The City Mouse in the Country

It's almost the end the end of October, and the trees are showing off their most colorful dresses. There is a bit of nip to the air in the morning, but by afternoon I'm still able to run about in short sleeves.  There is a bit of joy in the air over our current weather, and I spend some of the time working on the yard trying to clear some things and get some ground ready for - yet another attempt - at a garden.   I am pushing my luck and I know it. We are as prepared for winter with four tons of wood pellets in our garage, some additional insulation that had been placed.  I've not done as much as I would have liked or have wanted but old addictions and my own lazy nature have stood in the way.   At least I'm back to moving forward now.  Depression can be a horrible thing, and I've suffered from it most of my life in one form or other. My job is a steady, and the work is not hard, although I never figured that I would end up where I did, life has alway...

 It is officially autumn now, and slowly but surely, we prepare for the coming winter.  It is the time of year when nights are getting longer as the temperature drops. While I find it rather comfortable, my wife would rather turn on the fire to warm her hands. We are both getting older and the chill comes easily now.   It is the time of year when the shadows are growing longer, spiders find themselves in the way and we find ourselves doing a silly dance in an effort to avoid getting them on us after walking into their homes.   Pumpkin spice is everywhere.   I think about autumn as I lug the bags of wood pellets in one by one into my garage.   Last year we ordered four tons, or basically two hundred bags weighing 40 pounds (18.1 Kg) a piece.  Moved from outside the drive to the inside of the garage and restacked, over and over again.  It needs done.  We used three and a half of those tons.   This year I only order...

When I sat down at the computer recently to type all of this out,  I let out frustrated sigh.    I had plans to release a completely different blog post long before this date but over the last two weeks or so I've done everything I could do but actually work on the yard, or write, or just do anything that was constructive. When you are moving towards a dream or an idea or...well anything really, you can't break the chain.  Even if it's just 10 minutes a day working, that is constructive.    I have an addiction.  It's not to drugs or alcohol and in a way that would be a bit more excusable.   I have an addiction to dopamine .    Dopamine simply is a chemical in your brain that makes you feel good, and it in turn unleashes other "pleasure" chemicals in your brain.  In my case it a program called Second Life,  (SL) which honestly, I used to be on all the time in the early 2000's.  It's hard to explain but the term multius...

 I'm really not in the mood for this.  It's raining again and I am on the phone making calls and sending emails and texts; letting myself get frustrated over things that I know, deep down in my soul, that I can not control. I'm very disappointed in people right now.  Roughly two weeks or so ago I started on a quest to find a small flock of goats of clear some land.   I have made phone calls, texted people, contacted websites and made inquires on sources like Reddit and Facebook.   I even spoke to a few Amish that live in the area.    Leads were given to me by various sources, companies were found and contacts made via text and voice mail, however, no one got back to me.   Not a single one.   No call back from the local 4 - H club.  No call back from the goat farmer.  Emails went unanswered.   Well that's not true.  One company did get back to me but the cost was higher than I expected.  Actual...

 I come from a long line of guys that call in professionals.    Part of that reason is my own lazy nature, part of that reason is that I would rather have it down right the first time.  Everyone has their own skills and abilities, so why not call in an expert to have it done right the first time? In this case; why not seek advice in the battles against the invasives that have not only invaded my yard, but also a nearby piece of property that my neighbor simply refuses to take care of?  I find myself in a bind of my own design. I let part of my property "go wild" in the first place because that area had a lot of exposed roots, stumps and rocks.  At the time, I was not expecting a bunch of invasives, of which Mulitfora Rosa  is the worse of the bunch, to be a problem.  Yet, here we are. I decided to let parts of my yard "go wild" back in July of 2021.  It has proven to be a mistake, and in order for me to ensure that the invasive plants st...

  resting cat Recently I found myself with a bit of time on my hands.  Normally this time of year my wife and I like to take some vacation time.   We generally don't go to far, having visited Niagara Falls and New York state the last two years, the plan this year was to go south, to visit an old friend that has just accepted a facility position at Duke University .   A few days there, a few days in Charlotte; where I once lived and then, if we had time, a few days in Charleston, SC where I also lived for a brief time. Sadly however, due to circumstances that I won't get into here, our vacation became a staycation .  Which was fine because I still had a tree to plant from the Native Plant sale, odds and ends to do and to continue my war against some aggressive neighboring plants, which it seems I was now finding everywhere, as well as other small jobs that I've been putting off. I actually wondered if it would be affordable (and reasonable) to rent a f...

  I could not let America's 250th birthday pass without some comment.   I love this country, but frankly this is not the country that I grew up in.   I'm not sure exactly where we went wrong and although it would be very easy to blame the current administration and the whole MAGA movement, that is to easy of a solution and not entirely true. What ills America today is a combination of things.   A combination of errors, bad decisions, mistakes that created a cascading effort.   We simply are not the country we thought we were and the proverbial chickens have come home roost.   Nor do I have a solution.    So why write about America's 250th birthday at all?   Because I believe in this country, despite where we are currently.  Because I am a student of history and we have seen all this before, and we have seen the solution to it as well.  Because after much thought about the state of the world and reading ...

 I lay in bed this morning as a summer thunderstorm rolled over and through me.  It was early, about 5:30 AM when the deep rumble woke me from a sound sleep.   The rain was hard, fast and beat down on my metal roof with a chaotic pattern.    The room temperature dropped and both my black cats scrambled off the bed as a BOOM echoed in the distance.   Susan, me wife, rolled over and tucked herself in a little more, oblivious to the storm outside the windows. There is something about a summer storm early in the morning.   The air is cleaner, cooler and the dirt and grime of the world seems to be washed away with only potential remaining.   I'm been thinking a lot about potential.   Several years ago my step daughter was putting together her Zombie apocalypse team because that was a thing.  I was honored when she included me.    "Oh," I asked her, "what is my job?" "Bait." She said laughing.  "You have...

When I first moved into my house some five, nearly six year ago, one of the first things I noticed was that we had a tree out back that was nearly strangled by an invasive woody vine called Oriental Bittersweet.   At the time I didn't think much about it as other more pressing problems, like a new roof and insulated windows, came first.  Other problems and projects kept pushing that "little issue" back onto the corners of my mind.   Small "little issues" tend to become bigger ones.  Oriental Bittersweet That's the problem with home ownership, their is always "one more project."  One more bill. I was considering where to plant the Pawpaw and new Bur Oak   and this corner seemed to be a very good option.  That's when I noticed my problem,  I have several Multiflora Rosa growing in my "wilds" and one that somehow I've missed over the last few years, it's become rather well established.   The Oriental Bittersweet was reaching o...

In a lot of ways I feel rejuvenated.  It's a glorious morning as I am driving down to Pittsburgh with the local radio station playing a mix of old and new that elevates my mood, the sun shining strong through the sun roof.   I am on my way to buy plants.   I have a list in my pocket and I expect that I'll be coming home with a few of them.  I had hoped to buy spicebush and maybe serviceberry , in addition to what I did end up buying.  As I talk to people there, I use the term " food forest " because that's about the closest definition to what I'm trying to do, although it's also not the best one.     What I'm more interested in doing is creating a refuge.  A place for a weary traveler in the future to stop, rest under the trees and have access to wild strawberries and blueberries (which sadly didn't take last year), apples etc.   A place of respite rather than a place that can self maintain itself over time, although I do...

The month of May for what ever reason seems to be passing slowly, but the year seems to be flying by.   Suddenly we are nearing the end of the month and I'm only now getting to work on the yard.   I did go in search of an electric powered riding lawnmower, for the same reasons that I went in search of an electric car.    Both searches failed, as the local hardware, lawncare and "big box" stores simply didn't carry any electric riding mowers.  I could have ordered an electric mower off of Amazon, or similar site, and had it shipped but then I would be looking at a two week delivery timeframe, and would have exceeded t he budget that I had set for myself. The grass, though high and feeding a variety of pollinators and other insects would simply not wait much longer.  Plus ticks are always a concern in Western PA at this time of year, and one way to control them is to keep your grass cut.   I had already had a few instances of dealing with...

Bad things they say; happen in groups of three.  Lately we feel that this has been multiplied by at least three, then that by three.  Nor was this the article I was hoping to publish this week, but here it is warts and all! Thankfully there is nothing seriously wrong with my family health wise, and this is nothing that some more hard work and dedication will get us though.  There is one big personal item that I can not go into details on to protect her privacy but what is affecting us right now is that we are again faced with decisions on what to do concerning some major purchases.   I've already written about having to buy a "newer" car but I'm not going to bore you with details about replacing the water heater or unexpected tax bills.  At the beginning of May, our riding lawn mower died.   This in itself is not that big of a deal because I got a good five to six years out of a used machine, and the fact that it has started to give up the ghost ...

  When my wife and I bought this house nearly 6 years ago, we made some upgrades.   We put on a metal roof, replacing the original shingles, replaced the floor in the kitchen, both bathrooms and the downstairs den.  We ended up upgrading the pellet stove (twice!) and added some insulation; one of the jobs I want to do in the coming year is to insulate the garage, mostly to keep the freezers we have in the garage from becoming damaged. It's only in various home improvement shows that the work to improve your home is done all at once and somehow in 1 hour.  For most of us its an ongoing never ending project. One of the important improvements that I've been wanting to make but have kept putting off for various reasons has been solar panels.  Now, I'm thinking that it may be time to least do something. The main reason we have been putting off this improvement was cost and how long it would actually take us to pay off the panels.   I'm 60 years old now...