#Cankerworms and Dandelions

They are everywhere. They are called Cankerworms. The grass is alive with them; they are crawling on the driveway and on the patio. The leaf trees are infected, mainly the fruit trees and the birch trees. And they eat the leaves. Some of our green ash trees are bare of leaves.

Today I sprayed them as they crawled up the trunks of the trees; I sprayed the branches and the leaves and I sprayed them one by one as they climbed up the walls of our house. I thought I finally had them all. What a silly fool I was. When I came back 30 minutes later the wall was alive with cankerworms. I picked them with needle nose pliers and collected them in a jar filled with water and I stepped on the ones on the patio until the green gunk squirted out of them, but it brought me no pleasure.

I am exhausted and I’m giving up. For today anyway. Perhaps tomorrow I will begin the battle again. Maybe I will be victorious, but I am not holding my breath. The white stucco walls of the house are black and they are back on the patio. They are even crawling across our barbeque. When I close my eyes I see nothing but colonies of cankerworms. They are on the move, though. Hopefully the whole gang of them will cross the street and attack our neighbor’s place. He doesn’t spray his dandelions, but he might just spray the cankerworms.

Cankerworms are actually not worms, they are the caterpillar of a moth. Just in case you didn't know. The ones that crawled up the walls of our house will spin a cocoon and attach themselves to the overhang where they will make our house look ugly. I will have to remove them with a long stick. I remember doing that years ago at our cottage when we had an invasion of cankerworms.

I've had enough of dealing with these critters. If anyone from Peta or some other animal activist-moron complains how I treat the cankerworms they can kiss my Arm and I hope their place gets overrun by them and a plaque of mosquitoes at the same time. We'll get those pretty soon. We're living in a cruel and hostile world and we are fighting a constant battle to stay alive or keep our sanity and comfort.

Talking of dandelions—our lawn is covered with them. I sprayed once already but it did nothing. They all bloomed and the seeds are spread by the wind and make new dandelions. I cut the lawn today and I bagged the grass. Usually, I keep the grass and use it in my walkways in the garden as mulch. I also keep it to fill garbage bags which I use in the fall to put on our sewage field to catch the snow in the winter. However, I don’t want the dandelion seeds. I’ll take the lot to the dump where they compost the grass and leaves people bring.

The reason I have so many dandelions is because our neighbor behind us and the one across the street do not believe in spraying. Their lawn is yellow when things begin to grow and then fluffy white with the dandelion blooms. Those seeds all end up on our lawn. It seems even with the dandelions I am fighting a losing battle, but I refuse to give up. Some of my other neighbors also spray but not all, unfortunately.

Our chokecherry tree

We have a chokecherry tree in our yard. It is around 23 years old and it has the Black Knot disease, which means it is slowly dying. Every year in the spring and fall I cut off all the diseased branches and I have managed to keep it sort of under control. Unfortunately, the main trunks are infected and it is only a matter of time before the tree dies. Until then we enjoy it and I hope that will still be many years. It is blooming every spring and this year is no exception. The blooms only lasts a few days. Last night we had a thunderstorm with high winds and heavy rain and that was enough to take the beauty out of the blooms. Here is a picture I took Saturday when the tree was in full bloom:

What's with the weather?

What a crazy month! May started out pretty good, but then we had a heatwave that lasted one day and then it got cold. A few days ago we even had frost. Yesterday was a mixture of conditions. We had sunshine, drizzle, tiny ice pellets, and cold. Today it rained for a short time and as I write this (17:30) the sun is shining. However, there are dark clouds gathering to the north. I am keeping my plants for the garden in our sun-room, but I have to heat it at night. The sun keeps it warm during the day.

After applying fertilizer to the grass and the rain we had it started to grow--and so did the dandelions. I was going to cut the grass today but now it rained. So I'm hoping that I'll get a chance tomorrow. I need to cut the grass because of the dandelions. I won't cut short, just enough to cut off the dandelion heads and then I'll take everything to the dump. Usually, I keep the grass to use in my garden for mulch. Not this stuff.

It is 17:37 and it is raining again--but there is blue sky to the north. What a screwed up day!

Our chokecherry tree is starting to bloom. I can see small specks of white on the blooms. As soon as the sun warms up the air within the next few days we should have a tree in full bloom. So should my apple-trees be. That's when spring will finally be here.

Fishing season started yesterday, but it is too cold to go fishing, even though I'm itching to try out my new Shimano Sedona fishing reel.

Thursday evening we went to Celebrations Dinner Theater and saw Rock around the Clock. There were only 6 performers; all were from Winnipeg. What a bunch of talented young men and women! We enjoyed the show immensely. They sang all the old Rock and Roll songs and they did them well. This was our fourth time there. The food was, as always, great. We will go again, that's for sure.

In July we'll be going to Rainbow stage. We bought season's tickets again. I always buy them as soon as they are on sale and we have front row seats like last year. There are two shows only this year. And we shall enjoy them also.

Looking forward to next week. I'm going to Costco to get my hearing tested, which means I'll finally be getting a hearing aid--hurrah!! I'll be able to hear what people say about me when they think I'm out of earshot. Surprise! My wife will be happy when I don't have to ask anymore, "What did she say?" when we go to a fast-food place and order or when we watch TV.

Life is good.

#Time oh time, where have you gone?

It’s been a busy week so far and it is only Thursday.

Monday I went to get one yard of soil for our flowerbeds and for filling low spots near the house. I don’t know where that soil goes. Does it travel to the other side of the Earth? I wonder if they have soil popping up in China.

We managed to spread most of the soil in the afternoon. It is backbreaking work. I had to shovel it off the truck into a trailer, which I then pulled with the lawn tractor to where we wanted the soil. Then we had to dump it and spread it. One yard is a truck-box full of soil. We planned to finish on Tuesday, but they forecast rain, so I spread fertilizer onto the lawn instead. We bought a different fertilizer this year at Wal-Mart (Schultz 27-0-3). Usually, we buy fertilizer at Costco (Scotts 30-0-3), but this stuff at Wal-Mart was cheaper and you never know when Costco puts theirs on sale. So I was lucky to have the fertilizer on hand.

I read the instructions later and it says to put it on the grass 12 to 24 hours before it rains, otherwise you have to water it in. Fortunately, the weather people were right and it did rain. In fact, I just managed to finish with my application when it started to drizzle. It took me about 1 ½ hour to do the job. The grass looks good and so do the dandelions. Now I have to spray for weeds. It never stops.

I don’t know if I will buy this product again, because the fertilizer we buy at Costco does not need watering in or rain within 12 hours. As long as it eventually rains. It does not burn the grass.

Anyway, Tuesday afternoon I bottled a batch of red wine (Malbec), which I had sitting in the carboy waiting to be bottled. It is the first time I made Malbec and I found it to be quite a heavy wine. I bottled this batch a few weeks ago and discovered there was still a lot of residue even after filtering. So I opened all the bottles (27) and filtered the wine again. It was better this time but still quite full-bodied. It was a good day to bottle, because it rained outside. Wednesday morning I bottled another batch (Merlot) and in the afternoon I made a Carrot/Ginger soup. Hot and spicy and super-healthy. This morning it still rained, so I filtered a batch of white wine (Piesporter). I will have to bottle this batch next week and there is still a carboy filled with Summer-wine waiting to be cleared and filtered and then bottled. And they say retired people have nothing but time. I don’t.

There is one thing I can’t figure out. I used to do all these things when I was still working. What happened? Were the days longer? Does the time go faster now? It is one of those Mysteries of the Universe. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t give a crap; there is no money for studies like that; people who work don’t care, and retired people have no time to waste on research like that. So the mystery will go unsolved, I’m afraid.

The all-knowing weather people forecast frost for tonight here in our area. It will snow further up north. Right now it is only 6 Celsius. We've gone from the hottest day last week (35.5 C on Thursday) to probably the coldest day of the month. I have my pepper plants in the sun-room. We have heaters running to keep it warm. A little bit of sunshine would be appreciated. Even our canary, Eddie, is not happy.

So, stay warm and dry, stay healthy and drink lots of liquids.

Remember, you can’t buy happiness, but you can buy alcohol and that is almost the same.

The Rabbit and the Crow

Last week I found a dead rabbit under one of our spruce trees, but it seems another one is already moving in.  As long as there is only one and as long as it doesn't eat our plants and vegetables I have no problem with the rabbit. We also have a pair of crows nesting in our neighbor's yard. They, too, come to us for a visit and to have lunch. I managed to capture them both at the same time under the bird feeder. Too bad, the squirrel wasn't around. It's been sitting in the bird feeder for most of the morning taking care of the sunflower seeds. I may just have to catch the little fellow and take him across the river.

It's a beautiful day today. I tilled my garden last Saturday and now I'm ready for the planting. Hopefully, May stays warm. We could use some rain now. Things are drying up. Tomorrow it is supposed to go to plus 29 Celsius. Time for short sleeves and shorts.

The Cleaning Crew

No, it is not a movie or a TV show we are watching, neither is it the title of a book I’m reading or writing. It is about the cleaning crew that is getting our yard ready for summer, working hard to whip it into shape.

There are only two people in the cleaning crew: my wife and I.

It has been a grueling week. Actually, we didn’t start until Tuesday, which means it’s only been 4 days, but it seems like we’ve been working at it for weeks. I am tired, but tomorrow I still want to till my garden, because I didn’t get a chance last fall. It was too wet. I have about 20 bags filled with leaves that I wanted to till under last year, which never happened, so I will do that tomorrow, at least a few of the bags. It is better in the fall. The leaves have the winter months to break down. Now I have only one month until I plant the garden.

It took us two days to pick up the fallen willow branches and to burn them. This is the first time it took us not even two days to pick the branches and burn them, but the weather people were kind to us this week and the good warm and dry weather held for the whole week. Also, the wind was never strong. Can’t burn with a strong wind blowing. In the afternoon, I raked the grass with an attachment I have for the lawn-tractor. Yesterday, I cut the grass on about half the property. I cut it really short and bagged it, at the same time picking up the dry grass that I raked yesterday. I deposited some of the grass into the truck-box until it overflowed and the rest I bagged. I couldn’t go to the dump, because it is closed on Thursday.

First thing this morning, I drove to the dump to get rid of the grass. Then I cut the rest of the yard and in the afternoon I took a second trip to the dump. They compost the leaves and grass, which is a great thing.

I made a gruesome discovery. My little friend, the rabbit I’ve been feeding all winter, lay dead under one of the spruce trees. I have no idea what killed it. I didn’t want the little feller to have died for nothing, so I gave it to the two crows that have decided to move into our neighborhood.

They built a nest in one of the ash trees in our neighbor’s yard, but they live on our lot. They own it now. You can tell by the arrogant way they walk across the grass. So I figured I might as well stay on their good side and feed them.

As I do every year, in March I seed my peppers. That’s all I seed now in the house. The rest of the plants I buy. The pepper plants are growing nicely under a fluorescent light. I also have 2 tomato plants that are growing well. I used seeds that I saved in 2010. They are called ‘Health Kick’. They are a kind of Roma tomato but a hybrid. Good producers, but I haven’t been able to find them anymore in the Garden Centers. We’ll see if these two plants will produce anything. You can’t really use seeds from Hybrids. You never know what you get, because they revert back to one of their parent plants.

I used to seed more tomatoes, but now I buy the plants. I grow 6 Roma for our Salsa, 6 Super Fantastic, and 4 Cherry tomatoes. My wife loves them. I barely eat any. I’m happy with the Super Fantastic for my sandwiches. Nothing better than eating tomatoes ripened outside on the vine. They are just so sweet and tasty. You can’t buy them like that.

I made one mistake. I seeded my cucumbers in March—much too early. They sprouted within 3 days. I transplanted them once already into larger pots and they are growing profusely. In fact, two of them have tiny cucumbers on them. Well, perhaps I’ll harvest some cucumbers before I plant them into the garden. This particular cucumber is called F1 Socrates and is supposed to be quite prolific. We’ll see.

Yes, Springtime is a busy time and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m looking forward to my first fishing trip in May. The season opens in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the weather stays favorable. No high winds and not too much rain. No fun for me fishing in the rain and when the waves are high. My stomach revolts. I’m ready with my new Shimano Sedona Fishing reel and the night crawler jigs I made. Those Walleyes are in for a good fight, in fact, they won’t stand a chance.

It's for the Birds

They are taking me to the Cleaners. I’m not talking about the government now or the bank that handles our investments. I’m talking about the birds, specifically the Juncos and the other sparrows. I think they like it so much here they will never leave. I have two feeders which I fill every day at least once. A couple of days ago I put new seeds into the feeders in the morning, then at midday, and then again in the evening for the next morning. Every time the feeders were completely empty. I also spread seeds on the ground, because the Juncos love to feed on the ground. This is getting expensive. And the Blackbirds and the Finches aren’t even here yet.

This year we have a pair of crows nesting in our neighbors ash trees, but the crows are spending their day on our lot. They act as if they own the place. They even go into the feeders and eat the sunflower seeds and take out the peanuts I put in for the #Bluejays. I did not know crows ate peanuts.

I believe the reason the crows set up shop near our property is the fact that I fed them the mice I catch in the garden and in our garage. I always put them under the willows along with the old seeds that are still in the feeder when I refill them. Last year, I gave them at least one mouse pretty much every day.

I will not start a war with the crows. They are quite intelligent and, apparently, also quite vindictive when one of theirs gets injured or even killed by a human. I’ve heard and read stories about that. The last thing I need is a group of crows harassing me when I’m working in my garden. Maybe I’ll ask my neighbor to remove the nest. After all, that tree is on his property. That way I’m off the hook as far as the crows are concerned. I’ll still stay the ‘Good Guy’ in their book.

Will summer ever come? Last night it even snowed a little. My peppers are growing in their containers under the fluorescent light in the basement. It is too cold to put them into the sun-room the way I usually do at this time of year. I have 4 cucumber plants I seeded much too early. They are so tall already they are sending out feelers to attach to the fluorescent light. There is over a month to go before I can plant them into the garden. I might have cucumbers before then. I bought these seeds from the High Mowing Seed Company in the US. I only got 10 seeds. I have 6 left which I want to seed directly into the garden, but I thought I’ll get a head-start by seeding 4 into containers. Cucumbers do not transplant well, in my experience, but I have them in large peat-moss pots which I have to just bury completely into the ground. They should survive once I transplant them.

Speaking of the garden, because of the cold and rainy weather I haven’t been able to do anything yet. Last year, also because of the lousy weather, I didn’t get a chance to till under the 30 bags of leaves I collected. The leaves are great for added nutrients and it may be too late to till them into the soil now.

My wife bought me a special weeding tool for my birthday—unexpectedly. So now I’m ready for the garden and ready for the weeds. Let them try to take over my garden now! I am prepared with a new weapon.

Fishing seasons starts May 14 here in Manitoba. I noticed one change in the regulations that will actually affect me. I live near #Lockport and I go there to catch #Sauger and, if I’m lucky, Walleye. I have a spot where I have been lucky. I and a million other anglers who know about this ‘secret’ spot. The Conservation and Water Stewardship people who are making the rules have decided for whatever reason to create a Special Conservation Area for #pelicans and close it to all fishing and possession of fishing gear. My little spot is near that area and possibly part of this area. I haven’t checked it out yet.

Have these people been in Lockport and seen how many pelicans are crowding the place? The other day I saw a flock of more than 60 birds flying over our house. Do these people realize how many fish one pelican consumes in one day? There is also a clause in there about not being allowed to fish near a fish ladder to protect the fish. Well, I have great news. The pelicans won’t respect that part of the regulations. They’ll gobble up any fish that is near that fish ladder. I suspect there is some political reason behind this new regulation and it has nothing to do with the conservation of the pelicans.

And what about the #Status Indians? They are exempt from any regulations, limits, and restrictions and seasons. I guess they’ll be allowed to fish this protected area. Wonderful. Don’t anyone tell me we don’t have a two-tier system in our country. One for the people who have to buy a license and have to follow the rules and one for those who don’t need a license and need not follow any rules. That’s how conservation works in this book. You can't control anything unless everyone follows the rules. How difficult is that to understand?

Have a great weekend.