Alan was kind enough to share some Mason Bee Larvae with me in the form of a log with mudded up holes in it. I’m trying to find the ideal spot for it where the larvae won’t get wet.
He also pointed out an article in the Home & Garden & Advertising Blitz section of the Oregonian talking about Mason bees and their shelters. According to the picture, they live in clumps of cigarettes.
There’s been an odd smell in our house as of late. Its been somewhat unpleasant, and quite embarrassing. Its definitely animal in origin, but none of our pets have done anything. To get a better understanding of the aroma, I crawled under the house today to investigate. It did smell. There’s a sump pump that removes water that collects under the house during the rain, a couple packets of “Mouse Killer” and 4 rat carcasses. I think we have located the source.
I was left with the chore of removing them. Quite a job considering the various stages of decay.
An instructor left a message for me to call him back about a problem. I did, and left a message. His phone message said I could also leave a message for a local mushroom cultivar. I was curious, so I googled the grower and couldn’t find a site. I did find a cool abstract on cultivating and marketing mushrooms. Almost tempting to try, though I can’t imagine where I’d keep a shitake covered oak log.
The people across the street, whose yard is a wild, tangled mess, are stealing our birds. They’re throwing peanuts, sunflower seeds, and mixed bird seed all over. Why just yesterday when walking Barley, I saw 7 different species pigging out. I’m a little miffed because they were in our yard, eating our seed. They all seemed to disappear after I put a pile of Belgian Biscuit Malt on the ground. Even the squirrels won’t eat it. I’ve gotten rid of the Biscuit, and replaced it with more sunflower seeds, but they won’t come back.
In response to an article a friend sent me yesterday, I’ve decided to post two completely useless posts that do nothing but list stuff in my yard. It may have some insights, but I can’t help but sense that its a parody itself. Regardless, here’s a list of the birds that have visited so far this year.
So take that.
I was pleased to finally find some shade tolerant ground cover that will be happy in our yard and isn’t a pest (ivy). Heck, the whole volume, Native Plants in the Coastal Garden is excellent. Here are the plants that appeal to me the most:
Michelle and I hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner. It went much smoother than expected, and was a great deal of fun. Her mom, brother and my sister all came down for dinner, and hung around afterwards.
I suspect the free-range, anti-biotic free turkey has a much higher level of L-Tryptophan than standard turkey-like creatures. It was a great bird though, and there’s plenty left over for cran-turkey sandwiches.
I spent much of the weekend working on finishing the dining set my grandparents gave us. My mom did the hard work of stripping the previous finish off (yes, I’ve heard plenty of “your mom is a stripper” jokes already). I’ve been putting it off for some time, but it needs to be done by Thanksgiving. I used Watco Danish Oil for everything except the chairs, which I’ll do soon. It really brought the wood back to life. I used natural because Michelle isn’t a fan of dark oak (or oak in general), but this very old set has some really nice detail, and even some random quarter-sawn pieces mixed in. After oiling, the table and sideboard exude color. Now I’m waiting for the first coat of water-based polyurethane to dry. I’m putting urethane on the tops of the table and sideboard so it has scratching, heat, and water resistance. Please God, don’t let the cat get on the table as soon as I leave.
Server was down most of the afternoon because the guy installing the dishwasher shut down the breaker. That included my computer. Small price to pay for having a new dishwasher. Its done a marvelous job of removing the specks and marks our manual efforts left over the past 4 weeks.
Only down side, the washer is at the very top of the energy use range for comparable models. Its no energy star, which probably isn’t a big concern for landlords. At least we’ll save water.
Our landlord finally stopped by and we hauled off the 5 dead appliances stored at our place. The squirrels were somewhat miffed by our moving stuff in the shed around, but they’re back to business hiding away walnuts. They filled up the fertilizer spreader, which is quite comical to see. The crook of the walnut tree itself is also packed full of the green skinned nuts.
Now we just have to wait for the new washing machine to arrive. Then life will be, well, it’ll be something like what we’d expect normal to be like.
There aint nothin in the world that I like better
Than bacon n lettuce n homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin, out in the garden
Get you a ripe one, dont pick a hard ‘un
Plant ’em in the spring, eat em in the summer
All winter without em is a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big-un
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money cant buy
That’s true love and home grown tomatoes
