Things that Go “BOOM” and Plant Squash…

[hsifeng]

Lordy, do I need to catch up on LJ reading! This weekend was spent with many of project, but with minimal computer time. Trust me, I have plans to catch up on everyone’s “doin’s” as soon as possible! *grin*

 

In the meantime, a couple of project with pictures today: You will probably be happy to see my eschew my normal mode of separating posts by subject (gosh, I know that the tags will track it all for me…but the OCD makes it hard to not make a separate entry for each specific project type…*rolls eyes*). Anywho, on to the gardening and blackpowder!

 

Of course, the things that are referred to in the post’s subject line would be my husband and I. Plans for this weekend involved some garden work on Saturday, followed by black powder shooting on Sunday. Needless to say, plans on Sunday got scrapped in favor of continuing garden work. But more on that later…

 

First off: Knowing that we were going to go shooting this past weekend (*le sigh*) put a fire under my buns to complete the bandoleer stringers that we had mocked together for the School of the Renaissance Soldier event last month. I spent time each weekday evening last week, as well as time on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. The results are in the following photos.

Hubby's rig


Close up of his cartridges


My rig


Close-ups


 

I think it is amusing that I take ‘glamour shots’ of our shooting gear. Or perhaps it is just egotistical. Honestly, I am too tired to care one way or the other right now…*chuckle*

 

Next, in-between all that cording/covered button making and stringing of beads was a lot of gardening! Sadly, by digital camera decided to fail after only a few pictures this morning – but I got a couple of shots in.

 

The ‘Squash Annex’ came together nicely, after much digging/cursing/wrenching-of-muscles on my part. (*ow*) Ivy is evil. Evil ivy does not like to be displaced. Evil ivy has been in that part of the yard since the house was built (100 years ago) and it didn’t want to turn loose of its patch of soil without a fight.

 

Thankfully, I am both stubborn and stupid. So I was willing to spend the total of 10+ hours cutting the roots into bits with an ax (yes, and ax – and it will need sharpening now too) and pulling them out by hand. I cleared a 15’ X 20’ patch of ground, laid ground cloth/weed-deterrent and covered the resulting spot with wood and hay mulch. Hubby helped to place the fence and wired it together for me, and also assisted with transplanting the 12 total squash hills to their new home.

The magpies enjoy the new 'Sqaush Annex'

 

 

Now all that is left of the former ivy horror is a pile of roots and compost bits that comes almost to my hip. *grin* (*ow*) You can see the corner of this pile on the right side of the picture above.

 

Numerous trips were made to various hardware stores for supplies, to friend’s houses for freebies (thank you gryphonlsb and bedpimp for garden gear!), and back and forth across the yard with planter boxes and wheelbarrows of materials.

 

In the end, we moved and planted a total of seven raisin sweat boxes (five of which were already loaded when we moved them, which prompted hubby to make me *swear* to never fill them again until they are in their final positions), built/finished three bean poles, constructed the ‘Squash Annex’ from scratch, placed and filled our new secondary hot-composter, finished off the main gardens fence construction and planted about ¼ of our total sprouted seedlings.



Hubby's design for the base of the pea poles:

 

Of course, all this work on the garden is wonderful, but negated our plans for Sunday, which had included a picnic at my parents house in the hills and some blackpowder shooting. I am really bummed that we missed out on doing that this weekend, but I am comforted by knowing that my parents range isn’t going anywhere and we can make a run up there sometime soon for this activity. It just has to be before the grass turn all yellow and flammable!

 

There is much left to do on the garden… (*ow*) But it is already looking quite spiffy! We’re both happy with our progress and I think we’re both looking forward to next year already, when the construction on the garden is already done and we can just plant, tend and harvest!

 

Of course, that is only if we don’t go nuts and decide to build a scrap-constructed greenhouse in the Winter…

 

BTW - Mama-cat didn’t move from her little nest the whole time we were working in the yard next to her.