And that’s a wrap with the backyard work until I get enough flat stones from the creek bed to make the walk. On the agenda now, pull out the peas and pick any remaining ones, plant the pole beans, make another mulch run, stumble through the woods (AKA DRIVE DOWN THE COUNTRY ROAD) looking for a recently felled soft wood log for my mushroom spore plugs, and plant the bush beans. Also need to trim the tomatoes.
Intentionally avoiding politics today.
Also, the arborist who delivered the willow said it was plenty far away from the house so get off my damned tip, I researched this and measured.
Elizabelle
That’s gonna be beautiful.
Photo lacks Thurston the yard dog.
opiejeanne
The rabbits have a political agenda: eat the garden!
There have been at least seven blessed events in the bunny households on our lot, as far as we can count. They really are darling. Something ate one of them on the 4th, but the rest are busily eating everything they can get. Now, we have about a half acre of lawn and weeds and daisies, and they eat all of those, but they also ate my pole bean plants that were just taking off and the corn poppies in the potato beds and the new shoots on the rose bushes. They also eat the tops of the potato plants and why they aren’t sick from that is beyond me.
pamelabrown53
Willows are beautiful, graceful trees if a bit “messy”. But so are magnolias and I have one anyway. Enjoy!
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle: Yes. I especially liked the one that just showed part of his back and his tail and that made me wonder when John got a duck.
Your garden is coming along nicely, John Cole.
Doug R
Got a feeling that tree is taking over the yard in 20 years. A little too close to the one neighbor I figure.
Seanly
Okay, I am going to be that guy – please reconsider removing rocks from your streambed. They are doing work where they are – providing habitat for small critters, hunting spots for the fish & birds that eat those critters and maintaining the stream shape. Larger stones require more energy (basically higher water velocities) to pick up so they reduce stream scour & resist the stream channel migrating. I know money is tight, but having a pallet of flat stones delivered should only be $100 to $200 and won’t degrade your local stream.
EDIT: Because my wife hates when I just poo-poo everything, I will add that your work on the house & backyard have been great!
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: ooh, he should get a couple ducks though.
Betty Cracker
Looking good! Best of luck with your mushroom spore plugs. My hubby has never had any luck with them.
Haroldo
@Major Major Major Major: I vote geese. They can be stunningly affectionate.
Steeplejack
“Nebraska’s
unicarmalunicameral legislature.”chris
@Seanly:
Seconded. I googled “west virginia flagstone” and there are many pages.
Love your yard and the willow will be fine as long as it doesn’t get too big.
Mandalay
@Seanly: I don’t know about WV but in South Florida I think removing anything inanimate from anywhere on public land is illegal, even if that removal is harmless to the environment (e.g. taking a piece of driftwood from the beach).
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
WTF? Site is fucked up and shit. (Desktop, Win10, Firefox.) Just blew me out of the Medicaid post and landed me here, with no edit function.
Also, post and comment text is all the way to the right of the screen—no tasteful margin as before—so the “previous thread” gizmo is interfering.
Baud
Looks lovely.
OT, via Reddit, funny.
https://i.redd.it/4u4mv5fqgb811.jpg
Baud
I am in moderation.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: As well you should be.
Major Major Major Major
@Haroldo: “stunningly affectionate”
I guess that’s one way to describe how geese behave… towards exactly one person.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Good one!
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: In fairness, that would be letting me off easy.
A Ghost To Most
@Haroldo:
Geese can also bite you on the ass, as I learned as a child.
Looks good, John.
Haroldo
@Major Major Major Major: Errr, two in this instance. It depends on the species/variety.
Baud
Reply button doesn’t work on the mobile site.
NotMax
It’s your choice.
Haroldo
@A Ghost To Most: Goosing comes by it honestly, for sure. The goose is affectionate bordering on ardent; the gander is Pepe le Pew.
lollipopguild
@Baud: You probably need to be on Double Secret Probation.
A Ghost To Most
Goosing and getting bit on the ass by a pissed off goose are two different things.
Major Major Major Major
@Haroldo: fair enough. My grandpa had geese that only liked him and assaulted everybody else, which is a hell of a kind of love.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Baud belongs nowhere near moderation. Baud and moderation are as different as two things could possibly be.
Shell
Maybe I shouldnt start this whole debate: You say, trim the tomato plants. Do you mean plucking the little shoots coming up from the nook of the main stem and the side branches. What some people call ‘suckers’ and think they somehow take energy from the plant. Not true: more foliage equals more food production for the plant. Plus more leaf cover is more protection for your tomatoes; less sunscald.
pamelabrown53
@Major Major Major Major: #27
Your comment made me flash on the movie “Friendly Persuasion” (Quaker family during the Civil War) where Gary Cooper’s wife had a pet goose that terrorized their youngest son.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Fixed my problems with a hard reset (Ctrl-F5 in Firefox) of every open Balloon Juice page.
Mnemosyne
I don’t care what anyone says — I like willow trees, and the haters can bite me.
You will probably also need a rain garden (or whatever it’s called), but that will look really nice around the tree.
Haroldo
@A Ghost To Most: Indeed true. The gander (named Olivia) has a love/lust/hate relationship with my wife. Livvy and I, on the other hand, have a less passionate pairing.
There is photographic evidence of Livvy making violent goose love with a sandal – it really sets him off.
As was said about a musk duck in some birders’ book (and I now paraphrase): Livvy’s one weird goose.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I swear that I’ve heard of farmers using geese as watchdogs, because they’re noisy as hell and they don’t take any shit from strange humans.
CaseyL
@Mnemosyne: Hell, there are Army bases that use geese as watchcritters!
Mnemosyne
@CaseyL:
I believe it. Have you ever seen a goose back down from a fight? They’re ornery critters.
pamelabrown53
@Mnemosyne: #34
Okay, so I googled “geese as watchdogs” and it’s absolutely true! Purportedly a breed of Chinese geese are the best for that purpose. Also saw that geese are good for weed control. Still reluctant to have any critter that enjoys chasing me around!
Mary G
Garden is looking good. The more trees, the better.
ruemara
I really like the backyard. IDC what you do with the tree, it’s your yard & I’m sure you’ve taken precautions. I probably would’ve done a fruiting tree, but that can be a lot of work. I could see you with some chickens in the yard.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Cannot recall anyone saying they don’t like them, just that some locations are more appropriate than others.
I like elephants but wouldn’t keep one in my yard.
;)
Citizen_X
@Seanly: Good points, also, as others have said, you don’t get flat stones from a creekbed, you get rounded ones. The creek is steadily moving them downstream (the larger ones during floodstage), and transport rounds the stones. They’d make lousy walkways. Nice flat shale “flagstones” are quarried at the source.
SiubhanDuinne
@pamelabrown53:
That was the first thing I thought of, too! Love everything about that movie. The scenes between Little Jess and Samantha are hilarious!
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
“What’s a ‘toiletty?'”
schrodingers_cat
Posted from an earlier morning thread:
Link
ETA: Once discharged they are fair game for deportation if they have no other valid status.
ETA2: I said this was Nazi-like when discussing this with husband kitteh. He disagrees, says I am being hyperbolic. What does the Balloon Juice hive mind think?
Haroldo
@pamelabrown53: Chinese white, possibly. Our geese are Chinese white and the gander (Olivia) is very, very talkative, moreso than the goose (Gus). What they really like to do is free range and gobble the greenery. When we had chickens, the geese would herd them, kinda.
Pyre Light
There used to be a a Willow tree in my yard … A heavy wet snow came through and so much stuck to the branchlets it bent in half and sprung the trunk.
Bess
I wonder about the tree placement. Is the one tree (the willow) going to grow up and block the view of your garden from the deck? Sitting and contemplating the progress of one’s vegetables is enjoyable. I wouldn’t want to hide them.
Then. Creating a nice tree-shaded corner for sitting out on a hot afternoon might be nice. The back corner opposite the garden, for example. I would have gone with a small grove trees that don’t get large such as dogwoods or semi-dwarf fruit trees. Put in some posts to hang your hammock.
You want a willow. That’s fine. But the willows I saw when I lived back east are likely to get very large and dominate the space you have. I’d think back corner as long as it wouldn’t shade your garden.
If the willow gets out of hand there’s always chainsaw therapy.
BTW, for someone wanting to grow some fruit trees in a modest yard like this give serious consideration to full dwarfs. You can plant them much closer together than semi-dwarfs and get the same amount of fruit from the space. Being smaller you can plant a wider variety, lengthen your harvest season, and have more flavors to enjoy. Plus you can prune, spray, and harvest from the ground or short ladder and avoid the big ladder stuff.
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: It is. But I think people don’t want to know how much we are emulating the 4th Reich. They did this to Jewish servicemen.
Haroldo
@schrodingers_cat: I think especially as taken as part of the whole, it is. Bit by wretched bit this country is getting there. We possess a somewhar more aware populace than Germany, ca. 1933, but it’s up to us to keep fighting. Broken record time: getting out the vote is paramount.
pamelabrown53
@SiubhanDuinne: #42
We are SO in agreement re: “Friendly Persuasion”.There are so many scenes and subplots that are just so poignant/endearing.
BTW, would you explain your user nym to me? I’m reading the “Outlander” series and I frequently encounter “Duinne” . Kindle doesn’t translate Gaelic; is it Gaelic?
pamelabrown53
@Haroldo: #45.
Would love to see a video of geese herding chickens! If you don’t mind me asking, why do you have geese? Eggs? Eating? Pets? Some years ago, we were in Hungary and I swear every neighborhood restaurant served a roasted goose leg (kinda like turkey leg “Fair Food” here). I thought it was so succulently stupendous,, I bought an intricately carved goose egg at the Budapest Art Museum in honor of the gastronomic experience.
Manyakitty
@schrodingers_cat: NOT HYPERBOLIC.
jl
Thnx to Cole for the beautiful yard and new willow pic.
Did I not state categorically many times that the Cole yard was going great? Yes I did. Vindication is sweet.
Only quibble, no Cole animals in the yard in this pic. S’posed to be a full service blog.
Haroldo
@pamelabrown53: Pets and Guarders of the Hens. Initially Gus was a prolific layer of eggs. Not so much any more.
I will see if we have any pictures of the Geese gazing beneficiently over the Flock.
MomSense
Now all I need is a Rosie pic.
SWMBO
Bit by bit we become monsters. https://twitter.com/stonekettle/status/1008502343594373120?s=21
PrahaPartizan
Re the willow tree, was the location of any sewer lines or septic tank fields taken into account when the decisions was made on a willow tree? Willows suck up a lot of water and will go after sewer lines in the absence of body of water close at hand. Also, willow wood is not terribly strong, which makes little difference for the whispy branches which sway in the wind. It can make quite a bit of difference for the major limbs which form on the tree, which are not terribly strong and have a tendency to break easily. Everybody has their favorite trees though and every variety has its pluses and minuses.