5055 Lawn

Sunday, February 7, 2016

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe --

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Last spring I got aggressive about the front lawn. It was full of dandelions.   I sprinkled a weed killer and fertilizer, and some grass seed, and for most of the summer it looked almost decent. 

Then in early fall, some kind of weed started growing.  It has continued to spread, even through the winter.  It's now covering most of the upper half of the lawn.

It's "Creeping Charlie".  You know what?  I'm going to let it take over.  It's low, it's green, it's evergreen, it has tiny leaves and tiny purplish flowers, and it laughs at most weed killers.  It's edible, and smells nice when mowed. I can still spray or sprinkle for dandelions and crabgrass without apparently hurting it. 

Sounds like it's easier to keep than grass, and needs less mowing. I can't think of any reason one would prefer grass.
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4052 Catching up on photos

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

"[T]he more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be

a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum.

The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable,

the further to the right he or she will be.

--Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler's Germany, Routledge, 1999, pp. 4–6

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I've got a backlog of photos I want to post - because I like to keep stuff here, if for no other reason.

This is a portrait of me that Nugget drew last week.  Apparently it is usual for her age group (recently turned 4) to have the arms and legs coming directly out of the head.   Kind of makes me wonder - I know she's very aware that people have torsos (she comments on my big boobies and belly often enough!), so why do they leave it out?  Is it that arms and legs and heads are so much more important?  I thought it was interesting that she very carefully drew in the fingers and toes.

This is the dandelions in my city house front yard last month.  I dragged out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up as much of the seed heads as I could, because I knew if the mower-kid mowed that mess, dandelions would take over the entire neighborhood.  Then I spread a weed killer/fertilizer mix.  It looks a little better now.

This is one of the five daffodil beds at the country house, this past spring.  Late April, I think.  There are several varieties in there.  This is looking up from the end of the driveway toward the house, which is beyond the brow of the hill.

 This is a bit of the side yard at the country house.  Pretty, isn't it?  I hate to give it up.

Snake!  He's coming down from inside the exterior siding near the front door of the country house.   I think each of those tiles is 6" square (the photo angle makes them look rectangular, but they are square), so if you straighten him out, that makes him about 36" long!  At his thickest middle, he was an inch and a half wide.  They can get up to almost 4 feet long, but I'd never seen one before as big as this one.

I had some Lincoln Logs here for a while, waiting for the Nugget to get old enough to be interested.  We got them out the other day.  Her Daddy built the section of barn to the right.  Nugget built the section to the left.  So far, there's no evidence of a budding architect.

Nugget's nursery school has special days, like "silly hat day", "pajama day", "funny hair day", and so on.  The next four photos are from two "funny hair" days (I wonder what boys do for funny hair....).  Daughter was very creative.

(Mouth full of peaches.)

Side view.

Another funny hair day.  She had been watching Sesame Street on TV when "the pee-pee urge" hit.  I came around the corner and found this.    Usually she uses a ring that fits in the seat of the grown-up toilet, but she didn't want to miss any of the show, so she dug out her baby potty and set up shop in front of the TV.

My lava lamp.  Sometimes when it's warming up, things get interesting.

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3330 Nuts

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The trouble with political jokes is that they get elected.

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After a long walk with Daughter and the Nugget, and after the shadow of the house covered the front yard, I weeded the lawn. I don't bend or crouch or kneel. I lay on my stomach, and crawl like a commando going under barbed wire. It's the only way.

I have solved the mystery of what's going on in Andrew Weith's "Christina's World". She's pulling nutgrass from the lawn.
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3244 Nice day for it

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Jay Kolb, on surveys taken on college campuses: College is not "real world". In fact,
you can't even see it from there.

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I mowed the lawn this morning, front and sides. I was pleased that the mower started right up.

I do have a bit of a problem with it. It's self-propelled, and seems to have two speeds - zero and "charge!" I have to almost run to keep up with it. I thought if I let up on the propulsion bar a bit, it would slow down, but it doesn't. Charge!

...Which is dangerous because the builder tried to stretch the sod, and left big gaps between the pieces. "Oh, they'll fill in." Yeah, they will, if you fill in between the pieces with dirt! Leaving two inch deep gaps doesn't do it. Grass won't cross that. So I have to be careful not to slip sideways into a gap and sprain my ankle, and at high speed that's difficult. I could go buy some dirt (a whole lot of dirt), but I'm going to cut out sod in front of the porch to put in a flower bed, and I figure I'll fill the holes with pieces of that.

Now I need to go buy a trimmer of some kind. I dislike those string trimmers. I don't know what else is available.

The back yard can't be mowed until I pick up all the stupid gum tree balls. I hit a few with the mower earlier, and yeah, not good. So I am now picking them up with my trusty pooper scooper pan and rake thingy, like over there<---. The pan will hold about a dozen of them. It's pretty easy and works well, but there are so many of them it might take me a few days to get them all.

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Spam emails: I am getting marketing emails from every company I've ever bought anything from online. Yeah, ok, I'm an online customer.

But what bugs me is that I always check the box that says "no marketing emails". Always. Always aways. And yet I always get them.

There oughtta be a law. In fact, I think there is....
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3165 Off with their heads!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

"What is life? It's a way of keeping meat fresh."
-- Doctor Who --

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Let me see if I've got this right. They tried a Guantanamo terrorism suspect in civilian court, and although he was found guilty of conspiracy charges that will keep him in jail for life, he was not found guilty of the most serious murder charges.

So people are saying that this therefore proves trying terrorists in civilian court won't work - they should be tried in military court?

I don't get it. Are they saying that prosecutors should shop around for a court guaranteed to convict? What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? What happened to "fair trial"? What happened to having a trial at all? It sounds to me that a lot of people want to simply punish whether there's evidence of guilt or not. Mock trial. Off with their heads.

Why not just execute them all and stop hypocritically trying to make it look fair and legal?

Those people scare me. They are terrorists, too. They just pretend to be civilized and take a longer time getting around to killing people they don't like, which is scary because it's coldly crafted, not an act of passion.
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