Making more progress. All the perennials are in, just need to dump a bunch more mulch around all the blueberries and blackberries back by the compost bin and to the left there where the apple trees are we’re just making that one big bed where I can plant wildflowers and the like and put the hummingbird feeder:
If you notice we are attracting wildlife already as there is a feral hog rutting already. Pretty much the same on the right:
In the back behind the peas I have hopefully a bunch of different sunflowers that will come up, and all along both sides in between the perennials I sprinkled a bunch of wildflower seeds as well as threw in some gladiola bulbs I bought in the spring and never used.
Rural King sells good grass seed (I use a mix of bluegrass and something else) for a little over 2 bucks a pound, so we’re just waiting on that to take. The sugar snap peas and regular peas are a couple days from me needing to start harvesting them, and are over 7′ feet tall. Once the peas are done I am going to do a bed or two of pole beans.
The upside is that other than maybe some sand, the backyard is done money wise. We’re gonna put in a path to the back gate, but it’s going to just be made out of rocks we get from the creek, and all that needs to be done really is to powerwash the fence and maybe trim some of those god damned pine trees.
NotMax
When is the grand opening BBQ and fish fry? We’re all invited, right?
WoodJackalstock!:)
lollipopguild
Looking very good, John.
TenguPhule
Just had to jinx yourself, didn’t you Cole?
Start the pool for John’s first money pit disaster in his backyard. I have him down for one Friedman unit.
lollipopguild
@NotMax: I will bring a bottle of Bourbon.
NotMax
Two separate tips learned from experience with growing lawn grass, one of which might be applicable (the other could be problematic what with having animals out and about, so will omit it).
Soak the seed overnight in a bucket of water. Makes it more of a chore to broadcast the seed but works wonders in speeding up lush growth.
M4
See now this is the sort of thread I can get behind these days.
Glad your lawn is doing better.
NotMax
@NotMax
Someone is almost bound to ask, so here’s the other tip (this one works amazingly):
Spread the grass seed as normal (without pre-soaking). Water liberally, then cover the entire area with a modest layer of hay. Leave it alone to let the Sun do its thing and don’t do anything else to it or with it for a week, then rake up the hay. Grass will, surprisingly, be thick and nearly ready for the first mowing.
Mary G
Looks much better and will even more by this time next year when things have had their roots in the ground for a while. Thurston is taking his duties of smelling everything very seriously, thank you, and resembles your remark about the hog.
lurker dean
Fucking monsters. What they’re doing is called “Soul Murder.”
“There’s a vivid term mental health experts use to describe the destruction of the love of life in another human being, especially in a child: It’s called “soul murder.” It can happen as a result of physical abuse, they say, but just as easily, as a result of psychological violence, including when children are separated from their parents.”
***
“No amount of colorful rooms with lots of great toys, regular meals, and health and education services takes away the psychological impact of losing your parents,” said Zayas, the dean of UT Austin’s School of Social Work. “The damage that will be done will last a lifetime.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/experts-psychological-impact-family-separation-par-abuse/story?id=55981817
swiftfox
I don’t like to water plants so I try to stick with natives. Buffalograss works really well in open sunny areas. I planted it to cover a bare area around a transformer that had not seen plant cover for years before I moved in. It doesn’t get above 5-6 inches so it does not need to be mowed. It does go dormant by the end of September and won’t green up until late May. I get the seed from Prairie Moon. Coral bells are the only species that thrives in the shade of a landscape cherry tree (without watering). I get plants from Jung’s catalog though the best plant was a native from a local supplier. For grass cover in shade, I get ecograss from Prairie Moon. It does have to be cut on a regular basis.
Steeplejack
Looking good, Cole. Progress is progress.
Mary G
Keep calling:
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
I love the way Thurston is always in the middle of every yard picture, looking very studious.
rikyrah
Looks good,Cole.
A work in progress ?
rikyrah
@Mary G:
GOP or Dem… keep calling.
zhena gogolia
But isn’t Thurston neutered? How can he be “rutting”?
TenguPhule
Despite reports, Kilauea eruption not causing gems to rain from sky
Our streets are not paved with gold, either.
VeniceRiley
Pork is good eatin’
NotMax
@TenguPhule
Whole lotta volcanic haze blowing in this way today. Not going out, not even to dash down to the street to check the mail. Luckily am a decent ways up above sea level so it’s not as sinus irritable as down there.
NotMax
@VeniceRiley
Steer clear of the pork sashimi.
Just sayin’.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Here’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask. As liberals, we all care about accountability, transparency, and democracy. Christians of BJ, do you think the concept of an omnipotent God, especially as presented in the Bible, is in contradiction with those ideals?
Mary G
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: No.
TenguPhule
@NotMax: chitlins are evil incarnate.
TenguPhule
@NotMax: Some wind here, morning was voggy AF, sent my sinuses into sneeze overload.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mary G:
Why not?
lamh36
I’ve also seen tweets from Seth McFarlane also saying he’s leave Fox Studios if he could and that he can sit by as Fox News spews lies
Keith P.
OT, but is Alain aware there’s an autoplay ad on this site? And its pause and mute controls are laid out to be unclickable (at least on MS Edge)
Yarrow
Interesting.
MazeDancer
Impressive amount of work, John.
Since Mr. Cole mentioned mulch just want to include a PSA:
Beware the mulch volcano
Found out the hard way that many Americans like to pile big mounds of mulch at the base of their trees. Making the trunk look like it’s sticking out of a volcano of mulch. Which kills the trees.
As roots grow up into the mulch instead of down into the ground. Roots wrap around the base of the tree, under the mulch, killing the tree. I bought a house where the previous owners had done that. Took a lot of digging and surgery to hope to save the tree.
Click link above and Google search “mulch volcano” and you’lll see how trees die all over the nation. Especially when cared for by pros, because it “looks good” so landscapers do it.
zhena gogolia
@MazeDancer:
My tree guys don’t do that.
Yarrow
@Yarrow: Sorry, wrong thread. I can’t edit.
NotMax
Hand. Cookie jar.
Mary G
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I believe God gave us free will to be as good or bad as we choose. Democrats choose better on the whole.
TaMara (HFG)
@NotMax: That’s how I grow it, but I leave the hay, because it protects it from the big dog feet until it’s strong enough to stand up to them on its own.
Amir Khalid
Are you starting a whole herd of “pigs”, or sticking to just the one?
@NotMax:
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the ash fallout got as far as the eastern half of Peninsular Malaysia. (KL is close to the west coast and was not directly affected.) In Sabah, the Malaysian state closest to the Philippines, schools were closed for weeks because of the poor air quality.
germy
lollipopguild
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: No. God wants us to be honest with ourselves, others and God. God wants an honest relationship with him. Pretend Christians are good at lying, just like trump.
lamh36
jl
Looks great, carry on. I don’t see a problem.
Handsome dogs in Cole’s backyard.
thanks for update and pix.
germy
Amir Khalid
@VeniceRiley:
So I keep hearing. But I’m still not going to try it.
geg6
THURSTON!!
Yard is looking good, Cole.
Yarrow
@germy: That is hilarious and adorable. Trump’s loyalty goes in one direction. Cohen is on his own and dumber than I thought if he hasn’t already figured that out.
Mary G
@lamh36: Doesn’t surprise me. He’s been willing to tell the toddler not to touch the stove when it’s necessary. Scary though.
germy
@Yarrow:
His disinclination to reach into his wallet may be his downfall.
Yarrow
@germy: No, his treason will be his downfall.
MomSense
In everything sucks fashion, we are now experiencing a brown tail moth infestation. We spend nine months dreaming of being outside in the summer and now we go outside only to then be covered in itchy, red welts. I need to move.
lamh36
Yarrow
Cole, your yard is looking good. Reminder that once you get it set up, spend money on a yard or two of good quality compost. Spread it at a quarter to a half inch thick over the whole yard. Just right on top of the grass is fine and you don’t have to rake it in. If you can do it before a rain that helps get it to the soil but it’s fine if you don’t. It’ll really boost the quality of the underlying soil and everything will be so much healthier.
germy
@Yarrow: Will McTurtle go with him? He’s just as guilty, IMHO.
Mary G
Provisional ballots, which California actually investigates and counts if found to be valid instead of tossing them in the trash the second the polls close like other states, have moved Harley Rouda of CA48 ahead of his opponent by 40 votes to go up against Dana Rohrabacher for the first time. This is the next district up from mine, and based on my purely limited subjective experience, a good thing.
geg6
@NotMax:
I could make that. He’s just an hour or so down the road.
So when is it, Cole?
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Back in the late ’60s, my dad had an Indonesian Moslem friend who said that he didn’t believe in “silly rules about food, but isn’t funny that there is something about pork that just makes it impossible to swallow.?”
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
Obligatory
Skepticat
Looks great! I was thinking of Cole earlier today when I noticed that the robin’s nest in the vine over the window where I sit to proofreed is full of just-hatched baby birds. It’s too dark there for me to get a picture–or even count the babies–but there’s plenty of cushiony vegetation below the nest.
Talked to a friend in Idaho today. She’s Swiss (white, blonde) and has a green card, but she’s very worried and doesn’t dare leave the house without her papers. It sickened me to think this country has sunk to these depths.
Aleta
Work goes at a dizzying pace in WV.
Those charts that compare states and towns for quality of life and all? They should include how long it takes to get a well hooked up, or a bathtub replaced or a plumber or roofer to call you back.
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
Cue the world’s second smallest violin.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mary G:
Isn’t this the same God that sends people to hell to be eternally punished for simply opposing it/not believing in it? That sounds more akin to Kim Jong-Un than Superman.
I’m sorry but I just couldn’t trust in something that powerful. Omnipotence and omnibenevalance are two concepts, that imho, are in contradiction to each other. That leaves aside any of the genocides and murders God committed in the Bible
Skepticat
@MomSense:
Gypsy moth caterpillars here in midcoast Maine. A friend in a nearby town has such a bad reaction that she had to return to the doctor in Massachusetts and is on heavy doses of prednisone. OTC Benadryl’s keeping me from tearing my flesh off. But just barely. Summer in New England …
M4
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I strongly encourage you to find a Jesuit and ask him.
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
There is no god. No deity. No thing without a colander on its head to which we owe obeisance. Nothing.
I decided in adolescence that no being with any power over humans could allow some of the hideous shit, notably the Holocaust, that humans have done to each other. No power to fix things? No deity.
You want to pray, that’s your business. Leave the rest of us the fuck alone
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@M4: I was just curious what people here thought. I’ve done plenty of thinking and studying over the years on this subject. An all-powerful being is not one that would be amenable to things like democracy or accountability. The God of the Bible certainly wouldn’t be. I feel these concepts are incompatible.
I’ve always wondered how people (more fundamentalist types, not anyone here) who support democracy in the here and now would be just fine with a return to a “Kingdom of God” on Earth after the Second Coming.
Yarrow
@germy: Yes. The entirety of the top GOP leadership knew about what was happening. They are all traitors.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The Unspoken rules of Balloon Juice.
1. Don’t start arguments about religion.
2. Don’t start arguments about pets.
3. For the love of all sanity, don’t start arguments about people’s taste in music.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Discussion, not an argument. But I’ll let it go for now.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like your dad’s friend (I’m a product of the very same culture) a lifetime of indoctrination keeps me from working up the nerve to try even the tiniest morsel of pork.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: I thought you would appreciate the sentiment. Oddly, many of my Jewish friends are nearly addicted to bacon. It may be a gateway drug.
Amir Khalid
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
So much of our belief and value systems are still based on what people living in the Bronze Age thought they knew and understood of the world. Some 21st century people even shut out those parts of modern science which refute their scripture.
MomSense
@Skepticat:
Can you get to Bath? Wilson’s pharmacy makes their own concoction. Relief in a green bottle. It’s thebknly thing that works. Last summer I thought I had pneumonia but apparently it was a respiratory reaction to browntail moths.
Makes a person miss mosquitos.
Dorothy Winsor
Twitter reports that Nielsen was just driven out of a Mexican restaurant in DC.
Yeah, a Mexican one.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Discussions are arguments here, my friend.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: People who wrote the Rigveda tried to answer the question what God is and their answer we can never know.
These were the opening and closing credits
Nasadiya Sukta from the Discovery of India based on Nehru’s books by the same name. First is the Sanskrit hymn and then the Hindi translation and captions have the English translation.
Barbara
@Mary G: When Elian Gonzalez was finally reunited with his dad Janet Reno began receiving thousands of flower bouquets. People do not like it when children are held hostage.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
For some reason, pork seems to be more haram than alcohol for us Muslims in the Malay world. It’s irrational but there it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: It’s all irrational. I have so many culturally Protestant things going on in my head and I am an agnostic.
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid: Wasn’t that due to the risk of food poisoning back in the day from the parasites and meat spoiled by the warm temps?
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I suspect it’s the availability of viable substitutes. If you don’t eat pork, you can still have beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, etc., all of which are religiously acceptable. I don’t think there are a lot of religiously acceptable alternative recreational drugs.
Aleta
@Skepticat: Do gypsy moth caterpillars cause a reaction too? Sigh.
Last August some kind of caterpillars were dropping out of tall maples onto the roofs (coastal Maine). I don’t remember what kind, but I looked them up for my friend and it said they are food for migrating birds on their way south. So we thought: OK, unpleasant but needed for the birds before they fly over the ocean.
But these browntail toxic ones are too much. I just looked at pictures and I’ve seen the browntail nests before on apple trees and wild roses. From now on they’re toast.
Aleta
@MomSense: @Skepticat:
Here’s another pharmacy that compounds a browntail moth rash reliever (by prescription?), located in Rockport, Brunswick and Augusta.
https://kennebecpharmacy.com/Browntail-Moth-Itch
Their site has a map for 2018 showing infestation levels for parts of the state, and info about not drying clothes outside, wearing gear to do yard work….
sukabi
@germy: interesting, being a criminal was ok for him, but going full Nazi is a bridge too far.
NotMax
@Aleta
From the Does Not Compute file: 8 of the cutest toxic caterpillars
Mart
@Skepticat: She is white. She has privilege.
Skepticat
@MomSense: @Aleta:
Thanks so much!
Aleta, I’m not sure birds eat any of these caterpillars (probably because of their poison defense). Browntails always bothered me on Great Diamond Island, but the gypsy moths seem more prevalent on the midcoast. Sigh.