Robot Pot

Things I didn't know I needed until just now: A robotic self-propelled flowerpot.

Think of it as a prosthetic for a brown thumb.

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Brrr!

Did I say it was going to get down to 49°F this morning? I was mistaken, or rather the weatherdude was. It was 47°F when the alarm clock went off here at Roseholme Cottage. Summer has officially ended.

Yesterday it was 67 degrees and breezy and in the shade, wearing my summer attire of blue jeans, a short-sleeve t-shirt, cotton socks, and a very lightweight gun burkha, it actually felt a little chilly. Understandable, since it had been 94 the day before and the indoor temperature at the house was hovering around 75.

Not quite time to drag out the wool socks, long-sleeve t-shirts, and heavier gun burkhas, but that's probably less than a month away. Call it three or four lawn mowings to go before lawn care involves rakes and leaf vacs.

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Water...

The weatherman was promising some thunderstorms yesterday around evening rush hour time. I was convinced enough to tote my umbrella along on my afternoon perambulations, thereby ensuring that no rain would materialize, unfortunately.

It was blistering hot, as predicted, and plenty humid, but none of that humidity deigned to fall on the garden, meaning my morning started with the ceremonial lugging of the watering can again. (It's a one gallon can, and I fill separate gallon jug at the same time, so I can halve the number of trips in and out the door.)

It's been a hot, dry summer, but next week is supposed to be pretty rainy. Only a few more days of water lugging and then maybe Mother Nature will pick up the slack for a bit.

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Dry

Despite getting a good inch of rain between Thursday night and Saturday morning, we're still way short for the season. They're saying we might get a small bit of rain tonight as a front passes through and then there's nothing else in the forecast for at least a week.

The lawn's gone dormant and even the catnip that's now growing rogue in the flowerbeds along the front of the house is looking a bit down at the heels. Only the mint seems unfazed.

Lugging gallons of water to the flowers and veggies is going to be a twice daily chore for a bit.

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Weather, but...

Yesterday's weather was glorious again. The high temperature barely touched 80°F and the dewpoint was in the fifties all day.

Outdoor range trip again yesterday morning, this time to do chrono work with the High Power for the Shooting Illustrated review. 

The downside to all this is that we're not looking at any rain in the immediate forecast, which means this is likely going to close out as the eighth driest June on record here in Indianapolis. (The driest ever was 2012, which saw less than an inch of rain.)

Hand-carrying water to the tomato plants is a regular morning chore now.

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Waiting...

...for the sun to get far enough in its track that the front yard is in the shade before I start mowing. It's going to be warm out, but the dew point will only be 55°F (temp in the mid 80s, humidity in the high 30% range) so it should be downright pleasant in the shade.

Grass should be dry enough to bag easily and not clog the chute.

Mowing is a chore I actually kind of like, because progress is so visible.
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Cutting the cord...

So, Bobbi used the new mower first, a couple weeks back. She pronounced it serviceable. This past weekend it was my turn to see how it worked...

It was set to the second lowest height, which led to the bag getting filled quickly. It took three times dumping it out, which nearly filled two paper leaf bags. We need to set up a chicken wire enclosed composting area in the back yard, clearly.

The mower comes with two different-sized batteries: A 2Ah and a 4Ah. I put the smaller of the two in the number one battery slot and mowed the front yard and half of the back yard before it beeped and switched batteries. (Complete with a little red indicator to show which socket was providing the juice.)

It's plenty light and easy to push, and not having to deal with the extension cord or messing around with a gas can and pull start is a bonus. It's quiet, too. It's early days yet, but I'm pretty happy with this purchase so far.

Lawn Machine

Woke up this morning and got my quick lap around the block in before it got hot outside. It was only 71, according to the nearest weather station, but the dew point was very nearly the same as the temperature. It was more like swimming than walking.

My lower back already felt like I'd been putting in a hard day's physical labor, and not like I'd just got out of bed.

I bring up the back pain thing because this weekend will be the swan song of the corded electric mower. Bobbi, who deals with drop cords for a living and has used that lawn mower for probably twenty years, does not see what my problem is with it.

Myself, on the other hand? I'm completely inept at handling extension cords. Paying out the two cords it takes to cover the lawn, wrangling the cord around the raised bed while mowing, and rolling up and stowing the two cords at the end of the mowing turns what should be a twenty-minute breeze of a lawn job into an hour of back-wrenching stoop labor.

Bobbi would rather not store gas cans in the garage, and so I did a bit of nosing around online and settled on a solution.

Multiple reviewers mention mowing a quarter acre without draining the dual batteries, so it should be more than up to cutting Roseholme Cottage's little bowling alley of a lot. It was definitely cheaper than my initial suggestion of just paving the whole lawn and painting it green.

Rain, rain, go away...

Hopefully the rains will stop long enough to clear out the raised beds in the front and back yards this week. Flowers would be nice, and maybe some herbs and a pepper plant or two. The frost warning yesterday morning was jarring. Good thing we didn't have any tomato starts going.
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Bonsai, Daniel-san!

In the horticulture building, among the rows of gourds and legumes and ears of corn and monster pumpkins, you will find an entire aisle dedicated to the traditional Hoosier art of miniature tree sculpting. Sadly, being indoors, my cheesy pocket camera flash photography wound up looking like washed-out ass for most of the more interesting ones, except this little dude, who looks for all the world like a clump of nano-scale Adansonia grandidieri:

Bonsai is a hobby I'd love to take up, except for that whole incredible lack of patience thing and total brown thumb problems. Other than that, I think I'd make a good tree sculptor.

Randomosity...

• So I started the morning bike rides last Wednesday. This makes a week. Go Team Me!


• This time of year, the hostas out front have normally sprouted magnificent waist-high stalks covered in white flowers. So far this year, there are a couple of tiny flower stalks on the hardiest one (coincidentally right under the rain chain on the corner of the house) with a few half-hearted white blossoms barely above the level of the plant's main leaves.


• Sitting in the dentist's chair yesterday, Almost-A-Doctor Sarah (new school year, new almost-a-doctor) noted that I had brought a Kindle so I would have something to do during the waiting periods. Before I realized what I was saying, my mouth blurted "Oh, I love my Kindle!" I could almost smell the Victory Gin-scented tears trickling down the side of my nose...

RAIN!

Close to an inch in a gullywasher yesterday afternoon, and then at around 0500 today the various night lights around Roseholme Cottage went all stroboscopic as another inch of rain came through, borne on 60mph straight-line winds.

Weather.com is claiming 1.81" inches of precip in the last 24 hours, which probably handily exceeds June and July's rainfall totals, combined. A glance out the windows this morning shows that the little hail we got didn't seem to hurt the jalapenos or the 'maters.

This has been one of those droughts that has me worrying about trees. As I remarked to Bobbi the other day, we really won't know how bad it was until we get a good load of ice on those branches come February. Then we'll see what made it through the drought.

I'm going to hop on my bicycle and pedal through the puddles...

That seems to help.

File photo of Broad Ripple SUV. Not representative of any specific recent trip.

One thing that shooting in that 3-Gun match exposed is how woefully out of shape I've gotten recently. The wretched hot weather this summer has had me finding near-daily excuses for not going out of doors, and sitting in your pyjamas mindlessly clicking internets links 'til noon is not a good way to stay fit, either physically or mentally.

So the past three days have seen me dressed and out watering the veggie garden before the sun was fully up so that I could hop on my bicycle and pedal down into Broad Ripple Village proper before things got so beastly hot. Went down to Kroger yesterday and the day before and today I got brekkie at the Broad Ripple Bagel Deli.

It's around 2.5 miles round trip, hardly any distance at all, but it's exercise, and I'm three days in now, which is a start on forming a routine. Let's see if I can make it stick. (The plants will probably thank me too, as I am told that's the best time to water them, as opposed to mid-afternoon, when they're already halfway to wilted.)

Notes from the Great Indiana Desert...

Remember how I said that it wasn't supposed to break 90 degrees the other day? Liars. Weatherfolk are a pack of liars. We are now on Day 16 of 90+ daily highs.

The purple gladiolas I planted out in the raised bed out front may not flower this year. I has a sad. :(

With no functioning external spigot and all watering done by lugging a 2-liter watering can into the yard, I've been forced into triaging plants: If it's not edible, it's just going to have to tough it out until the rains get here again. I find myself actually having to water chives and mint, something heretofore thought entirely unnecessary for these local weeds.

The hostas are looking rough and the plucky glads, which had survived having a tree dropped atop them and being under the tarp for the subsequent ent dismemberment, were so papery that I finally gave them a mercy soaking today. Maybe I'll get one half-hearted bloom out of them this year.

They're calling for spotty rain off and on from tomorrow through the weekend. I'll believe it when I see it. Don't forget that we also grow your food here.

Busy night...

The drought continued in Indianapolis until all the grass died and everybody's lawn looked more like what you see out West than what you see here in black soil country, where you can plant a nut and a bolt and grow a tractor by August. I was schlepping cans of water through the yard, trying to keep the herbs and 'maters and jalapenos from dying. Bobbi was showing me a catalog of locally-manufactured bicycles featuring a neat balloon-tired cruiser with a bicycle sidecar of some sort.

Shootin' Buddy and I were at the Museum of Science & Industry, or some dream-world equivalent. There were a bunch of kids from some Juvenile Delinquent program on a field trip, and they were tearing the exhibits up. We were looking at a display extolling the sugared food ban and how it would help the economy finally recover by making America healthy, and Shootin' Buddy said "We're going to wind up a socialist country with gun collectors. Every middle class kid is going to be too afraid of breaking the tiniest rule and wrecking his life to step outside the lines." and I intoned "'If there is any hope, it lies with the proles,'" and we looked around at the kids ignoring their chaperones and taking stuff right out of the display cases, and laughed.

Marko and Robin had a slammin' new house halfway up the hillside from the old Castle Frostbite. It was like McCauley's house in Heat; lots of glass. Lyra kept introducing me to her stuffed animal collection one at a time, in that way kids are wont to do,  while I was trying to drift off to sleep. You'd get the critter's name, a brief bio, an explanation about why it was awesome, and then say good night and two minutes later she's back with the next denizen of her plush menagerie.

I was at some tourist trap village in the Smokies with a friend I hadn't seen in many years. We were talking and walking along when her daughter came running up with a look on her face like she'd just been presented with the title to Disneyworld. Grabbing our hands, she tugged us around the corner and into the most amazing chocolate store my imagination could conjure up. I passed on the civet cat coffee chocolate, although I bought a bunch of bacon chocolate bars.

And then it was morning.

My night was exhausting, how was yours?

The Daily Drudgery...

Roomie is off to Dayton for the great big Hamvention thingie. I bowed out with the intention of getting some yardwork done, since I stopped by Locally Grown Gardens yesterday after picking up the Broad Ripple SUV from the shop and grabbed some vegetable starts and herbs. (In addition to getting some tomato and jalapeño starts, we'll be adding parsley to the mint, thyme, rosemary, and sweet marjoram growing here and there on the Roseholme Cottage grounds.) There're a few other household chores to knock out today, too.

But first, I think I'll pedal up to Broad Ripple Village proper and get another one of those Butler Dogs at Plump's Last Shot for lunch. Maybe stop at Kroger on the way back for groceries, to make the trip feel productive...

Mother Gaia's gone all Sibyl.

I would like to apologize to all the gardeners of central Indiana for the freeze warnings last night and tonight.

I cannot tell a lie: I put all my fleece pullovers and long-sleeved tee shirts away on Tuesday, figuring that after a week or two of highs in the 70s and 80s that it was safe to do so. Sorry 'bout that. My bad all 'round.

Quick! To the Wikipedia!

So I killed two birds with one stone the other day.

The chimenea on the back patio had suffered enough freeze/thaw cycles that the spalling on the bottom had gone all the way through.

At the same time, there was a persistent bit of bare dirt in the southeast corner of the privacy fence that is obviously not getting enough sunlight for grass.

A plan is hatched!

I schlepped the chimenea over and plopped it on the ground, nestled in the corner. I will now fill it with potting soil and try to encourage something to grow out of it.

I need to find a subspecies of Hygrangeum* that is shade-tolerant and likes to spread all vine-like along the ground, but won't try and climb the fence and vault into the neighbor's yard like the mutated tendrils from a bad Fifties SF flick in an attempt to strangle their little yappy dog. (Although if it could do that all subtle-like and then vault back into our yard without leaving evidence, I'd take that as a plus.)
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*If you don't mow it, can't eat it, and can't stand in its shade, it's a Hygrangeum.

That feels good.

After running errands and getting a bite of lunch this morning, I decided to make myself productive. During the winter doldrums, I fell into a bad habit of not doing diddlysquat in the afternoons, which made me more depressed, which made me less productive, which... lather, rinse, repeat.

It felt good to drag the rake and leaf-vac into the front yard this afternoon and dredge all the winter leaves out of the raised beds along the front of the house and gather up all the twigs and pine cones from the last windstorms. It was in the mid-70s and sunny; perfect outdoor weather. I worked up a sweat dragging brooms and bags and extension cords and other lawn impedimentia around, and I feel like I did something productive. I ought to mark out a regular block of time to mess in the yard every day.

Felicitous Autumnal Equinox!

It is now officially autumn, although any schoolkid could tell you that fall starts on the day after Labor Day.

Outside, it's like they turned summer off with a switch. It's fifty-something and drizzly; the last few days it's been like Gaia was feeling bad about all the rain we didn't get in July and was trying to make up for it all at once.

Maybe we'll get a cantaloupe or two off those plants after all.