. Here's a very interesting article about the role luck plays in making you wealthy.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-luck-plays-big-role-090033690.html
Yesterday and today were great weather days, so I decided to use them to do something I've wanted to do since the spring: cut back the invasive brambles growing in the pachysandra on the north side of the house and threatening to creep ever closer to the house.
The situation got pretty bad because last year, when my mother was ill, I did next to no landscaping or gardening.
I also never had gloves thick enough to prevent the humongous thorns from sticking my fingers, but now I have some leather ones which work great.
I worked on it 2 hours yesterday and 4 hours today. There is still more to do but I did cut nearly all of the brambles down to about 2 feet high, and after cutting up and then dragging off the cuttings in my wheelbarrow to dump in the brushy perimeter of the yard (multiple trips), I set to work digging up the stumpy canes where possible.
Not easy work when you're digging in well-established pachysandra and no doubt they'll be springing up in the spring, but I feel I have retaken control of the situation. It doesn't look so overgrown and unkempt. My back is killing me becus throughout all this work i kept all cuttings at arm's length so I wouldn't brush it against my body...possible ticks.
I aborted the effort around 5 pm when I did found a tiny tick on my hand. I went in and took a bath and submerged myself for a while, just in case there were any others I didn't see.
I applied for another job today and did 2 loads of laundry. I air dryed 1 of them on 2 racks I have outside. The 2nd load was my work clothes worn when i was cutting brambles, and those i will put in the dryer as the heat will kill any ticks. Yes, I'm a little paranoid, with good reason, after having lyme disease 3 times.
I've met my spending target for the $200 bonus on my BOA MLB card. I guess I'll need to wait til the next statement is due in about 3 weeks.
I'm reading a book called The Wolf Border for next week's book club. I picked another full size eggplant from the garden. A fat woodchuck has discovered my 3 large pots of string beans thriving in the heat of the driveway. They had small stringbeans on them. The plants were absolutely perfect and unmarred for many weeks now.
I had plastic fencing wrapped around the pots, but the woodchuck stood up on it and began mowing thru it from the top. Luckily still plenty of stringbeans left. I moved them temporarily to the garage overnight, but they won't get enough sun there so I moved them today to my stone stairs at front entry. It's the last stand as I have nowhere else to put them. Generally speaking, I don't think most animals like stairs too much. I put some potted herbs in front of the stringbeans and that's about all I can do.
Yardwork day
September 2nd, 2016 at 11:26 pm
September 3rd, 2016 at 12:11 am 1472861494
September 3rd, 2016 at 02:12 am 1472868750
September 3rd, 2016 at 06:46 am 1472885212
September 3rd, 2016 at 01:21 pm 1472908913
PS, I thought that after you cut the brambles that you would paint or dip the cut ends in something to kill them off.
I buy the tick repellent made with essential oils-- I use it but haven't tested it with such tick prone work. Have you thought of trying "tick tubes" ( available on Amazon) for your yard? Pricey but my daughter has had good luck in her yard-- she has little kids.
September 3rd, 2016 at 08:16 pm 1472933775
Sorry about the woodchucks getting to your plants. DH has chipmunks eating his tomatoes. He wrapped two of them in a fencing mesh and so far two of the nasty creatures have gotten in and gotten tangled. A neighbor has volunteered to cut them out because DH doesn't have tough enough gloves to do it and doesn't want to get bit.
September 4th, 2016 at 12:03 am 1472947416
September 4th, 2016 at 12:50 pm 1472993448