ah joy

Well, the lawnmower works frigging great.. I already broke it :( Somehow I managed to shear off the rod that connects the front of the mowing deck to the front axle. Yep, I'm pissed and perplexed with myself.
However.. The yard is mowed, and Home Depot is sending someone out to fix it tomorrow.
The week whacker is excellent..
Now I'm making edger bricks to go around all the trees so I don't have to mow so close or accidentally whack the bark off the trees. I figure 16 per octagon, two on each side. That will make each side 32 inches, so that should be plenty. Plan on getting at least the fruit trees done this year hopefully. Takes a day per brick, so I'm more likely looking at 4-5 trees done this year, and making bricks over the winter. But I am going to do my best to mulch in a ring around each tree that needs it before the snow flies.

Finally got some seed into the ground today, we shall see if it takes or not. I scattered in Bloomsdale spinach and red russian kale in the lower section of the front of house beds.
And a whole bunch of seed in the firepit sanctuary. I plugged Mammoth and giant grey stripe sunflower seed every 8 inches or so along the fenceline, scatter plugged the ugly drainage patch, and a straggling line up the east edge of where the wildflower feed area. I mixed together mexican sunflower, chinese red noodle bean, hardy hibiscus, canterbury bells, golden marguerite, and a few each of random jack o lantern pumpkin, batwing pumpkin, goblin eggs gourds, luffa gourds, and pumpkin pepper plant.. and just randomly scattered the mix all over the wildflower feed patch. If they take, awesome, if they don't, meh, they were sort of toss seed anyway.
I also put in a bunch of toss bush bean seed in a line a bit in front of where I plugged in the sunflowers along the fenceline. Red lima, Royal burgendy, blue lake 47, white lima, and contender bush. Just plugged them every few inches, and took one giant step between kinds.
Discovered roses along the fenceline, two kinds I think.. and one down where the fence meets the pond that may be a briar variety. If so, you betcha I'm going to be encouraging it to fill in that patch.
And man, I was making a poor blackbird couple have a kinipshit while planting along the fenceline. Mostly one of them, but sometimes both, followed and scolded me all along the way. I wondered if it was the same ones I see at the clover nest. BTW, very exciting, three little eggs in that nest now.
I'm planning on mowing a path down to the firepit and around it.. But the rest of the sanctuary will probably remain unmowed. I figure whatever grows there I don't really have to worry about weeding or mowing down that way, lol, lazy me :)
I'm thinking of plugging in corn along the easement drive property line where the fence leads into the neighbors garage- by the time it's harvest time, I can yank them up and put in lilies. And gives me a good excuse to whack once and leave it.
Since I have buttloads of squash seed but the garden isn't anywhere near started.. I think I might just plug a bunch of seed along the arch drive, and train them over the drive. We don't use it right now anyway. I just put in the toss pittypan and the rest of the goblin eggs into a not so grassy troublesome mow spot. Hopefully the squash will sort of kill the grassiness off and I can get some bulbs in there to fill the area.

Started they eggshell container and the countertop compost bucket, yay!. I just used an old coffee tin for the eggshells. Printed off an image of broken shells for the lid, and the word eggshells twice- fit one piece of paper, then cut them apart and taped them onto the container. Now when we break eggs we have water running, and rinse them, and set them aside. When dry, break them up into the container. They are a great plant amendment and a good calcium source for birds. Yeah, that is kind of gross that birds eat shells, but it's good for them :)
The compost bucket is just a 2 gallon bucket with a fitted lid I picked up at Home Depot- 5 bucks. Every few days, it's time to take it out to the compost pile. Which yay, has enough matter to bury kitchen scraps, and ya always want to bury them. Maybe if Mama N is nice the yard will be dry enough for me to haul some grass clippings still this week. We got sort of extra, and I figure the green boost would be good for the pile since it's mostly last years leaves. By this time next year, I hope to have the first full working section of the garden worked in, and the rest of it at least marked off.
I got a bit over 6 feet between the fence and the utility pole. I'm gonna make the garden row 8 feet so I can easy clear with the mower all the way down. I can totally put in path and the square foot garden on the inside of the pole line.
I'm considering making a treadline for the outside of garden row. Make a handful of cement block forms, and use up one bag of cement at a time making them. Using the decorative form for the tree rings is cool, but I only got one. Think I will go with 4 inch deep bricks, make a sturdy treadline.
Hmm, note to that. The mold I'm using is about 16x8x2. For one pouring so far, and the second setting..
1st mix- 8 cups mix to two cups water. Kind of thin, but set up decently. Popped it out today in one piece, and it's curing.
2nd mix- over compensated. I thought the first was too wet and didn't fill the form quite enough. Went with 10 cups mix to 2 cups water. Had to add another third cup, should have done another. Cement was questionably too dry. But when I poured it out and tapped the mold, bubbles shook out and it smoothed real fast. 12 cups seems to fill the form just right though. Need to adjust the ratios a bit.