The watering of the garden is on pause for management reasons.
We picked up 0.2" of rain of the hoped-for 1".
I am still watering the orchard and I watered the pecan-and-hickory grafts. I water the cattle and chickens.
I am behind in my weeding in the gardens. I should not weed if the soil is too wet because of compaction. If I water too soon after weeding, the weeds will strike root and come back to life because I am a weeding minimalist; I deposit the weeds in the middle of the row for the sun to deal with them.
Weeding
Has to get done. Not my favorite part of gardening.
In my defense, I had other issues pop up.
Clutter
We had a sibling meeting at Mom's house to start clearing out clutter before the estate sale. We all have a few things weaknesses with regards to "wanting to have a few extra on-hand, just in case...". For Mom, it was cake mixes. I shudder to think what my kids will have to deal with.
"Monique! Can you believe it? I found another five, fifty pound boxes filled with old bread wrappers!"
"Unique! That is nothing! I found six more pallets of one-pound building blocks labeled C 2+2 in the barn."
Chicks
Another issue is preparing housing for the chicks as they get larger. Today marks a week on our property and they are getting close to busting out of the seams of the dog-crate.
To that end, I repurposed an old truck cap. I am tested it last night to see if it was predator proof. I put bones from a rotisserie chicken inside and closed the door. Given the raccoon and possum traffic around the cherry tree it should see a lot of pressure. If the bones are unmolested in the morning, I will assume the enclosure is good-to-go and will start working on the run.
Lilo and Switch
The skirting did not work. Once again, outsmarted by animals with brains the size of a marbles.
Last nights attempted fix was to wrap the trunk with steel poultry netting and then six-inches above the netting to run a ring of wire shimmed 1" away from the trunk. Then I attached the netting to ground and the ring-of-wire to a 0.2 Joule electric fence charger.
The picture in my head is that the raccoon(s) will have their back feet on the chicken-wire (the ground) and they will be both the switch and the load when they encounter the hot-wire. I do not know if the set-up will survive very long. Animals and humans that get tickled by electricity grip-and-spasm.
My impression of raccoons is that they are very impressed by electrical shock. They have sensitive hands. They inspect by feeling and smelling. Even a fraction of a Joule, in an animal of that size, makes an impression. For the record, the no-load voltage was about 2kV.
The set-up might not survive all night but it should be memorable to the first few raccoons who encounter the rig.
The time was not set on the trail cam. Subtract about six hours to get a better time.
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| You can see the wire ring about three inches above the bottom of the plastic skirting |
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| "Going up, up, up and a..." |
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| "...a puff of smoke..." |
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| "...no it ain't no joke..." |
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| The system is not perfect. The wire energizes once a second and a raccoon can slip over the wire without getting zapped but it should tickle most of them. |
Phones
My phone is going tango-uniform. System updates are no longer available.
I am looking at various "rugged" phones. Any guidance will be appreciated.
The Umidigi Bison is at the price-point I am willing to spend but the reviews say that it has issues with the charging port being fragile.
Pictures
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| Laguna Beach climbing rose |
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| Dortman climbing rose |
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| Fru Dagmar Hastrup rugosa hybrid |
Joe if you no longer need your blocks of C 2 + 2, I would like to buy them. Woody
ReplyDeleteSilly puddy yaa know.
ReplyDeleteSerious puddy
DeleteI bought a refurb Motorola One 5G Ace. I've found some kind of case is mandatory for me. I also use a tempered glass screen protector. I always drop it on hard surfaces.. floors, street, porch, shop.... Uses a usb C, which seems to be more robust than the Apple type. It's got a nice camera, and that's the real reason I bought it. My company phone, Apple or Samsung, was usually in an Otterbox, personal phone gets an orange cover like this: https://a.co/d/1L2kf6a
ReplyDeleteI've always had good luck with Motorola phones.
ReplyDeleteYour issues with watering sparked the following ...
ReplyDeleteI finally gave up on finishing clearing all my downed trees and getting them cut and split into firewood in time to get a terraced garden installed. So I bought some cheap galvanized raised beds and got some tomato, pepper, eggplant plants from Lowes garden shop planted. Then this morning I planted some bush beans and zucchini.
Small enough to handwater.
Sort of a D- effort, but maybe I'll get some homegrown produce this summer after all.
You can deal with a fragile charging port by buying a magic tag to convert your phone to wireless charging. You have to remember to bring the charging pad with you , but that's what I've done with all of my phones since one died because the charging port wore out.
ReplyDelete