How?!?!

 
How does this happen?
 
 
 

 

Same socks came from the
same package and worn
same number of times and went through the
same number of washes and the
same number of dries.

Yet one shrinks and one grows.  I could wear one and Walt Kowalski could wear one.

Plants and flowers are the same way.  Four years ago we got some azaleas on sale at the end of the season.  They all did great.  Except for one.  They were planted the same, at the same time, watered the same, same light, same dark.  Yet one died.  Who knows. 

Last night we did some work around the yard.  Cutting grass, planting shrubs, trees, and hostas.  On the way home I said to Walt Kowalski 'I need to dig out the dead azalea, dig out the three shrubs for Grammy, and dig holes to plant the five hostas.'

He said "I need to dig two holes to plant the two new fruit trees, too.  Why don't we just dig holes everywhere in the yard?"
 
I said 'Well, we're already up to eleven holes we need to dig, so it sounds like that is what we are going to do.'
 

His and Hers

We splurged again this weekend.

New shovels.

I don't remember the last time I used a shovel with a good point.  These also have a larger "step" to put your foot on when digging.

I broke the handle on our older shovel last week while trying to pry bamboo roots out of the ground. I should have got the digging bar. I could feel the handle getting weaker, and finally it snapped.

It looked so sad and pathetic. 

When we were at the home improvement store this weekend, I was looking at the selection of shovels.  Walt Kowalski and I were debating the pros and cons of wooden handles versus fiberglass handles. 

An older gentleman walked by as we were "testing" the shovels and said 'Make sure you buy the one she can use! har har har.' I replied to him 'You are right! I broke the last one.'

He thought he was making fun of woman who would use a shovel. har har har.

My only complaint of so many tools is that the handles are not sized small enough for my hands. The hammer manufacturers have changed and made smaller grips, but the shovels are too large for comfort. (I'm sure it has to do with stability.) 

In the end we bought two new shovels, one with a wooden handle and one with a fiberglass handle, and a new handle for the old shovel.  

At the Cat Ranch, you can never have enough shovels and spades. We just don't have many diamonds. 

Both new shovels worked extremely well attacking the bamboo.

We dug up this entire field of bamboo by the roots and gathered a nice pile of rocks to add to the path by the shed. I'm certain we will have to do this process many times over the course of the summer and years to come, but it's a good start in this battle. 

Walt Kowalski didn't need that jacket for very long. 

P.S. Shovel and spade are used interchangeably, but a shovel has a pointed tip and is most often used for digging large holes.  Whereas a spade has a flat tip and used for cutting, edging, and scraping. 

New Projects

Look what we started:

 

 

Because we didn't have enough to do. 

 

We priced dumpsters and then we priced garbage bags.  It's terrible, but the cost might be better if we just bag things and put it out for the trash we already pay for. Then burn the wood in the fire pit after a day of hard work. 

 

I worked on the ceiling in the front bedroom while Walt Kowalski worked on removing the doors and door trim.

 

There was water damage to the original ceilings. The previous owners added some pine boards and made a false ceiling to hide the bad ceiling.  The roof was still leaking.

 

 



 

That is a beautiful blue color.  Maybe if I lived in Florida.

 

This pink room was considered the "third" bedroom.  It is a closet and will be turned back into a closet.

 

I already removed the carpets and padding in the fall.  The original floors aren't in any condition to save.



Commercial

Then all of a sudden, I'm in a yogurt commercial. 

Scene: Lunch Room
Time: Mid-morning
Stomach: Empty

Woman walks into the lunch room to find this:

Yes, that's pizza.  Yes, those are cuppycakes. Vanilla.  Buttercream icing. I opened the box and just breathed the cupcake air.

*ahhhhhhh*

What other temptations do they want to throw at me? A bag of tortilla chips? A box of chocolate?  A margarita?

OH and those aren't breadsticks in the little box. It was small chocolate cakes.  Yeah, they did throw the chocolate at me. 

*sigh*  I'll go back and have my chicken, salad, and water now. At least in the yogurt commercials you get a yogurt. I'll pass on the yogurt, thanks.  

Loaves and Fishes

Saturday was opening day of trout season. The weather was beautiful, the fish were biting AND nobody fell in the creek. (crick or creek, no matter how you say it.)

These are the two winners of the day.

24 inches and 21 inches. Chain Saw Johnny and Russel.  (I don't have a name for Russell.)

You can see the size comparison of the fillets of the other fish caught. 

The weather was so nice all day we were able to do the clean up outside. Even though I spent part of the morning prepping the kitchen for the fishes, I was glad the process was moved outside.  We turned it into an evening by the campfire. 

It's going to be a great fish fry this summer. 

The bread man cometh!

Actually, the original bread man died.  It was sad. But his son took over his route.  Walt Kowalski's friend at work gets the "old" bread from the bread man.  Technically, there is nothing old about the bread. It has neared or has passed it's "sell by" date and is pulled from the shelves. There is nothing wrong with it. 

Except for buns bought specifically for hotdogs and burgers and sandwiches, we rarely eat store bought bread soft on sandwiches. We are toasters.  I love me a sandwich on toasted bread. Even a lettuce sandwich is better when the bread is warm and toasty.  Yum.

So bread near the sell by date is fine by us.  It goes directly into the freezer and is toasted before tasted. 

There have been times when the freezer was so full of bread I had no room for vegetables.  You can't squish a loaf of bread into a crevice in the freezer like you can a bag of peas.  

We get all kinds. This batch is mostly the swirl flavors. Cinnamon, strawberry, and chocolately chip, Sunday morning I'm going to make a french toast bake with the cinnamon swirl. The strawberry isn't my favorite, but I'm going to look for a dessert recipe. 

Other times Walt Kowalski has brought home pumpernickel, rye, round flats, oatmeal, whole wheat, honey wheat, and very thins.  The flats made nice toasted sandwiches, but the very thins toast into crackers. They were good with soup, but you had to watch them close.  

1 minute not toasted. 1 minute 30 seconds burnt.  ARGH!

In search of butter and a knife....

Bamboo to you

We waited a few days and watched to see where the bamboo returned.  It's fast.  You *think* you've got all of the roots in one particular spot, but you really didn't. 

This is part of the area we cleaned last week

 
It looks awful. 

Nothing a few new plants won't help fix.

They look so small. The others were planted only 3 summers ago. they were originally the same size and they have grown considerably and quickly. We did lose one of the originals.  I tried to keep it alive.  Half still had leaves and flowers.  This year the leaves are even fewer and I don't see any flowers.  Of course it would be one of the ones near the top by the driveway.  
 

 
Walt Kowalski in action with the weapons of mass bamboo destruction.

This is not the final view.  We want to paint the gas meter brown so it's not as obvious, add more stones along the front of the new mulched section, remove the pine trees, and continue raking out the bank. 

It's going to take more than one spring. 

Knotweed AKA Bamboo

Walt Kowalski and I are working on the front hill in the evenings.  It is full of weeds, bamboo, azalea shrubs, and a few daffodils. More Bamboos than anything. 

Then again, it is better than it used to be. The bamboozles used to be so big that you could park a car in the driveway and the car couldn't be seen from the road.  It's an ongoing battle around the Cat Ranch.

This is the mature bamboo.

Here are new shoots coming up through the asphalt.

The Bamboozles or Japanese Knotweed as it is "officially" named, are often called a "prolific, noxious, invasive, dangerous bad-for-the-world, the-sky-is-falling weed." Oh by the way, it’s edible. Might be even really healthy for you. It is also listed as one of the world's most invasive species.  In our yard, and along the train tracks, this is definitely true. 

The bamboo grows over 6 feet tall and 65 feet wide by sending runners underground. You'll see a piece growing here and a piece growing WAY over there. As you start to pull one up, you'll find out they are connected!!! It will work it's way up through concrete, stones, and even the blacktop of our driveway. The poison ivy doesn't want to be left out and loves to join in the fun.

In some areas you have to disclose the presence of knotweed if you want to sell your house and some landfills won't even take the stuff. 

I can tell you that the dried stuff burns nicely, and I do it with pleasure, but we don't let it stay long enough to dry.

As for eating it, I don't know.  They say it tastes like apples, but if I made a pie with it I know Walt Kowalski is not going to eat it, especially if I told him what it was made with. I've also heard that goats love it. 

In the mean time, we will continue to attack with our shovels and pitchforks and heavy, black, plastic bags.

Last night, as we were showering up, I said to Walt Kowalski 'My calves are killing me from standing on the hill.'

From the other room, he responded with 'Your cats are killing you?'

Yes, my cats are killing me.  My dogs were barking, too.