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pole bean privacy fence
Saturday, July 12 2014
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
I realized today that it might be easiest to just use a handtruck to bring back firewood from the oak core cache I've created west of the Farm Road. While the unnamed trail to that cache climbs two small terraces on its way up from the Farm Road, it's reasonably smooth and not too strewn with jagged upended pieces of bluestone. I had a big rubber strap to secure the load against the handtruck, but on the way down the terraces, it went out of control several times, overturned, and had to be righted. Still, I was able to transport more in the amount of time I dedicated to the foray than I would have retrieved had I just used the backpack (even though I've been routinely bringing home 150 pound loads by backpack from such a close cache).
As always when doing this sort of work in the summer, I always end the chore by showering off in the yard using water collected from the woodshed's roof. Since I've been unable to grow sunflowers this year, I don't have much of a privacy screen when I'm naked in the yard. I've got a bunch of pole beans growing on pine sapling stakes, but they haven't leafed out enough to provide much privacy. Still, with the row of pines along the road and all the foliage blocking direct views from the Fussies surrounded by their well-manicured yard across the road, it would take a determined observer to get a rude naturist shock.
Back, for a moment, to the sunflowers. A few of them did manage to sprout and produce dicots, but then something (a rabbit, perhaps?) always came along and ate them off. Right now there is one tiny sunflower seedling that has somehow survived getting its dicots eaten off, and it seems to be recovering and moving on to the next stage of sunflower development. Meanwhile, I've planted a few shelled raw sunflower seeds (from a bag of them bought at Trader Joes) in a pot out on the east deck, far from where rabbits (and certain insects) are able to go. Surprisingly, they're sprouting nicely. Gretchen had actually meant to buy roasted and salted sunflower seeds (which I like to sprinkle on my cereal as a dry substitute for soy milk) and bought the raw sunflower seeds by mistake. But if they have the capacity to sprout, perhaps I should convert them into healthy greens instead (the ones that don't end up as full-grown sunflowers, that is).
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