More rain on Thursday, 3 inches
Thursday night it rained most of the night. I slept pretty well, just occasionally being aware of the sound of the rain. I got up about 5:30AM and had no pain. I got my post up and then started getting ready for my general helper and #3 intern when they showed up at 7AM.
I needed a lot of the string you pull off the top of sacks: cat food, amendments, etc. I had a small ball I had collected and when I went to get it out, I found masses of strings I had tossed in the box. So I had to sit down and disentangle them and roll them into a ball. That gave me 2 small balls and I doubted it would be enough.
As a result of that little job, I wasn’t quite ready when they arrived. So they went out and pulled the netting off the clothes line and laid it out near the Little Trees to be repaired. This was the scraps that Tom had brought and #3 intern and I had worked on last Friday.
So I had found 3 large eye needles that would hold the sack thread and we each sat down in the wet grass and stitched patches over the holes. On each one, we would stitch around the hole so it wouldn’t catch on branches as we pulled it over. Then we stitched around the perimeter of each patch. There were at least 3 patches on the 4 good nettings.
It turns out we had exactly enough, with about 3’ of string left over.
We did the biggest first and got it on the York elderberry. But it wasn’t big enough, so we repaired the next biggest and got that over the top. Then we used baling twine to try to close off the opening around the trunks. We’ll see how well it worked…
Next we had one that was the right size for the Juneberry that was COVERED in berries, and on August 1st of all dates. I mean, they are called Juneberries for a reason… I wanted to get a photo but forgot until it was covered.
Then we repaired the last one and got it around the Goodbarn elderberry. It was long enough to go to the ground and cross over on the top. We tied the last two on a bit in case of wind.
There were many other elderberries but I had no more netting, so the birds will feast. We finished just in time for them to leave at 10:30AM.
I had forgotten to take my meds at 8AM when I did the milk order and made other phone calls. So I was a hurting unit at 11AM when I finally did take them.
They had hung the patches pieces back on the line to dry. We will put them away on Saturday.
My helper friend had arrived after doing shopping for me and he stayed inside and put things away. Then he emptied the dishwasher and got a load in. I finished up with loading it and got the counters cleaned off.
I rested a couple hours and because it was a gorgeous day in the 70’s and lower humidity I went out and harvested the artichokes and got some photos.
Poor bee drowned in the rain gauge
On Saturday my general helper is back at 8AM as it’s to be another gorgeous day. We have to get mulch hay at the neighbor’s barn first. At some point when the grass is dry we need to get the patches off the clothesline and put away.
Then we are starting the weeding of the middle third of the Big garden. That’s going to be quite job. After that we’ll try to get the north third done. That ought to finish me off for the day. I also have to pick green beans if they are ready.
Once the Big garden is whipped into shape, including taking down pea fences and mulching that area, we need to finish the weeding of the Small garden, probably on Sunday. If we get that done, we will tackle the mess in the New Herb garden. So that’s the plans for the beautiful weekend we have coming.