Pulling Weeds Is Very Relaxing

Weeded Around The Center 

I had one answer to my question a few posts back, asking if anyone knew what those tall green plants/trees were growing along the fence. I had used google in the past and thought they were Sassafras saplings .... well they are Giant Ragweed .. I think that is better than Sassafras trees.

Before I bore you with details, I did a search on Google for blogs that talked about pulling weeds. While pulling weeds today I thought a blog just about my pulling weeds would spare you the details of my new hobby but also might lead to some affiliate income later on. (joke)

After seeing there were 902,000 blogs just about pulling weeds .. I decided the market was too saturated and I ran back to "Hounds RVs and Retirement Living" to post about weeds.

I knew before I started this project that it could be dangerous. There is absolutely nothing I can do outside the house, away from excel spreadsheets, from changing oil in my car to even mowing the yard ... that doesn't have some "Murphy's Law" involved. Something seems to always happen that is totally unexpected. But I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ... even without power tools.

Well today was that day.

I woke up a little sore and really stiff. I couldn't bend over to pick up the water dishes for the hounds to refill or give them fresh water for the day. I thought before I made any decisions for the day, like pull or don't pull weeds, I'd have my normal two cups of coffee and see how I felt.

For the past week I have been taking 1,000 to 3,000 mg of MSM, an anti-flammatory that is not as harsh as ibuprofen ... so with all of my stiffness this morning I took the three 1,000 mg capsules and waited a while. At 1pm I was watching the Colts first preseason game when I realized I really wanted to go outside and pull weeds.  How weird is that for a self proclaimed football addict?

After a short period of time I grew tired of watching 2nd and 3rd stringers trying to make the team, that missed tackles and lacked in pass coverage. I turned off the tv and headed outside. With my gloves, the ballcap, the hand tool and my 32gl trash can, I started by finishing that section where I ended on Saturday.

Before

After

After finishing that section I wanted to stay in the shade so that eliminated going down the sides of the driveway. For a change of pace I decided to walk around the drive and pull anything that was tall, any weed that was isolated. That included going all the way over to the fence, down equal to the front of the house. (I just can't stop anywhere ... there has to be a marker)

I had heavy growth around the grounding cable of that utility pole and also around the AT&T land line telephone transfer box ... it's the home of about 15 phone lines that my neighbors still have for landline phones. I started removing the weeds around that utility pole but when I got to the AT&T telephone junction box that is where things get exciting.

Before

After

Over the months of the winter, spring and then the summer rains .. the ground had moved up along that transfer box and cracked the cover open. As I cleaned around that box, I moved the level of the dirt below the box. I could now take off the cover, then slide it back in place all the way and tighten it down.

Now .... this is where the danger of pulling weeds raised it's ugly head. As I lifted off the cover of that junction box I did not know there were at least 20 wasps in formation with their engines running, ready to attack the person that opens that box (ME). And attack they did. I tossed the cover into the air and took off sprinting for the house while getting stung a few times. Right before getting to the door I glanced behind me to see how many were following.

In my very short glance I saw more than 5 in my line of sight. Slamming the door, I headed to the medicine cabinet for some first aid. I did not see any wasps had made it into the house, but knew that I had made them mad ... so I would have to move my trash can, pick up the cover and start pulling weeds in a different section of the driveway.

Sorry, due to the high speed actions and my urge for survival ... no photos were taken during or after the wasp attack.

I used the last of my wasp spray standing 5ft away. I knocked their nest out from the inside of the box and tossed it over the bank. I knew the rest of the afternoon I would have to keep an eye out for any wasps doing 'fly bys" over my head or around my shoulders.

I decided to head over to the utility grounding cable. It wasn't soon after I started that I ran into my 2nd problem ... ANTS ... the kind that bite ... hundreds of them!

Before

After

They were easy to get rid of after they covered my lower legs and ankles. I then decided to start at those 6 red tiles (Sadie's Patio) and work my way toward the utility pole. I then continued to swat wasps as they flew by me.

At times I would walk over to the junction box and kill as many as I could. I didn't feel any guilt about it nor could I remember any good things a wasp does on a daily basis but sting people. I'll google about them later, still the least amount of wasps around the house, the better.

By the end of my 3 hours I had completed the outlying area around the top of the drive. So now I have only the center that is left and the section of gravel that use to be the parking space of my 1994 Chevy Truck (should have never sold it).

Only The Center Remains

Old Parking Spot For Truck - A Place To Park A Trailer ??

Finding it was easy and fast to pull weeds along the fence line in the shade .. I decide that I will pull weeds along the fence line all the way to the bottom of the driveway. Rain is schedule for Monday - Wednesday so we will see how that works out. Based on what I have done so far after a total of 8-1/2 hours of work, I don't think I am that far from completing the weed pulling job.

Should Be Easy Down The Fence Line

Sunday - My 3rd Container of Weeds

I find that pulling weeds is relaxing to me. Similar to painting a house inside or outside, something that I really enjoy doing .. painting that is. Plus at the end of the day you can see progress, something that looks better than when you started. Once I am finished and during the times of the year that I am living here, I think it will be easy to maintain the "no weed" policy by pulling them as I see them. You can pull a lot of new weeds in only 30 minutes.

Also another factor ... there are NO CHEMICALS involved, which can't be a bad thing.

No photos were taken of the hounds today. Winston and Heidi stayed inside enjoying the air conditioning while sleeping all day. Sadie spent most of the time outside with me and finally becoming bored being the supervisor, she took a long nap in the shade under the Toyota FJ. By the time I ran inside to get my camera to take a picture of her, she was awake and standing at the door.

Something was said today about Heidi that makes more sense than any other reasons for her wanting to be inside all the time. She will always go to the door when she needs to go outside but returns almost immediately to be let inside after she is done dumping her tanks. While the other two will roam the field sniffing every inch of ground as long as I leave them outside.

I don't know a lot about Heidi's first 3 years of her life. All I was told by the foster mom when I bought her from GABR, that she had been in and out of shelters most of her life. I was told she did and would run away a lot if not on a leash at all times. That she had allergies that required shots.

I found out soon after that she would NOT run away off leash. She goes outside without a leash and without me going outside with her. When she does the daily walks, she walks off leash and has never ran away.

I was told today that she may not like staying outside a lot because in those first 3 years she may have been left outside tied up in all kinds of weather. A reason that she would escape and take off running, then end up in the animal shelter. That's a possible reason why she only goes outside long enough to pee and has never liked "hanging out" outside in the sun with me and the other hounds.

A reasonable idea or thought.

I sit here in "the tropics" of southern Indiana away from any weather danger since it's not tornado season ... watching and reading about all the fires out west and up in Canada. It is just unbelievable from this distance how long they have been going on, how those fire fighters (Undermanned) have spent 7 days a week, 24 hours per day fighting them with occasional naps... while they may go on for another couple of months. How much damage will there be when they are finally put out? I would hate having to leave everything behind to evacuate, some have left on foot.

Also for those traveling to the SW this winter. From what I read about the powerful El Nino predicted this winter ... those Soutwestern states are due to be cooler and wetter than normal. More snow in the Pacific Northwest and colder than normal temps here in "the tropics".

I have to decide for this winter do I want to be freezing and dry ... or warmer and wet.

The Ballcap For All Kinds of Yardwork

A Rare Three Hound Photo Outside

It's been over a year since the three hounds were all in the backyard together. Heidi rarely goes in the backyard. When she goes outside she hits the corner of the front yard and then she might wander along the side of the fence line .. but for some reason she rarely heads to the back.

Maybe she is feeling better, although by her skin rash, there isn't a difference from the past weeks. I see a shinier coat, it's softer with the change to Earthborn Holistic No Grain, the Plains Feast blend. I haven't made the trip to the vet to use their scales but I swear I can feel some muscle coming back around her neck and shoulders. One of the photos from today looks like she is gaining some weight, I hope so.

I wanted her to lay in the sun for a while thinking that might help her skin rash ... then again, laying in the grass may activate her allergies and make them worse. I'll check her later tonight. She didn't stay outside long. It was 82° but the iPhone weather said it felt like 89°, all three of the hounds prefer air conditioning and went running for the door after the 5 minute photo shoot.

The dental work I had last Monday seems to have worked out this week. It was nice to get back to normal, get some sleep and also not having to tolerate any pain. The week was so slow I am really not sure what I did. Looking back on the past four days, I didn't take any siestas, I didn't waste all day on the internet but I did do a lot of book reading.

Each time I looked out the kitchen window or took the hounds outside, I'd see my garden of weeds along the driveway. They were almost overtaking the driveway, like I stated in my last post. I couldn't come to grips with paying more money for weedkiller, since it never lasts as long as they say it will. In fact it seems to me, the weeds grow back stronger and faster than ever after they turn brown.

So much for that black plastic material that is buried 6" below the mulch to keep the weeds from invading your flower beds. Does anything work the way it's suppose to anymore or is that just an advertizing dream?

Weeds Up Through The Black Weed Block

It's happened that was every summer I've been here, all 18 of them. You'd think I'd come up with a different plan by now. So I asked a friend that spends a lot of time working with her yard, flowers, plants, etc. She said she pulled her weeds. Of course her long driveway is asphalt, whereas mine is gravel ... so I knew my job of pulling weeds might take a little bit longer. It was something I'd have to think about.

I know that no matter what I do, spray or pull them, the weeds will always grow back ... but maybe I can control them. Besides, the idea of pulling weeds was making me very curious ... curious enough to pull a couple of the easy crabgrass weeds out of the gravel driveway. They came out of the ground, through the gravel easy. I decided to get my gloves and the 32 gallon trash can that I use only to gather leaves, sticks and now weeds.

These gloves remind me constantly that I am the boss.

Perfect Gloves For Pulling Weeds

So Friday around 1:30pm I decided why not? Let's see if weed pulling is all it is made out to be. Of course I had wasted the best part of the day with the cooler temps in the morning. It was already after 1pm, one of those sunny 84° days that feels like 90° ... but I like sun and I like heat, so I started at the top of the driveway. I was thinking about doing only the center of the drive .. but my thought process is never like that. Everything has to be even. So I would move down the center of the driveway a little way, then to each side.

Only after an hour of work, I had this much done on the driveway and my trash can was about 3/4 of the way full. With the sun is heading toward the front yard since my house faces west, It was getting extremely hot. I decided not to quit and just move my efforts to the shady side of the house ... in back. This took no more than 30 minutes.

Pulled one weed at a time, anything from large crabgrass to small sprouts of new grass.

Before

After

Not Quite 32 Gallons Of Packed Down Weeds

I had seen and felt enough so I emptied the trash can full of weeds on my burn pile for next spring and headed to the shower ... I was tired but encouraged by how much was done in less than two hours.

I had decided to start earlier this morning but due to a sleepless night and up until 4am ... I didn't get my 8am start on the weed pulling. I did start at 11:30, moving all the way down the center of the drive ... then toward the left to pull weeds over the culvert where the weeds covered my stone I installed a few summers ago. By the time I was about to move up the side of the driveway I decided it was just too hot at 1:30.

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I took a nice hour break inside drinking a lot of ice cold water. Stopping any kind of work outside is bad for me, because I lose my momentum, or I get distracted and end up doing something else. I wanted to do just a little bit more.  So I began where I started yesterday working towards the backyard. I was only going to get to where I was even with the front of the house and stop . I kept going longer.

I wasn't in the mood to wash the Mini Cooper, so I decided to go along the front of the carport, double arms length. I would have finished what was left, all the way to the yard but in the last 15 minutes of working, the bugs, and gnats decided to come out to bother me ... so I called it a day. I was still amazed how much I was getting done in a short period of time.

Before

After Saturday

Granted, it would be much faster to walk around spraying chemicals to kill the weeds but this week I am not in the mood to waste money. Maybe paying the dental bill put me in shock, i don't know ... but I don't feel like spending ... unless I go to Dairy Queen.

So tomorrow I plan on continuing my weed pulling. I'll finish up the end of the section I was working on, but I also want to finish each side of the driveway ... I'll do that first before the sun moves over the tops of the trees making that front side very hot. Once this end of the top section is finished and both sides of the driveway, I'll decide from there if I want to keep working or move to the top of the driveway on Monday.

I am pulling out by the roots, anything that is green .. large or small. In fact I doubt that I have missed very many small sprouts. So far I have 5-1/2 hours of labor. This little tool I found in a drawer this morning made things easier on Saturday. It was mouse tested, with some signs of chewing on the handle.

Another 30+ gallons of packed down weeds on Day 2.

Day 2

If you made it reading this far I'm surprised, it just shows you how slow life is sometimes in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. I don't lead a thrilling life ... I mean this week after the dental work, pulling these weeds have been the highlight of the week. I have watched a couple of NFL preseason games on Thursday and Friday night ... will watch some more tonight. Then I flip back to the Cincinnati Reds - LA Dodger game in Los Angeles during the football game commercials or vice versa. The Reds games don't start until 10pm local time.

The hounds and I hang out mostly and take each day as it comes. I find it interesting that this is what I am blogging about publicly ... so I guess it was this topic or another day of no posting. At least there were some new photos of the hounds.

I will say I was amazed how sore my hamstrings were this morning after only an hour and a half of bending over to pull the weeds out of the ground.

I may fall off my diet wagon for an hour ... I have a strong strong urge for a Hawaiian Blizzard from Dairy Queen. That isn't all bad is it?? It has pineapple and coconut in it ... LOL

No Hound Photos But A Dental Update

There will not be any hound photos in this post, this is just an update to my dental situation. I hope to take some new photos of all the hounds later this afternoon since I am finally feeling much better today, with just a little soreness in my jaw.

I am sitting here Tuesday after two cups of coffee and only a sore jaw away from being painless after approximately 25 days. I slide into the dental chair about 11:10am anxious to find out what my problem was and what would be required for a cure.

Was it a vertical fracture, an abscess, just a cavity or a problem with an old old filling? The dental assistant started the analysis and even gave me a prognosis. About the time I am wondering what's going on and if the dental assistant was the one to determine my future ... she said "I'll get the dentist to check my work and diagnosis".

I was hesitant and told her so, when she had a small thin piece of something to slide in between my teeth that was a nerve away from flying through the ceiling if I bit down ... she was asking me to bite down ... but I did bite down enough for her to see if I had a vertical fracture or not.

I did not have that. It was a different problem. She was predicting a root canal and crown were needed. My friend that is a semi-retired dentist predicted the same thing after talking to him over the weekend .. after he heard I had 24 hours of intense pain on Wednesday. At first he had predicted a possible vertical fracture but after he heard what I had on Wednesday, he changed his estimate ... that a root canal would be needed.

I found out that I had a cavity in the back of the tooth, below the old large filling. A root canal was needed to remove the dying nerve and the tooth needed to be replaced. An antibiotic script was written and I was expecting a couple of weeks delay in fitting into his schedule.

Right before getting out of the chair, the assistant checked the schedules on the monitor behind my chair and said "we have a 2 hour slot available today at 3pm if you want to do everything today.

My mind instantly flashed to "pain or no pain" by the end of the afternoon. Although my friend had always suggested a second opinion from an endodontist and having them do the root canal work. I trusted my dentist though based on his emergency work in 2006 when I had a tooth/filing fall apart one Saturday morning while brushing my teeth.

So with a few hours between appointments to think of my options and what my friend was telling me, I had time to make a firm decision. I found a couple of people that had root canals done by him. I also talked to the dentist with new questions before any work was started ... I decided to bite the bullet and have him do the root canal and new crown in the same 2-1/2 hour setting. The assistant said one time I had actually fallen asleep and they had to wake me.

I heard a lot, saw very little, and felt zero pain through the process. Of course my left jaw is sore today from being open for 2-1/2 hours, thanks to the help of that great invention, a curved plastic piece slide between my teeth on the opposite side of the dental work. Also it's normal soreness after that area is the point of receiving all the pain killer shots.

Some payment discounts were negotiated but it was still a hit to my budget, more than I expected. I had not planned on the root canal when I did my cost estimate. At least the problem is fixed and in a few days I should be feeling normal again after 25 days of feeling bad at times.

Before I go ... an interesting dog story. In between appointments I stopped in to see a friend that has the car dealership where I have bought a lot of vehicles the past 5 years. He had a 8 month old pup running around wanting me to play fetch. He looked like a bulldog but had the wrong color for an English Bulldog.

The pup was a hybrid breed ... an English Bulldog and Beagle mix. Sorry I didn't get a picture nor can I remember the name of the breed. The dog was bought from a beagle breeder.

A Beautiful Saturday That Starts Out Strange

For some reason last night I was wide awake until 3am. I shut everything off and attempted to get some sleep but no luck. I was back up at the refrigerator drinking a lot of ice cold water. I was still wide awake but finally tried to get some sleep at 5am.

That sleep lasted until 6:15am when Winston started his hound dog howling letting me know he needed to go out ASAP, if not immediately. I was wide awake and even took a few photos at 6:15am ... but a little mystified why I didn't feel tired after no sleep?

The morning even had a strange look to it as you can see by the first two photos taken at 6:15am.

I also had zero pain last night, so teeth and jaw pain was not the reason for lack of sleep.

I felt so good even after an hour of sleep, that I decided to head about 20 miles south for a Breakfast Buffet ... bad tooth and all. No problems in the pain area, was able to keep the meal on the right side of my mouth and have a few plates of food without injury.

I knew eventually I'd need some sleep sometime, after all the first NFL pre-season game of the year is on tonight at 8pm .. The Hall of Fame game. I know it's only a pre-season game and the regular starters will play about 1 series of downs that could be no more than 3 plays ... but when you are a football addict ... football in August is like Christmas morning.

Yes ... I even watch the Canadian Pro Football League that is on tv now. I like some of their different rules and styles of play.

So with the cool temps and the sun breaking through the early morning fog ... I was able to get some quality sleep from 8:30am till 1pm. I felt so good when I woke up I got some house cleaning finished and was able to take the hounds outside mid afternoon to enjoy the weather and take some photos.

Heidi once again refused to go outside and instead chose to take perfectly folded washed blankets on the floor and make a pile of them to sleep on in the nice cool air conditioned living room. She was going to get a bath and manicure this morning but my schedule changed a little. So her bath has been moved to Sunday morning, and the kind of shampoo to use is still being determined. Her nails will be cut back as much as possible and those ears will be smelling like baby wipes after I am done.

So the two hounds that love to go outside whenever I ask decided to check some smells out. Winston has found something in the grass/weed area that he likes to eat, so he had a meal of that. He eats there every morning. Sadie was pretty sure something had been around her house recently and was curious enough to press her nose into the side of the house to further investigate the potential intruder.

When I was snapping photos of trees, the sky, weeds and things other than hounds ... the two hounds decided they would stroll down the driveway in a direction they are not allowed to go. Due to the highway at the bottom of the hill, they are not allowed past the front of the house and they follow that rule 99.9% of the time ... sometimes they just get adventurous.

Of course when I yelled their names, since they are hound dogs, they ignored me the first time like they are suppose to do, it's in their DNA. After a couple of more times of yelling their names, they acknowledged they had been caught and started their slow stroll back up the driveway towards me, looking at me as if they were innocent and had never left the backyard.

They are a funny pair and a good pair of hounds.

As you see as a result of the record amount of rain in the month of June, everything is green and all those weeds in the driveway and along the bank that I had killed with expensive weed killer last month ... grew back 4x as fast and 4x as tall. I have something else planned for their elimination but I'll have to go to a farm store to buy it.

As you see that clear and burned off fence line in April is over 6' tall in growth. Even those green tall stalks where Winston was eating was burned to the ground in April. There is one thing consistent with everyone of them. Hopefully some readers that have landscaping experience can chime in some helpful suggestions.

When those 6' plants were small I took a leaf of theirs inside and searched on google images to see what I was dealing with. I'm serious when I say everything you see is the same plant/tree sapling. My best guess from the type of leaf, the one pictured below .. they are all Sassafras saplings.

Now the thing is I don't mind that the are filing in the fence line and I don't care that they are trees. I use to have a fence line full of trees until the straight line wind damage in 2008, that blew them down or tore them out of the ground. I burned everything in April to get rid of a lot weeds, horse grass and while berry bushes.

Still, I don't want to have any trees in a spot that is about 2/3 of the way down the drive because they would eventually grow tall enough where they would be a problem for the reception from my DirecTv and Exede Satellite Internet dishes. Due to my house location I have no other choices for tv and an internet provider, plus I like both services as they have worked out fantastic.

I have had DirecTv since the late 90's when they bought out a company called Prime Star that was my tv service provider back then. As far as using Verizon here at home like people do on the road .. price is about the same but no comparison in "speed". Plus I get 15Gb per month but the difference from other companies, between midnight and 5am I get free unlimited data.

So let the trees grow but I will be cutting them next spring in that one spot to keep my satellite dishes receiving good reception from space. If anyone knows or thinks they know what is growing based on those photos, let me know.

Since we are talking plants, trees, green etc .. this next photo is interesting. You might think that I have taken this photo out in the hay field in back but I am disappointed to say it was taken in my backyard. It's disappointing because of all the time and money spent .. buying and applying grass fertilizer, some Scott's Weed & Feed, extra watering before the rains came in June .. only to see a photo of this one section of yard that has very little grass, some clover, some weeds and a lot of nothing when it comes to a yard.

That is the spot where all the grass was killed last year due to the Class C Coachmen that was parked their from September to March 2014. It was reseeded with grass and even more grass seed was added this year. Compared to Winston's photo up above where you can see he is in a yard of good green grass and no weeds, this spot is pretty different.

I gave up on the war against yard moles years ago when I found nothing worked. I tried everything over the 18 years I've been here. I was even desperate enough one year to actually buy those electronic sensors that took about 3 D cell batteries, that would send out different unheard tones to keep the moles away. Luckily I used my 90 day return policy at Walmart and got a refund. The most fun I've ever had fighting the war against yard moles ... was digging out their holes just a little for more access, pouring gasoline into the mole track and following that with a lit match.

People were calling me Bill Murray from his movie Caddie Shack.

There were enough out of control underground explosions that I had to stop since I was becoming concerned about my house foundation and any underground water pipes. So a few years ago I let the moles know they had won and if 1/2 of my back yard feels like walking on a sponge while I mow ... then so be it.

As you can tell it was a pretty lazy Saturday here in "the tropics" ... but someone has to do it. Isn't that what retirement is all about? For those thinking they might retire and might get bored ... I can say as an ex workaholic ... retirement is beautiful and I have loved every day of it ... you can do anything you want, when you want.

What's a meeting? It was great to escape all of those.

Now, the big test will be with football season around the corner ... will I stay on my diet of no grain, no Pepsi, no chips ... all that food normally consumed while watching football games hour after hour?

My experience says no ... but we will see.