Chapter 30. Turning Thirty

This summer I will turn thirty all right...my second go-round at it.

I dug this morning despite the coughing. Actually, it gave me an excuse to partake of my homemade cough syrup (one part maple syrup, one part honey, one part fresh lemon juice, two parts Bushmills). Needless to say, I feel a LOT better.

Here is the hole:

Here it is with the pool:

Here is the pile:

And I have some very bad news. My wonderful plum tree is about 3/4 dead; very few of its branches are bursting into bloom. I still have the wild plum, which is an odd but prolific tree.

                                              Here it is last year.....

I am guessing that the Santa Rosa plum on the right has finally rotted. This makes me very sad. It had the best fruit ever, except for maybe the one I used to have out in Winters. Oh man, I do love a good clafoutis. But I guess we all have our life expectancy to adhere to. I figure I have one more thirty left in me.

Chapter 29. I'll Huff and I'll Puff...

But no air is actually coming out so you're safe.

Dig. Hack, wheeze. Dig. Hack, wheeze, okie blow. Ad infinitum. I dig and I dig and the hole, she ain't growin! I'm SICK and I dig, and the hole she ain't growin! Tain't fair!

Yeah go ahead and make fun of me for digging and wheezing and accomplishing pretty much nothing. The hard part is actually walking across the yard to the MASSIVE pile where the dirt is accumulating, carrying a heavy shovel full of dirt and swinging it HARD against the pile so that the sticky crap dislodges itself from the shovel. Anyway, go ahead and laugh, but this summer when I have a cute pond, you will eat those snickers! No wait...I didn't mean you get candy....

Oh well. The little chardettes are surviving, and the peas too, and the green beans, the last being still  indoors. I sprinkled some Russian kale seeds from my friend Vera out with the chard and peas. I hope they come up and I can tell them from the weeds, cuz the weeds is comin in fast!

I have no idea why I'm writing in some kind of vernacular today, nor do I know what vernacular it even is. I'm sick, pity me!

Chapter 28. Minimum Daily Requirement

Twelve shovelsful...that is as much as I can managed whilst sneezing and wheezing and coughing. And to think you can't even see the difference! I bet it'll look exactly the same until the day I sink the pond in it.

I may not have grass, but by golly I have green ground...

Yesseree! I have a grand crop of moss!

Beats brown mud any day.

Chapter 27. Hypochondriasis

I have a cold! Nothing hurts all that bad, and yet...Oh man do I ever feel sorry for myself.  No way can I did a hole today! Well, no big deal, the weather is holding. I will dig tomorrow. I had to drive all the way to Truckee this morning to pick up a dog. That about wore me out! Now....if I could just stop feeling guilty....and feeble. I hate to feel feeble!

This is The Dunkster, who MIGHT be going to a new home tomorrow, and our new trainer.

.

Chapter 26. Time Lapse Photography

This is going to be so slow that the photos are nearly the same! I'd just like to point out that I might end up carrying this on for YEARS, but...I'm hoping that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Second in the series:

Funny....it looks so barely touched, and then I go back to the very first photo in this blog and the place where the hole is now looks so flat and smooth and....boring! Hilarious that I like it better with the hole than without, even in this horrible state.

Chapter 25. Mostly Drained Out

Finally manged to get out and dig a dozen or so big wet shovelsful today. Have to dig that many shovelsful every day for the next several days before the rain comes back. Hard work, considering that I took a dive at training yesterday. I'm a little stiff.

First of a daily series:

It's so hard to see the progress! I mean, I can tell mainly because of the size of the pile of excavated dirt. Luckily, it's not very hard to dig right now. Wet and heavy, yes, but for some reason it's easier to dig in the gravel when it's really wet like this. Roots are becoming a bit of an issue....

Here is Liz enjoying last week's roof runoff:

Chapter 24. Under Water

The combination of The Asshat's rainwater and my own has left me enmired in muck up to my armpits. The Main Hole has entirely disappeared.

I had to get out there with a hoe and dig a small trench to let the water out of the yard.

        I want this "water feature" in my back yard pond-- "Diana of the Chase."

She is the one I named my dog Diana after, because Diana is also a beautiful black hunter. I'd even like her if she were six inches tall...assuming the water wasn't covering her.  I am dreaming now...it's all a yard fantasy that lets me briefly forget this horrible place. Just a little beauty and grace, that's all I want.

I bet other people have much more interesting fantasies. Mine is just about drainage. How sad is that?

Addendum
Got two gallons of free organic okara today. I got it for myself, but...with two gallons, I can't be greedy! The hens think it's manna from heaven.

Chapter 23. In Which She Is Housebound

It's hard to dig a hole when it immediately fills up with rainwater. The deep end of The Main Hole has over a foot of water...but this kinda makes you wonder why I didn't dig a hole years ago, doesn't it? Just a tad slow on the uptake, I guess.

I should call Yahoo
to report that I have
found a huge prehistoric
footprint in my yard!

As for the Ladies, they subscribe to the WACO philosophy...We Ain't Comin Out.

I'm just staying inside and researching what to do with the cracked up foundation (caused by moisture, according to what I've been reading). Am I actually complaining about the rainy weather? Well sure, in a way; it's not exactly convenient! But it's normal! Too bad for me, and too bad for the hens and dogs; we are all cooped up and restless. I guess we'll all just...eat.

Chapter 22. Mud

Here's what my back yard looks like:

Therefore, here is what my house looks like, including, yes, the tub.

It's all so unbelievably horrible. What a way to live. I have long believed that lawn is a waste of water, time, and energy, but I'm starting to see the point. Lawn keeps your house cleaner in the winter and cooler in the summer. As soon as the mush is under control, I will be planting the shade-lawn seeds that I already bought for the purpose.

Well....I just have to keep remembering that the photos will look drastically better in about four months. SIGH. This is a record of progress, not current beauty.

I am the bucket QUEEN!
Click on this picture
to play "Count the Buckets"!







The little seedlings survived the rain. I don't think it was exactly torrential, but still, for their first night, it was perhaps traumatic. They are kind of beaten down but NOT limp or wilted. Not spectacular, but hey, they are not bad at all.

FINALLY...the big OOPS. It'll be so nice when I don't have these damn containers everywhere looking for a place to be.

Chapter 21. Peas Released into the Wild

Run free, peas!

Uh huh. They are just hanging there limply. That's the thanks I get for digging them an area, filling it in again with compost, and then releasing them into the sunshine? And planting their nearly invisible chard buddies in the foreground?

Well, by 9pm it'll be raining, they say. I hope the peas are happy then.

Peas out! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Chapter 20. The Misguided Fly Fight

Last year, I tried to get rid of flies. I had a litter of puppies, and I tried very hard to make sure the poops were picked up immediately, but the flies were just horrible, and in fact may at one point have made the puppies sick. Well, I had fly traps near where the puppies stayed when they were outside (of course they were indoors a lot but they needed exercise too!). I figured I wanted to catch the flies that were right there...Come to find out, my fly traps were just bringing filthy disease-ridden flies from all around.

I should have hung them over the fence into The Asshat's back yard.

And. Come to find out that moisture draws flies. And what is the one thing I'm having so much trouble controlling in my unfortunate back yard? Moisture. That's what this whole thing is all about. Moisture is where they breed and pupate or whatever you would call it when they are developing into flies!

The Asshat caused the flies! That rat bastard! He likely caused me to lose three beautiful innocent puppies. That breaks my freaking heart.

I have ordered some Fly Predators for this year.

OK that looks kind of...well not gross, but irritating. Just what I need, more flying insects, right? Except that I'm pretty sure that's a US penny he's standing on. He is teensy. And he has no interest in bothering anyone except flies.

They won't start coming until mid March, as some computer somewhere determines when the flies will be laying eggs in my area. The eggs become (oh man) maggots (I swear I never saw any maggots in my yard! Holy crap, I would have freaked! Were they getting born elsewhere???) and then turn into little chrysalises, and THAT is where the predators go. They lay eggs in those things and so, rather than becoming another fly, a chrysalis becomes a bedroom chamber for a bunch of new predators.

Works for me. But I guess the little buggers grow up and leave home, ingrates that they are, and so the mailman brings more every month. Cheap.

My fingers are so crossed that they're even more bent than usual. I really really do not want another fly fog to descend upon this beleaguered yard.

Chapter 19. Does Digging Cure Arthritis? Ummmm....

Surprise! Rain again last night! Not enough to fill any buckets, just enough to cause 16 muddy feet. NO I'm not complaining! I just dutifully re-mop.

Floor mopped
twice yesterday
--------->











I got up and went to a seniors' exercise class this morning. They say that exercise keeps the joints happy, but I'm here to tell you, that doesn't seem to be true if the exercise is digging. They (meaning all these websites dedicated to making people with arthritis feel better about themselves) do recommend gardening, but they probably don't mean much more than dead-heading the roses or mowing with a self propelled machine.

Well, maybe after a few months of exercise class. Not that I can quit digging until then; I just mean maybe it won't bother me as much. Actually, I should bookmark this issue. It'd be really interesting to come back to this page in a few months to see if all this digging actually improves the arthritis issue. I'd have thought the joints would prefer NOT to be abused, but apparently they kind of like it. We shall see.

Hey anything is ok if you have the right pain meds. So...pardon me while I go tell my doctor I wish to replace her skinny 30-year-old ass with an older model.

Chapter 18. The Devil Psoriatic Arthritis

I am now paying for the digging bigtime. Yesterday I wasn't tired, so I kept going twice as far as I had planned, and today I can barely see thru the headache. My hands are swollen and my neck is stuck. My shoulder blades are tingling and buzzing like they are covered with angry ants.

I just have to learn to be smarter. I can do practically anything but I have to mete it out in small portions. It's hard when it just doesn't hurt, isn't tiring, seems easy!

I didn't really think I had dug that much, but actually, over the last couple days I must have...this plastic pond is like 4.5' long, maybe more, and look at this:

I am apparently almost there. Zounds. I do have to dig the deep part still, but basically the rest of the thing is dug. The deep part is very little (maybe a fourth?) of the actual surface area. I think it'll only be one or two digging sessions. The gravel might make it difficult, though.

Once I got the process going, it went very quickly.

This does not mean the digging is over, not by a long shot--after my headache backs off for a day or two. I will spend that time researching. My newest worry is backfill. How do I fill in around the sides if I have dug too much away from them? It has that pesky lip there. Also, I think I will need to use a level to make sure that the pond tilts ever so slightly away from the retaining wall, so that I can control the inevitable overflow into a little [mostly dry and scenic] "creekbed" that wends across the yard and out the side.

So I'm sidelining today.

The peas are getting huge. I looked up "pinching peas back" and, although they are very young and are still inside and in planting cells, I decided to do it. Well, I did half of them. Don't want to ruin the whole crop, just in case. But they do need to get outside fairly soon...before they take over the indoor world. Frankenpeas! They already have tendrils, which makes me think they need to be outside hanging onto wire fencing.

The beans are no slouches, either, although oddly enough, two of them sprouted upside down. I noticed that they had bizarre formations where leaves should be, and eventually I realized those were roots! In the immediate foreground you can see the two, after I got them out of the soil and planted them right side up. I have no idea what will become of them.

You can see a syringe in the lower right section of that picture, a huge syringe for force-feeding sick puppies. I have been using it to water the seedlings.

Here are a couple pictures just for fun...completely off the topic. One is pretty hilarious; it's one normal egg, two pullets' eggs, and two "fart eggs." 

The smallest one is about an inch long and fits into the bowl of a 1/2 TEASPOON measure. I think its contents would probably fill the one teaspoon, but it's the size and shape of the half.

Finally, here are the dogs drinking raw goats' milk: 

Chapter 17. I'm Diggin as Fast as I Can, Captain!

I have one week of clear weather ahead of me. I wonder how big that damn hole would be if I dug out 3 buckets of dirt a day. Well, yeah, I guess it would be 21 buckets bigger, even I can do that much math, but...what does it all mean in the grand scheme of digging? in the grand scheme of finished-ness!

Yes, I could do more than that. But no, then I probably could NOT do the bed for the peas and chard at the same time. In the words of the immortal Mr. Scott,  "Even if we were under full scale attack I couldn't move any faster, not and maintain a safety factor." Jeepers, I am kind of an old gal, and as even happened to the Enterprise, I'm getting obsolete! Wait...I have to decide if "I" is the ship or the engineer...

Scotty: I've always found that a ship is only as good as the engineer who takes care of her.

OK so I noticed something about the couple dozen fava seeds that are soaking. The skin is not splitting. Instead, it's getting kinda wrinkly, which seems...airtight?

It's true that it's only been a couple days, but when I sprouted some lentils, the little "tails" of the sprouts were showing after only eight hours. So I decided to pick at these favas a bit. The first one had a hard skin that I picked at to find the sprout, but once I found the right spot I could see that it definitely had a little sprout-tail sticking out. I did another one. Same thing. I did five, and all five were sprouting. But without assistance, their hard skins were not splitting or even getting beyond leathery. I guess this could explain the moldy little poodle-balls that were in my tiny greenhouses; maybe the skin needs assistance as the seeds are, after all, ten years old.

Oh don't remind me. I went to Scotland for my 50th birthday, and it's ten years later. Jeeze. Fifty seems so young and fragile!

So I picked the sprout spot on each bean except one. I feel fairly confident that I did not leave the only defective one out of 25 or so. I want to see what it does without assistance/interference.

Here is the space where the favas, peas, and chard will go.



OMG! I have an apparition! I swear to the goddess, there was NO fog visible to the human eye!







<-----lol
dog
poop!




Oh wait, dang, I have developed a scratch on the lens....now I have to be careful in the sunlight! (yeah I coulda scooped the poop, but give me a minute, I just barely got up!)

Eventually the peas and favas will come out and basil and sunflowers will go in instead. I won't ever pull chard out on purpose; it keeps replenishing itself for two or three years if watered and not attacked by German shepherds. This spot looks gloomy now, on February 1, but in a couple months the sun will move around and this will be the hottest place in the yard.

UPDATE!
Oh lordy lordy, I have been digging (6 buckets) and made a horrifying discovery. Here is The Main Hole now, nearly as big (area-wise) as the pond going into it.

Note: My Number 1
watching the
proceedings ---------->









And in the bottom of the hole, one shovel depth down:

Yup. Gravel. Oh this is going to be fun.



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