Yeah, I missed yesterday. Seems I got caught up in some chores, and the coolest part of the day is before 3 pm, I like to get that stuff done before it heats up. Even 85 ain’t that bad, but one at times needs some “conditioning”.
I like using Bio Biz lite soil for potting (mixed with other potting soil and peat moss); especially for starting from seeds. I started around 100 seeds in starter trays; jalepeño, green peppers, some Hatch chiles, many tomatoes including San Marzano, Beefsteak, and Roma, serrano peppers.
We got the wife’s rosebush re-potted, and she liked it so much that now she wants another.
The discussion about the gate came up again, and now I am committed, and likely will have to install two gates on/around the patio to keep out the deer. I’ll need some 3/4″ rebar for the makeshift gate, and will have to drive up in the pickup and get those myself…along with some more cinder blocks to make more shelves on the patio for even more plants.
I found a live spider in my bathroom. I have it in my head that since spiders and scorpions are both arachnids, time to fog that back bedroom, and spray outside. I even had a dream about tiny scorpions getting inside..rather unnerving. It’s time.
Instead of blogging, I should be out in the garden pulling up old plants and weeds and preparing for planting.
Onion sets will need to be ordered as well. I found some green onion seeds that I could like just grow in a container on the patio.
Round 1 of scorpion spraying is done. My exclusive scorpion Hudson sprayer crapped out, so I finished spraying with the sterilant sprayer. I sure do have some rotten luck with the damned sprayers; either the nozzle gets so clogged that it will no longer work, or the gasket seal leaks; pick one.
I finished my Lambda star scorpion poison too and made two rounds around the house. I have been known to spray the interior perimeter too…still could, I guess..we’ll see how my energy holds up.
The wife picked up a concrete scraper for the patio weeds. I actually saw her scrape up a couple of weeds! I should taken a picture.
Looks like I’ll need a new sprayer.
I saw an article in the local paper whilst waiting for the car repair about a subdivision not far from here whose wells had run dry. That means that the water level in the aquifer has dropped below their well pumps. One can always have the well digger come back and dig another 50 feet, but they ain’t cheap.
The article further said there were I forget how many millions of people just in this county, and would double in 10 years…meaning that no one is safe from running out of water in the not too distant future.
Too many yuppie mo fos here with swimming pools, and huge sprinkler systems to keep their lawns green…huh? ya don’t water the grass here unless it’s alfalfa…
And it started out a nice day…
extexanwannabe 
It is time to start a garden here also. With me gone so much and the wife joining our daughter for a 2 week vacation in New England and Amsterdam in about a week I don’t think a garden will work this year. I did the outdoor and basement bug and spider treatment last weekend. I hadn’t cleaned it out good the last time I used it and what little that was left had turned into a lumpy semi-solid that clogged the intake. I didn’t make that mistake when I finished with it this time. I have the semi-professional sprayer from “Do It Yourself Pest Control”. Shy sell the parts and I have had the sprayer for over 25 years.
Last year when I was thinking of building a house it was going to be on a well. I was looking at putting a cistern in it to help avoid a dry well. I was looking at a roof runoff recovery to add to the cistern and a reverse osmosis filter going to the house water.
A guy I once knew around here had a water reclamation system on his homestead, and claimed to have 20,000 gallons of collected, filtered rainwater at his disposal. It can be done.
The farm house I grew up in had a grey water and roof runoff 300 gallon tank. It fed a sprinkler system for the yard and a 3/4 acre garden. It had an overflow pipe that led out into the woods. I don’t think it ever got below a third of a tank.
When the wife is happy with anything we do that is time to pause, say a prayer, and hope it lasts a little longer.
Whenever I’m at Home Depot and need to visit the little boy’s room I walk right by the shelves with various lengths of rebar and about fall over after seeing the pricing. They ought to set up a loan officer right there to help out with your purchase.
If your sprayer’s plunger has some type of rubber seal then make sure it is not dry-before spraying I move the plunger all the way down and then pour a cup of warm water in the cylinder above the plunger to moisten the rubber ring seal and let it sit for half an hour before trying to pump it up. Works every time. Avoid pumping it with a dry seal-if you are like me the harder I pump and still get no pressure I pump it still harder and faster with the same result. Save your arm and your blood pressure by keeping the seal moist. Adding a little dish soap can help if the seal has some tiny cracks and is nearing the end of its life, plus the lubrication makes pumping easier. The heavy duty sprayers like Grainger sells (for a small fortune) almost always work when needed-that’s why they are so expensive.
One common statistic being thrown around when the “experts” pontificate about drought conditions in the west is that 40 million people are threatened by water shortages-due, of course, to CLIMATE CHANGE. Waiting to see how they change their story once they learn there is lots of water in California this winter and their reservoirs are filling up. Our role as plebs is to continue feeling bad because we somehow are responsible for all the water shortages, even as this is turning out to be a wetter year than most in recent memory.
Right after the Civil War the feds hired John Wesley Powell to explore the Colorado River basin and report his findings to DC, which he did. True to form, TPTB in DC ignored his recommendations and made policy decisions that were not water friendly. Not much has changed in the 150 years since then. Like Ringo Starr used to say: “everything government touches turns to shit”. “Cadillac Desert” is a must read for those in the West who want to better understand the history of water in a mostly arid or semi-arid region.
Water law out here can be dumbfounding. Example: until very recently Colorado law prohibited the collection of rooftop water, even if you were going to put it to (drum roll, please) “beneficial use”-like watering your garden. Every drop is allocated, and if you don’t have a specific water right you are not entitled to the water. A recent change now permits the collection of some small amount of the water that rolls off your roof. I have run into a couple of older farmers whose grandfathers homesteaded here in the 1870s and obtained senior water rights right after the famous water cases were settled and water laws became solidified. As long as the allocated water is used every year those senior rights will remain for as many successive generations of the family that remain on the family land.
A bothersome trend is farmers quitting their farming operations and selling their water rights, usually to support new developments of various types (housing, commercial, even some industrial). Pretty sad when the economic value of a farm’s output is eclipsed by the increasing value of water-not a good sign for once prosperous farm communities. Some even say there is a perfect storm brewing for a return to dust bowl days. If fertilizer supplies go south like they did after WWI (nitrate supplies were exhausted because of the demand for TNT during the war and the domestic fertilizer industry could not recover quickly enough). Shipping American nat gas to Europe will continue to drive up the cost and availability of fertilizer, among hundreds of other things that depend of a good supply of gas.
I think you have covered it well.