Outdoor Life

The a/c is on. The dog is celebrating by leaving his water dish and taking a nap. I also finally brought the last hose up from the basement and watered everything before it died. prior to this weekend I had been using my rain collection barrel as my sole source of water for everything not in the ground and then it suddenly stopped raining and all my potted everything became very sad - the potatoes damn near went into mourning, so I had to suck it up and go back to city water.

Staying on the topic of water : I am question my irrigation timer. It works fine for setting 1 but not for setting 2, in fact, I don't think that setting 2 is being worked at all. I know its hooked up right because I can manually over-ride the timer and it works just fine it just won't do it without being ordered to do so.

My old timer when it turned on there was this tremendous "thunk" that you could feel all over the house - I liked this because I knew it was working. New timer doesn't do this and I never really know that its working. I can see the plants growing and developing, so I can see that  the plants are managing to get water from some source, but I'm not sure its the irrigation system. I'm also a little spooked that  the mechanism kept working even after I took the batteries out hoping to cause to have to re-set it self. It didn't re-set.

Worst case scenario is that I change it to a single setting and use the sprinkler as the main source of irrigation. It can be set to have a very wide spray and it can water the whole yard if necessary - it just isn't a  very efficient use of the water and not everything needs or wants its leaves to be wet as it draws insects and fungal infections.

I have some work to do.

Speaking of work, one of my neighbors helped me hack at the hipsters' hateful tree! It had taken to trying to peel the roof off my car every time I pulled out of my driveway and so I finally hauled out my trimmer and cut everything I could reach. I am shorter than I thought, but I think I might have taken care of the problem. A very kind neighbor came along and helped to hold branches so I could cut them off, he was beyond helpful to my cause.

The nice neighbor said that years and years ago they tried to talk a past owner of the tree to  cut the offensive thing down. because its ugly, and messy and useless . The then owner claimed it shaded the house and refused. It did not shade the house forty years ago and it does not now. I rake up its leaves and  suffer its limbs, and slip in the hateful berries it drops in my driveway and even the homeless population hates the tree for its mess. When the neighbors offer to take up a collection to get rid of your tree because its an ugly, messy nuisance? The tree is a bad tree! The hipsters don't as much as look at their tree and have never raked its leaves or slipped in its berries. I wonder of they would be open to a neighborhood collection to get the ugly thing gone?