respublica

It's May, It's early, but watering time has come

For some reason we've missed the rainy season around here and all of a sudden it is very noticeable that the ground is drying out fast. We've been having to water the new flowers constantly and the grass which began lush and thick is actually slowing down and turning brown in places. 

Sort of seems like July without the heat. Although the heat is coming this weekend.

Uh oh. It happens each year, just like clockwork

Dale woke up this morning with his eyes swollen shut from a run in with poison ivy. Every single spring he tangles with this insidious vine and every single spring he breaks out magnificently.

It'll be a tough couple of days.

Something needed to be done about that Bradford Pear Tree

A few years ago we lost a huge white pine tree to disease and an old maple tree in our backyard in Collinsville. After talking it over and believing we needed a sightline barrier to block a couple of duplexes which were built on a vacant lot right behind our fence, we decided on a Bradford Pear. We chose the pear because they are fast growing trees. Yes, it grew fast, but like all Bradford Pears, it is subject to having its limbs split in wind or rain, especially limbs which grow close together. Well, our tree certainly grew its limbs close and worse the limbs mimicked the main trunk. We must have had 7 straight up limbs growing next to the main line.

So today we had the time to lop the heck out of it. No worries though, because as I said, they grow fast.

Instead of growing like an umbrella, it grew staight up, skinny minnie with 7 arms crammed together. A pear tree should have its limbs no closer together than 15 inches. Ha. These were maybe an inch apart.

I went to Sears and got a lightweight, electric chainsaw and off we went.

There's Dale, see him?

Ah. I was supposed to be holding the ladder but just had to get a picture of this.

Our yard got filled with lims

I don't know what he's doing here, maybe trying to push the whole thing down which I wouldn't have argued with.

We ended up with a pile on the driveway.

We'll get them out and begin working on ripping out the lilacs along the fence tomorrow. Still annoyed that duplexes were allowed to be built back there. Now we do have to replace a natural barrier.

 

Flower Sacks

Creekside Gardens in Collinsville makes and sells these flowers in a sack and the one I bought in April is now unbelieveable.

It gets bigger and fuller by the day.

Weeds by any other name still have to be cleaned up

Around these parts there is a certain weed who's name I do not know which proliferate at great speed and grow taller than most people within days of surfacing.

They'll end up with a rather reddish stem and form red berrys when mature if you don't yank them out early. Unfortunately they are impossible to pull out by the roots unless you get them when they are very small...which is basically only one day. They grow so fast and so tall.

The only thing to do now is hack them off at the bottom and spray them with some sort of weed killer.

All of which made me think about our inside weeds which I call dust. We've been so busy the past few weeks working outside and going to one event after another that I've neglected the inside and the weeds have overtaken things.

Most times I'd be embarrassed to show my indoor weeds (dust) but we have so been consumed with the yard and functions that I forgive myself. But I'm finally disgusted enough to give part of today over to neatening things up.

Composting has its own week

This is International Composting Awareness Week.  Yes, that's International, not just in this country. All around the world people are learning the benefits of compost being encouraged to make their own.

There's nothing like being able to have good, rich compost in the garden and it's more satisfying to do it yourself. Truth be known we make huge piles, mountains really, of compost on the seminary campus and it is fantastic. But don't be deceived, any compost pile whether large or small takes work and time to do it right. It involves using the correct items in the pile to get it started-green and brown-or as they say, leaves and grass. After that gets going then kitchen compost can be added.

You'll have to turn the pile a lot to get the oxygen working. A compost proponent on the radio this morning recommends turning it once a week.

So consider a pile where you live, but just be aware of the effort involved.

Super Moon This Weekend

Tonight at 10:35 CST, a super moon, the biggest and brightest full moon of the year will begin to rise climb to its highest point.  It will be 31,000 miles closer to the earth than any other full moon this year which will make for some spectacular viewing as it reaches its closest point at around 11 tonight, CST. 

It will be 16 percent brighter than normal and cause some dramatic high and low tides along the coasts. Not only that, but it may interfer with a meteor shower from Haley's comet.

What a night to be outside and watching the sky. The moon will begin its rise in east at around 6:45 CST, being closest to the horizon and providing the most astounding view.

The planting of a tree in downtown St. Louis

Urban Review's Steve Patterson posted a photo of a sidewalk in St. Louis with a carved out space for a tree. I sure hope whoever is going to plant the tree isn't satified with this hole. The only tree which would survive this is a weed tree.

Hopefully this project is just beginning.

Which state has the most wind farms?

Texas has the most followed by Iowa, California, Illinois and Minnesota. 

And amusingly, bewildering, wind farms may actually be warming the earth underneath them. What to do, what to do?

Not Tide Too

An environmental group named Women's Voices for the Earth did some tests on laundry detergent and found that Tide contains small amounts of dioxane, a cancer causing chemical. Tide's dioxane is found in the company's Tide Free and Gentle and Original Scent brands.

Swell. We use the Original Scent kind.

However, some toxicologists claim the amount of dioxane is well below danger levels. And frankly I am prone to not take too seriously data from a group which calls itself, Women's Voices for the Earth.

In other Tide news, it seems that Tide has become one of the most shoplifted items going these days.