Of mice and men (and bats and drywall and sit-ups)

I am still here.

I have been battening down the hatches for winter and doing some touch-up inside the house.

I was distressed to see that mice or voles have already girdled a significant number of my apple trees. I am usually much more aggressive with my rodent control efforts but slacked off a little bit this year. That was a mistake.

I can probably save most of them if I heap dirt over the damaged section. The rodents usually don't scrape off ever living cell of the cambium and as long as there is a bridge spanning from the roots to the top...the tree can survive.

The unprotected cambium is vulnerable to drying out, UV and maybe rapid freezing. Heaping soil over the damaged area gives the tree a fighting chance. The downside is that I might get scion rooting so my dwarf trees will not remain dwarf.

SO, some shovel work is on the docket for tomorrow morning.

That was an expensive mistake.

One oddity is that the voles/mice did not bother the G.935/Bud118 trees. Those trees were an accident. I didn't have any more appropriate rootstock than Bud118 on hand. B.118 makes a very large tree. Later, I acquired some Geneva 935 that makes a very productive, small tree. Rather than waste the year's growth of the roots, I grafted 4" of G.935 on top of the B.118 and then the actual fruiting variety I wanted on the G.935.

Bud118 has corky bark that has a plate-like outward appearance. The G.935 bark is as smooth as a baby's butt. Not "good science" but it looks like rodents have a strong preference for the Geneva rootstocks over the Russian ones. My guess is the mice took one bite of the B.118 and didn't like the taste or the effort and moved on. 

Basketball hoops

I took the basketball hoop off the west end of the garage.

Bats had taken up residence behind it and they deposited guano in inconvenient places.

I think the bats like the metal siding because red squirrels could not scramble over it and attack them. Red Squirrels will not turn up their noses at a meal of meat.

I like having bats around, just not on the west end of my garage.

I intend to research structures for bats and recycle the material. I suspect I will mount it on two four-by-fours and sheath the legs with chimney pipe to deter squirrels and such.

Drywall repair

The inside work involves drywall repair. There was little point in repairing it while Kubota was here.

Small dings and holes are easy. There are places where I need to replace the entire 16" span between the studs.

We are leaning toward installing wainscotting because the dogs bring in a lot of mud and paneling will clean up more easily than paint.

Exercise

Today I am doing sit-ups when the alarm goes off.

I hate sit-ups, yes I do.

But I do them anyway. I stick my feet beneath the sofa otherwise I end up doing leg-lifts.