"Well Hello, Beautiful"..or...The Cavalry Arrives

So I've been seeing aphids regularly on the purplehull peas and especially on the okra. I've been neeming and soaping them once a week or so and I noticed a big herd of them yesterday at lunch. Being in the upper 90s like it is most days in the garden, it's too hot to spray. It would be a classic case of the the cure being worse than the disease. So I made a mental note to end their little sap-sucking lives when I got home from work. As planned, Dr. Bronner and I went out there, and to my surprise, found five of these scary-looking little monsters. I was about to give it the flick-of-banishment when I realized what they were. They're ladybugs. You may not know this, but before they're the cute little bugs you'd let walk all over your hand, they look more like alien alligators. Each one of these eats 300-400 of those damn aphids a day. I opted not to spray, so the ladybugs could eat to their heart's content. So the aphids got a reprieve...hehe. I wish I could be there and had a tiny microphone to hear their screams of abject terror when they see this six-legged eating machine coming their way. Oh how sweet it is.

Tips For Working In a Crawl Space

Here are some tips if you have to crawl under your house.

1. Wear a thick long sleeve shirt and jeans. You will have to do a lot of crawling and the clothing will protect you from creepy crawlies and from scrapes.

2. Bring a flash light-no explanation need here

3. Put all the tools you will need in a ziplock bag. It will keep them together and it will keep the dirt out of them while you low-crawl to your destination.

4. Have someone outside that can asist you by getting tools and making cuts for you. This will limit the amount of time you spend crawling.

5. Wear a a dust mask-it is very dusty under a house and my house has a powdery sand that gets easly stirred up. Believe me, you do not want to be breathing all that crud in. A simple $2 mask will do.

6. While working, try to keep your suppplies and tools organized so you will not lose something or make a mess.

7. Walkie talkies are a great way to communicate with someone that may be assisting you and easier than shouting.

Tub Drain Repair

One of the things we did while Mandy was here was to repair the tub drain. For the purpose of explaining the anotomy of a tub drain, I will share with you my finished work first. 1) 4"x4" Castiron to Plastic Coupling (sometimes referred to as an "adapter") This is what allowed me to mate up the new PVC pipe to the old cast iron drain system. 2) The Trap Arm is what carries the waste water to larger drain pipe called the stack vent. Trap arms can only be so long. If the trap arm is too long, it can cause the waste water to back up. 3) The P-Trap always has some water collected in the bottom. This water creates a seal that prevents fumes from the sewer/septic from venting into your bathroom. 4) 4" to 3/4" adapter allows the drain pipe on the tub to mate up to P-Trap. 5)Tub drain pipe and 6)overflow drain pipe have adjustable lengths so it will have a universal fit. The Face that mates to the tube uses a rubber gasket as its seal.

When Angela and I moved in, we knew the tub was missing the trap arm and P-trap but we put off repairing it because it involved getting under the house in the dark with all the creepy crawlies. Someone in the past started to repair the tub drain and never finished. They left me about 8" of 4" pipe and removed everything else to the tub with the exception of the tub's drain pipe.

First I dry fit the 4"-3/4" adapter and p-trap together. That allowed me to get a measurement for the new section of 4" pvc pipe i was going to need for the trap arm. I called out the measurments to Angela who used a pvc hand daw to make the cut. then I dry fit everything. The cast iron to pvc coupling was very easy to use. It is just a rubber sleeve that slides over the joint between the two pipes and then you tighten the two metal bands. Make sure that the one band is over the metal pipe and the other is over the pvc pipe. With the coupling in place and secured I disasembled the p-trap and glued it with some pvc glue. I like using the Rain-R-Shine because sometime (true in this case) the stuff you are working on is wet. I kept the collars on the tub drain close so I could assemble the parts together easily. After the pvc cement started to set up, I tightened the collars on the tub drain and overflow drain. and I was done. Below I will post some of the pictures of the condition of the plumbing in the bathroom

With a panel removed from the hallway wall, you can see the original plumbing that supplies the tub.

This is me doing the final assembly.

Here is a handy table that shows the trap length allowed for several diameters of pipe and the slope the trap has to be at to work properly.

The Rain Just Kept Coming

I have not posted all that much becuase to be honest, I have not done all that much. It seems that spring has turned to monsoon season. We have been getting lots of rain. While Mandy was here, we installed a new drain trap for the tub. The drain was just running off onto the ground under the house before I installed it. We have put up several different types of trellises in the garden to give the cucumbers, tomates and peas to climb on.

We had a lot of rain and wind and the corn was looking weak so Angela propped them up with some bamboo and when the wind and rain let up she repacked the soil around them. They are doing fabulous. She went our several times during the week-long storm, wearing her welly boots and trying to keep the umbrella from blowing inside out. The first bed is starting to take off and it will be interesting to see what all come out of it. The tomato plants are all about 6-12 inches tall, except for the brandywine tomatoes, which are very small. The lemon cucumbers have climbed over our small 3' trellis and are reaching another foot in the air. They are loaded with blossoms about to open. The corn has small ears nowand the silks they have made is long and golden. It appears that each plant is about 4 feet and has just one ear so far. Since it's my first corn crop, I'm not quite sure what to expect. The pinto and black beans are very densely planted and have many pods and flowers. The butternut squash is also doing very well and is just getting long enough to train up the trellis.

There have been a few disappointments. The cantaloupe concerns me- the leaves are kind of yellow in color compared the rest of everything else but hopfuly they will be fine. The red bell pepper plants we planted are very tiny and we just learned that they drop there flowers when the temp reaches above 90 degrees. :( That will be any day now. We are thinking of giving up on them and planitng somthing else.

So while it was raining and the garden out of reach, we worked on some minor things around the house. I repaired the HVAC, more on that on another day, installed a small cabinet over the toilet in the main bathroom. Today we also dug up the old pavers and relaid them.

With all the rain came some unwelcome refugee visitors, Carpenter Ants. So we had to call an exterminator and had them spray the house inside and out. Since they came we have not seen any ants which is good, since Angela was having ants making guest appearances in her dreams. The Exterminator I used was Peninsular. They were quick, professional and not that much money. I would recommend them if you need pest control services in Jax.

Rainy Daze

A Queen's Dinner

I went to the farmer's market today with mom and got so many delicious things. Then on the way home, we stopped at a fruit stand near her house. Justin's working tonite, but I made myself an excellent dinner anyway. I'm having sliced tomatoes, kale and small red new potatoes steamed in veggie broth, and onions, yellow squash and zucchini sauteed in a bit of olive oil. Later for dessert, I'll have some ice-sold cantaloupe. No, none of it came from our garden, but it's fabulous nonetheless. I love summer!!

hearing voices

Ok, so sometime back in March, I was nibbling on a red bell pepper from the grocery store and wondered if the seeds inside would grow. Now it's mid May and the plants I germinated from those seeds are disappointingly spleeny. Everything else that's been planted since is going like crazy. I envision a secret garden convo going something like this:

Butternut Squash:(brutish garbage man voice) Where my bitches at? Whatwhat??


Corn: (drag queen voice) Pipe down, over there! You only got here a couple weeks ago, you need to respect your elders!


Watermelon: (southern lady's voice) Yeah, you're not even supposed to be here till the fall, you attention-hog. Just 'cause you got that big-ass trellis you think you're somethin'. You aren't even planted on a big hill like we are!


Butternut Squash: Listen, corn-dogs, everyone here knows you're just a notch or two above the grass that gets walked on! Don't get snarky with me! And you watermelon sissies better watch yourselves. There's only these puny peppers between me and you - and there's only four of you pansy-wanna-bes anyway. I'm just sayin'.


Pinto Bean: (demure lady's voice)Can somebody help a sista out? These flea beetles itch something awful...


Jalapeno: mmrrfffph....rrrmmmpphhhh


Butternut Squash: Who the hell was that?


tiny Red Peppers: (weak, whiny kid's voice) It was my cousins - they've haven't punched thru the soil and this crappy oak leaf mulch yet.


Marigold: (schoolteacher voice) Quiet, All of you malcontents! The two-legs are coming!

Butternut Squash: You mouthy little show-off! You're not the potentate of this garden. You don't even make anything edible! Wait till my leaves are huge - I'll block out the sun and you'll diiiiiieeeeee......

Anyway, anthropomorphic conversations aside, the little red peppers are scraggling along and we've yet to see what they'll become, if anything. Some grocery store veggies are hybrids and others aren't. We'll leave them there a little longer, but if they don't get a move on, they'll be summarily replaced. Maybe with something that can put the butternut squash in its place.