Killer Doves

Damn mourning doves.

Little waddling poop machines.

I thought I'd gotten rid of them when the association replaced all our outside door lights with ones that had spikey tops instead of flat tops ( like this /\ instead of |-| )

But nooooooo.

No, the fat little flying waddling poop machines have decided that MY GARDEN is the place that they want to use for foraging their nest-building material - and they want to use my perfectly good baby plants for it! I've been finding baby plants torn from their dirty little homes laying all over the ground lately.

Symbol of peace or not - I'm gonna get me a slingshot if they don't stop it!

584 days

Drought

There hasn't been any rain here for almost a week. The garden is a bit less than happy, although Terry (next door guy) and I have been watering daily. He uses a hose, I use the water from the dehumidifier. The container garden is much harder to keep damp than the in-ground stuff. We have a lot of clay under the thin layer of topsoil, so as long as you don't have a too slopey yard it stays damper longer.

I found a baby tomato on the mid-size tomato plant this morning. I hope it does well. I think I may stick another "plant spike" tomato fertilizer spike into each of the pots again tonite. Despite the plants being awfully "leggy" and having not a lot of foliage, they do seem to be making a lot of baby tomatoes, which is a good thing.

I will have a zucchini soon, I think. One of the buds looks like it is about to bust open - getting that split-look along the long axis. Crossing my fingers makes it too hard to type, so I'll cross toes for a bit.

The lady next door has beautiful pepper plants. I can't grow peppers to save my life. I love them, just can't grow 'em. Maybe I can trade her for some zucchini.

Stopped at Costco last nite and did a bit of "grocery shopping" - got a huge package of bratwurst, some steaks, some other stuff... and I used my new green bags that Leandra got me from the market by her. They're nice BIG bags with strong handles, made from some very strong fabric - I don't think it's canvas, but I could be wrong - and they actually are GREEN, with gold logo of her food market on them. I like using them instead of "paper or plastic?" and the checkout person was rather amused. Seems that Costco checkers are rather easily amused. Must be a VERY boring job.

In all, I'm finding that making a few more "green" changes to my lifestyle really isn't cramping my own style any too fiercely. I like the idea of not being as much of a burden on the planet without feeling guilty for my very existance. Goddess has brought me here, there is obviously a place for humanity on the planet, and I'm really rather sick and tired of being expected to feel guilty for every flaw of every person - and for my own continued existance.

The really irritating bit about this "guilt tripping" is that a lot of it comes from those with whom I share an ideology in a lot of other ways. My own personal line gets drawn when someone starts about how "Americans are to blame for..." all the ills of the planet, or "Humans are to blame for..." every CO2 emmission, every use of fresh water, every dropping of dung. We are here. We evolved or were put here. If we are but highly evolved animals, then we have no more responsibility to "save the planet" than any other animal. If we were put here by Deity (however you percieve him/her) then we are the incarnation of Divine Intention and should not feel guilty for being here. Either way, the self-loathing that runs rampant particularly in caucasian Americans is not something that I am going to buy into anytime soon - like this lifetime. I'm here. I eat. I crap. I breathe. I commute. I also raise plants, plant trees and make an effort not to create too much "landfill". Beyond that - keep your guilt-tripping for yourself.

Man, it's no WONDER that I keep saying I'm unelectable... LOL

585 days.

The back garden

These are just the back garden, ya know. My leggy tomato plants (but you CAN just barely see the baby tomatoes in the lower left corner... and the wonderful squash and zucchini plants, and the cukes growing up the trellis (slightly). (If you click on these little pictures they get bigger and you can see details better)




Its not a really big garden, but its adequate for now, and hopefully it will give me what I really want - a few good veggies.

No new word on the houseflood bit. I'm still dealing with damp carpet inside the closet. Need to buy some WD40.

587 days

Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

Ok, so after having emptied the closet, turned on the dehumidifier to "VERY DRY", and training a fan on the carpet, I came home Friday to an almost-dry carpet.

This should not be.

Please refer to the really BAD drawing below of my house floorplan, sorta.

Ok. Over on the right side there, those colored boxes are as follows - The light blue one is the "powder room" or "1/2 bath" - as there only a sink and a toilet and 2 towel bars and a picture of rabbits in there. The green area is the lovely "Fibber McGee" closet that houses my cleaning machines, games, extraneous stuff with no other place to live, and my winter coats. The bright MAGENTA area is where the water heater lurks, and the yellow bit is where the furnace lives. Those bits that look like Madonna's Tits, or really sad mountains are bi-fold doors, and the other triangular bits are other doors. The livingroom/diningroom area is to the south and west of the colored spot, the laundry is north and the kitchen is northwest. For some reason, "Paint" is not letting me alpha-label anything, so you will have to use imagination.

Now, the really wet area was right in front of and behind the bifold doors in the "Green" zone, thus suggesting the culprit was, in fact, the water heater. However, that area is now quite dry - perhaps just a TINY bit dampish yet due to the massive amount of soak-down it had previously.

The interesting bit to all this is that I am unable to turn off the water supply to the water heater, because the valve is frozen in the "ON" position - doubtless rusted that way after over 15 years or more "ON".

The area beneath the heater appears damp also, but not soaked, nor is there a "puddle", and brave soul that I am, I took an extra-long really hot shower this morning to test this out. Hmmmm you may say. I must say, I have been saying "Hmmm" as well.

Now, we look to the north, to the toilet tank that has issues. I manually turned off the inflow to that on the day I discovered the cats were not possibly to blame for the flooding carpet (they're fairly small cats - they'd have to have peed non-stop for over 24 hours to get the carpet that soaked...) At that time I also started up the dehumidifier and fan combo. As of this morning, I've emptied that dehumidifier about 4 times now. The carpet is almost completely dry.

I am beginning to suspect it is that bad water tank in the downstairs commode - which will be a HELL of a lot cheaper to fix than replacing a water heater. A very GOOD water heater, btw - a 40 gal. Rheem "Fury" that does an excellent job for not a lot of cash. I really would hate to have to replace it with something lesser.

So. As of this morning, I have (mostly)dry carpet, a non-functioning commode, 2 pampered pussycats, a seemingly innocent water-heater, and a livingroom full of crap that I really do need to sort through and decide whether I want to keep it, freecycle it, or give it to the BFI man.

I'd have pictures of my veggie/flower garden for you, but I can't find my spare USB cable. Perhaps later.

588 days


588 days