much cooler 41 going up to low sixties today, forecast looks like a sine wave, up and down, up and down, tis the season.
got the entire place mulched yesterday, except for the fruit trees, and I do that myself. The helpers dump mulch on weeds, I pull
the weeds first... then my two strong firemen helpers got my Gravely mower all torn apart as desired, picked up a large wagon load of sticks and debris, then they split a mountain of firewood
of big rounds. Looking forward to going down to the barn at first light to see what they got accomplished. They love running that splitter as much as I do. I heard it running, and said oh boy, that's not right, engine running flat out. No. Went down and quietly pulled the throttle back to three quarters, makes full pressure almost at half speed, but no reason whatsoever to run that little Briggs at full rpm. A waste of fuel too.
Yes, I know it cycles a second faster at full throttle, but sometimes on equipment like this slowing down is a really good idea. Haste makes waste, and injury.
I made enough firewood last year I didn't burn a quarter of it. Need to give it away and restock log pile with this new wood. Surprisingly few fireplaces down here locally, some wood stoves, not that easy to give away fire wood. (sounds nuts to a Northerner huh?)
going to order some plants from the Burgess catalog, which I have gotten for years. Inexpensive compared to others, will see why. Jackson & Perkins catalog came yesterday and roses are now 24 to 28 dollars a piece. I have a raised bed rose garden and most of mine die before the next year, not sure what I'm doing wrong, well at least this year it won't be the deer eating them, roses are surrounded now by electric wire. Will probably buy my roses locally for ten bucks apiece. Bush roses seem to do fine, multiflora not so well. About ten years back I was able to pick three bouquets of a dozen roses each one summer for my wife. Got a nice kiss for that.
