Lisa’s home, and we got a good Saturday afternoon in the garden. She deadheaded the lambs ear to the annoyance of the local bumble bees who were still chowing down. Needless to say, there were a bunch of other flower stalks ready to go, including our two poppy blossoms. She’s planning to try to start the poppy seeds next spring, in the hopes of getting beyond two lonely plants. We used to have totally cool poppies before Artisan Landscapes dropped their miserable excuse for dirt on us. Hopefully it won’t be too many more years before we recover.
In the middle of the afternoon, we dropped a few more trees. The current goal is to make a turnaround area for the vehicle skidding logs into the sawmill. I dropped three firewood trees into the back lawn and we cut them up, including a couple pieces that should make us some 2×4. One tree got dropped mistakenly on top of the compost bins and potato patch, and knocked out some nails keeping the front panel on the middle bin, but I repaired it with rope, which might actually work out better.
After all that, we agreed I wasn’t good enough to get the next tree to fall 180 degrees off of the way it wants to, so I’ll cut a few more firewood trees, and then the big guy, aimed the way it wants to go. Not a problem except that it’s another day setback before we get out behind the house and get to the logs we cut in ’01. We’re really hoping to have at least one raised bed ready to plant in in next spring, and every weekend day that doesn’t contribute directly to that goal feels bad.
Lisa went around in the evening as we were finishing up collecting Japanese beetles from the roses and one off the Mountain Ash trees. For some reason, the tree in the front is almost completely defoliated from the bugs and the one in the back is hanging in there. It might be because the one in the back is surrounded by roses which they are also doing a horrible number on.