Ahhhhh...

Diora Baird...silcone just can't do that :)

We're mulching

Not that much done this weekend -- had to work at the data center with three co-workers moving servers from 11pm to 2:30am, was 4am Sunday before I went to bed. So I didn't push myself Saturday and spent most of Sunday asleep!

Taters before:


Had some nice leaf litter at the dump today I picked up for mulch. Ended up with three loads of leaves and 1/2 load of grass clippings.


Also bought a bale of straw...$8.75 plus tax. I think the sales tax is new?

So I'm alternating "straw" and "leaf" mulched taters (I'll also shovel in the soil to mix it into the hills). Interested in seeing if one works better then the offer. Especially if free leaf mulch works better :D



I won't used the grass immediately next to my veggies since I don't know what chemicals may have been applied. But it's great for compost and/or creating compost or mulching un-planted areas in my garden.


Two loads of leaves on the Blueberries. Yeah, I gotta mow :)

Few more pics

As usual, click to see larger versions.

Was able to go play in the garden for a bit this afternoon. Rainy week, but it was OK working conditions this afternoon. It was actually too dry to hoe Saturday!

Spinach coming up nicely.


Oscar inspecting things.


Volunteer bean from last year coming up in the onions.


Today's intern.


Onions were planted exactly one month ago -- April 17th! Wow.


Garlic is coming up.

The Mother of All Garden Updates

I normally don't worry about planting till we're well into the May 20-somethings if not Memorial Day weekend. Besides frost, I don't think things like maters and eggplants really do anything till it gets warmer.

But I have to go into work next Saturday from 11pm to 3am (we're moving computer servers while no one is using them)...so that's going to shoot next weekend to heck.

Decided it's been a warm spring, rain predicted all week will keep the frost away, full moon next week, all signs say it's safe.

So up to Putnam's Farmer's Co-op where I get most of my stuff. Did stop at Hart's afterwards to pick up a few things -- esp. eggplant that the co-op didn't have. At the Co-op Charlie the manager was telling one of the customers (after stopping his kid from playing with scale they use to weigh seed) that the scale was there when he started in 1970. I wonder how many tons that hanging scale has measured over the years.

On the way home from Putnam I stopped to grocery shopping.

I see "Arvi" as a license plate on a car pulling into a spot, hey I know that one! It's my aunt Gert (her husband was Arvid, named after my grandfather...though everyone called him Donald day to day). Got to park right next to her.

They were the most into their garden / small farm of my aunts & uncles growing up, and my parents frequently went visiting there. (Plus they had a pool on hot summer days!)

They had a big garden, and many evenings I'd be reading through their Organic Gardening magazines in the late 70s while my mom & dad were in the other room visiting. Plus they had sheep and a cow (and a fridge full of raw milk) and Old English Sheepdogs, and a tractor and a diesel pickup truck and no sink in the upstairs bathroom (you used the faucet in the tub!) Such a cool place to visit. One of their daughters taught me about electric fences (as a five year old, you can keep yourself entertained for a *shockingly* long time hold a long, fresh of grass up to the fence...the cool thing is you see the grass jump faster then your nerves can carry the sensation of shocking to your brain!)

Got to chit chat with her a bit as we walked in and started shopping. Also found out she likes to make tomato wine -- something I had never heard about before, but so fits. I remember one time as a kid going over when her and the daughters were trying to clean up from the disastrous experiment of making maple syrup on the stove...maple syrup was fine, but the condensing steam had left a tacky layer of sugar all over the kitchen, into the cabinets, etc! That took them weeks to get everything clean again.

Neat timing for a gardening day to run into one of the folks who, while they probably don't realize it, had a big influence on how I view how a home should be.



Let's see...
6 pack of Celebrity Tomatoes
6 pack of Big Boy Tomatoes
6 pack of Early Girl
4 pack of Cucumbers (I've had a long standing problem with my cukes succumbing to insects before I get a decent harvest...this is the first time I've tried seedlings though. Maybe they'll mature before the bugs!)
6 pack of Black Beauty Eggplant (Hart's)
6 pack of Blue Hubbard Squash (it's a trap crop -- Squash Bugs *love* it and will head to that before anything else, so you can concentrate on destroying the bugs on those plants, and when it builds up pretty high just dispose of the plant and bugs and all) (Hart's Greenhouse)
1 4" Bush-style Cucumber (Hart's)
1 4" Early Girl Tomato
1 4" Mortgage Lifter Tomato

Oddly, neither Putnam nor Hart's had Beefsteak Tomatoes.

Also picked up Connecticut Field Pumpkin, Early Summer Crookneck Squash, Golden Girl Summer Squash, Waltham Butternet seeds, and Table Queen Acorn Squash seeds ... to be planted.

Oh, and a stirrup hoe! I used that hoe later in the day...I really liked it's action! They had two models, the heads were almost identical. The one for $24 was riveted to the handle, while the $28 used bolts -- I figured for the extra $4 it would be a lot easier to replace the handle if necessary in the future.

And Miracid for my blueberries. It's the only non-organic (or close to it) fertilizer I use, one box that size will last two or three years for my blueberries.



Mumsey's Mix is something revered at the organic gardening forum I hang out at.

The bowl, if you're curious, was a cookie tin (plastic?) from the supermarket store-brand cookies. Mix 2 parts Bone Meal, 2 parts Corn Meal, 1 part Epsom Salt, 1 part Powdered Milk. 1/2 cup in each hole when planting (stir it into the soil). Maybe a side dressing late in the June-ish. I was kind of grumbling that the ingredients added up to about $25 (the milk was $11!) but this is probably enough to cover my needs for two or three years...the milk probably five or six.

I'm running a side-by-side trial. For the six packs, I gave the "odds" (1,3,5) Mumsey's Mix. Plants 2, 4, 6 didn't get it.

That should make for a very good field trial with plants growing side-by-side in the same conditions except mix or not.


Pictures aren't the best since it was really cloudy and after 7pm by the time I took them.

The tater are on the left...the mounds aren't the hills, it's the dirt that will be hilled back onto them. I'm also planning on putting a layer of straw on top of them too.

I planted the Eggplants next to the taters.

The row with posts (with a one or two more posts still to put up) is the main tomato row.

Doesn't show up well in the pic, but I sowed turnips a few weeks ago and did the initial thinning today. I'll thin them again for greens later this week down to one turnip in each spot. I figure they'll be done before the 'maters are big enough to compete for resources.

I forget who it was at the organic gardening forum that I learned this way to stake tomatoes from. Put in the T and U posts, and run baling twine between them. I only put up one short length so far...the 4" pot Early Girl needed some support. And that's used twine I took down last year! Since I have a 4500' spool, that should be a lifetime supply for me (they sell 2 x 4500' for about $25 IIRC at Tractor Supply...gave the other roll to a friend for his kids to use as play string)


Again, not a great photo due to poor light.

Dropped the trellises for the peas, but I still need to stake and tie them down this week.

The onions were looking really flaccid so I asked on the organic garden board and they said they were just thirsty. I've never had onions looking this nice, this consistently, this early before so I didn't have a personal baseline to compare them to.

I hauled down two 5 gallon buckets of water to give the onions a drink on Friday and they did perk up a bit. We have a 60% chance of showers everyday till next Saturday, so I'm hoping to get away with not hauling down the hoses quite yet!


Garden is built on gravel fill (bad soil, great sunlight), which is why I have the local dairy farm deliver a spreader load of manure each year to help build it up.

I used some of the rocks to edge a raised bed. That's proved to be a fiasco -- difficult to weed, can't mow next to it, weedwhacking goes through tons of string (since the rocks were it down). So I'm in the process of tearing it down so I'll be able to mow / hoe / cultivate with the tiller right up to the edge of the bed.

Couple cucumber mounds in the foreground.

I officially now worship Community...

The folks at Community gave us a Sergio Leon tribute with Alison Brie playing a bad ass...I bow to them. Best comedy on TV now.

Asparagus for dinner!

Cheeseburger & Asparagus for Dinner!

What a nice day

Just an absolutely blue sky perfect day here, not to hot, not to cold...just right.

It even started off with the perfect bowl of strawberries & banana slices with corn flakes, with just the cheeriest sunbeams falling across it:


Picked the first batch of Asparagus this year, which I brought to mom:


Farmer Fred showed up with my annual load of manure:


Some of last year's now well rotted manure:


Cleaned out my raspberries:


Put some rotted manure around the Rhubarb, and the left over on the raspberries...need to finish giving them a treat another day:


Extended the row of beets, and put in the Leek & Rhubard Chard seeds (finally! Both should've been in a month ago, but they should do OK now):

Onions are up

Easter Sunday. Nice day this morning, now that I'm home it's showering so I'll stay in (and no pics again!)

The onions, however, have broken through the surface.

Gardening

Let's see...4/22

Today planted:
Potatoes: Yukon Gold, Red Pontiacs, Superiors
~ 24' Garlic (two bulbs worth of cloves)
30' of Turnip (in one of the rows that will be tomatoes...the turnips should be ready to pull before the tomatoes are very large)

Planted 2 Concord Grapes and 2 Candice Grapes, from Walmart @ $5/each...probably ain't great plants but we'll see.

Looking back, this time last year (4/24) I only had taters, garlic, and peas in. I also notice in the photos I already had a load of manure delivered!

Garden Progress

Pics of what I did Monday evening -- dug the potato trenches (extreme left side), worked on raking down the pile of rotted manure from last year and spread it out, and started pushing back the soil from last year's potato row against the fence.



I have a few cheap Grape plants from Walmart I'll plant along the fence this year. The plan is to use the pressure treated posts put in for the fence to also support trellis work for the the grapes.

The grass strip in the middle is where I plan to ask Fred to unload my annual spreader load of manure this year...that'll fill in that low spot (actually that's the original ground level with raised beds all around it) and let me use that for crops next year.

Looks like rain and showers through Thursday, so this is probably it till Friday. But I'm in good shape to get the potatoes, grapes, and a few other things in this coming weekend.

Garden Update

Onions got planted on 4/9. That's a week earlier then I got anything in last year.

Yellow -- 1/2#, $1.50, 296 row-inches @ 4" spacing = 74 bulbs
White -- 1/4#, $.99, 112 row-inches @ 4" spacing = 14 bulbs
Reds -- 1/4#, $.99, 188 row-inches @ 4" spacing = 47 bulbs
Shallots -- 1/2#, $3.00, 36 row-inches @ 4" spacing = 9 bulbs



4/16:
Seeds:
Tall Telephone Peas, 40 row-feet
Spinach, Bloomsdale Long Standing (2g package, $1.39)
Lettuce, Red Salad Bowl (.5g, $1.89 with some left over)
Beet, Early Wonder (5g, $1.49...enough left over to make some succession plantings)
Six-Packs:
Green lettuce, $2
Red lettuce, $2
Cauliflower, $2



Didn't quite have time to finish up the big bed outside the fence -- needs to be rototilled again, and needs raking to level it off. By next Saturday I should have the potatoes in. Most of this bed will be in potatoes, tomatoes, summer and winter squash, and corn this year. Those don't seem to have many animal problems for me. The "tenders" (like beans) will go inside the fence.

Hedges, Part 1

Time to tackle the Cedar hedges...I don't like to cut them in freezing weather, and I haven't wanted to prune them after they go through their spring growth spurt (or after birds start nesting!)


They HAVE been this short before...used the chainsaw cuts from last time as the guide how high to cut this time. I also own an good electric hedge trimmer now so I should be able to keep up with the annual trimming to keep them to his height.


They will most fill in this spring. May take next year before it's 100% coverage again. The can grow like weeds.

Spring Peepers

3/30...first evening I've heard the peepers.

Woodcutting Sunday 3/20

First day of Spring today...first time I've been in the woodlot since early in January when the snows started.

Had planned to drop more trees but the oil cap on my big saw (MS360)broke and all the dealers around are closed on Sunday!  So I blocked and hauled down to the yard more wood then I planned instead.

A Red Oak with the Box Elder sitting on top of it (the Red Maples to the left if you look closely).  Counted 54 rings on the oak, surprised me a little bit but I guess that's about right, the land was pasture up until around 1950.  I was expecting it to be more like 60 to 70.  I do have some "middle age" pasture oaks up in there.



My small saw, the 024AV earned it's keep.  Three full gas tanks plus a little.  Had my least favorite chain I own on it, some sort of safety chain.

Both clumps of grove of ratty Red Maples in the background, left side I had been planning to take down today before I was done in by a flippy cap.





Two loads this size, plus one smaller load, to collect everything in the pics above.  I'm figuring when it's split, I'll be close but not over 3/4 cord that I hauled down to my house today.

Grandpa & Dad

Likely 1923, somewhere in New York City.

My grandfather Arvid Kivela, my uncle Bill on the scooter, and my father Rudy.

Update:
I posted that photo on a firefighting site I'm on frequently that I knew had a decent number of New Yorkers...and a one guy from Colorado gave me a strong lead --

It may be the Morris-Jumel Mansion:

I hate this escalator.

When I was five or so, I was with my dad when I fell at the top of this escalator and rode it most of the way down prone -- terrified. Very vivid memory of watching the bottom where the teeth are as the escalator disappears under the floor get closer and closer. Plus I lost my lollipop, I can still see it trapped at the bottom as the escalator rolled underneath it.

It was a very long time -- into my 20s -- before I could ride an escalator again without gripping the rails so tightly I got white knuckles.

AUBURN — A 4-year-old Dudley boy died last night from injuries he suffered when he fell from an escalator at Sears Friday night.

The boy, Mark DiBona, was pronounced dead before 10 p.m. at UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus, according to the district attorney's office. The child's parents are Eric and Laura DiBona, authorities said.


The boy had been with members of his family and a friend as they shopped in the mall when he fell from the escalator on the second floor inside the Sears Department Store Friday night.

Auburn police and fire were called to the mall about 6:30 p.m. to investigate and give aid to the child. State and Auburn police continue to investigate, but there are no signs of foul play, the district attorney said.

Authorities said the boy grabbed the moving railing of the down escalator with both hands and was pulled off the escalator and through a 6-inch gap between the escalator and a plastic barrier. The boy fell onto a store display case on the floor below and suffered a severe head injury.

March 13th...Snow hasn't melted yet!

At least a week, probably more like two before I can start working the garden!

That's OK, I was sizing up the woodlot today and picked out a bunch of junky trees I can cut down next weekend.

Everything you really need to know about Finns & Conversation...

I stumbled across the post by Hank W. below today, and found myself chuckling away as I read it:

I am really tired of all these complaints on the difficulty of learning the Finnish language.

The easiest way - and hardest for most foreigners - to learn the Finnish language is just to sit down and shut up. Over than half of a Finnish conversation is silence. You can practice *that* on a city bus for example. See, only mad people talk to strangers (or themselves). OK, I need to rephrase that - only mad people used to talk to themselves. Coming back in 1996 just after the 'kännykkä' boom and seeing well-dressed people blabbering to themselves freaked me out. Once I got new glasses the little dangling cord from the ear became more evident. Still freaks me out though. Must be hereditary.

The theory is, that silence has etched itself into the Finnish genes. Probably this happened already during right after the Ice Age when the Proto-Finns moved over and found it feasible to keep their mouth shut and use the energy for keeping warm. The blabbermouths then froze on the lake ice when they were icefishing (its quite windy on a lake). The silent men then slid the ones frozen stiff with their mouths gaping under the ice. And their hearts felt warm, and nobody said nothing, because everyone was thinking the same thing, peace at last.

So a couple thousand years later trying to introduce polite small talk instead of the cavemanlike grunts causes native Finnish speakers to seem rude and impolite. Every foreigner in Finland is bound to be asked these two questions let it be he's been here one day or ten years: "Where are you from?" and "What are you doing here?". Now these questions are honest to God attempts of "small talk", which is some unnecessary foreign invention. As we all know, peoples' faces in Finland are solemn, the mouth is a straight line, the edges slightly pointing downwards, just like a mouth should look like. (Only angry dogs and Americans show their teeth when meeting people.) - so a friendly question like that asked with a straight face is really just trying to be friendly. It is not exactly *our fault* the practice is to "cut the crap" and tackle the issue. So then the funny foreigner takes offence and the Finn is even more sure that silence is better and staring into the bottom of the beer glass is quite the thing to do.

Ah, one thing I must add though. The silence is gender-related. Somehow the silence genes are attached to the X and Y chromosomes because in Finnish women there is a wonderful and frightening ability to talk sentences without pausing, inhaling and exhaling the vowels and consonants so that the speech continues as a steady flow of... andreallyIthinkthatyoushouldcleanupafteryoushavethesinkisfullofhairsandthenthemirrorisstainedandyouleftthetoiletseatupagainhowmanytimesdoihavetotellyouaboutthatlikeIhaventtoldyouthatathousandtimesanditisdisgustingreallyyoudonotseemedoingthatnowdoyou...
Now this can also be used to explain the suicide rate of Finnish men, why there are 10:1 ratio of women to men in the 65+ age groups and why Finnish women marrying foreign men are so happy. Well, the first case is self-explanatory, as it relates to the second. The fast way out is far more desirable apparently than the slow lingering "death by nagging". And foreign men are happy as they cannot understand a word - and as Finnish women (due to the vindictive school teachers) dare not say too much in a foreign language as they are so afraid to make a grammar mistake the naggedyness in a foreign tongue is less evident. Divorces only happen if the men learn Finnish too fluently to actually pay attention to what she is saying...

So basically, the Finnish language is the easiest to learn in the world. Learn the silent parts first.

Snow, snow go away

1" of 50º rain overnight melted a good foot or more of the snow pack :)

First time since mid-January I'll be able to have mail service at my house again now that the snow banks are gone so the postman can pull up to the mailbox.

Still have about 6" to 8" of snow on my front yard, but that's about the deepest other then snowbanks around. I wouldn't have tried pulling into the woodlot off of Prince Hill Road on Saturday; now I just have to wait for the ground to drain since there's only a small patch of snow left. The garden is almost visible again!

We have survived the Great Snow of '11!

Edited to add: Heh...the mail lady just stopped and dropped off all the mail instead of stuffing it in the box :)

Down I Go, Again...

Let's preface this by saying I once walked into the firehouse and the gang their got sheepish faces...they had been reviewing the best falls I've taken on fires caught on video tape (some I remember, some I forgot...). Apparently one of the youngbucks had made up a list of which minute on which tape to watch.

So tonight I go out and fill up my firewood cart with wood.

Deck is wet from a light rain. I'm wearing old boots with worn, slippery soles.

There's one step I have to go down with the cart, so I pull back on it to slow it as it eases over the step...

My arms stay in place, my feet slide forward, I end up sitting keister wondering what the heck just happened.

*sigh*

Just a note to myself...

Richard Denning as Kenneth Bradley in An Affair to Remember.