A new addition to the Collections room, I have some of my cars which are still in package hung here. The first column has Matchbox Vipers. The Second column is Hot Wheels Vipers. The Third column is various Matchbox cars. The Fourth column is the new Camaro Concept. The last column is various Hot Wheels cars.
Who could resist these plushy animals? They were gonna put your kids through college right? Yeah.
I was caught up as well. Now I still collect the bears when I see them, yard sales are wonderful for this.
Beanie Baby Bears
Hippity, Hoppity & Floppity
Batch
Other Batch
The first time Izzy and Rainbow were released, the color palates were switched. I got them both ways.
I think one of the first action figures I ever owned was a Star Trek figure. I'm not sure which one was the first, but I remember liking Worf and LaForge alot, you might be able to tell that. I am hoping to supplant this picture if I can find the cardboard backs to the figures, I'll match the figures with their accessories.
When the Star Wars movies were being re-released I was able to go buy some new figures. I have mixed my collection with the one I inherited from my brother. Please note, I do not care about any percieved lack of continuity in regards to styles of weapon that may or may not be held by a character.
It’s that time of year again. In North Carolina Spring has come pretty early. This year I am expanding my backyard garden space. Doubling in fact. I purchased 6 more 8’ timbers and am adding a section immediately next to the existing garden.
You may recall that when I did the original section I turned over the top foot of soil, tilled and added a garden mix from my local supplier and tilled again. I also had a week off from work which I don’t have this year. This time I cut the grass as low as my mower goes and am covering with a couple layers of newspaper. After I get the timbers cut and in place I will get another load of garden mix.
I’m ditching the metal fencing this time around. I can admit it was pretty ugly, and didn’t do that great a job. It was something nice for plants to grow up though, so it’ll be missed in that regard. I found a nice white picket fence that’s not too expensive, something like this fence.
The lettuce is coming in, but the celery did not. The carrots are coming in, but the spinach is not. The Sugar Snaps are doing great but neither the tomato nor the pepper plant came up. The lettuce came in really well so I thinned by transplanting a dozen or so to where I had planted the celery. I bought a few tomato and pepper plants a week ago and planted them. They are doing well and I look forward to eating them. The watermelons have sprouted.
I weeded my gardens today. It's so much easier to do when the dirt has never been stepped on.
While weeding I found this egg. It was inside the fence and near the edge.
I have taken to a strange practice with my rain barrel. I grow catnip in it. Maybe none of the reasons I do it are any good but here they are anyway. First, because I can. Catnip grows very easily and quickly puts out roots in water. Secondly, I have found the water, if left to it's self, will start to smell bad. With a plant growing in it that usually goes away. I suspect that the catnip feeds off bird droppings and other dead plant life such as algae that sometimes grows.. Thirdly, I found that catnip is a pretty good deterrent to ants. If I can water with a natural ant deterrent then I will. I'll never forget the nightmare of stepping onto the walkway of my garden to find that it woke up the colony. I've since planted some catnip in that spot and I haven't had trouble since, but spreading the love around is OK with me.
Maybe I'm just crazy but I feel like this helps.
I purchased some hop rhizomes from my local brewing shop. I got Cascade and Magnum. Which are supposed to be two varieties that are both hardy and popular for beer recipes. For once the layout of my yard is really working to my advantage. I have a side of the house that faces south without anything else going on over there. I followed their instructions for planting and they should be ready to grow up some twine to my roof line.
The raspberries that I planted last year are mostly doing fine. They have started to grow out from the roots and there are 10 plants now. I need to weed so they aren't competing as much. I wonder how much mulch the suckers can grow through… Ok one source on the internet says yes.
I planted a few seeds this evening. In Garden #1 I planted a square each of spinach and carrots next to the garlic.
In Garden #2 I planted lettuce, celery, sugar snaps, watermelon, Old German tomato and bell pepper. I was careful to not plant the tomato and pepper too close to where I had the tomatoes last year. The watermelon seeds are left over from the watermelon that grew last year.
I forgot to update on the rain barrel. It works quite well for me. The gutter system captures less than a quarter of my roof area but even an inch of rain fills the barrel. I think I have space to add an additional barrel if I could find one on the cheap.
I picked up extra bricks to raise up Garden #1. My wife and I picked out some plants for the long section. I borrowed a friends truck and bought a ton of soil and picked up a half ton of mulch. I had to dig up the plants that I already had growing so that I could replant them at the new level. After filling up both gardens with dirt we planted and then covered with mulch.
A quick note about the mulch. There is a yard wast dump in my town that anyone can go to and take a load if they want. Mostly it's shredded leafs but today I noticed a pile of finely chopped wood chips. The mound was about 7 feet high and not too tightly compacted. As I got into the pile I found that it had started composting and was quite hot and steamy inside. When I got it back I made sure to add a couple buckets full into my compost pile to see if that would get things moving.
Here are the before pictures:
And after:
It's spring time again. I began the process of weeding out my gardens this weekend. It's not too bad and with the loose soil I left most of the weeds came easily. Next year it would be a good idea to mulch again once the growing is over.
The mint I planted survived the freezing winter. The larger one required a lot of pruning but it's coming back nicely. As expected the garlic survived and has sprouted again.
In Garden #2 I decided to open up more room to planting.
As is usually the case, I haven't even started to seed yet. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have it done. I expect the risk of freeze is over.
The apple tree I started survived the winter and whatever it is that likes to nibble on it. I pruned it and it might be time to look for a place to put it permanently.
The compost pile turned to soil better than I was expecting. However, our kitchen scraps don't seem to be doing enough to produce the amount I'm looking for. I'll leave it this year and find an extra source to fuel it.