The monkey throws a wrench or two

We were up on the hill above our little patio the other day staking out the location of a privacy screen.

We are intensely private people (Others have another, less flattering, way of putting it but we're sticking with intensely private thank you.) and maintain a naturally thick and heavy growth along our fence line to block the view in, but if the weekend neighbors to the north come right up to a particular section of fence-line, and if it's winter when the vegetation is a little sparser, they might be able to get a glimpse or two of our little patio area. So we're going to put a natural cedar-stick screen up there in that band of growth on our side of the fence to make it a little denser.

(When that property to the north went up for sale we intended to buy it to increase our privacy buffer but it was grossly overpriced. While we were waiting for reality to drop the price to something more reasonable some damn fool that should know better (He lives in the city but sells farm insurance in the area so knows the land values.) paid way too much and bought the place out from under us. Not to mention the upward kick that gave all of our property taxes that year!)

The day after we set out the stakes marking the limits of our intended screen we made a run into town. It was a windy day and when we got back we discovered that an old oak had fallen right on top of our stakes!

Wrench One!

Which is exactly why we stay out of the woods on windy days around here! We have lots of Water and Post Oak and when these trees die they get brittle and tend to come down with no warning.

First they shed the larger branches (With a single, sharp crack followed by a thud and believe me, you don't want to be part of that thud as the branch hits the ground!) and eventually the denuded trunk is held up by - well - not much, and a little wind in the right place snaps off what little is left of the root system and down it comes!

As long as we're not underneath it when that happens we can simply clean up the results. In this case, since the wood was still in pretty decent shape I decided to cut it into fireplace sized chunks. Not that we have a fireplace, or even a fire ring, but who knows, someday we might. . .

Of course now I need some sort of wood rack to put the rounds into to keep them dry and rot free until I get around to splitting them. I have several treated 2x10's left over from other projects I can make a platform with, so I drug out a couple of railroad ties we've had laying around for years intending to cut them into cribbing to keep the platform up off the ground. Only the chainsaw that I had just used to cut the tree into rounds decided it wasn't going to work anymore and barely managed one cut.

Wrench Two!

I checked the usual culprits, fresh fuel, chain not binding, pull and clean the plug, but that was just wishful thinking since I had a sinking feeling I knew what the issue was all along.

You see, when I pumped the primer bulb after putting fresh fuel in the saw, I noticed I was getting lots of teeny tiny bubbles and teeny tiny bubbles are not normal! So I drained the fresh fuel back out and did some poking around inside the fuel tank where I found the weighted fuel filter just rattling around loose instead of hanging on the end of the fuel line where it belongs. I fished the end of the fuel line out to where I could see it and found it was split and rotten.

Once again that ridiculously inefficient and environmentally questionable gas-alcohol mix that's been forced on us by well meaning but short sighted environmentalists helped along by savvy agribusiness has bitten me in the ass! Despite draining the fuel tank between uses, the alcohol has still managed to rot the fuel line.

So, forced into the role of mechanic, a role I'm not very well suited for, I started taking lots of pictures and disassembling the saw so I could get in there and replace the fuel lines.

The lines to and from the primer bulb are in pretty good shape, which is a good thing because the one running back into the fuel tank, the longer one on the top in the photo above, goes to some sort of fitting inside the tank and just doesn't want to come loose. Afraid I would  break something with disastrous results if I pulled any harder, I decided to just leave it as is. But as long as I was there I went ahead and replaced the shorter line even though it was still in good shape, (This rotting of the fuel line issue is not new and I have a stock of new, alcohol resistant, tubing on hand.)

but for some strange and frustrating reason, the particular bit of fuel line that runs from the filter in the tank up to the carburetor is a different size!! And of course I don't have that size. . .

Wrench Three!

So now the whole disassembled mess is cluttering up a corner of my workbench until we make another run into town and I can get the right tubing. . . Which will hopefully be soon since all my nicely cut rounds are still sitting out there on the ground!

Grasshopper love

In the greenhouse no less!!  Not sure that's the place I want a bunch of grasshopperets running around. . .

Note his glazed eyes and how he's hanging on for dear life.

Been there, done that!

I feel for you dude.

In the garden: Fall !!!

It's officially fall and around here that means our second growing season is under way.

Only mine is off to a pretty poor start. . .

I put in some lettuces, two small patches of different varieties, with the intention of adding more every few weeks or so to extend the harvest. They went in the ground September 10th and by the time they finally sprouted 11 days later I was beginning to think they were a bust! A few of the sprouts are just now sending up true leaves. I'll probably wait a little longer to let them mature a bit more before planting a second batch.

I also set out some radish seeds at the same time but that has definitely turned out to be a bust.  I got this one lone, deformed sprout for my efforts. I'll try setting out some fresh seed today and see what happens.

Around here broccoli transplants go into the ground in October so while I was planting the other stuff I started a few seeds under the grow light. As usual my grow light starts were pretty pathetic. Even though I had them right up close to the light and the light on from the time the seeds were put in the pots, the plants shot up as if they were in the dark and desperately trying to find light. As is often the case when this happens, it resulted in very weak sprouts that just didn't make it.

So I've planted a few more broccoli seeds but this time I'm leaving the grow-tray out in the greenhouse, cover on for protection against marauding grasshoppers and sitting up on an unused planter for faster night-time cooling. We'll see if that does any better.

Fall also means the humming birds are abandoning us for warmer climes. They turn up in droves in early September but before the month is out they're suddenly gone. One day there's the constant drone of dozens battling around the feeder, the next day there's one or two stragglers left. While they were here they went through two and a half gallons of syrup, requiring refilling the feeder every 10 hours or so, now I'll probably end up tossing the half gallon I have left since it won't keep until they return in the spring.

But we still have a few of the usual creatures hanging around.

It will probably be November before the frogs and toads pull the blanket over their heads to wait for warmer weather, sometime in late February, early March.

And most of the insects, including this striking beetle which I found standing next to me this morning, will disappear for a few months as well. 

But the rabbits, though their numbers will diminish, will stick around through the winter, helping to clean up the seed birds have tossed out of the feeders.

'shrooms anyone??

I looked out across the field this morning and thought we had some trash laying out there, maybe a paper towel that got loose and was blowing around, but when I went out to pick it up I found this instead.

Nope, not Frisbee's, not paper plates, not even wheels off a child's wagon; but mushrooms.

Since my last post about the Evening Star Rain Lilly's we've added another 2.5" of rain and have far exceeded the 100 year average for September, which is a really good thing when you're in a 7 year drought. In fact for this year so far we are 5 inches ahead of the average and the last time we were on the good side of that average was 2009.

For right now, the last of that rain fell about 24 hours ago and since then it's been warm and humid, just what these guys live for.

They're so big I was able to get this photo of the underside with my relatively large Cannon SX50 without disturbing them.

Just so you know, not being a 'shroom guy, and having a reasonable sense of self-preservation, I left these specimens alone rather than risk a pharmacological disaster.

So they're still out there doing their mushroomy thing.

Evening Star in the morning

It rained most the night around here, adding another inch and a half to our September total of 2.61" We still have an inch to go to reach the long-term September average but considering that in August we had absolutely no measurable rainfall at all, I'd say we're doing pretty good. And there may be more rain coming tonight as the remnants of a Pacific hurricane drift our way.

You can't smell this but it's almost chocolaty

One immediate result, besides lots of red-clay mud tracked into the house, is the sudden appearance of the Evening Star Rain Lilly. These little guys, each on the end of a long stalk, are very delicate and don't usually last very long. In fact the stalks often lay over in the slightest of breezes or the lightest of rains.

The sound of lizard feet

Ever hear the sound of lizard feet on Juniper bark??

I have.

I was standing next to a Juniper, we call them Red Heart Cedar down here, watching a small Texas Spiny Lizard stalking and chasing down ants under the vegetation near the base of it.

I had stepped out of the barn to check out the going's on down in the pond because I heard the piercing cry, cry, cry of the Red Tailed Hawk. Turns out there wasn't any goings on at the moment, no deer, no egrets, and no hawks, at least none that I could see, but that's not unusual as they, the hawks, are very shy and skittish, but I just stood there for a while anyway.

I don't do that enough, just stand there. It seems like I'm always  'busy' and don't take the time to just be.

But on the rare occasions when I do Zen out I'm often rewarded.

Not my photo by the way

Today, as I watched the busy little lizard on the ground go about the business of living just a foot or so from my toes, I heard this faint but rapid tickity, tickity tickity, beside me.

I looked over to find a larger Spiny Lizard clinging to the bark of the Juniper I was standing next to, head down, as he checked out what was going on in his territory.

Just a few inches from my left hand, he did a couple 'look at me, I'm big and strong' pushups, then skittered a few more inches down the tree.

Now I knew for certain that I didn't imagine it, that his tiny feet definitely made little tickity, tickity, sounds as he ran, rapid little ticketies, like someone pulling quickly on a very tiny zipper.

A few more pushups and another short sprint down the tree and the little guy on the ground gave way and ran off as the big guy leapt to the ground and chased him far enough to make sure the message was received. 'This is my tree and you need to stay away!'

So, like I said; this morning I heard the sound of lizard feet. I don't know what it means, or even that it has to mean anything beyond the experience, but maybe I'll take it as a sign that I should try to spend less time being busy and more time just being.

If nothing else it's a hell of an excuse for vegging out!

What do you mean what am I doing?? I'm listening for the sound of running lizards!!!

Time to buy sugar!

The hummingbird pre-migration gathering is in it's early stages around here and pretty soon we'll be going through a full feeder in a day and a half.  Time to make up a good big batch of syrup so we can keep up!