Still at war

 

Every day this week I have spent about 2 hours digging out muck (straw, pinecones, mud and sticks) that the beavers have stuffed/wrapped/wedged/piled in and around the pond drain. The debris field I've dug out are the two piles in the pic. The drain is the small pile in the water. The light dirt color around  the drain is the mound/fortress the beavers have built in attempts of keeping the pond water from the drain.

I know that if I miss one day, then the work will pile up for me again. But so far this week I've managed to get a little ahead of them. The pond is down 4 inches, and if I can get it down 2 more tomorrow there might be small hope we can put a type of cover around the drain that will prevent them from stopping it up. Maybe. Then there will be the mess they make in other places to contend with. I am seriously contemplating hiring a trapper to deal with them. My few attempts at taking them out have not been successful. 

Rain, especially at night, like our forecast tomorrow calls for, is not my ally. Beavers work at night, so they will once again gain the upper hand if we can't get a cover on tomorrow. I did find a store that sells the water pants so I can go out and dig up the fortress tomorrow if we get the water level down. I fear that time and muscles are not on my side. I really don't want to spend money on a trapper, but we're running out of options. 

I no longer think beavers are fascinating.

A few extra hours

Weekends are half days for early voting, which is a blessing for poll workers. Today with my extra time we went to Ken's Produce and Garden to get some flowers and gourds to go with my one lone orange pumpkin from the grocery store. I figure since the dogs have not chewed up the doormat in a whole month (a first), they could handle flowers without dumping them so they can chew up the pots.

And even though it is October, the grass still needs cutting. I managed to get the front yard cut when Bobby flagged me down as I neared the chicken pen. Turns out we have a new chick! I love it when they pop their heads out in random places.

After cutting a little in the backyard, I fed the chickens and gathered eggs and realized we had more green beans. The hand full I was expecting became a bucket full. So while watching so.e of the Alabama game I snapped beans. I am simply too tired to do any more, so they're chilling in the fridge until tomorrow afternoon....oh, and the beaver is back. In the middle of cutting grass I cleaned off the drain and threw parts of the mud fortress away from its sides. 

It seems strange to say I'm looking forward to "sleeping in" by getting up at 6am tomorrow  and my ears do not even want to think about donning a mask for even a few hours. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

standstill

A few weeks ago I went outside to give the grass its last cut (hooray!) before "winter" and the belt broke. We had it repaired and serviced for the winter. The guys brought it back last week, but my schedule was maxed out. Today was the last warm day for a while, so I was determined I was going to squeeze in the front yard today, if nothing else. Cranked the machine up, and the belt was smoking a little bit. Sometimes new belts do that for the first few minutes. Sure enough, after the first pass, it quit.  At the end of pass three, the deck started shaking. I stopped the blades, backed up, looked underneath, and the belt is off. I've already called and schedule a pickup for tomorrow. To be honest, I don't know whether to be frustrated or relieved. Yes, the front yard is only halfway cut. But I'm also tired. After two presentations this morning and more things to do tonight, it's a little nice to have something off my schedule, even if it is off because of problems.

On to the next thing!!

hurry,hurry, wait

Because we were gone for a few days, then came home to several days of rain, our yard was in desperate need of attention. In the past when our grass has gotten that high, we've found we have three options: cut it high and then cut it lower a 2nd time, cut it at the normal height and have glass clumps all over the yard which ultimately kill the grass (and get tracked in the house), or cut it at normal height and either go over all the clumps with the pusher mower  to bag it or rake it all up. None are thrilling options. We were leaning for the first choice - cutting it 2x. While it seems like a waste of time and money, it actually is fast to do that than options 2 or 3.

So some teen boys were coming over to help, and I was going to start earlier and get as much of the first cut done as I could before they came...and the riding mower would not start. We replaced the battery and a few other parts last month, so I was more than a bit exasperated. I went to the nearby mini mart to get gas for the the push mower and weed eaters and started pruning shrubs when I got back. It was so hot that I had no track at time, but I was quite surprised when a flatbed pulled up. I thought it was the dealer coming to pick up our lawnmower, and was quite pleased that Bobby had called them and they had responded that fast. Usually it takes several days to get on the pick up list, and then it takes 2-3 weeks (at least!) for them to repair and return the mower. A few minutes later, Bobby came up and said "They got it fixed. The fuse was loose." I was like ...What?!  And then I realized it was not the dealer who was there, but the boys who rent the farm from my Mom-in-law. They delivered her riding mower to us, AND repaired ours. What started out as head-butting session with reality turned into a blessing. One of the boys continued with the trim work, another took our mower and started on the back yard, and I started with Mrs. Bryan's mower doing the second cut on the front and finishing what had not been completed. We were able to TOTALLY finish the yard (cutting wise) before 1pm. They came back today and finished the trim work and did some around the pond. The ending of that story was certainly nothing like the beginning!

Meanwhile my nephew has a HUGE pile of topsoil behind his newly built house. He didn't let the builder haul it away because a relative said they wanted it, but after several months of staring at it, they've offered it up to anyone who will take it. They have someone coming this weekend, but he told me I could take what I wanted. So we loaded the wheelbarrow up the ramp in Bobby's van, and I've brought about 7 wheelbarrows full over since last night. We were able to fill up the gaping holes DOT left in the curb at our driveway (where they took our yard for the turn lane into the school), as well as a few holes left on the other end of our front yard where they raised the road. (They put in a silt fence for several months, and it had been raining when they came to pick it up and two pick-ups got stuck in our yard...yeah rah!) We quit at 11 this morning as I had a lot of indoor work to do. We were expecting company this weekend, but I got an e-mail saying no one was coming. My first thought was total relief! So I'm still pushing to get my projects done, but the zeal and panic is gone. We'll see whether or not that's a good thing.

I'm 3/4 finished with trimming the shrubs, 3/4 finished with cleaning the pantry, and I've currently got laundry going and am tackling a messy pile in the laundry room. My goal is to have at LEAST one of these projects completed before church tonight. And who knows? I may have started 3 others before the day is out.

the sun has come out!

After 12 days of drizzle/mist/rain, our area of North Carolina is finally seeing the sun! I actually made it outside today for thirty minutes of yardwork, and then my arms said "No more!" so I quit for the evening. Yes, I'm turning into a big wimp. And with tomorrow's temps rising higher, I'm hoping the sun and air will dry out the ground even more, and I can cut the grass and weedeat. And MAYBE I'll finish trimming the shrubs. But realistically, I think that will wait until Friday. :) Or perhaps I'll do two more shrubs tomorrow and then finish them on Thursday. No point in over-doing it, you know.

Meanwhile, my parents are coming next week. A small part of me says I need to be inside cleaning like mad. Another small part of me shrugs and says "Why? Your Mom is going to clean most of the time she's here anyway!" I think it goes without saying that I did not inherit Mom's "every item must have a place and that place isn't in a pile" mentality.

And if there's any doubt that it's fall and October, the spiders are out. They're starting to take over the back porch again. If I don't get out there with a broom soon, all the hard work a teenager did power-washing our house this summer will not be anywhere near as noticeable. And that would be sad indeed.

a sand dropper

As a child I was always mesmerized by hour glasses (and always puzzled by how they could measure a minute but were still called hour glasses). Something about watching the sand drop, sometimes rushing through as if it couldn't move fast enough, and others where you felt you could almost count each grain as it dropped. Sounds like life, doesn't it?

Spring time for me means being outdoor more than I normally am. (ie, I actually breathe more outdoor air than feeding the animals, cleaning out the chicken pen, and walking to my car)  There's yardwork, as in cutting grass, trimwork (weedeating, pulling weeds, cleaning the porches and trimming shrubs...all of which I hate and doesn't get done that often), and gardening.

This week I took on a task that needed to be done (and for the record, is still not finished).

I didn't prune the grapevines this winter. And this is what they looked like. And because they had grown up/down so much, it was next to impossible to cut the weeds underneath, resulting in a shrub growing up around one vine and briers growing the midst of another. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly nature and its roughness quickly overtakes whatever is in its path. It truly requires constant vigilance to keep it at bay.  So Tuesday night we started the arduous process of trimming branches from the trunk of the vine and the overhang that would prevent the push mower from mowing underneath. We cut round one trunk and started the overhang on the second side. I spent about an hour (it seemed a lot longer) working again yesterday.  And one row is now completed (the bronze muscadines; the purple will have to wait until Friday):

Meanwhile, our riding lawn mower is in the shop. One of our new neighbors graciously offered yesterday to come and cut our grass for us until it was repaired. Many people offer to do things like that, but I think he's one of those people that would actually do it and not just offer.

So this has been one of my many sand usurpers this week.

weed eater vs push mower

In the past, I've not been crazy about a weed eater and have used the push mower as much as I could, to the point I think I surprised my husband with how much could be accomplished with a push mower (specifically in the ditch in front of the house). Growing up, we didn't have a weed eater, and so we used the push mower for everything.

This weekend I tried weedeating the ditch instead of using the push mower, as all the boys who've cut grass for us in the past preferred that.  And now I'm not sure which is the best method.

A weed eater takes longer, much longer...as in, I'm still not done with the trim work.
However, a weed eater is much easier on the ankles and shoulders. Instead of having to fight inclines, you can simply stand in one spot and move up and down the sides...harder on the hands and forearms, but I didn't turn my ankle or feel my foot slide in my shoe once. So as far as ease, weedeater hands down.

But as far as time goes...a weedeater does not cover the wide swath that a lawn mower does, so that adds to the time frame. A weedeater has string that might/might not advance properly (or runs out), so you spend time repairing that, and the gas tank for a weed eater obviously is not as large as that of a pushmower, so you spend a lot more time trekking back and forth out of the ditch to refill it (okay, only twice). There's also the safety feature, as a lawnmower's cover around the motor protects the eyes and upper body from blades of grass and small rocks being thrown at you.

My jury is still out about which method I'll use from here on out. But I will say this: I hate trimwork (it ranks right up there with exercise) and I'm finding it a little scary that I dread it so much after having only done it three times this spring.  That does not bode well for the summer and its hot temps.