Cop Car's Beat

Catching up

It's been a while since I've posted and I know that enquiring minds really want to know up to what this really old woman has been. Well...if you don't really care, you may be excused to find better use of your time. This is not required reading!

The yard work has been keeping me busy for the spring and early summer, this year. Which is usually the case. What makes it more interesting/harder work this year are the confluence of two happenings: 1) unavailability of quality mulch, and 2) weather that teeters between rainy and hotter/sunnier than hell. I cannot work in the sun or in the heat as I am prone to sun/heat stroke - or - at the very least, heat exhaustion. As I've written at Paying for my sins gives me exercise, my big challenge this year has been to rid us of the sumac that I was foolish enough to plant. It had thrived and, as previously stated, it will be at least a couple of years before I can declare victory. Defeat is unthinkable! Each week, our trash barrel has been completely stuffed with sumac roots that I've dug/pulled up for the past several weeks. The photos, below, show how the largest sumac planted areas look, today. The photos show the same area, but from nearly opposite viewpoints. Note, too, that I have taken out a couple of the small redbud trees and trimmed up the remaining ones.

While working in that area for a few minutes, this morning, I took the opportunity to transplant a small crepe myrtle bush (photo, below). I don't know whether the bush came up from seed (I find hundreds of seedlings all over the place) or from the roots of nearby old crepe myrtle bushes. As was the case for the small crepe myrtle bush that I planted in the same planting bed earlier this year (thought I had posted it but can't find the photo or posting) in either case I don't know the parent bush. It could be a dwarf cerise-colored crepe myrtle, a white full-sized crepe myrtle, or a more reddish pink full-sized crepe myrtle. (For photos of possible parent bushes, please see The past week or so at Casa CC - 7/27/2019.)

Most of my yard-work time during the past week has been spent de-weeding/grassing the planting areas that are farther from the street, but in the same stretch of yard. The next photo shows about one-third of the area in which I've been working. At the left side of the photo, within the area delimited by the steel posts (installed to keep Fred's occasional fence-fall from further damaging my plantings), one can see a multitude of crab grass plants awaiting my attention. I was working in that area, this morning, when it started raining. (It is a hot, muggy day and it is now (5pm) thundering out there.

Did I fail to mention that I showed more agility, this morning, than I would have laid claim to? I heard something crashing down and ran into the middle of our back yard where I knew I would be safe from falling trees/limbs. It was an unnecessary exercise as the branch from a huge walnut tree stayed on Fred's property, this time. He doesn't trim his trees (or anything else in his part of the woods) which leads to such dead falls. It was not a small limb! (I took a photo, but the bright sun made it impossible for me to see the viewfinder and the offending tree isn't in the photo!)

My mini meadow is coming along nicely this year. The next photo shows it in all its glory. Note the milkweeds - the seed pods of which deserved their own photo. I'll post the pod photo on the neighborhood website to see if anyone wants a pod or three.

I bury our green garbage. It enriches the clay of which our soil is comprised and reduces the strain on our city's sewage system. Our city requires that no garbage be placed in the trash bins. That is what garbage disposers are supposed to make unnecessary. Many of the buried treasures send up shoots - mostly from potatoes and melons. They have a tendency to try to escape their confines. The photos, below, show a couple of examples. In the first photo, a melon plant of some sort has shriveled up in the past day or two - maybe from too much water????

 

 

 

 

To round out the posting, here is a closeup of the little things that have been hanging from our small trees over the past week or two. I'm thinking they are army worms like the ones that destroyed much of our fescue lawns last summer. Kevin is supposed to be sending his lawn specialist out to tell me what we need to have done.

Paying for my sins gives me exercise

For the past several weeks I've made a concerted effort to get rid of the four sumac plants that I was foolish enough to have planted in Fall 2018. There are three segments of planting bed beside our driveway into which I had planted one sumac each. The fourth sumac was planted just outside our dining room windows, in the foundation planting area. I had had a sumac plant at our previous house, and we had one for the first few years that we lived here - neither of which had been a problem. In fact, each of them eventually died without sending out descendants. Little did I realize how different the experience would be with the four new plants. I soon learned that sumac plants send out a myriad of roots in all directions, interweaving as they go.  It will take a couple of years (at least) for me to totally eradicate the plants/roots since I don't believe in using poisons, but I'm working on it

Fortunately for me, most of the roots are not all that deep but they are so tangled and widespread that they are hard to dig/pull up. The weather that we've been having lately has made conditions nearly ideal for me to work on those roots. As I pull up the roots, by hand, I also turn over the soil. (A great tillage scheme were that what I was going for!) I'll show you the progress that I've made.

The first photo is from last Fall, showing all three of the plants/descendants along the driveway - numbered 1 through 3 (not readable unless enlarged), starting with the sumac closest to the street.

Today, the area that is nearest the street looks like this (below). Until I took the photo, I had thought that there were no above-ground indications of sumac ever having resided there. As the photo clearly shows, a sumac is coming up from a root that remains. (I'll get it out, tomorrow - I'm through working in the mud for the day.) As you might guess, the sumac loves to come up within a bunch of daylily (or the burning bush plants that are to the right, unseen in the photo) where it cannot easily be seen. It took me a long time to root out all of the little plants and the roots that had sent them up.

This morning, I finished up (for the moment) working on Area 2 (below). There are no above-ground indications of sumac presence. I can guarantee that such absence of indications won't last long. It took me but one week to reach this point. I've learned how to pull up plants and roots more efficiently - plus, the mud is soupier.

Having made such great progress in Area 2, I started on Area 3 this morning. Well...technically, I had cut a bunch of the above-ground stuff away, yesterday. I didn't work at it long, today, but worked the above-ground branches back-and-forth to loosen the main plant/roots up for better progress tomorrow.

I've not yet really worked on total removal of the sumac in front of the dining room - only trimmed off a branch that encroached on the sidewalk and a branch that brushed the windows and removed a couple of large roots that shot out from the plant's trunk and turned vertically downward along the foundation - which I found in pulling up multiple smaller sumac plants that were hiding among the non-sumac plants. The photo, below, shows the sumac last fall. I didn't bother to take a photo of it this morning.

BTW: See the bush that I had trimmed back to renew last fall - between the sumac and the small green bush at the bottom right corner of the photo? It gave me my comeuppance the other day when I was pulling up one of the large sumac roots that shot downward along the foundation at the house corner shown to the right in the photo. Over-winter, the trimmed bush died, so a bunch of dead, stubby branches remained. The root suddenly gave way as I was pulling it upward and outward - sitting me down, hard, on those dead, stubby branches. Ouch! I now have a hideous bruise on my left, upper thigh - too large to be covered by one of my hands. Fortunately for me, the dead, stubby branches mostly broke off at ground level rather than skewering me. You can bet that I removed the rest of those branches to prevent future such happenings!

ADDITION OF 6/11/2022 8:30AM

This (photo, below) is what I dug/pulled up this morning to remove that little green sprig that was showing above-ground yesterday. One can tell that I did not get it all. There are three reasons for that: 1) It is too hot for me to be working out there (and it is now in the sun), 2) I am dizzy this morning (blood pressure medication), and 3) It is a never-ending task. I could be removing roots to the end of the earth!

The cart (photo, below) is full of much of the roots/pieces that I had dug/pulled up yesterday. The rest were in the (larger) trash cart that had been emptied by the trash pickup people yesterday. (The green cart is not "one of theirs", so they won't pick it up. I'll transfer from our 50-year-old green cart into their blue cart once the muddy root clumps have had a chance to dry out. Right now, the cart is too heavy for me to lift to make the transfer - even after cutting up and transferring the lighter stuff that is on top.)

Receding waters - mostly for Bogie

After the flood waters had receded, most of the water returning to within the creek's banks, I went out to take some photos - mostly to show Bogie since she had been here so recently. The scene in the first photo is mostly in Adam's (next door upstream) area. (The clearly visible lines in the grass are in our lot.) Adam's lot is at the confluence of a tributary, coming in from the near left of this scene, and the main creek that comes in from the far left. Taking the photo into the sun gave a wierdly-colored cast to the light in this photo.

On the opposite side of our yard are the steps that take one from the upper level of our back yard down to the floor of the woods. You can see the flotsam that has been left - clearly the least flotsam I've ever seen from flooding in our yard. I was amazed that the stack of stored concrete blocks was not visibly budged by the water flow. Possibly, this is due to Fred's immense pile of flotsam, hidden by the greenery to the left of the steps, that is still left from 2016. It may account for a slower flow of water in that immediate area.

The next photo shows the hostas, volunteer walnut trees (foreground), and "markers" in the area in which cats Cop Car and Jellicle are buried. Fortunately, as part of the mowing, I had cleaned out the tall grass from around this cluster just before the rain came.

Likewise, I had taken the wire caging and pulled the tall grass from around the struggling hostas that are a couple of feet away from the above cluster. These are the oldest hostas in our yard. (History: I had never found hostas particularly appealing until Bogie started posting photos of her hostas in her yard. I planted several in an area just downhill from the cluster of ash and cottonwood trees. Over the years, they got lost in the weeds and were mowed over several times. These two stalwart plants survived and, with the cluster of ash and cottonwood trees now having been removed, have a chance at long-term survival - if they have the lifespan.)

Bogie, the following photo shows what remains of the brush pile. Since the brush pile had been (mostly) cleared out by "my" tree guys last fall, what had accumulated since then hadn't had a real chance to settle in. I think that all of the pile on which you piled the windfalls while here was washed away and that what remained was an older part of the pile that the guys hadn't had time to haul away. In my next posting, you'll see the beginnings of my new pile - cherry tree limbs. It took a few more hours for the trapped water in this photo to completely drain away.

 

The North Star dwarf cherry tree & other assorted photos

The first photo shows our little North Star dwarf cherry tree as it appeared on 4/21/2022 - sickly. It had been a bountiful producer through the 2021 season but had been showing signs of distress for two or three years. It clearly needed to be removed.

Last year, I had ordered (and paid for) a new cherry tree (no North Stars available) and planting. However, the rainy season vetoed that project and we have no replacement tree.

Yesterday, as a fillip to my yard work, I sawed the branches off of the tree. Having the branches removed will give me more room to conveniently work around the tree trunk. There are saplings growing around its base and I intend to see if they are viable. If I can't buy another tree, perhaps I can grow one. I don't know if the saplings are actually suckers off of the roots of the old tree or sprouts from the numerous mummified cherries that have dropped in the area over the years. As I see it, even if I don't harvest cherries from the new trees, it will be an interesting experiment. (One of the sapplings is just to the left of the de-branched trunk.)

Within the next several months, I'll have the tree guys remove the cherry tree trunk when I have them out to remove the rather large gingko tree from in front of the house. The gingko has grown to be too large (and I had had it planted too near the house, thinking it would be a slow-growing tree) for my possible wildfire abatement plan.

Below, see the total 2022 harvest. Well...I had eaten the cherry that looked the best.

Just after our family's get-together, a couple of hummingbird feeders were delivered from Duncraft. It had caught my attention because its capacity was a mere 3.5 ounces. This seemed thrifty since, in general, our old hummingbird feeders require a fill of about 6 or 8 ounces (capacity is more like 12 ounces), most of which is never consumed. I tried out one of the new feeders on our local hummingbirds. Immediately upon my returning to the house from hanging the feeder, a male ruby-throated hummingbird gave it a try. For the next week, as far as I could tell, that was the only visit that the new feeder inspired. I went back to one of our old feeders, one of which is the green glass feeder at the right in the photo, below.

But, I reasoned, the new feeder might draw orioles if I removed the top and filled the cup with fruit or jelly. I cut up some grapes for it. I didn't see any "takers" the first day, and we had rain overnight. I've kept the feeder out there, despite more rain's having visited us. So far, the only "taker" has been the butterfly shown in the photo, below. It stayed all day.

We have a lot of Stella d'Oro plants, and they are just starting their annual show. The metal posts on the ground had just been removed from marking a small redbud tree and staking two small mulberry trees at the edge of the woods. I placed them there to allow rain to clean them off for me. (Am I lazy or what?!) It is now raining and I have great hopes that those metal posts (and the tools that I leaned against the house when I finished my struggle to remove one of the sumac root balls yesterday morning) will be clean. It's been so muddy for my work at removing my ill-considered sumacs that I am pooped by the time I come in. I don't need the extra work of cleaning up my tools, as I should do.

Last photo for the posting: My red-twigged dogwood bush. Bogie and I discussed it while she was here. Like me, she would not have identified it as a dogwood bush had she not been informed. The bush had experienced significant die-back during the winter. It looks good, though, since I removed the dead branches a few weeks ago.

Having to do with Irises

In It's Iris time! I posted a few photos of irises in their early stages of bloom, including the first photo of that series which shows the flower bed to be addressed, below. In order to more clearly show the "before" condition I include a "before" photo from May of 2020, the first photo below. Please note the iris blossom stalks that are prostrate across the grass. This is a particular problem when Hunky Husband does the mowing because he is not comfortable mowing over the flowers, but goes around them. Because this is an annual happening and because the irises have been multiplying over the several years since I transplanted starts from the planting bed next to the driveway, I decided to take out at least the majority of the plants. This presented a problem because all sorts of utility wires/cables/lines run through that area. I cannot dig there.

Since Bogie and Elder Brother left town the other day, we have received over three inches of rain. Yay! I did nothing while it was rainy, cold, and windy but got out in the yard to work this morning - in the 50s, sunny, with a light breeze. I pulled up all of the subject iris plants (see photo, below), which was easy work due to the soggy condition of the soil. In the photo, the pulled plants are stacked at the far end of the basement escape window, awaiting my deciding what to do with them. The irises that are left standing at the near end are the short, root beer-colored, early bloomers which I plan to leave. They, BTW, are marginally outside the area through which the wires/cables/lines run.

Please note the tidy placement of mulch in the area from the near end of the basement escape window to the camera. That is some of the work that Bogie did for me while she was here. She prepared the bed and spread at least six 3-cubic-foot bags of mulch. I loved it! Thank you, Bogie. (Now I know how my own mother felt when I visited her and volunteered labor!)

The only flowers that were in full bloom while family were gathered were the roses that I planted for Hunky Husband. They were beautiful and, as Bogie can attest, odiferous. Did I think to take a photo? Of course not! While photographing the iris bed, this morning, I took a photo of the rose bed. The poor things had been whipped by the wind and rain, but most of the colors are showing. Only the beautiful red Mr Lincoln is not showing color. It had produced but one blossom and it was torn to pieces by the elements.

At the right edge of the photo can be seen one of the two bags of mulch that we stowed there. It should be just enough to cover the area from which the irises have been removed - once I rake the tree and iris leaves from the area. I'm hoping that our landscape friends have been able to replenish their supply of mulch. Lowe's hasn't had the right kind of mulch, at all, this spring and TenderCare has had a hard time getting their supplies delivered. Cross your fingers for me, Bogie.

A wonderful few days!

Pizza John's:

Our whole family was able to get together for a few days, last week. As we had done in 2019, we gathered at John's Pizza, our favorite local casual eating place. The only downside was that it had been but a couple of weeks since the female half of the founding couple had died. Our server was one of her granddaughters. We had a wonderful time there, then adjourned to our home - at which venue no one thought to take photos. 

From one end of the table, the first two photos feature Bogie (light grey tee) and clockwise around the table, Elder Brother (EB), WichiDude, Rachie, Dudette, Wonderful Granddaughter (WGD), Next Generation 1 (NG1), my empty chair, and Hunky Husband (HH).

The next photo, from the other end of the table, features Dudette (grey sweater), WGD, NG1, HH, Bogie, EB, WichiDude, and Rachie.

The third photo features WGD, NG1's empty chair, my empty chair, HH, Bogie, Next Generation 2 (NG2), EB, WichiDude, Rachie, and Dudette.

The next photo features NG1 (white tee), my empty chair, HH, Bogie, NG2, EB, & the shoulder of WGD.

P.S. While she was here, Bogie bought a couple of patchouli plants, asking that I mail them to her. The day after she left Kansas, I mailed the plants. The plants took less time to reach her home than it took Bogie - 26 hours vs 30 hours. The plants "looked pretty good" upon arrival.

P.P.S. Thank you, Liz, for giving me perspective. Had it not been for your posting of prices to send boxes to your family in Italy, I might have balked at spending 70 USD to send Bogie her patchouli plants that, as I recall, cost her less than 8 USD. (I'm taking it out of her inheritance. *laughing*)

Addition of 5/28/2022: More family photos supplied by Bogie (captioning by CC)

At home:

The next evening, after HH went to bed, Elder Brother (EB) and I sat up talking in my den. I took the opportunity to snap a few candid photos of him. Those are EB's favorite birding binoculars in his hands. From here, he drove to a couple of favorite birding places in Kansas from whence he proceeded to a couple more favorite birding places in Texas before heading home to Colorado. For a guy who suffered cardiac arrest in 2015 (he had a defibrillator implanted) and who is age 86 he tolerates long drives exceedingly well.

The three younger generations went out of their way to assure that EB, HH, and I did not over-extend ourselves. Bogie went so far as to pick up eight bags of mulch for me and prepare the area (pull weeds and fluff old mulch) before doing the mulch spreading.

It's Iris time!

The root beer-colored iris in the back, left, of the first photo is usually the first iris to bloom each spring. I wasn't watching closely enough to know if that held true this year, but if not, it was neck-and-neck with the ruffled irises that are champagne- or orchid- (at the right of the photo) colored.

The second photo shows the patch in which I originally planted the ruffled champagne- and orchid-colored irises - purchased from WalMart, no less, perhaps 15 years ago, 

I still have a few descendants from my mother's irises - such as the yellow irises (and purple buds) shown in the next photo.

The hostas are doing well, too...

...as are the mystery bushes/plants that Bogie and I have been trying to identify for several years. I first, mistakenly, thought the original bush was from the basil that I had planted one year. Since then, I/we have gone through sage and a couple of other titles. Perhaps, one of these years, Bogie will get to see them during warm weather when they have blossoms to help us. The bush in the photo is from a start from the original bush - along with another start that is near the ruffled champagne- and orchid-colored irises.

 

Grumble, grumble - ground cover, my foot!

Is the hatred of pulling weeds universal, or am I the only lazy person around? A weed that Bogie has identified from my photos as probably being speedwell is trying taking over the world at our house. The speedwell is pretty, while abloom, but not so much at the later stage. The rain that we've had the past couple of nights make it "easier" work for me - perfect for me to go out early of a morning, before sun and heat get too intense, to put in whatever time I can stand pulling those little suckers. Yesterday, I put in three spells of weed-pulling - 60, 40, and 20 minutes, respectively - and put in only 40 minutes this morning.

The first photo shows a portion of the foundation planting area in front of the house, with speedwell rife. The second photo shows a nearby area that I cleared, yesterday - with the sparse amount of sedum that survived the onslaught. (It's easier to throw out sedum plants with the speedwell than to be too picky, at times.) One can see that the speedwell is past the blooming stage. Its blooms are tiny and blue. The yellow blossoms in the photos are those of sedum. FWIW: The area in each photo is about as much as I can clear in 40-60 minutes.)

Spring Photos 2022

All computer systems are GO. Computer Depot, from whom I've purchased a couple of laptop computers and who came to mind when I was faced with using our public library computers to download the tools that I needed, made short work of restoring Hunky Husband's and my computers. I finished setting up HH's computer before dinner last evening and finished setting up this computer about an hour ago. While I was at it, I upgraded HH's Windows to 11 (he had still been running 10) and made a boot thumb drive for this computer. I don't understand why it is made so difficult, but I spent hours (not exaggerating) going 'round and 'round trying to figure out how to download Windows 11 and the Office 2019 suites that had originally been installed on the machines.

HH's computer was down for only four days, but I grew exasperated with his asking me when he would get his computer back. Poor guy asked several times each waking hour. One reason I went ahead and installed Windows 11 on his computer was that I knew there was no way that I would get his desktop to "look" exactly as it had looked before, so took the plunge figuring that the differences between 10 and 11 would be no more bothersome to him. (It turned out that it was less bothersome to him than the fact that I couldn't figure out how to make the file icons on his desktop the same size that they previously had been!) HH saves all files to his desktop. I don't know why, but he likes it that way (I had a boss at Cessna who did the same thing.)

Turning to some of the pleasures of spring, I present some of the photos that I've taken this month - since the April Fool's Day joke that my computer played on me. The first photo shows the largest patch of Phlox among all that have grown up from the starts that Bogie sent me several years ago - from her home in New Hampshire. I don't know where the little pink tuft of Phlox originated, but they are surely also descended from Bogie's stock. Note the smaller patch of white phlox visible just left of center at the far side of the lilac-colored patch.

Late last spring, I had a new Oklahoma Red Bud tree planted away from Adam's newish fence, the protection of which had led to my having our largest, prettiest red bud removed the previous Autumn. The new tree isn't very large, but it produced beautiful blossoms this year.

While the red bud tree is in the back lawn, there is a Flowering Crabapple tree that was planted in the "deep back" of our lot - planted in May 2020. That tree, too, is small but beautiful.

In the above photo, note the bountiful crop of dandelions that has presented itself this spring. The following photo shows the wildflowers blooming in the "deep back". Note the two different shades of Prairie Violet blossoms (which show, much better, in the enlarged version). Pretty weeds are truly prolific this spring.

At the side of the driveway are a Texas White Bud tree planted in April, 2019, and a few volunteer Red Bud trees. They are looking truly fine.

Not looking so truly fine this year and nearing the end of its lifespan is our little North Star Cherry tree. Until now, it has provided copious numbers of cherries to some of our neighbors (and to our family). Last year, I had ordered and paid to have a new cherry tree planted elsewhere in our back yard. Alas, the weather did not cooperate. It stayed so rainy that we finally gave up. I've not been to the nursery, this year.

At the base of the poor, struggling cherry tree are bush cherries that were planted at the same time as the tree. They keep coming back after being severely pruned every few years. (The yellow-brown detritus is tree leaves entrapped among the bases of the bushes. I've removed many leaves, but don't have the patience to do a great job.)

I used to have a huge compost pile for leaves and cuttings. Over the years I found that I had tossed many hand, gardening tools out with the green stuff that I was adding to the pile. I rarely found those tools. In the past couple of years, I've discontinued that pile and taken out the trees near it. Every few months another hand tool emerges. I found this pair of inexpensive pruners three weeks ago. I didn't try to revive the poor things. 

Spring is Bursting Out

This (below) is the last little bunch of phlox that I set out a few years ago - some generation sprung from Bogie's starts that she sent me about 12 years ago. The die-back in the center of the clump is obvious, but I don't know whether it is from dogs that have been walked down our street or from the really low temperatures that have visited us every so often over the winter.

Below is the only survivor of the three Autumn Joy sedums that I set out several years ago. I think the placement is too damp for them.

Lastly comes a clump of weeds. Bogie has probably identified them for me in the past, but I don't recall. They are pretty, so I'm letting them stay in the little space where the Autumn Joys are failing to thrive.

I mowed, yesterday, for the first time since 11/6/2021. There was more chopping of leaves involved than was there mowing of grass, but front and back lawns look so nice, now.

ADDITION of 3/26/2022 - Photos of weeds from May, 2008

Bogie, I didn't waste my time trying to find photos of creeping speedwell in my blog, but I did find a photo from my photo files from 2008. There were photos of Weed #1 and Weed #2 - showing similar color, size, & shape of blossoms but neither of which I had gone back to ID.

 

Bogie, I did find the original posting that I had in mind. It is here.