Posted on 06/01/2025 5:48:14 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Growing up we had as total of TWO dogs. My folks got Otto (Dachshund) the year I was born. Not sure why they wanted a newborn AND a puppy, but we all survived. I had Otto until I was 17 years old. He was a terrific guard dog. 100% serious about making his rounds every night and making sure everyone was settled into bed. We all loved that dog so much!
Our next dog was a Terrier/Sheltie mix. Ginger. They got her when I was finishing High School, so I was gone six months later into the Army. Ginger lasted 22 years!
We got a LOT of mileage out of our family pets. ;)
Not too big - around 330 sq. ft., not including flower beds in front of the house (those drain ok) and an area I abandoned due to a big walnut tree growing up beside it.
A truckload would be about right...
A full day yesterday ....
Got the roof treated with Wet & Forget .... ladder, hoses, cutting off tree branches hanging over the roof .... not hard, but not easy. Took up most of the morning.
Watered everything in the front: boxwoods, hanging ferns, hostas & lavender (still to be planted).
Mowed the back 2/3 of the acreage. Mom was picking up tree debris on the front third. She was worn out (trailer full, not through yet) & said if this happens every time we have a windstorm she “can’t take it”. We had ‘not normal’ wind - almost had a tornado, then high wind warnings for 2 days, gusts up to 60 - that will knock down some limbs & leaves.
Back to the T-post project: Got in 2 more last night & they should be the last 2. There is a post the neighbor put in that is making things worse for that section of fence. The ‘knobs’ are towards us so one of these days, I’ll wire a 2x4 & see if I can jack it out & reset. The gnats came out while I was doing the posts - I HATE those things .... had to go get my bug head net to be able to work.
It got hazy in the afternoon & the smell of smoke was in the air so I guess that was compliments of the Canadian wildfires.
This morning, I watered all the raised beds. The lantana I put in a big pot is taking off & starting to get more blooms - it had 2 when I got it so I could tell the color. Even mom noticed it was growing (I used one of her pots - replaced the artificial flowers she had in them).
Headed for the barn lean-to to move out my washtubs/stand to the pole shed for painting. After that, I’ll work on the lean-to, hauling debris down to a hole under the fence that needs filling up. I moved enough debris yesterday that I could get Clyde parked under the lean-to .... with the truck & the golf cart in the barn, I was having to move one of them to get Clyde out for mowing. I’ll likely shovel mulch (in the shade) to cover the dirt in the lean-to & start mowing the rest of the place 4-5:00. The rotten peach tree really pi$$ed me off (in the way) while mowing so I might just cut that down today, too.
Last Sunday, I gave my cousin’s wife some ‘tips’ (because I’m such an “expert”/NOT LOL!) on trapping groundhogs. She’s got one that’s eaten a row of her beans & is defeating all efforts to protect what is left. She texted me last night, all excited: “Caught one!” We’re hoping it’s the ‘bean eater’. I’ll be curious to see if she used my ‘tips’ - prior to catching this one, she’d had no luck for weeks.
No trouble falling asleep last night - working outside all day is good for insomnia. :-)
Well, we here have a lot of rocks you can have:)
EEEYYOWWW!
About half an hour ago we took a lightning hit that knocked out our nice new LED lighting fixture in the kitchen. I was sitting right at the kitchen table doing a minor (glue) job (long story) and POW! Well, actually “POP!” with a simultaneous flash through the window and then (maybe a second later) a big “BAM” that shook the house. The “POP” came right from said light and it immediately went out.
So, I spent 20 minutes or so checking everything else: Computers, the TV, etc. That kitchen light seems to be the only damage, tho’ I’m “monitoring” at least another hour just in case a spark could have jumped somewhere in the attic or in a wall. Wifey went back to sleep. Luckily, most stuff on that circuit was off. (Most of it is lighting, but, wifey’s computer she uses for work stuff, some playing of movies, etc., is on that circuit too. It fired up fine, as seems to everything else...)
I’ll troubleshoot further, later this morning. A good question will be whether the LED “disc” is replaceable and available, and whether the LEDS are dead or just the driver circuit (and is the latter available.)
I’m bummed about this light - finally we got a kitchen ceiling light with just the right color (switchable, and great at 4000k) and plenty of brightness for my old eyes. It was a bit pricey, but, the kitchen is one place ya’ really want good light. DRAT.
A local TV station’s radar has a lightning tracker — it showed the lightning strike east of us, right on our road, with the actual storm still a few miles to our west: Apparently the bolt passed right over us and hit about 2/3 mile down the road, on “our” line, or, it induced a voltage surge on our line.
Our east yard already has at least an inch of standing water, and all my “round 1” rainwater collection containers are already full. Another batch of storms arrives in an hour or so. Hopefully less the lightning hits on us...
HELLO!
Is that an indigo snake, a black racer, or a very dark kingsnake? Hmmm...
Here, we’ve had loud thunder much of the night. Uuhhhhh - Am I going to be dragging today... :-(
It likely was the first destination to be found. When I was a kid, a bolt hit a tree, jumped to the garage, and via wire to the house and blew the hall light, but all else was fine, thank God.
i buy cheap LED grow lights at aliexpress, but make sure the item matches the image (which may show 2, when it is only one).
I saw a bolt hit the house across the street in NY once. THAT was alarming.
Way too close for comfort.
I saw a bolt hit the house across the street in NY once. THAT was alarming.
Way too close for comfort.
I’m so glad you’re OK.
It’s an Eastern Rat Snake.
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Reptiles/Black-Rat-Snake
Great ratters & mousers. Very good at getting into chicken coops & eating eggs. My SIL saw one that had caught a baby bunny & was constricting it to death. The only time I would kill them was when I found one in the chicken coop - you can remove them & they just come back. We had one in the coop with a scar on its back so identifiable - SIL took it down the road & it was back & headed for the coop 3 days later.
Funny story - we have a lake cabin that is very rustic. It is not a 4-season house - family uses it late spring to late fall until the water needs to be turned off. There are always mice over the winter. My brother was making coffee one morning when a movement on the counter caught his eye - it was a Rat snake, coming out from behind the microwave! It had found a way in the house to hunt mice. If my SIL or some of the other women guests had seen that snake first, there probably would have been a ‘scream fest’ & potentially some fainting. My brother wrangled the snake into a trash can (a 3 footer so not a huge snake) & released it. He took pics to show the ladies, who were horrified :-)
That’s a really dark one. Maybe it’s just how the pic came out. I had a couple Black Rat Snakes as pets* at one time or another when I was a kid, but not so dark. Or... maybe that was / is a local variation of many of ours.
*I have a couple pretty good accounts about my pet snakes getting loose in the house. I’ll tell them here later if I get some time. My light fixture replacement ended up being a bit more involved than expected...
Growing up my family had dogs and cats. Penny was our black lab mutt, and she was 12 when she passed. She was in a car accident. Her leg was hit, and she couldn’t make it through the trauma. Heidi was a white lab, and died giving birth to 3 puppies. One of the puppies died, too. Chichi was sold, and we kept Sam. Then we had Toby, Tasha, and Sissie. That was all before I graduated from college. They were all great dogs. Sissie was the one that claimed my parents. Also had several cats, not all at the same time. Tootsie was a bad ass. Then we got two from one litter. Mickey and Mikey. I’ve always loved having pets. It was great when my husband allowed us to have them. Not sure why he was reluctant. He seems to love all of the pets we’ve had with our kids. Maybe he was worried about money back then. Things were pretty tight.
I have a potato question. This year I bought grow bags for the potatoes. I chitted the baby potatoes that had sprouted just like last year. I planted them in nice organic potting soil, and yesterday I saw growth above the soil! So that’s a positive sign. I think I read that as the leaves grow that I should add more soil, just to the height of the leaves, so that they produce new potatoes under that new soil. Is that right? Or does that pertain to something else that I was looking for info on, and now I’m confused?
Also, can I fertilize the potatoes or is that a bad idea?
“I think I read that as the leaves grow that I should add more soil, just to the height of the leaves, so that they produce new potatoes under that new soil. Is that right?”
Not so much the leaves growing, but the STEMS.
And be stingy with the fertilizer; you’ll get lots of leaves and small potatoes. Avoid too much Nitrogen. A 10-10-10 like Miracle Grow is fine to start with.
“The best fertilizer for potatoes typically has a balanced ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK), such as 10-10-10 or 14-7-21, to support healthy growth and tuber development. It’s important to choose a fertilizer that is lower in nitrogen during the tuber bulking phase to prevent excessive vine growth at the expense of tuber size.”
The ‘tuber bulking phase’ is AFTER the potatoes have bloomed and the plant gets busy making taters. :)
Ok thank you! That’s very helpful!
It would be a nice snake to keep in your walled garden to deal with the voles and field mice! (Assuming one has a walled garden, something people needed before the invention of chicken wire!)
Nice raised beds! Whatever you planted in them should be off the ground and away from the rabbits!
I had to walk back to the house to get my phone for that picture - snake had not moved. I did about another 30 minutes of setup to do the roof, leaving the ladder for last, thinking the snake would move ... nope, still there. At this point, I touched its tail a couple of times with a plastic rake, figuring that would get it moving - nope. I finally got a metal rake that had space between the tines. It took a couple of tries, but I was finally able to pick it up off the ladder & the snake got a ‘ride’ to the ground on the rake. It was in no hurry to move along, but finally crawled off towards my bags of pine needles. I suspect I will be seeing it again.
There are some bird nests in the barn & I think the snake had its eye on one of them.
I need a roofed (clear Lexan?) and dammed garden. Most of it (and our yard) is in standing water (again) and we have more t-storms forecast for tomorrow...
I’m pretty sure we have had wetter springs, from the standpoint of total rainfall, and major river flooding has not been a big issue, but in terms of days of constantly saturated soils and standing water in considerable parts of our yard, I don’t recall a spring anything quite like this. Sometimes we have a few weeks like this, but, this has been going on since early March.
Maybe I should have tried growing rice.
I never thought of this: Even if the bird nests are not accessible to the snake, would it hang around waiting to see if an egg or a baby bird fell out of the nest? When you are practiced at going a week or two between meals...
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