In addition to the potato, the rest of my supper is from my garden. (well, except for the juice, bread, and butter):
- corn on the cob
- green onion
- steamed beet
- steamed wax beans
- steamed cabbage
I forgot to mention the other day that I picked some pears and plums. A neighbor down the road has trees loaded with them, and other than picking a couple to snack on, he let the rest fall to the ground. I asked if I could have some and he said yes. I got them the day it was raining lightly which made picking wet - especially when the branches are wet. I filled two plastic grocery bags, one with the pears and the other with the plums. The plums are small, yellow, and delicious. The bears also are small but remind me of barlett pears in their color and shape.
Who needs money when you have a garden and friends?
Today, Saturday, I went to an estate auction. Naturally I arrived an hour after it started at 10 am. I didn't miss much as most of what was being auctioned was junk. The fellow lived in a small trailer on a few acres outside of town. He had a garage and a half dozen small storage sheds. As an example of the junky nature, most all the hammers - for handles - had pipes welded to the hammer heads.
When I arrived they were still selling from a flatbed trailer boxes of miscellaneous stuff. The prices received didn't amount to much except for certain items a few parties wanted.
Not a whole lot of people there, and many looked to be second hand dealers buying boxes of stuff to resell the contents. I recognized a few people.
The only thing that interested me were two sections of harrow attached to a long heavy pipe. They weren't in great shape but the teeth looked good. The problem was that the rest of the items were so junky, and the auctioneer wasn't that good, so I didn't feel like sitting around a few hours waiting for the harrows to sell. I left to go a few stores to get stuff I needed.
I was ambivalent about returning but since I was in that part of town I did. I wasn't sure I wanted the harrow and wasn't sure I wanted to wait longer for the harrow to sell as whenever I return to auctions for items I still have a wait. When I arrived they just finishing selling the item after the harrow. *augh*
Five minutes earlier and I would have been in time.I asked a few people what the harrow sold for or who bought it and no one knew. They weren't paying attention. So I don't know if I missed a great deal, or if some second hand dealer bought it and I may have been able to buy it from him.
I was ambivalent about buying the harrow before and now I am frustrated I missed bidding on it. I can't win.
One of my stops today was at Wal-mart. In the parking lot they had an exhibition of trick BMX bicycle riding associated with the X Games. They had three ramps set up and three riders would do tricks. The riders dressed and looked young but looking at a couple of their faces they could have been early 20s. The stunts they performed when I was there were not overwhelming, but then I couldn't do any of them at this time and at this age. They did end the exhibition with end over end flips, and that was pretty good.
About three dozen people in the audience, mainly young boys with a parent, though there were a couple young girls. The way the kids - boys and the girls - dressed and looked they had that "rebel" attitude look, though most were probably "want-a-be" rebels. They looked a little too clean and nice. It is hard to be a rebel when your mom brings you to the show.
Oh, to be young again, have attitude, and the time to pursue trivial things because it looks fun.
When I returned home after the auction I checked my pocket gopher traps. Four more caught. I have been catching four each day for a few days now. Last night I checked my traps late and by the time I got to the last trap it was getting dark. That made it hard to find another place to set the trap and I stumbled and wandered around a time before finding some dirt mounds. It was worth the hassle as I caught a pocket gopher in that trap today.
I am up to 132 trapped for the year so far. I have not quite reached the power line towers where I left off trapping last year. Also I am close to where I was when I pulled the traps after letting the cattle into the hayfield. The past month I have been re-trapping areas already trapped. Past the power line towers I find many, many dirt mounds. Lots of pocket gophers there.
I decided to spray weeds. I haven't done this in a month. The weeds haven't stopped growing. They and the alfalfa are about the only green things growing right now. I wanted to go over the hayfield. Other than the fence lines I hadn't done that this year. There are a couple patches of thistle I have been spraying the past few years and it takes multiple sprayings to get rid of thistle as their underground root system will send up some new plants to replace the old plants.
I found the patches of thistle. There seems to be about the same amount of plants as last year, which would counter the results of all the other patches I have sprayed. But there may be less if I take in account when I last sprayed last year the grass was green and I may have missed some plants. Today the alfalfa and thistle were the only green things so I believe I found most all the thistle growing.
I rechecked the fence line for snowberry plants. I sprayed the heck out of them last year and found more than expected growing this summer before I let the cattle into the hayfield. It appears this summer's spraying knocked them back quite a bit as I only found a handful of snowberry plants along the entire fence line.
Depending on how many weeds are growing, the weed to walking ratio sometimes means I go through a tank of herbicide in as little as 45 minutes, though the average time is a hour to a hour and a half. Today it took me almost three hours to go though my tank of herbicide. I walked and sprayed the whole hayfield, part of the ditch, behind the hay shed along my neighbor's property, and part of the NE pasture. Now I have sprayed the NE pasture - what - a half dozen times this summer? I still am finding some knapweed popping out of the ground. I shouldn't complain, the NE pasture actually looks pretty good with much less weeds than when I started spraying a year after dad died.
The three hour spray time today meant I didn't get to working on replacing the bad posts in the front yard. Another day.
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