Saturday, August 31, 2013

Of Mice and Mouses

Get a text from The Wife while was on a jobsite this week. A mouse ran in front of her in the garage. Mouse Armageddon has begun here at the half acre.  She hates them with a passion. It is understandable where we live at since we are surrounded by tobacco fields and tree farms. It's not the first time we've had them but I have been pretty successful in trapping them in the past. So it's "clean out garage day." Mentions of getting a cat and mouse- proofing the floor vents also came up but I don't think we'll go that far.
Up early this morning with the dogs and it was clear as could be, stars everywhere. Now we are covered in a fog bank.


Sorry about the image but this tablet takes very bad pictures. I had to get a keyboard for my laptop and ended up losing a clip that held in the ribbon that connects it to the board. Only me. Finally get around to fixing it and stopped within 5 minutes of getting the new parts. I use this Microsoft Surface tablet, mainly when I travel as it is so much smaller than the laptop but the keyboard is small too. Well, that should have gone without saying. Off to the garage and maybe gardening later. My row covers came in so hope to get everything else cleared out and planted.
AAAAAAAOOOOOOOGGGGGGAAAAAAAA.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

It's Tuesday

Well, I got most of the stuff I wanted done Saturday done. Didn't clean truck but that's OK. It will rain soon enough. Needs oil change so I will have dealership do it. Got the septic tank lid dug out so we'll see what they say about it now. If it's not the right one I am covering everything up and building my building. I'll pay a fine. And I got the mower blades changed and a lot in the ground. No pictures though, sorry.
Decided last night to turn on the sprinkler and water everything good. Went in the house and forgot about it. Remembered on the way to work this morning. The Wife got it for me but it ran all night. Great! If it's not Mother Nature drowning my plants, I am.
That's it. Still not in good mood about the sprinkler.....

Dampens my spirits. :)

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Beautiful

It has turned into a beautiful Saturday morning so a lot is getting done today. Change lawn mower blades, re-till garden for more plantings (hope row cover material comes in today),


 dig more on septic tank (insert angry comments here),


mow, clean truck, clean on house, etc. Busy. Off to store for blades. Enjoy the weather kids.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Harvest Monday 08/19/2013

Not much harvest- wise this week. Peppers. That's all. Eggplant is coming on nicely but realistically I am in full fall garden mode. Here's the spreadsheet for the week.


I hope to get a few more tomatoes off of the vines but for the most part they are pretty well played out. 
Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are doing this week in their gardens. Hope you're doing better than me. :)

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Good Evening


Well it has been a somewhat blah weekend. It rained all day yesterday so not much got done. I did pick up some more carrot seeds as the ones I planted got washed away this past week and looked around for some row cover material but didn't find any. So did the turnips so I need to get more of those but the cabbage seems to be holding up as is the eggplant and peppers. Take a quick peek. 





I have another project going on. the notorious outbuilding. We need to get one built so we can get all of the crap out of the garage so we can actually use it for it's intended purpose. Well here in Harnett County you actually have to have your septic tank inspected before you can build anything on your property. $100.00 is what it costs. Doesn't make sense to me nor anyone else around here but chalk it up to government. Anyway I had to dig up the top of the septic tank so they could look at the filter. After that they will sign off on it then I have to pay for the building permit and hopefully that will go through. I also have to submit the plans to the builder since they still have the covenants on the development. Going in circles. 


I kinda got pissed this afternoon and started ripping out tomato plants that were just pretty much devastated by this summer's odd weather. I know I said I that some were still blooming and I actually found a German Johnson today. Hopefully the Squash Bugs have moved on as I didn't really enjoy them this year either. I took all of the plants and dumped in the woods across the road. 



I did say I had some news. I am adopted, was back when I was a wee TD. I've always known I was adopted and even knew my birth mother's name. I was also told that there were a few other children by this same person. But with limited resources there wasn't really much I could do. I have worked on this on and off for a number of years but not with much success. With today's info age I was actually able to track down my birth mother. Then I received a message in response to a posting I left on Ancestry.com. It was from an administrator there saying that she had a response to that posting, which was that I was looking for children of a doctor (names withheld at this point folks.) So here's the basics in a nutshell. I currently have, beyond my sister that I grew up with and is also adopted but we are not biologically related, two biological sisters and two half brothers and two half sisters. I have talked online with one of the sisters but we haven't talked on the phone as of yet but hopefully soon. I have talked with one half brother and my other sister. It has been quite an interesting time of it. I still am finding out more stuff all the time. Ancestry is a great site plus there are a number of other info sites that I used. 

Well that's it for the week. Off to find some row cover material. Until next time go find your septic tank inspection cover. You never know when you'll need it.  

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

I'm Here

Yes I am still around so you can stop breathing a sigh of relief. Just been really busy these last few weeks. Weekend before last we headed back to WV to get Squeak and attend the Wife's High School reunion. Sadly not too many people showed up for the formal event and much less showed up for the Saturday morning golf match. Myself and a friend of mine actually joined this group and in total we had 7. Pretty bad but with today's social media and the like it is easy to keep in touch with people nowadays. Miss WV. Funny thing is Amy and I were talking on the way back Sunday, spending the $400 million lottery that we were going to win, and I told her that I'd just go buy a farm over in Pocahontas County, next to the mountains. 200 acres with a house in the middle or towards the back of the property where no one from the road could see it. Just hide away and putter around my days. Well, I am still here so that means I didn't win.



Well I finally broke down and submitted my plans to the Harnett County planning department so I could get my building permit for the storage building I need to build. First thing I had to do is show the location of the building, the property lines, then dig up the lid on the septic tank so they could inspect it. Yes you heard right (saw right.) A nice little BS trip they do here. Septic tank inspection before anything can be done on your property. Another $100.00 wasted. 

Squeak and I played paintball this past Saturday as he was having withdrawals but we only made it for about 2 hours or so. Man it was hot and humid. So we spent the rest of the day on the couch watching movies and eating stuff. Wifey was at the beach.

Sunday I got pissed off and ripped out the green beans and tilled everything up. I planted turnips and cabbages that I had started. Still have some more items to get going but I need to get my hands on a ow cover to help the seeds start on the carrots, etc. Anyone know where to get one that would be local? This coming weekend most of the remaining tomato plants are coming out, water lines plugged off and beds turned over. I am pretty much had it with this growing year for summer crops. 





There's a new show to us that we have started watching and I find that it has a lot of good information in it. It's called Growing a Greener World and it is on Saturday mornings where I'm at. We DVR it to watch early Sunday morning. The last episode I saw was about controlling pests organically in the garden. I am seriously considering this next year. Anything to help. Here's a link to that episode. 

We had a good picking of peppers this week but I never weighed them out for Harvest Monday so I'll put them in next week's. 

That's it except ole TD has some news of a different nature (no I didn't win the lottery, seriously.) I am still putting some things together and I hope to get everything done for this coming Saturday. Let's just say that I am adopted. 

Until next time Grow a Greener World kids.