Thoughts on Gardens

A few gatherings from the garden

Got some Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and a Squash along with some Sage & Rosemary.

Since moving back to the Old Place, The Fuzz has been trying to work the garden a bit.

At one time it was rather large as one might expect with a large family and low income.  But all that is not needed for an old guy by himself.

Along with downsizing, The Fuzz installed 3 raised beds which make it a bit easier to work with.

But this got Our Fuzz to thinkin' about things.

There was a time when a lot of folks worked a backyard garden- even in town.  Seems like you don't see that much these days.

When The Fuzz went to work for the city back in the "day"as they say, summer was the "heavy time" for garbage.*  This was because in this mill town most- or at least many people still worked those backyard gardens.  And that meant it was canning season.  And that meant lots of heavy sloppy remains in that bright Summer NC sunshine.

But now, with apartments and Farmer's Markets and such, this is no longer the case.

And while The Fuzz does not miss the heavy lifting, he does lament the fact that a lot of people have lost touch with the earth and her seasons.

But enough said for now.  The Fuzz says he doesn't want to go off on a rant today…

So enjoy your fresh veggies no matter where they came from.

*For those unfamiliar with The Fuzz, he collected garbage for over 33 years.

Two Towers

Actually this post has nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings or anything of that sort.
But still, towers.

When we got here to Topsail Beach there were a couple of these towers, right next to each other.
So...

One evening The Fuzz was out and about, and chanced to meet some of the town workers.

He remarked that there had been a lot of activity lately in the area behind the fire department/town hall.

This was also the location of these 2 towers.

They told him that they were preparing to remove one of them.

It seems that tower "B" was only temporary, which explains the apparent redundancy.

In fact a crew was coming to work on it in the morning.

The Fuzz chatted a bit and it was pretty much agreed that none of them had any desire to climb up there themselves.

The Fuzz didn't think much more about it.

The next morning, while The Fuzz was out for his morning walk, he saw a crane arriving.

Then as he and His Sweetie were on their way out for a trip over to the Big City, they saw this out of the window.

Then, she drew his attention to the fact that there was a man on top of the tower!

Now this was something one does not see every day.

(Unless I suppose one is in the business)

Naturally at this point The Fuzz grabbed his camera and went out looking for a better vantage point.

And then he realized the man on the top was not alone. 

There was a second guy below him, halfway up.

He worked his way up and around.

And hung up his bucket of tools...

Then went up to join his partner.

It was a long way up.
As interesting as this was, The Fuzz and His Sweetie did have a sort of schedule for the day...

And these guys seemed to have things in hand.
So they left them to their work.

By the time they got back that evening, Tower "B" was gone.

The next morning the crew was out there bright and early finishing up the job.

But this time they got to stay on the ground.

They were even taking up the base that was under the tower...

Loading it up...

And carrying it off.
Later, The Fuzz watched as the crew headed  on out of town.

 
  

  

Looking Back

Perhaps it would be good to take a quick look back at 2015.

It certainly was a busy one for The Fuzz and His Sweetie.

For one thing, it was a year of Projects.

1st there was some electrical upgrading at the old place.

That took The Fuzz a few days, but it was worth it.

Then came the Kitchen Project.

That was a big one.

But it came out pretty well in the end.

Once the weather had warmed up came the Pond Project.

That was a big one too-

And spread out over most of the summer.

That one was followed by the Bathroom Project!

That was pretty involved as well.  It kinda grew as it progressed, but came out pretty well too.

With those projects out of the way, The Fuzz finally went to work on the Firewood.

Well, lets just say it was a busy year.

Let's face it-

Retirement ain't easy!

And all this went on amidst a busy travel schedule.

But we'll get into that later!

Time to Split

The Fuzz and His Sweetie have been burning wood for years to keep warm each winter.  Of course that can be a lot of work.  Some years ago they invested in a log splitter to make things a bit easier on the Old Fuzz's back.

For the last couple of winters, The Fuzz has been able to keep up with things by hand, leaving the machine for others to enjoy.  But this year he was faced with an abundance of larger trees from a neighbor.  This was a lot to handle at one time.  So this year it was time to break out the Power Equipment.

And The Fuzz has been busy.

But as can be seen, there is still a lot to do.

Starting from the Bottom

So what has that Fuzz been up to anyway?
Well he, His Sweetie and that Young Daughter (and friend) were off to another city to help out with getting this house together.
The project was the floor.
There had been carpet here.  Nasty stuff.  So tack strips needed to be removed as well as a lot of staples.

It did need a bit of work.

They enjoyed the hospitality of the 4th Daughter and Hubby.

That Skilled fellow was part of the work crew as well.

With this large and talented crew on the job, they managed to knock it out in one day.

And things are looking a bit better.

Then it was time for the fun!

Of course there is still a lot of work left, but things are moving along.  And before long, we hope there will be happy people enjoying their new home.

Springtime Chores

One of our Springtime chores is getting the garden into the new seasonal mode.

We've had to start pretty much from scratch out here in the woods.  Back at the Old Place we had been working the garden for 30 years and it is built up pretty well.  The Fuzz's Sweetie has been working on this, but now with The Fuzz under foot, she has put him to work.

The plan calls for working the garden up into these beds and adding better soil, sand, peat moss etc.  The beds had been lined with logs and such.  But these rot quickly.  So we have been replacing them with blocks.

Pretty spiffy.

Time to Split

Here at Kinda Fuzzy we have previously mentioned an upgrade to our heating system here in the woods.  Well, even fancy High-Tech Woodstoves need to be fed.  In the same post we also mentioned cutting down a dead (mostly) oak in the neighbor's yard.

Now it was time for The Fuzz to get down to business.

Most of this job went pretty well.  But there are those occasional blocks that can complicate things.

Here we can see an example.  You will note that this piece involves a fork in said tree.

We have side A, and side B.  So since there is not much else going on, we will demonstrate Our Fuzz's technique for handling situations like this.  It is basically a matter of carefully considered "Wacks*", as will be demonstrated below.

It is not always a good idea to try to split these things exactly at the fork, so The Fuzz has learned to work around it.

1st Wack

2nd Wack

3rd Wack

4th and Last Wack.

Now all that remains is to roll it to the trailer,

and stash it near the Woodstove!

*The spell check insists that this is spelled wrong, but The Fuzz knows better!

The Story

 

So what's the story here?

 

The rumors are indeed true.
After over 33 years, The Fuzz is about to give up the Garbage Business!
The way he's got it figured, he has a total of 15 actual Work Days left, God willing.
It's been an interesting time.  He started out "Pulling Garbage" years ago.  Now he is  an "Equipment Operator" with one of these marvels of engineering and automation.

Well, it's time to turn it over to the Young'uns.
The Fuzz and His Sweetie are heading into new territory here.
But first, there's those 15 more days.

What's New

Here it is, a brand new Garbage Truck!
Regular readers of this blog are no doubt familiar with The Fuzz's chosen profession*. They may also realize that this complicated equipment does not last forever. So here is a look at the newest addition to the fleet.
The Fuzz got to try this puppy out the other day. Other than a slight complication at the dump, things worked out fine.


*Here's a closer look at the process, 1, 2.

Here's a bit of Fuzzy Thinking for ya.
(The Fuzz does prefer not to contaminate this blog with this sort of stuff.)

A Day Off?

This is what can happen when your Chainsaw's auto-oilier ain't oilin'. This happened the other day whilst Our Fuzz and His Sweetie were cutting a bit of firewood.
At the right you can see the Spiffy New Chainsaw Bar that The Fuzz was forced to purchase.
There was an old nasty tree over at the old place that had to get cut before we could get some taters in. So he took another vacation day and took care of that.He did get most of it cut up. What's left is not in the tater bed, so we may get them in yet.
After that, He and His Sweetie hauled off the trash. Tomorrow, it's back to the Busy City Garbage Routine.

The High Road

This is something you do not want to see.
Particularly, if you are in The Fuzz's line of work.

This is a look into the hopper of one of our Ultramodern Garbage Trucks. This trash can should not be there. But things like this do happen.
December is here, and it was a frosty morning here in Beautiful North Carolina. Now, the frost can add a touch of beauty to our lives. But it can create problems as well. Especially when it coats a trashcan like this.

In these conditions, the suckers can get a bit slippery. In this case, the evil little thing slipped out of The Fuzz's mechanical grasp, and dropped into the hopper.
Now there are a couple of ways to handle this. One is to pretend it wasn't noticed until too late, and just pack the sucker up. The other is to climb up over the side of the ice encrusted truck, into the hopper, and throw the bastard out.
I am happy to report, that in this case, Our Fuzz did take the high road; and mumbling curses about getting too old for this s%!#, retrieved this valuable receptacle. And, he made it back to solid ground without breaking his neck!

Still Here

Yes, The Old Fuzz is still living. But his health hasn't been quite 100% this past week.
He did manage to make it into work though. He's still fighting this cough though.
Last weekend he wasn't really up to working on the firewood situation. Fortunately, we were far enough ahead that that was not an issue. But that sort of thing doesn't last for ever. So, he did have to go out and work a bit on that this week.
This week we go onto a new schedule, 4 10 hour days. The Fuzz will have to get up a little earlier. And he will be later getting home. But those 3 day weekends should make up for it.
Here's a pix of the moon the other morning. The Fuzz keeps trying to make pix of it. It is a bit frustrating.

Snow Days

I think we may have mentioned something about a "chance of snow" in The Fuzz's last post. Well, when he got up this morning at around 5 am, this was the scene from the door. The school people here, have some kinda fancy new system that robo calls everyone to tell them "No School Today". But of course we already realized that. But, rather than drive 8 miles into town though the snow, The Fuzz had the sense to use the telephone this time. The garbage will have to wait today.And, this motor vehicle will just stay buried today.
Now, they're talking about Freezing Rain tonight. Well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Roofin' In The Woods (Part 1)

In the excitement of all this moving to the woods, you may have forgotten about the questionable roof on this trailer. We didn't have that option with winter on the way.

It was time to replace those blue tarps with something a little more permanent.
It may be remembered from past blogs, that we have ways of handling these sort of situations. So we invited the family out for another Roofing Holiday. Rather than simply replacing the shingles, The Fuzz opted for installing a brand new Tin Roof.
So we set up a roofin' rendezvous for a convenient weekend. The day before, (Fri.) he made some preparations, and even got some of shingles stripped off. The supplies had already been delivered for the most part. He did make a trip out for some nails. It turned out that, for this type of work, nails were passe. Instead, they sold him these expensive screws. He also bought some of these fancy driving "bits" with magnets inside to hold the screws and hopefully reduce frustrations.As the old shingles were removed, we found that the roof was in pretty good shape for the most part. But here, at the arrow, we did find it necessary to replace a piece.
Next, we laid out a layer of tar paper, and then 1x4 strips were nailed into the rafters.
By now it was starting to get dark, and we were getting hungry, so it was time to hang it up for the night.
The Fuzz's Sweetie, with a few helpers, fixed us up with tacos, beans and some tater wedges, while the rest just hung by the fire. So ended the first day. And so ends this post. The Fuzz says he's beat and going to bed. If he will co-operate we'll try to finish this busyness soon.