Thursday, August 23, 2007

Cooler Days.

8-23-07 VERMONT: It has turned cold here with nighttime temps in the 40’s and daytime in the 60’s. We have had fires in the evenings. We are getting a bit of rain tonight, but just a drop. I watered two days ago and will probably need to again tomorrow. Yesterday I put 40 pounds of barley straw pellets in the pond, the amount for a one-third acre pond. The pellets disintegrate releasing the compacted straw which undergo a natural chemical reaction that releases peroxide that clears the pond of algae—we’ll see. Today I straightened the tall granite post on the upper side of the driveway. It had tilted downhill about six inches. I used a come-along to stand it up and packed gravel in the hole that appeared as the post moved. Then, motivated by that success, I repaired the wall in the ditch on the downside of the culvert in the hope of preventing the culvert from filling with dirt from heavy rains. Heavy rain I’m hoping for. Tonight at dusk I sprayed a wasp nest behind the old chimney. You need to spray them when they’re all home, but when it’s still light enough to see the nest.

The blue heron was at the pond this afternoon. I came around the corner of the house from the driveway and saw a big bird reflected in the pond. I looked up and saw the heron leisurely wafting away, just clearing the fence and horses an disappearing over the woods.

Judy made a new tomato pie tonight—delicious. The tomato flood shows no sign of cresting. We had dinner at the Nelson’s last night with the Katz’s, everyone enjoyed our corn and tomatoes.

New blooms: more asters, hardy chrysanthemum.

Hummingbird at the Feeder.

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