Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

I don't do anything else, and I tend to do them on the same day; mostly because PT is in AnnArbor, and most of the stores I go to are there. The rest of them are in town, and I stop on my way home.

PT progresses. Team lead says 'not so fast' -- team member last week added an exercise and increased the weight on another, and my shoulder wasn't really ready for either of them. Being the good PT patient that I am, I dropped the weight, and dropped one of the exercises entirely. Team leader agreed with both of my changes. Today was evaluation day. Still fairly significant limitations, although everything is better than it was a month ago, which was better than when I first went in. At least two more weeks, and he retains the right to extend treatment further if needed.

I finally gave in and called my optometrist. The current glasses I'm wearing are almost three years old - the last time I went in (march of 2019), she said that the changes to my prescription were very minor and that I probably didn't need to get new lenses. So I didn't. But the changes have progressed (not just presbyopia, but actual corneal deformation) to the point that I need new glasses. She's currently taking appointments for 6 weeks out - the first one they offered me was November 3. Erm, no, can't make that one (Election Day! I will be trapped at the township hall). So November 10 it is.

Meijer is filling in the empty spaces in the soda can shelves with salty snacks. Paper goods are fully stocked for two layers deep, but the rest of the shelf is empty. Still no sliced chicken in the sandwich meat case. The cider mill is open, so I stop there on my way home - it's actually a bit out of my way, but it's still better than making a special trip. The grocer in town has sugared Pepsi (as opposed to the usual HFCS stuff). Still no throwback Mt Dew (also sugar). I was able to get everything on the list (except the one thing that I specifically chose not to, because I can go into town and get it if we run out before next Friday).

The solar panels are all on the garage roof! J has been moving some of the house circuits over to a critical circuits box, so that they'll still run off the battery if the mains power goes out overnight. Still waiting for various inspections, and to hear from the contractor as to when they'll be here, but things are progressing. J is also rearranging the internet stuff - the routers/modems/etc have all been crammed onto a drop-down panel in the floor joists in my workroom (right by where the cable comes in to the house), but he's moved them all to a larger, more accessible space on the wall in the storage room that we cleared off for the inverter and the battery. He pulled a couple hundred feet of outdated wire out of the wire chases last night (the old second phone line, old cable-TV wires, old LAN wiring, etc), so that will be neater.

I have been doing the early fall garden clean-up, pulling weeds (mostly grass) and cutting back flower stems. I've been avoiding a couple of gardens, just because there's so many different bees buzzing around in them -- I really don't need to disrupt them while they're stocking up for winter, so I won't. The high point frog count was 24 plus 5 tadpoles. The usual count in the evening now is 14-15.

The gardening did not happen last weekend.

Late Friday evening, when I went out to get the birdfeeders, I noticed that the pond level was way down, so I turned off the rill. It was too late to get any meaningful work done on it (the sun had already set and it was getting dark quickly). Saturday morning, after the bricks had dried from the overnight dew, I turned the rill back on to see where the leak was. But none of the visible bricks got damp, so I couldn't figure out where the water was going, and it was a lot of water going somewhere. A bit later, I noticed that there was water ponding at the back of the rill, and looked closer, at which point I found that the reservoir at the top of the rill had tipped so far toward the back that there was a steady stream of water going over one corner of it, down the inside of the brick wall holding up the rill structure, and out into the yard behind the rill. A slight disassembly of the rill later, the rocks underneath were reconfigured with more rocks and less dirt for the varmints to dig in, and the rill was back on.

All this while dodging rain events -- usually slightly heavier than showers, but none that lasted very long.

Sunday, I went out to commit gardening, but while I was able to dig up and weed the space where the irises are going to expand to, the ground is too wet to actually plant anything. I also got a few more volunteers yanked out from around the rowan next to the pond -- something more easily done when the ground is wet.

In other news, due to us being in and out of the backyard on Saturday, the modern pterodactyls were not in the yard, so the froggies felt safe enough to come out. I counted 14 froggies on Saturday, ranging in size from just over an inch (2.5cm) to over 3 inches 7.5cm). Whee!!

(alternatively, 'then came the deluge')

In which the final FCB concert of the summer was cancelled about 4 hours before the downbeat due to the imminent arrival of an all-evening rain event. It had already begun here at the house, with an initial downpour that gave us nearly an inch of rain in about 15 minutes. That was sometime before 3pm, and it's still raining three hours later, although at a much lighter intensity, and with less wind and thunder. The rain gauge on the deck says we've gotten over 1.5 inches (38mm) total, the birdbath agrees (it was down a little when the rain started, and it's now overflowing).

In critter news, we have froggies! I saw 6 actual froggies yesterday, and a bloop. None of them are very big. but at least they're there.

On my way out to weed the sedum/lilies in the side garden last week, I went past the house flowerbeds, and got distracted. That was three days of weeding & cutting back, but now that's done, and the coral bells & astilbe are much less crowded. I saw a froggie up there, as well, but I think it's probably a tree frog.

This morning, I went out and finished weeding the sedum/lilies, and cut back the faded daisies before they collapsed and took out the blackberry lilies and the goldenrod. The irises are in dire need of weeding, and I may get to them tomorrow, depending on when it stops raining. I realised while I was weeding out there that the california poppies have stopped reseeding themselves quite so aggressively. I rather miss them, and I may have to scatter a few seeds this fall. It's my own fault tho', as I forget what they look like when they're only a few inches tall and pull them out thinking they're weeds.

Frog count is now 13! At least some of them are no bigger than crickets, but they're still froggies in the pond. I approve. The biggest one I've seen is only a couple of inches long, a far cry from the fist-sized ones we had last year, but they'll get there. If we don't freeze them again this year. :(

J has been rebuilding the deck with composite decking (sawdust in recycled plastic) - the lower level was damaged by the rose bush growing next to/through it (it never dried out under the rose bush and therefore couldn't be sealed and thus the damp really got into the wood)- and I've been using the off-cuts (22-23 inches long) to make a boardwalk in the East garden, just nestling the boards down into the peagravel. I've never liked the path he put in a decade ago (hot in the summer, poke-y at all times, and impossible to kneel on while weeding). It's much better now, and while it's not quite done (ran out of off-cuts), he's not done with the decks yet. There will be enough, and if there's not, well, I can just buy another board or two and cut it up purposely!

Currently, the deck is buried under tools/boards/bikes/etc. J has finally started building the workshop in the garage that he's been talking about for 5-6 years. So far, he's put in a new insulated garage door, moved the attic access ladder, and started putting in the new wall. Next is wiring.

When J plugged the pump in this spring, he did it in the evening, and by morning the pump was sucking air, as there was (well, still is) a leak in the rill where the water is finding ways out. And then it got very cold (below freezing for high temps for a couple of days), and I was somewhat concerned that we'd lost all the amphibians who winter over in the pond. I was out working around the pond today, and got 'shriillled' at by a toad, so they're not all dead. I didn't see him, but I certainly heard him. :)

and, just to be contrary, there's an Easter Lily blooming in the side garden. It's the one that DB brought home from work at Easter. I planted it, as one does, and watered it when I watered the rest of that garden. The main stems died back in June, because it had been forced into bloom early and was thus done early. Apparently, another stem grew (tucked under the peony and larkspur in that area of the garden), and I didn't notice it because it was just another shade of green. I was wandering through the garden after a week or so of not (working on other gardens, out of town), and saw something that I thought was a milkweed pod that had burst, but it wasn't quite the right color, and then I got close enough to actually see what it was. We'll have to see if it blooms again in the spring, or if it's going to be an autumn lily.

The bitty frogs are getting bigger and a bit braver, so it's easier to count them -- they don't sproing for the pond as soon as you get close. One day last week, some animal fell into the pond -- we think it was probably a dog -- the pond grass is all knocked over in one section, and the frogs were really skittish for a couple of days.

The Indigo Rose tomato that I planted has ripe tomatoes on it, finally. They look better than they taste -- not that they taste bad, there's just not a lot of flavor there. The other tomato plants are also bearing, although the yellow cherry has a lot of split fruit on it because of the wildly varying levels of rain we've been getting.

Last weekend, J and I ran off to Cheboygan and Mackinaw City to do the BridgeWalk with friends (jebra and others). We couldn't really do it when the kids were in school, because they had to be in school on Monday, and were usually busy over the weekend anyway. It was a fun trip. We went up Saturday, and Sunday we spent touristing around Mackinaw City -- the icebreaker museum was open, so that was our afternoon sorted. Then it was up at 4:15 to eat first breakfast and drive to Mackinaw for another round of breakfast before we caught a bus over to St Ignace to be there at 7am when the first walkers went off. We finished sometime before 9am, and got our BridgeWalk certificates (#3314). Then we went back to the state park and struck camp, and then to the bridgewalk in Cheboygan, followed by another breakfast and then home. It was fun, I expect we'll do it again.

So the weather got decent enough that I could go pull weeds. So I did. So the flowerbeds look much better, although there's still one or two I need to get to.

Unfortunately, it's not gonna happen today. And maybe not tomorrow, either. I hate back spasms. I think I'll settle for getting the laundry done. And making dinner. And going to rehearsal.

The "frogs" are carrying on. At last count (which was yesterday evening) there were 16 in and around the pond. (I say "frogs" because there's treefrogs and toads and proper frogs out there, and they're hard to tell apart when all you can see is eyes (and maybe a nose) or moving blobs as they dive for cover.)