Strawberries

We got some strawberry plants from a fund raiser sale last year or the year before and they haven't really done all that well. They didn't get planted in that great of a spot and probably in a hurry before they outgrew the pot we bought them in. I thought they weren't going to do well at all because of where and how we planted them.

I guess they were doing underground work cuz this year they are going wild. There are several new starts from the older plants started and all of them are producing berries. I enjoy picking them daily, with Sam not far behind usually. We share in the fruit of the earth and it is a nice break in the day.

We usually get about a half dozen to a dozen depending on how many the slugs have gotten, but they are producing so fast that the slugs are not getting to as many of them now, so more for us.

strawberries

Garden auto-watering

Finally got the drip watering system installed on the new raised garden beds. It took almost all of yesterday afternoon messing with it. Although, I did get distracted by pruning the tomatoes (they are in their pre-pruned state in the picture above) and getting them tied up and supported better; they had fallen over and were starting to grow up from laying down. They look a lot better now and are not so dense with dead leaves/branches on the inside.

pruned tomatoes

Since the sprinkler system is having problems, due to the irrigation well producing a rust or clay that is clogging the valves every time I turn it on, I decided to buy a faucet timer I saw at the wholesale store and bought an adapter so I could hook a hose to the drip system I had attached to the irrigation well system last year. It works pretty good, looks like everything is getting adequately watered this morning, but we will have to see how it is at the end of a long hot day; may need adjust the time up if it is not getting enough.

new timer

water lines

I also transplanted one of the pumpkins on Saturday from the raised bed since there were 3 on each of the two hills I planted in there. They are getting kinda big and invading the tomatoes. I may just have to find someone to take a couple of the smaller plants, but need to make sure I can successfully transplant one before I try that... I moved it into a large bark section of the yard just outside the garden area, where Aimee was going to plant some wildflowers but I guess gave up on the idea. I had to get more dirt for the transplant to make a small mound for it. I watered the heck out of it but the next day the leaves were all yellowing. It looks better today with several waterings yesterday and today.

pumpkin transplant

On the positive side, the one pumpkin plant is going gang busters and has like 15 little pumpkins forming all along it. On another note, the big one on the other mound I tried to get to hang over the side of the raised bed but I noticed yesterday that it twisted the vine and it was kinda splitting. I tried to support it better, but not too successfully, so we get to see how it does, hopefully it will adapt well.

Oh and the lillies are still doing really good, too.

front lilies

back lilies

We had dinner outside that night and ate almost nothing from the store; it either came from our garden or from the farmer's market.

Big brother day care

When I picked Sam up at the babysitters on Monday, Sarah said Sam had a fall at the park on the teeter-totter.

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He hit is face, I guess, and was wailing. Instead of walking over to Sarah, who he would usually go to for comfort, he started walking away, which she found quite odd and couldn't figure out where he was going until Sam walked up to Malachi, one of the other kids that Sarah watches. Malachi gave Sam a hug, in a very big brotherly way, and looked at his face as Sam was going on about what had happened and was pointing over to the teeter-totter.

Sarah expressed that it was quite sweet how Malachi took care of Sam's hurt and Sam was quite satisfied with the effort and went back to playing. I am so thankful that Sam is developing supportive, healthy relationships with the kids he hangs out with during the day and even more impressed as stories like these come out of his interactions with them. We are truly blessed to have our son being cared for in this manner during the day.

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Lost and found

Lost my knife last night when I was taking out the filberts; the nice one my brother gave me for my birthday that I probably should not have been using like that. Well I looked last night but it wasn't in plain sight and not in the spot I remembered leaving it. Aimee even went and looked a little but was also unsuccessful.

I retired again this morning to sift through the loose dirt in and around the how left by the filbert without any luck, but I decided to look around just a little more and found it back away from the hole, covered in about 3 inches of dirt. Luckily it cleaned off nice and wasn't rusty or anything. Whew!!! I really like that knife.

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Filbert and Ernie

I needed to get some energy out tonight, so I went outside to check on the garden and the mole traps I set yesterday. No moles, but there was a filbert growing alongside one of the azaleas by where one of the traps was and the branches were getting to me, so I pulled it out.

I got the come-along, you know - a cable ratchet, hand cranked winch, and my trucker chain. With the chain wrapped around the base of one of the old deck posts and the come-along attached to the filbert and the chain (I actually had to whittle the main trunk of the filbert to get the come-along hook to hook around it). Well about 5 minutes of cranking on it and the thing just pulled out of the ground; luckily filberts have shallow roots and no tap root.

Anywho... I got to thinking about the filbert that is under the rhododendron out front and thought since I have the come-along out, might as well tackle that one as well. That one has been under there for as long as we have owned the house and since it is hard to get to, I have just cut back the trunks that show out of the rhody to keep it looking nice. Well, that rhody is dying now, probably because of this filbert, so it doesn't have a lot of branches any more and I was able to get under the rhody to get at the filbert.

It was not as easy as the first one. It took about a half hour of digging around it, an extra rope that I wasn't sure would hold made for some "excitement"; I was hoping I wouldn't be at the business end of the hook if that rope broke. The pick axe helped a lot as it was hard to get the shovel in there with all the surface roots. There is a nice hole in the front now where that filbert was and although a little sore, I am glad to have it out of there.

**If you are curious about the title for this post, I have had a hard time in the past remembering the name of these trees so some time ago, Aimee would give me a clue, "Bert and Ernie", which turned into what is in the title.

Megawatt production

The solar electric system has produced over a megawatt in the past 5 months it has been in operation.

Update: This past month of May, I figured out that we generated 357kWh and got credit from the utility for 157 kWh and consumed 760kWh (4990kWh since Jan when the meter was replaced).

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Bye bye, hot tub

Had the old hot tub removed this morning. Only took the guy 3 hours to dismantle, cut it into about 10 pieces and haul it to his truck. They had a paver foundation for it, so it will be a nice little patio for us while we figure out the plan for the yard.

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