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Category: gardening

Sun. May 22, 2022 – 05225022 – meh, not a cool number

Hot hot hot too fricken hot… maybe some rain later.

And humid.   Soaked to the skin, and brains boiled working in the back yard yesterday.   I did find some shade under a market umbrella, and that saved me.  Did I mention it was hot?

After working on my gennie for a few hours, since I was soaked through anyway, I cut the grass.  It was overcast and a bit cooler anyway.   I still love that Toro battery mower.

We spent the evening celebrating D1 becoming a teen.   That will probably be the last time we’re happy about that, LOL.  Didn’t get time to play any games yesterday so we are supposed to play some today.  AFTER the clothes shopping.

I”m going to finish the gennies, if I can.   And go through the stored gas to see if any of the stuff in the cabinet also got ruined.  I did discover a point source failure, potentially.   I use a hand pump to move gas around.   It’s a cheap Harbor Freight thing, but it works really well and it lets you quickly transfer gas from a heavy can to your gennie, or suck all the old bad gas out.   I’m going to get 4 more, put two at the BOL and leave the others here.   I will dedicate one to water, and  have the other for gas.   It’s so much easier than holding 5 gallons in the air while attempting to control a pour into a small gas tank.  Recommended.

 

So USE some preps this week.  Find out if you have what you need to make it work, or not.  And stack it up.

 

n

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Sat. May 21, 2022 – home this weekend, plenty to do here

Hot and humid, again.  We’re in that season- summer.  Gonna be kinda monotonous unless there’s a hurry-cane or something… 83F when I went to bed.

Made it home yesterday in time for dinner.   Did a lot of driving for my pickups, and getting something for my non-prepping hobby added a couple of hours and lots of miles as it was an hour south of Houston.  The rest of the stuff was preps or for the BOL.

Got stuff going on today here at home.   D1 had a birthday this week, so we’re doing her thing today.  She mainly wants attention, so we’re going to try mightily to give her some… she wants family game night all day.  I hope I can keep my sanity.

If I can’t, I’ll take it out on shrubberies…   or other stuff in the back yard.   I’ve got quite a long list of stuff to do at home, so I can always take a break from Exploding Kittens ™ and do something.

I’ll be trying to take it a bit easy, as all of yesterday’s loading and unloading, along with 6 hours in the driver’s seat has my back hurting again.  Sucks to get old.  Sucks to be decrepit.   Never thought I’d live this long, or I would have taken better care of myself.   I tell myself that, but I know I wouldn’t have.  NO ONE believes they’ll be old and worn out when they’re young.

Look at your stacks.  Stack more where the stacks are thin.

 

nick

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Fri. May 20, 2022 – at the BOL, doing stuff

Fantastic day here in the north, sunny and clear.   Hot and humid later, but probably not as hot and humid as Houston.  I’ll find out when I get home.

Met with the electrician yesterday.  Our next step is to talk to the provider, a co-op, and determine how much capacity we can get, schedule, etc.

He’s proposed a couple changes that would let us do the work for the service and the septic, while taking longer to do the work on the grounding and outbuildings.  All the old will come out, and new will go in.  Except for wiring inside the house, that will stay but have grounds added, I think.  He’s pretty sure we’ll find the buried electrical when we start trenching for the septic 😛

Oh yeah, when I fired up the mower a huge doe ran across the yard.  She looked pretty panicked.   Did I mention she was huge?   Mmmmm, tasty deer…

Watered the garden.  No sign of raiders yet, but no shoots either.

I’ve got a couple of things to do here today before I can leave.  I need to remove the paneling around the current breaker panels so the electrician can see what he’s working with to land in the new panel, and I’d like to plant one more row of salad veg, with some squash, pumpkin, and watermelon.  That may not get done, if it’s hot or if I run out of time.

 

Gas was $4 at costco and there were weekend long lines at 1pm on Thursday.   I saw it as high as $4.39 at the HEB next to the freeway.  My 260 mile round trip costs double what it did a year ago.

Refilling all my hurricane gas storage will HURT this year.

Stash some stuff, stack some more stuff.

 

n

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Wed. May 18, 2022 – end of the school year is coming up…

Hot and sunny in Houston again.  Plenty of humidity too.   I didn’t see what the official high was yesterday, but I did notice my thermometer reading 95F in the sun.  That’s plenty hot.

I didn’t do much yesterday.   My back was killing me.  Did one pickup for the BOL on my way to my client’s house.  Fixed his issue, a control box stuck in an ‘off’ condition until pulling the power, waiting, and re-powering.  That was a weird one.

Spoke with his  wife, their kitchen remodel is pushing off a month or possibly two, due to not being able to get their appliances.  Those were ordered last year, for May delivery… and now they are saying August maybe but really probably October.  Even the very high end of the market is having supply issues now.

Came home and had a lie down.  Didn’t mean to fall asleep, just wanted to get pressure off my spine, but hey, I’ll take sleep when it comes.

Did an email exchange with my septic installer.  He’s starting to buy stuff for the system. Still can’t get the drip hose but feels confident about the other components.    I reiterated that we’ll pay for the stuff, and he should just buy it.

I’m bidding on some used construction materials for use here in the attic, and small projects at the BOL.   I’m thinking of raiding my neighbor’s open top dumpster for used 2x4s from their remodel.   Freaking 2x4x8 lumber is $7 at lowes.   I’ll be building with pallets and tarps soon if prices don’t come down.

Stack it while you can.  You’ll need it.

nick

 

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Tues. May 17, 2022 – home again, home again…

Hot and humid in Houston.   Probably nicer at the BOL.  I’ll deal, as long as it isn’t raining.

Did a long day at the lake yesterday.   Met with the A/C guy, got the compressor motor capacitor swapped out and the refrigerant level checked.    Worked on the garden.  Got a sprinkler set up, but not on a timer yet.  Did more cleanup and filled the pickup for the dumpster run.  Swapped out a couple more light fixtures.  Put some privacy film on the garage door windows.

That one was on the list from the first day.   It makes the door look better from the outside (there isn’t a row of black windows in the white door) and it makes it much harder to see into the garage and decide if there is anything you want to steal.

I also put up a new mailbox, and weed whacked…  even put a couple of plants in pots out front.

All little things but all important for curb appeal (lets the neighbors know we’re committing to the neighborhood) and to make the house look occupied.   They haven’t had issues with breakins or theft, but I don’t want to be the nuisance house either.   I do need about 4 entry doors though, between the garage, outbuildings, and dockhouse.  Even a soyboy could kick through the garage man door.

—

Today is for catching up on things around the house here.

There is plenty on that list.  Boy howdy.

If you can’t stack, organize, or maintain.

But if you can, stack it high.

nick

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Mon. May 16, 2022 – still at lake

Sunny cool and clear in the morning, getting hot later.   Probably the same in Houston.

After I set up an A/C service visit, I’ll work in the garden for a bit.  I spent several hours yesterday rototilling the whole thing again.   I thought I’d just get the grass off, but that took multiple passes, and increasing the depth.  I eventually got the whole plot tilled to an even depth.  Made my rows and planted two of them.  I did not know that beans should be soaked overnight before planting, so they will get planted today.

The planting choices are a bit wierd, but some of the seeds I have won’t do well this late.  I’m pushing it with what I am planting.  I wanted to get SOMETHING in though.   Since the fence isn’t in yet, I covered the whole row with hardware cloth in a tunnel shape.   I’ll either have to bring up more hardware cloth, or get busy on the fence.

I spent the hottest part of yesterday doing some other things, including taking a break to eat lunch with my wife on the dock.  Very cool breeze on the dock…   So I tried my hand at throwing the cast net.   Tougher than it looks.  I did manage to catch 3 little fish that would have made decent bait, which is what you do with the cast net in Texas.   I’ll need more practice, and maybe an in person coach…

The eclipse was cool.  Glad I got to see another one.

Unless things go horribly wrong, I’ll head home in the afternoon.  I’ve got a list of stacks to move up here, and more stuff to do work with.  We have one bedroom with the paint, ceiling fan, flooring, and furniture in it.   There is only the closet floor still to do.   Plenty of other work to do…

I’ve been sipping the news through a tiny straw, so I might have more to say later.   Someone asked the question “what will they come up with next to distract us?”   Now we know.   Yes, I know that is crazy conspiracy talk.  I will need to see more coverage before it’s anything more than a wry observation, but the question was asked.

Stack some stuff.   It’s getting weirder daily.

n

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Sat. May 14, 2022 – and we’re off…. no not really

Hot and humid, although it didn’t seem as hot yesterday as the day before.

Picked up a pickup load of stuff for the house, took it to storage, swapped it out for the thing I’m hoping to flip today.  For today is my non-prepping hobby quarterly swapmeet/ sale day.    Really only a half day, and most deals will happen in the first 10 minutes anyway.

My hope is to flip the big thing, and then after the meeting, load the  truck for the lakehouse and head out.  My wife was planning to  take the kids up last night and get started painting another room, or putting floor down, I’m not entirely clear which.  However, they ended up staying late at a birthday party so they’ll be heading up sometime this morning.   I’ll already be gone to my meeting.

Work at the BOL will be whatever I can do, but emphasis will still be on getting the garden stood up.

I don’t have to set the fence yet, I decided I can do a tunnel of hardware cloth over at least a couple of rows of low plants to start.   I have this fear that the heavy equipment for the foundation work will need to go through the garden to get to the down slope area.  That would suck.  It’s not going to stop me from trying to get something to grow, but time is slipping away.

At home I’ve got blueberries ripening on the bushes.   The seedlings I planted haven’t died yet.   The grape vines are trying to make a comeback, and the herbs are doing well.  It won’t feed the family, but it’s something.  There were almost no fruit trees at the Lowes and Home Depot yesterday.  I was hoping for an apple tree, but there was one persimmon, a couple of meyer lemons, and some peach trees.  Very limited.

Shortages are getting attention from a wider array of folks.   Predictably they are clamoring for .gov to “dooooo sooommmeeethhhiing “.   I don’t really know what they expect Slow Joe to do, pull some baby powder out of his diaper?  If they do try something, I expect it to make the situation worse.

You are on your own.  Plan accordingly.

And stack some stuff.

n

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Tues. May 10, 2022 – no pithy comment today

Hot and humid, but clear, like yesterday…   So I better get some stuff done early, or sweat to the skin later.

 

Did all indoor stuff yesterday.  I spent a bunch of time trying to model the slope and terrain at the BOL in Sketchup.   The ‘sandbox’ tool is great for fantasy terrain, but there doesn’t seem to be a good fast way to match existing.   I’m about half way through trying to do something with contours… which if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to do over with a different method.   Just plotting my elevations has been useful to see the ‘lay of the land’ though.

Speaking of the BOL, I think I’m shooting for heading back up on Wednesday.  I’ve got so much to do, and I get more done when I’m there by myself, that I can’t skip a week.  We’re heading up for the weekend, but it will be another short trip.

New A/C system seems to be a bit more efficient than the old.   Days like yesterday, the old system would be falling behind by 330 pm, but the new system kept up just fine.  Tentatively I’ll call it money well spent.

Sometime soon, I’ve got to do some personal checkups and maintenance on this old body of mine.  Better to do it than to wait.  Obamma-lamma no care kicked my various doctors’ @sses and I’ve been without a primary care doc for too long.  Past time to do something about that.

Add it to the list.

And stack it high.

n

 

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Sun. May 8, 2022 – Happy Mother’s Day

Hot here, and continues to be hot in Texas, and much of the mid-west.  It was in the 80’s even with some overcast, and late in the day.  I’m expecting the same today, but maybe today I’ll get in the lake.

Saturday had me doing a bunch of stuff before leaving the house.  One thing was putting my network rack back together and making sure my cams were up and recording.   Two of the neighbors had their trucks burglarized the night before and I didn’t get any video.  Both left the trucks unlocked, both lost gubs.   That is just seriously stupid, and it’s the second time for the one guy.

Finally I got on the road.  Stopped in Conroe to do a pickup.  More stuff for the BOL.   Eventually got here.

My perfectly prepped garden has sprouted GRASS in a uniform layer.   If I’d  planted it, I doubt it would have looked so good.  That’s going away today, and some veg WILL get planted.  One good thing, it showed that the back two feet of tilled earth don’t really get enough sunlight.  The new grass was much thinner there.  I will keep that in mind as I plant.

Lots of projects today, we’ll see what gets done.   We will get out on the water, and I think I’ll probably get into the water this trip.   My wife insists that we have some fun today.

And since it’s Mother’s Day, and she’s a mom, I guess I better do what she tells me to do….

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms.

n

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Thur. May 5, 2022 – or another made up holiday…

Hot and humid with a side order of moist today.   Same as yesterday, although “hot” is stretching it a bit.  It all feels hot when you can’t retreat into the airconditioning.

Contractor got the old A/C system removed, pulled all the ducts, and set the new major components.   Today he’ll run the rest of the ducts and commission the system.

I brought a small window unit home for the master bedroom, and a small freestanding unit for the hall and the other two bedrooms.   They are a bit undersized for the job, but have knocked 5-8 degrees F off the air temp,  and knocked the humidity way down.  I’ve got the windows open (with screens) in the rest of the house, but used the A/C to make the humidity tolerable for sleeping.  It was 89%RH outside and 50%RH inside when I went to bed.  I have been picking up window units, and the freestanding units when they were cheap, because our most likely disaster involves cooling not heating to make a house comfortable.    The freeze was an aberration, but I had temporary heat too, because I prep.

I could have brought a couple more units home, or the bigger units, but these were the easiest to get to, and it’s only for one night.  I’m dumping the heat into the hall bath, where I have  a box fan in the window to move the heat out of the house.   I’ve discovered that I didn’t bring enough flex duct home for the exhaust side.   This is why we USE our preps.  Next time I’ll know better.  BTW I like having multiple smaller units so that I can pick and choose capacity to match need, and available power.

Today’s plan is to pick up an item or two, mainly another couple of buckets of freeze dried emergency food.  Yesterday I got a bunch of stuff for the BOL, including a couple of extension poles.  I have several and use them for antenna mounts.   I figured a couple more, particularly extra tall and sturdy ones, would be worth having.

My ridiculously heavy fence pipes were dropped off yesterday at the BOL.   I need to set the corners around the garden this weekend.  We’re supposed to head up there and work through Mother’s Day.   One of my goals is to get something, anything, in the ground in the garden.  Even if it gets eaten by deer, I need to see if stuff will grow there.

And that should be enough planning to tempt the fates…

Find a gap and fill it.   Get your garden started.   While you are buying seed, buy extra and stack it.

nick

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