Let’s hope it’s hard to stop a Trane, at least. It rained today, and Furnace Dude had an outdoor job planned that they couldn’t do because of the weather, so he installed ours today. I guess they’re done; I came home at lunch to check on Miffy, and he (Furnace Dude, not Miff) said he wasn’t sure about the roof vent, but it stopped raining…around 1430h, I think, and there’s PVC pipe coming out of our roof now, so I guess he had time to finish. Anyway, I hope we’ll have no trouble with this one for a long time!

It’s also hard to stop my brown Børn crisscross sandals, apparently! It was raining when I left for work this morning, so I wore flipflops lest my sandals get wet; soggy leather is unappealing, and not good for shoes, either. I’d already taken my bag out to the car when I thought of my shoes, so I just grabbed them and headed out the door. My hands were full, and I set my shoes on HK’S roof to open the door. As I often do with thing I set on the roof, I forgot all about them.

I was coming up to the overpass when I noticed some woman in a truck waving. I didn’t recognise her, so I thought she must be waving at someone on the other side of me, and kept driving.

I got to work, and as I was collecting my stuff to get out of the car, I remembered having set my sandals on the car. I thought, “Dammit! They’re on the street by the house, or somewhere between home and work!” I love those sandals; they’re comfortable and go with so many different things. I resigned myself to wearing purple Rider flipflops at work, and hoped my sandals would be somewhere on our street.

I got out of the car…and there were my sandals, right where I’d left them! That woman wasn’t waving at someone else, she was trying to draw my attention to the sandals on the roof of my car! I drove the same way I always do, and took the same bumps and corners that I do every morning, but they didn’t move. They were a bit wet, but I left my flipflops on until they’d dried, and they were fine. P told me to buy a lottery ticket. Maybe I should have!

Beautiful, glorious rain, and supposed to go all day. Bad hair or not, I’ll take it, and so will the Bistro!

Finally, all twelve are in the ground. Most are in the Bee Happy bed.

Three in Sarah-Flah’s garden.

Just one in with the pipevine that needs a better trellis.

This is probably the last hardy hibiscus of 2015. Midnight Marvel.

I had to do laundry, do the push mowing, and change out the MLB feeders today, plus water my trees, and set up the sprinklers in Sarah’s garden, and in the Bee Happy bed, so I hadn’t much time today, but I did find a friend. I can’t swear to it, but I think it’s an Orange Sulphur.

P did a nice job, cleaning up my mess behind the gradge!

A few from Friday first. B called the office from the back of the shop to tell me that, “There’s a praying mantis out here if you want it,” and of course, I did. I named her Roberta, and C manti-sat while I cleaned the bathroom.

I thought about keeping her as a pet, but decided she might have an ootheca left in her, and would rather be free. It’s late enough in the season that she’s already got the “end of life soon” signal anyway.

After I got home, I finished the last four patio squares that I hadn’t time to do on Wednesday.

Pressure washed the ground in dirt from my flipflops, too.

Technically Friday, but I didn’t hear it because I was in the house, having supper, but P said he heard a slow, “craaaaack”, and feared for our roof. The roof was fine, but there was a goddamned big branch on the ground, and a slightly smaller one that it took down with it.

Not a skinny twig.

In good news, it managed to fall not on the roof, or in the flowerbed, or in the pond. It just missed the flowerbed and the pond by inches.

P said that he didn’t want to spend a couple of hundred on a chain saw that we’d rarely use, so he went off in search of a big axe, and I planted asters while he was gone. I’ll put asters in today’s entry because I still have three left to plant. Most of them ended up in the Bee Happy bed because of the drainage, and I also identified the plant in that bed that had made me itch. Well, I didn’t; FlowerChecker botanists did. Stinging nettle!

I had company as I decided where to put the asters; I found him on the screen door. I don’t know whether he was cold or just liked my hand, but he wouldn’t leave. This is also the final photo that includes the black spot on my thumbnail where I hit it with my garden hoe/fork/whatever it’s called on the first day I really worked in the Bistro. April, I think…I was enlarging the cosmos bed, knocking dirt off grass roots.

There’ll be more aster pictures, but I figured out why the ones I’d got at Schnuck’s looked so sad. I’d look sad, too, if my feet were this confined!

I was still planting asters when P got home, bearing a pruning saw, and the only thing that would inspire me to clean up the fallen sweetgum branches…a cute little electric chain saw! He was at Aldi as usual on his supply run, and they happened to have these little chain saws for $35. He snagged one, and once I heard that, I stopped planting flowers and got into the logging business!

That little saw is perfect; no mixing gas, no maintenance before storage, no waiting for a battery to charge…plug it into the 100′ cord and fire it up! It weighs next to nothing, and has enough power for anything I’m likely to do. I need something to cut the odd and sundry branch, and bush honeysuckle that’s too big for my big lopping shears; it’s not like I’m going to be doing any logging with it.

I got the branches cut up, put the big pieces over behind the pond (perches for birds and dragonflies), got out my chipper and shredded a bunch, and anything that wouldn’t chip or had too many spiky balls went to the brush pile. I raked up the small stuff, ran dry bush honeysuckle that I’d cut last week through the chipper to clean the blades after shredding leaves/green spiky balls, and you’d almost never know the branches had fallen. The only casualty was the terra cotta feeder, which I’ll order from Amazon.

In non-tree news, I was so pleased with myself for “liberating” frost asters, but found some growing up near the garage, and more down by the brush pile. Oh well; I still got goldenrod and Jerusalem artichoke.

Well, I’m broke, but the brand new 80,000 BTU, 92% efficiency, easy and inexpensive to get parts for Trane furnace is paid in full, and will be installed next week. I told Furnace Dude that I wasn’t in any great rush, but he said of the sales calls he’s done lately, I’m the first to say, “Do it,” so barring dire emergencies from other customers, we’re first.

I’m putting this in my Projects category because even though I’m not installing it, I saved the money for it, which sort of counts! 🙂

We have a large patio. By the time I’m finished pressure washing it, I’ll have met every. square. inch. Personally. Today, I did from the garage across the open part of the patio. I didn’t finish, but I did 427 square feet.

It’s very dirty. I wonder when it was last washed? Ever?

I also bought three more asters; I don’t know what kind they are, but they’re purple, and Schnuck’s had them on sale for $4/8″ pot. They look a little rough, but it’s their roots that really matter!

Furnace Dude coming to give us a quote at 1630h tomorrow. Yay? I hope I have enough money.

Here is a photo of dirt. Also a photo of 4′ of PVC pipe I got yesterday at lunch, buried just barely under the surface, and the section of pond pump cord that I won’t trip over or have to step over again is inside it. The waterproof connector cover will be here tomorrow, but the extension cord doesn’t go underground; it’ll be hidden across the back of the flowerbed.

The Martha Stewart of spiders. She put some work into this!

The frost aster plants look like hell, but they do have enough roots to make some cute little flowers.

I watered the weigelas last night, and this little trooper had two flowers on it…in September. I think it’s Sonic Bloom pink-that-is-red. It’s the one by the bedroom window.

This morning, I decided to tackle the leak on the north side of the Babbling Brook. It was more annoying than detrimental to the health or functionality of the pond, but it needed to go away. While I was at it, I moved the rocks on the low spot, stuffed some clay underneath and topped up the pond. We’ll see how that went when spring comes! Anyway, the leak…

P had got me a can of landscape foam and four tubes of silicone. I now have no foam, one full tube of silicone, and one with maybe an inch left in it. The spot I sealed looks like hell, and I hope I don’t have to move the rocks…ever…but I might have got it this time. I thought I had it, so I checked it at 1730h, and there was one small trickle. I dried it with paper towel, found the spot where the silicone wasn’t touching the rock, and blasted the crap out of it. For good measure, I smeared silicone over almost everything. If it still leaks tomorrow morning, I give up.

Foamed the crap out of it first.

They are not kidding when they call this “expanding foam”. I had it stuffed under the rocks, bulging a little, and it felt dry. It wasn’t finished.

Once the foam was dry, I trimmed it with a bread knife, and discovered it wasn’t fully dry. Dry enough to trim, though. For the record, even mineral spirits doesn’t remove landscape foam from a steel knife blade. Didn’t even budge, but a wire brush and steel wool took care of that.

The end result. It’s a mess, and yes, that’s all silicone, smeared over everything, but once the rocks are back in place, it won’t show. Whew, I’m getting to hate this leak!

While I was waiting for everything to dry, I hauled some dirt and transplanted the Heuchera richardsonii  (which I have to think about before I remember its common name, prairie alumroot). I think it’ll be okay here; it won’t mind morning sun.

I decided upon Northern oat – grass (something like that) to put in the back. I’ll probably just get seeds; it’s expensive, as are most native plants, and it apparently seeds easily. Anyway, as I was putting down pine bark mulch, I found a piece of…something that isn’t pine bark. Nice varnish!

Now some pretty flowers.

Helenium, taken yesterday.

Morning glories are a bit out of hand, but so pretty that I don’t care!

Baseball backstop, not baseball-y at all. Pretty, in fact!

Also popular with MLBs because…

I can’t get over how much better this verbena looks! Hard to believe this is the same near-dead plant that hung outside the Man Cave window. It’s bloomed like crazy, then quit for a bit, and now it’s going again!

Non landscape-related; my feet are ready for chilly floors.

Found this online, made it funnier.

P.S. I also sealed the hook in the cap of the new bird feeder pole. Not that it would really matter if water got inside, but I’d rather it sealed, just in case.

Sarcasm definitely intended. I bought 6 bags of pine bark mulch at lunch, and got two of them dumped over the pachysandra. That’s basically it, except for watering what had to be watered, and picking some Mexico Midget tomatoes.

I found this while picking the tomatoes. I didn’t squash it; I want those beautiful little braconids to eclose!

I actually did this yesterday, but forgot paint for the bit that’s  (deep, thanks to me, a sledgehammer, and a scrap of 2×4) in the ground, plus is was dark when I’d finished, but Onje’s days of picking off mourning doves right out of the feeder are over. Assuming, of course, that he doesn’t own rocket boots, because now, that feeder–the bottom part–is approximately 8′ off the ground. B gave me 7.5′ of brown vinyl-coated top rail that had been bent a bit and couldn’t be used for fencing, and said I could have a cap, and a scrap of swedge-end galvanized top rail. I cut the fork off the bottom of a shepherd’s hook that was too short to be useful, then drilled a hole in the cap the diameter of the hook. I drove the scrap of top rail into the ground, swedge end up, so that about 10-11″ protruded. I fitted the hook through the cap, put the long bit of the hook inside the pole, then put on the cap. I’ll seal it with silicone when I have time, so water doesn’t get inside the pole, but for now, it’s functional. I couldn’t straighten the pole because I’m not heavy enough (HA!), but it’s not noticeable unless you’re looking for it, so it can wait…possibly forever. In the meantime, my stupid chickens are safe; that’s their favourite feeder. It’s a PITA to refill, but I’ll create steps like I did with the other tall feeder. Maybe D will sell the rest of the osage-orange if those people don’t come and get it soon. We’ll see.

Pretty, black form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. She was shy at first, but eventually, I caught her face-first in the ‘toonyas.

Sneezeweed. Awful name for such cute flowers. Helenium is better.

EDIT:
I went outside to lock the garage, and thought a large moth flew by my head. Nope…a Painted Lady butterfly…in full darkness, almost 2100h. He/she got stuck in the web of an enterprising spider that’s set up shop right under the outside light, so I got the butterfly out before the spider could get it. I took her (or him: I can’t sex Vanessa cardui) inside, and into a dark room to calm down, then into a container in the dark for the night. I don’t know what a butterfly was doing out at night, but I’ll release it in the morning. Sorry, Miss Spider; I love you and know you have to eat, but it’s cheating to catch confused butterflies at night! 🙂