Five Oak Trees - Picture taken Summer 2007


After Pictures..After HTP and I Hauled Away the Logs


More After Pictures..After HTP and I Hauled Away the Logs


Our Very Neat New Log Piles


Our Very Neat New Log Piles


Gypsy Had to Inspect the Log Piles


Word of the Day

HMO-sapien - A person who understands HMOs.

Woodtick Count - 9

I've got a dental appointment today. I'm so tired right now that I might fall asleep in the dental chair. Physical exercise hang-over. Last night I went to bed at 8:30 PM and just got up at 10 PM to let Gypsy outside and kennel her for the night. Tired!

HTP and I...mainly HTP...constructed a brand new raised bed garden for me that fits perfectly in my "dog kennel" garden. It's a tad bigger than the six other raised beds. 12 sq. feet of surface area. The others only have 8 sq. feet of surface area. I'm a firm believer in the square foot gardening method (Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew)...when I'm not gardening in containers like Earthboxes. He built the garden using four 7' lengths of 5x6 lumber and four 2' lengths of 5x6" lumber that our local lumberyard cut for us. Sturdy! It looks wonderful. Not an easy task to construct. We had to remove all the dirt from the area and level it out. With no place to put the dirt and a limited area in which to work, woodticks crawling all over the place, mosquitoes showing up to add just one more touch of misery, HTP still managed to build my raised bed garden box. However, by the time we'd finished the construction, filling the garden with topsoil, and cleaned up the area, we were both extremely exhausted. And then, just as we were stumbling out of the garden area....

That Tree Guy showed up. I'm not sure what I looked like at the time but I talked to him and he seemed more than willing to come to cut the remaining logs into something a bit smaller. Since I'd forgotten that I had a dental appointment, I told him that we'd be here to hand him his check after he completed the work. Argh! I was just so tired from the garden work and all the work we'd done the day before.... And then....

The UPS guy came barreling down our driveway. I was sure that he was going to hit That Tree Guy's car....and maybe me and That Tree Guy who were standing right by That Tree Guy's car. GEEEEZZZZZ!!!!! UPS drivers drive like maniacs! Anyway, my Earthboxes have arrived!!!! Woohoo! Despite my already exhausted state, I sat down on the deck and put together my two new tricked out Earthboxes. Cool! They came with this really neat trellis/staking system...on rollers...which attaches to the bottom of the box. I prepped both of the new Earthboxes for planting. In the meantime...Gypsy decided that she loves the taste of parsley. Groan!

While I was struggling with the assembly of the Earthboxes out on my deck, Gypsy got herself into mischief. She sniffled among my container gardens and discovered parsley. By the time I looked up and caught the little stinker, she'd managed uproot and eat one of my new parsley plants. All that remained on my deck as evidence was one parsley leaf and a bit of the roots. BAD DOG! Thankfully I grabbed her before she could get the other plants in the pot. Pitiful whimpers and cries came from her kennel...but I ignored them. I'll have to keep a closer watch on Gypsy when we're out on the deck. Parsley won't hurt her but I didn't plant the parsley as a dog munchies. She could have waited until it had grown up a bit before deciding to graze.

So...after prepping the two new Earthboxes and using the left-over potting mix (one and a half huge bags) to top off my brand new raised bed garden, and marking off the planting squares in the garden, I was just too tired to continue. Planting the garden and the two new Earthboxes would have to wait. HTP and I decided that we weren't hungry for supper (having eaten at Grocke's in town while we were waiting for the lumberyard to fill our order). In a sort of stupor, HTP and me (cuddling a repentant, parsley-breathed Gypsy), sat and watched Alton Brown on TV and then abandoning the TV field, Gypsy and I decided to listen to Rusty Humphries on the XM radio while we took a nap and HTP watched a re-run episode of the Sopranos.

I've got a dental appointment this morning...after breakfast. I'm eager to plant my raised bed gardens and my new Earthboxes but it'll have to wait until after the dental appointment. We'll have to see how much energy I have left after we're done.

Murphyism of the Day

Wiker's Law

Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.

- Corita Kent