We just staked out the best spots for all of the new fruit trees, and spray painted Xs on the ground. We are off to Home Depot to get the tiller we rented for four hours to help grind up those spots to make it easier to dig the holes, fertilize, and mulch properly. Wouldn't you know it, I stepped on a fire ant hill (small colony so not immediately obvious in the grass) and have about 15 bites on one ankle. Not a happy person! Drowning them in diatomaceous earth when we get back with another bag of the stuff. We are going to look for a source of 50lbs of the it, and if we find it, rent a fertilizer spreader, put on boots, and walk the whole yard with the stuff in the hopes of doing a massive ant kill. The spots I treated yesterday have zero living ants now. But I keep finding more and more colonies. So we just need to treat the whole yard. And then I didn't get this posted so now we are at the end of the day, and all of the plants are in the ground. We did, however, run out of mulch. So I need to run down to the bottom of the mountain to the independent farm and feed store that we love and buy some. I am also hoping they stock the diatom earth. I really don't feel like driving into Huntsville again. Fingers crossed.

And also remember all of this is on the backs of a country with no universal healthcare. Think about that too. Insulin is often $800-1000 a month. My husband's epi-pen for his bee sting allergy is running us $800 for a two pack. My youngest son, a new college graduate newly employed as an electrical engineer and with only a $150 a month student loan payment since he had so many scholarships and making a reasonable wage for his work, cannot afford to be sick, ever. He pays $500 a month for health insurance, his employer pays the other $500. He has a $10,000 deductible before insurance kicks in, and has to pay another $5000 before the insurance would pay 100% on covered expenses, and believe me, insurance companies find a bazillion things not to fully cover. He only has 5 days of paid time off which does not begin until he has worked there ninety days. He will not get more until the one year anniversary of his employment. They do fire people for being sick and injured and unable to work after using the five days or for it occurring in the first 90 days. Covid, influenza, a kidney stone, you name it...so many things that would cause a person to be home more than five days. He lives on pins and needles until he has enough years in to qualify for two or three weeks of time off. I know young people right now who are skipping out on life saving medications, skipping desperately needed medical procedures AND cannot find anywhere they can afford to live. Dispersed camping (free, remote campsites that do not even have a potable water source) are being used in our national forests by people with major medical issues. Forest rangers now have to do routine checks just to see if their campers are still alive, not because of natural disaster, because these campers don't have meds they desperately need, some are living with terrible diseases and trying to winter over in piece of crap campers so impossible to beat that the campers are in danger of freezing to death on top of their health problems. I wish I could convey how jealous I am of folks who live with universal healthcare. Of course the net result is that social security, on which the elderly are dependent, will go bust because not only did Gen X have fewer children owing to the fact we could see how the deck was stacked against future generations, but Millennials are having even fewer, and GenZ is pretty much going to have none because the wealthy in this nation are determined to keep these last two generations in poverty, and they have decided that unlike previous generations who would breed in abject misery anyway, they will not. At that point, ya'll get ready for the United States of America Fire Sale. There should be some good bits and pieces to pick up dirt cheap.

Thanks for that tip!!!

So I am at the Alabama house now, and though the fruit trees are here and I am ready to plant, the first thing I noticed was the return of fire ants, and getting uncomfortably close to the children's sand box. I have spent today at Home Depot for supplies, and then wandering the property searching out every ant hill, disrupting it with a shovel in the hopes of exposing the queen, and dousing with diatomaceous earth. Next up, A ground hornet nest as soon as it is dark and they have all returned to the nest. Fruit tree planting is reserved for tomorrow. It is so warm here compared to home. 80F/26.5C LOL, I had to come inside and cool off. I think I have found enough scrap wood on the property (some 2"x8"x8's - 5cm x 50cm x 240cm) to build her a planter for carrots and celery in the spring. I think I will go 16" deep, and 4' long, so 50cm deep and 120cm long. We don't have any agriculture fabric here, but plenty of card board. So my plan it is to layer several inches of cardboard along the fence, and place the beds on top which should make a good weed barrier for a while. She has a big wooden planter on the deck, and has garlic and basil going. The fabric bag had a nice bunch of strawberries. I am going to fill around the plants with leaves, lots of leaves, and cover hoping they will come back in the spring. I know exactly nothing about weathering over strawberries in the South where it just doesn't get very cold compared to Michigan where we practically give them little outfits of wool and bear pelts! 😂

I think you may have to have BritBox because it isn't on PBS.

Had she been interested, I would have loved to have your Dd on our rocket team. Sadly, we did not live near.

I have never ordered from eShakti. Bummer!

I get it. We live rural. Class D schools. Neither of us set out to teach science and mathematics in 4H. We just were pretty desperate for something for our kids, and ended up taking on the responsibility to get a program together. The 4H science club had 32 kids on a regular basis, and an awful lot of the time, ours were the only homeschool kids in it. The rocket team was mostly public school kids who schools refused to provide any outlet for science minded students, and so I can honestly say the bulk of my kids socialization was with public and some private school kids, but only occasionally with other home schooled kids. I am thankful for my grandsons that Huntsville offers so much. They have public school friends, a very secular homeschool group, and a wide variety or community offerings for all children. They live outside the city and have to drive in, but it is well worth it. The added bonus is that when they need dual enrollment, UAH is a hop, skip, and jump away. Here we had to use online or drive 1.5 hrs each way for the good university for in person courses.

I do not. But I am building one next summer. I had them in pots on the back steps this past summer, however, the pots really weren't big enough so they did not grow as well as they should have. For the record, I swear basil is the "rich, spoiled rotten brat, 'I'm melting if anyone looks at me funny', plant of the herb world. So with my scrap lumber I am building a 4ft long x 3ft wide x 2ft deep raised bed, and putting it on 2ft tall legs so when we are on our anniversary trip next summer and my mom has to come down and weed the bed, or fuss with it any way, she does not have to bend over. I am putting a lawn chair behind it, and a 2.5 gallon bucket of water on it with a lid that has holes drilled in it, and 3/8" ropes coming out of each hole with their ends buried near each plant. It is a water wicking method I am going to try which is supposed to greatly conserve water while keeping the plants drinking well. I am then mulching a lot to prevent evaporation. I will let you know if this works. My sweet basil appears to have a lot hate relationship with water in that it will die without water, and is dependent upon water, but recoils at the mere horror of water droplets touching it. And yet, we love Italian food, and I cannot go back to not having fresh basil, so this b#tchy little plant will continue to be pampered in every possible way while I pretend that I have not had the murderous thoughts of pulling the snarky little jerk up and throwing it to an acquaintances pig thus ending its nasty little botanical life. I will report back next summer to let you know if I am getting good results from the experiment or sinking into a deeper, herbal sociopathic state. 😁 I will also be putting in garlic, scallions, rosemary, and oregano. I am going to try chives in a pot. We love chives on potatoes. The dimensions in metric, 120 cm x 90cm x 60cm, 9.46 liters, and 9.5mm.

With my dd, I emphasized practicality and comfort. I told here there is something seriously misogynistic in the fashion industry when a woman's dress up clothes are that uncomfortable or require ridiculous things like glue and tape, yet a man's does not. I said, "If the building is on fire, how well can you you run to the fire exit in stilletto heels? Is a dress so narrow that you cannot take a normal step much less a wide step? Think about the message the industry and society is giving you about your value and self worth when this is the kind of clothing they expect you to wear." I was fortunate though, of the five evening gowns/cocktail dresses she owned in high school, my mom was able to make every one of them. The cocktail dresses were appropriately short, but easy to wear, easy to move, no tape or glue required and very pretty. The evening gowns allowed her to take full steps with dress shoes on only 2" heels. I realize we were so damn lucky because mom did this. Off the rack options were ugh nearly ever time we looked, and in her era, and I am pretty certain a lot of girls at prom were gluing their chests to their dresses to prevent wardrobe malfunction. Meanwhile the boys donned a pair of pants, buttoned up a shirt, donned a pair of dress shoes they could still easily do anything in and that would not cause their backs and hips to go out of alignment nor cause foot damage, popped on a tie, threw the jacket over their shoulder, and were done. I am really running out of patience with the misogyny in fashion.😡 And for the record, every freaking dress and skirt should have pockets. All of them. Or level the playing field and take all the pockets out of men's pants! 😁 Is Eshakti making short dresses these days? I just wondered if their custom route where hem length and what not can be altered would be an option in the future.

Agreed! Same for our youngest son, but in some shades for all our kids because here the educational malaise is so bad that just bright, academically talented but not gifted students are shunned socially. The rocket team saved our kids and many local ones because it gave them a place, a club and team to come together and be challenged while having a social element. They all became very good friends and maintain those friendships as alumni through their own rocket team, alumni private social media chat group. Without that, it would have been awful. Over the eleven years we mentored that team, we had 39 teens go through the program or through our sister program in engineering, and after 4H pulled the plug on it during covid and then refused to let it start up again because "these programs detract attention from agricultural science", there had been nothing else. Anything that even came close to giving kids who need this kind of challenge, who need to be grouped together and challenged, was scrubbed by schools and never allowed to come back. The amount of money for boys' football and basketball as meanwhile grown practically exponentially. Class D schools too. Not a sport's coach in the land coming to check out these kids. 😠

An off brand, not sure the name. It came from a home improvement place that is mostly in the Great Lakes Region, Menards.

Okay, I normally am just not judgy about clothes. I think people need to stop objectifying humans. But I think we as a society have gone entirely off the freaking rails when glue is required to hold body parts in position in order to wear stupid clothing! Can we have the flannel shirt and jeans homecoming, please?

This is what disturbs me. I can't even watch the local recitals anymore. There is just something not right about a group of 8 year old girls dressed for pole dancing, and then well, pole dancing without the pole if you get my drift. I wish little girls could just be little girls, and be dressed in tutus, and fairy dresses, and such.

Mine are very happy with their education, and were well prepared for college and the careers they have chosen. But, they have friends whose parents were lazy home schoolers and didn't make much effort, so they have seen the other side. We were in a soccer league for a few years, and then 4H and had competitive rocketry teams as well as a DNR related nature team (tracking invasive species and helping with other types of programs) so they got a lot of socialization. Dd is homeschooling our grandsons now. Or should I say, at the moment Marmee (me) is doing quite a bit while we do a few more weeks of her resting and not being 100% in the hopes that there will be no long, covid relapse. I homeschooled for a total of 19 years and thought I was retired. Ha ha ha! The senior engineer on youngest ds's project team at work was home schooled through high school. He and his wife are homeschooling their kids as well. My three sons are not having children though so this is not something they will be doing with their partners in the future.

Squirrels are a much of a pain in the arse as ground hogs.

Ya. I am not seeing it on the hive these days. Definite discussion about what paths to take to mitigate the horror, but not out and out denial.

Yes, I can imagine. That is so hard on the body. My personal theory, with no evidence whatsoever, is that heat stroke, hypothermia, and other forms of extreme body temp events damages the hypothalamus, and then self regulation becomes much more difficult.

Oh, there are times now! There is a crack down now. But years too late. On top of that a lot of snarky landowners, still sneak out and spray at night to kill the grass and baby trees trying to make a come back because A. View. B. Bad things always happen to other people but not them. Sigh. Every couple of years, somebody's house slides into the lake. 😠 There are efforts to replant. But bringing back a devastated habitat takes many years if not decades.

I have been busy adding apple peels and trimmings to my raised beds along with some other veggie trimmings, and the next time I mow, probably one more time before we get a frost hard enough to stunt it, I will add grass clippings. I am hoping we actually get a good wind next week before I leave for the mountain house so that it knocks enough leaves down that I can rake them up and add those on top. But here is my question, do I just leave all of that to compost on its own or should I cover my raised bed with a tarp to hold in heat? I am new to this. I should probably just look it up, but thought I would ask here. Lazy I guess! 😁

We have the same thing here on Lake Michigan. It isn't a flood issue but a, 'Your house is going to slide down the dune and fall into the lake because you insist on ripping out and poisoning native grasses which hold the dune together" problem. And the homeowners repeatedly warned by the DNR to STOP IT are having exactly that happen, and now think the rest of us, the tax payers, should buy them new homes. Sigh. I really am a compassionate person, and pro-safety nets, BUT maybe not this. Sure, help with relocation in terms of getting into a rental away from the dune or something, just not what they want which is "y'all build me a new house on the lake". Native vegetation exists for a reason. I wish more property owners would read that memo! My big deal at the moment is I do not want to mow anymore. Short grass does nothing for the environment, and mowing adds emissions. I don't want to buy rec gas for the mower. I want to go sailing and kayaking don't the weekends not lawn maintenance! But there township rules, so I cane let it go bananas. I would like moss or a low ground cover (one that won't grow higher than the township ordinance), but cultivating anything like that on this property as NOT been easy. I told Mark I was going to cover the yard in tarps, cardboard, and agricultural fabric, anchor it down with a cord of firewood, and that would be " the yard", installing some more raised beds on top of it if we don't come up with a solution soon! 😁 Really not sure what the neighbors will think, but I cannot see anything in the ordinance that prohibits this, no decree that I must maintain grass for the neighbors to look at. I would throw up a corral, run in shelter, and fencing for two sheep and two goats which would take care of it, but ordinance prohibits the livestock on less than 3 acres. Plus, that is pretty darn expensive. I do love those critters though!

Yes, one size fits all really never fits! Something to consider for some who need to cool their houses 8 degrees, but want to conserve energy is to see if your home would be the right fit for geo tubes. There are YouTube videos about this, and to see it done in a kind of quick and dirty homestead hack, there is an episode of Homestead Rescue where Marty Randy puts them in. We will be putting them in at the mountain house so less are AC is used during the sultry Bama summers.

Also if any of you know folks who will struggle to pay electric bills this year. If you want to help, save a few milk jugs, rinse, fill with dirt, and insert an inexpensive outdoor solar light into each pot. They can be charged outside during the day, and moved inside at night. I know some college kids who do this, and they are able to have enough light to get buy. They stick a couple of pots on their tables or desks when they need light to do homework or study. As a general rule, they do not use their overhead light fixtures or electric lamps, and it has made a significant dent in their bill. That said, converting from incandescent or fluorescent to LED warm light bulbs can make a big change too.

Reuse graduation gowns. Those dumb things are filling landfills everywhere. I was going to donate DS's to his alma mater for this coming year figuring it would save one student from having to pay an ungodly price for one in 2023. Nope. They are changing the gown for this year, and no one will be allowed to wear last year's model. 😠😠😠 So if you know someone with a recent college graduate, go ask them for a donation of gown to your Halloween cause. I am cutting it apart and turning it into weed barrier. But I am not happy about it.

It really does. And new construction is one of those times when new science, new tech should come into play so the property is more resistant to climate change issues. bUT, I find most contractors here are not up to date at all, and refuse to do things in new ways if it is not dictated by building codes. Since our building codes are about 30 years behind where they should be in this county, it is absolutely maddening. So all we can do is the best we can do, and you are doing great in my book. That said, the individual choices of regular people won't make that much of a dent. Corporations, businesses, and the stupid federal and state governments have got to get on board. Here, every time that is suggested, one would think that someone is trying to get everyone to drink Jim Jones Koolaid. It is absolutely epic push back except where it concerns specific Great Lakes issues. Then people get fire up. Michganders love their lakes, love their wild spaces, so they do suddenly turn into activists on things like "don't dump chemicals into waterways" and such. But they can't seem to put 2 and 2 together for the conclusion that "the Great Lakes will not be immune to climate change so massive changes across the entire planet are required, and the US needs to own up its faults and get on the train before it is fifty miles out from the station". Sometimes it makes me so angry!!