two screws.  The on the right came out easily.  The screw on the left was a bugger to get out.  I used a socket and vice grips and finally got it out.  A bunch of stems from red beats were stuck in there.  I pulled it out and removed the gasket.  I cleaned away the putty.  A quick trip to Ropers is required to get some parts.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Beets, CSA bucket, & Trap

Watched the news until eight and then went out after the Detroit Red Beets.  I started on the east end by pulling up the beets.  I threw them in the isle between the eggplants and the cucumbers where the big tub for the beets was ready.   I worked both ends of the beets and beets were up and down their row.

I got the wheelbarrow and filled it up.  I put the beets in the black tub and dumped them in the wheelbarrow.  I pushed the wheelbarrow out the west door to the patio.

Here I put the beet in my left and twisted and pulled the tops off with my right hand.  I dropped the beets into a bucket and with my right hand I grabbed another beet.  I continued doing this until I had topped all the beets.

I stopped working with the beets and picked cucumbers.  All the cucumbers are burpless and all are green.  One cucumber was yellow.  I think that for some reason it is an albino fruit.

It looks kind of strange with the green ones.

I had a sprayer on the garden hose and sprayed the beets with a good water pressure which washed away all the dirt.   The beets filled two five gallon buckets.

I wrapped the best cucumber with plastic wrap and they are in the fridge in the garage.  Those that were smaller or were bent Carol took to the post office.

I also picked a bunch of eggplants.

John Dennis was going to get the beets at 8:30 this morning.  He didn't come.  I called his wife she was going to tell him.  There was a knock on the door while I was having lunch.  It was him and I had just finished cleaning the beets.  He backed his truck into our driveway.  He wasn't able to pickle the beets until Monday afternoon.  I told him that I would put them in my cooler.  There was enough room in the cooler for both buckets and the ice packs.  He will pick them up sometime Monday.

One of the zucchini plants is struggling.  Yesterday it was wilted to the ground.  I watered well.  This morning it was looking  good.  By this afternoon it was wilted  to the ground.  It had some squash bugs last week.  I killed all of them.

I filled the CSA bucket with veggies and took it to Fillmore.  I gave it to Kim Christensen at the bank.

A lot of yellow jackets are in the board on the trap is to keep the wire cone tight on the bucket.  In the bottom of the cone is a cotton glove to cover the hole in the cone so the yellow jacket from escaping.

I better idea.  The them clips holds the wire cone tight to the bucket.

Some of the yellow jackets are crawling on the sides of the bucket.

Here is a better view.

I put the sucking end of a vacuum cleaner into the bucket on top of the cone.  Some yellow jackets were sucked in.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Finished My Workbench

There was several things that I wanted to do today.  After breakfast I fertilized the pots and geraniums.  The leaves are quite yellow and there is not much blooming.  I turned on the greenhouse fertilizer and did some watering and got some garden fertilizer for the plants.  By the time I got back to the house, Carol had done the pot watering.  I put the sprinklers on the kidney and by Carol's bedroom window.

I picked the veggies for Jim and Carol Masner.   The box contains cucumbers, new carrots, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.

Carol suggested that I also give them some eggplants.  They are in the top of the box.  Jim came by and picked it up a little later.

This morning there were several large volunteer cucumber plants in the location of the photo above.  The were climbing the tomato plants.  They went right over and through the pepper plants where their big leaves hid almost everything,  I had to cut them in pieces and their tendrils was rapped around each other and the pepper and tomato plants.  It took quite some time to gather them up and take them outside.

Here is another photo in a different direction.  Each day if would kill dozens of little snails.  I discovered baby snails on the cucumber leaves.  The leaves hid the adult egg layers and new baby snails were finding the pepper plants who were strictly vegetarians.  This evening while it was still light, I didn't find and snails.

The yellow jackets have been terrible.  One the north wall above the garage door were swarms of yellow jackets.  I got a stepladder and a flyswatter and missed.  The yellow jackets flew all over.

There is a heavy door in house three that I found at the dump.  Robert was with me and we put it in the truck.  We also loaded some paneling on the truck. I used the two wheel cart and easily pullet it to our drive where I remove the doorknob.  I watched a video that showed how to do it.  It wasn't that easy.  The knob was pretty old and I couldn't released the knob.  I opened the door the way that a criminal would break into a house.  I got a large piper wrench and turned the know until it broke. A thief could have done it much faster than me.

I backed the car out of the garage and wheeled in the door.  Carol helped me lift it onto the sawhorse that I make earlier this week.  The sawhorses were too tall.  Is there an easy way to determine how much to cut off each of the eight legs.

The "how" came to me pretty quick.  I cut a 2x2 to the right length to hold the door to the right elevation.  I then turned the sawhorse upside down and slid it nest the door.  I held a speed square to the bottom edge of the door and drew a line.  You can see the line the right leg.  I cut the legs shorter and did the same to the other sawhorse.

For some reason two legs were too short.  I measured all legs from the north side.  To fix it I glued two small piece to the short legs.  From a distance it looks pretty good.

Carol fed the cats and the two kittens.  There is one kitten on the left and another one on the right.

Here I caught the kittens looking up.

I took two wheel cart back to house three, and found hundreds of yellow jackets on the west side of house three.  They were under the drip line of the elm tree next to that greenhouse.

Here is a fuzzy closer look.

This is looking up from inside of house three.  The little specks are yellow jackets.

I picked the cucumber plants.  The ones on the left are grade "A"  and those on the right are graded "B".

The yellow jackets are really bad.  I sprayed these with WD-40.  It quickly kills them.

Here I have circled the three nest that was on the underside of this pallet.

Late this evening I sprayed two yellow jackets nest the I found earlier in the day.


Comments and questions are welcome.

It Rained and Rained Some More

My neighbor called last night and said he would be here at 8:30 this morning to get the rooster.  I caught the rooster.  It wasn't easy.  I used a hook, but could get him.  I chased him form one end of the chicken run to the other.  I finally grabbed him by his wing.  I tied his legs together.

Yesterday, I prepare the three hog panels so I could move them  today.  Mickey Steimle, a neighbor of ours got the rooster.  He helped me move the hog panels.  Moving them was easy.  It was a little harder to get them lined up and secure them.  The brick is to hold them off the ground.

Carol and I planted the Blue Lake Pole beans.  There are two plants spaced eight inches apart.  There were a few extra plants which between those planted earlier.

This is not a very clear picture.  A couple of our chickens fly out over the grape vines.  I cut off the vines hanging in the chicken run.  I thought that I would put some welded wire above the vines.  The chickens can fly on top of the hen house and then fly out.  

This yellow jacket nest is under the hen house shade.  The blue looks like the blue sky, but is a blue panel.  This evening I captured this nest with a plastic shopping bag.  The was another nest in the pine tree west of the chicken run.  I most of it, but one of the yellow jackets fell and hit the back of my hand.  It gave me a mild sting.  

There were several good rain storms late this afternoon.  It was much cooler in house six, which is where I dug up all the plant material which some were pretty small, but most were tall. They are lined up one the row south of the center isle.  There will be two rows of tomatoes there.  

Here is looking at the weeds that I dug up, but from the south end.

There are hundreds if not thousands of grasshoppers in house six.  This is one in the tall annual grass.

The grasshopper have been eating the above cabbage type plant.  I sprayed it with Sevin insecticide.  I also sprayed the grass below.  I sprayed from both sides and put it on pretty thick.

There is a leaky pipe west of the garage where the yellow jackets come for a drink.  I covered it with welded fencing and secured it to the ground with landscape staples.  I then prepared a quart of sevin and poured it in the water.  The fencing keeps the cats and chicken from getting a drink.  Here's hoping that the yellow jackets take a drink and die.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Irrigation -- Water out of the Canyon

Squash or pumpkin that was planted a week ago are now breaking through the soil.  I planted five or six seeds to help push up the soil and knowing that some might not germinate.  All will be pulled except one.  It will be tied to the stake and after the first fruit I will cut the top off.

Below is a single plant.  I pulled four or five of them up and left one plant.

The Topaz melons are doing well.  Plenty of male blossoms. Female blossoms are absent.

This gourd plants is about three feet tall.  There are two small gourds.  I keep it tied to the stake.

This is how I joined two pipes together that are different size.  I wrapped the smaller pipe with strips of bath towels, and used duck tape and twine to secure it to the pipe.

The pipe reached across the lawn.  The joint is on the lower left side.

I was taking a picture of this yellow jacket nest.  I was stung by one of them because I was two close.  I backed up and tried it again.

A cluster of tomatoes growing in house six.

The crook neck squash and zucchini are doing well.  I haven't seen and squash bugs or eggs on any of them.

Comments and questions are welcomed.