The garden beds have been working away while we have been busy splitting wood and building fences. The fence had to be built before the bed covers could be left open at night. Once the fence was up I added a couple more planters for cabbage, lettuce, spinach and kale. No point laying out a salad bar for the deer. As it is, the deer start pushing on the fence to nibble on some of the cranberry bush in the corner of the fenced area. I add boards to that section. The ongoing back and forth of coexistence with woodland creatures living in their forest continues. The cabbage moths win their round. Nets next year.
We have a pond which freezes almost to the bottom in winter. This year a few of last year’s goldfish survived and were swimming around after the winter ice melted. I bought a couple of dozen more from Lloydminster. Most survived the trip back to Meadow Lake only to succumb to a passing loon a few weeks later. The survivors are a bit skittish.
The local supermarket sells gardening stuff in the spring and then backs slowly away from that line of business as the season progresses. I bought a few things at their seasonal close-out sale. Two items were vines that have berries for the birds. Here’s the cautionary tale of bargains and “free” items. No matter how much money you save you also pick up the other end of a stick when you pick up one end. You now own something that will cost you whatever ownership costs. The cost of vines is you need something for them to climb on. We built an arch.
In the background of one of the welding the arch pictures you will see two barrels. One rusty and one painted. The fitting from the rusty one have been moved to the new burn barrel and the rusty barrel ended up in the metal scrap at the local dump. They have a fancier name for the dump, but you know what I mean.
Anti-social distancing continued with a porch birthday for grandson, Kohen, and visits from the Meadow Lake clan.
Path building has continued making full use of my DR Brush and Field Mower. The only thing that can stop me now is Juanita 
. That’s what spouses are for, to restrain our pathological impulses. The paths give us access to nooks on our twenty acres that we have never seen before but you have to stop before you end up with a twenty acre parking lot.
All the top soil has found places in new planters or along the fence for planting raspberry plants next spring. That makes it time to order more stuff to shovel into the wheelbarrow and move away from the pile and dump somewhere else. The top soil guy delivers a couple loads of crushed rock. His steering has improved over the last couple of months. What is it they say about practice?
Once the gravel gets spread around I order screener chips for the rest of the driveway. The plan is to chain the dump truck gate to allow only a narrow opening and drive forward laying a thin layer to top up the old screener chip base. The bolts holding the chains break. The load gets dumped in one big pile. The dump truck driver went away and came back with another load of screener chips and a Bobcat to spread both loads around. This additional service was free with some compromise. A Bobcat definitely does a better job than the cheapo drive and drop. Everybody happy.
I worked a job in a paper mill in my twenties where I tested pulp quality parameters. They installed some banshee-like refiners next to one of the test stations. One of my co-workers took early retirement to get away from the noise. A few months later he commented how busy he was and didn’t know how he had ever found time to go to work. I still have a stockpile of books and projects from pre-retirement sixteen years ago. One project was willow furniture. Never gone near it. I do still have an example to inspire me. It is a chair made by Debbie Settle in the 90’s. Shown above.
No book cover pictures this month. I did order a pair of crimping pliers from Amazon Canada Crimper Link USA Crimper Link to help me make brush mower control cables using aircraft cable and crimps from the local co-op. The crimps are used by local trappers to make snares. Better than nothing. I discover a DR Mower parts company on line based in Alberta. They actually have nothing to do with DR Mower. That’s a point in their favour. Control cables are not stocked but they can price them and have them shipped directly. So I order a couple to be direct shipped by an importer in Ontario after they get them from DR. Might take a while.
