Nice job.It was 66 degrees here in maryland today and i started my leaf compost for 2010.Great feeling to finaly get ahead a year.

West - I don't want to alarm you but I thought you might like to know your land is crooked...lop-sided...I mean....leaning.

Just thought you should know :-)

I see the bales are working out for you.

Val

yeah, i kinda held the camera up over my head an snapped the pic. hehe

bales workn great, need more to start a new pile

Actually Val the pics are totally level.... it must be you that's a little off balance.... *har* (Juuust kidding!)
Kris

Kris - I resent the implication *hic*

I whasn't anywhere near the wine! :-)

Val

You can see the shadow of your arm holding up the camera in the picture.

West,

I know where you can get some great bales of hay. Don't say anything to anyone, but Lloyd sometimes puts some close to the road down by his place in Manitoba there, and you can just pull right up and load up the truck, eh? :O)

but Lloyd sometimes puts some close to the road down by his place in Manitoba there

And you would know this....how? Hey, if it's close to the road they must not want it anymore, right?

Val

Val,

What is it the Americans say... I plead the fifth??? Canadian interpretation - 'I think I'll shut up now...' :O) Lloyd thinks I took his bales of hay so I don't think he'll come to my defense. Ah! Life is bittersweet!

Happy New Year folks!!

"Lloyd thinks" Now that is an oxymoron.

But I digress, let us review the facts as we know them:

1) Confession, admitting to the crime.
2) Photographic evidence of similar looking purloined materials in possesion of confesser.

So unless some unidentified ungulate comes along to give evidence to the contrary, I'm gonna go with a Nova Scotian driving 2576 kilometers one way (that would be over 5000 kms roundtrip so as to not confuse any seniors out there) to load two 45 pound bales of primo wheat straw into her car so she can lean it up against her compost structure. It's the only logical conclusion.

Lloyd

P.S. West, if ya need some, I got some.

Woops! Didn't know you were lurking there Lloyd. I'll slither away and go curl up in a fetal position now... Oh, before I do, what's an 'ungulate'???

Tiff...how's the weather today? I was thinking of you and Paul as I watched your little storm. Doing any work in the CP area?

Ungulate...deer, moose, elk, that kind of thing.

Val and Gerri couldn't work it into a sentence so I had to show them how. :-)

Lloyd

Lloyd, 2576 kms one way would be a little over 5150 kms round trip. You are over 3% off and that is assuming you youngsters could find your way back home. ;o)

John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

Three types of people in the world, those that know math and those that don't. :-)

I also used the distance from Halifax to Winnipeg so that would have been incorrect as well, if you promise not to tell my old math teachers I won't either. Tiff is still probably curled up in the fetal position so I don't think she will notice.

Kinda cool to be called a youngster, I think I like that.

Lloyd

Lloyd,

'Little' storm?? No such thing here. Blowing snow at 120km/hr made for a stay at home day. Our favourite neighbour came to plow us out at 4pm when things started to finally calm down after 24 hours of the stuff. Paul was probably out of power for a while if he's back on since his area was hit even harder.

I'm dealing with compost items in an inovative way these days. Gave up on the piles for the winter so the UCGs are getting flung into the snow on the gardens and the lawn and whatever kitchen scraps we have are feeding the crows and ravens in the morning.

I don't have to be curled-up not to notice such things, but since I am noticing, add 25 km one way to get to beautiful Prospect Bay. :O)

West, sorry we hijacked your thread... Just to make it up to you, what are you planting in that wonderful spot?? Is that deer fencing I see in the background?

So this is what y'all do in winter?
And me 'slaving away' at turning my piles in 70F in z9a...
I should be so lucky - but picking ripe tomatoes in January (na-nana-nana).
Yellow crookneck squash died from a cold front frost last week - darn.
Put 4# of fresh ripe sliced peppers in the freezer today.
Watching the weather.channel every night -
Glad I don't live in S.Dak. and Ohio anymore.
Almost forgotten what a frozen compost pile looks like.
Any photos? I'll try not to chuckle...

Frank - got your KY soil sample today.
Lab closed 'til Tuesady. Will get it in the mail then.
Lab is 'backed up' from holidays - will probably take 2 weeks to get results.

Robert

I plan on putting potatoes, cucumbers, bush beans, canteloupe, different peppers, tomotoes, watermelons, corn, okra, cilantro, basil, maybe some summer squash. it all depends on how much work I can get done in the soil improvement department, i'm getting some excellent help from soilguy!

and yes that's deer fencing in the background, or good ol' barbed wire as we call it round here hehe. it comes complete w/ some deer hair in the wire, yet i've never seen deer on my land???

here we are with our freezing weathers, slowly developing cabin fever day by day and you're just rubbin it in soilguy!! I sat out in 34 degrees today for about an hour and a half when my truck ran outta gas on the freeway (also had to walk about a mile), I sat in front of a gas station waiting for my wife and even fell asleep. no body left me any change, hehe. so think bout that when you're strollin round in shorts everyday!!

Well, there you go West! We have something in common. I never see the deers either, but my hostas disappear every year in early July. There's a huge garden of them and my neighbours say that the deers show up 15 minutes after I leave for work for their breakfast... Yesterday they trimmed the Holly bushes down as they do every winter. I envy your fence!

We don't have a big veggie garden. It's more like an amusement area for DH. He's the kind of guy who let's the Brocolli go to flower and then wonders where the 'eating part' went... He grew lots of peas and lettuce for the deers last year...

I'd like to try Canteloupe. Yes, maybe I'll do that this year. :O)

On another note, why is it that men run out of gas more than women do?? Is it related to that concept of asking for directions/reading a map? Grew up with 6 brothers and always wondered about that...

Robert,
Being a little facetious this time of year? You naughty boy! LOL! I won't suffer from zonal envy when in the middle of summer you are out there sweating your buns off and I'm pleasantly turning my pile in the cool breeze of the Atlantic Ocean. :O)

Ah, yes tiffy - bragging isn't usually my 'style', but after reading so may posts about the cold weather up north, just couldn't resist a bit of facitious intent...

Actually, where we reside at water's edge, our average 'breeze' is 12mph - and can get a bit 'gusty' in summer months.

While temps to consistently hover near 100 in this coastal area, the humidity is the 'killer' - usually in the 85% to 95% range. But then, I'd rather sweat than shiver...

I think the 'gas can follies' come from the male concept that the gas gauge is actually linear (i.e., reads 'true'), but seems women don't trust gauges - my DW gets gas when the dial gets to 1/4 tank - doesn't trust male intuition, either. She says females naturally have better "intuition" than men - any truth to that?

i dunno bout the sweat vs. shiver thing, it being hot it one thing, but humid is another.

my wife, when i met her, would fill her car up in a panic when it got to half a tank, then she met me......but now she does something that even i, a man, actually complain about, she'll drive around all the time w/ her low fuel light on, and i can't stand it!!!!!! drives me nuts, she'll put no more than ten bucks in her car and wait til the light goes back on and i swear seems like she drives for a couple days w/ the light on, i try to tell her that it's bad for a fuel injected engine any way, but what's the point in filling your 15 gallon tank up anyway, it only keeps you from making a stop at the pump every day, right?

the gas gauge doesn't work in my truck, she's ran out in it WAY more than me, and i drive it all the time. so intuition's out the door, i think i may only seem like women's intuition is better because they seem to depend on luck, at least my wife does, i like to play it safe.

Soilguy, you may rather sweat than shiver, but one can always put on more clothes. Can only take so many off... :-)

When the gas gauge is on E and the little light comes on, I put gas in my car, and I fill it full. DH doesn't like to be below 1/4 tank, and gets annoyed b/c often the light comes on when he happens to be driving my car.

I haven't actually run out of gas in years, well, pretty much since I've had cars with the little light...

Soilguy - yes there *is* truth to it. The amount of testosterone in the blood effects how different parts of the brain develop, so male and female brains tend to end up different. One of the differences is that the corpus callosum, which is the band of tissue through which the two hemispheres communicate, is larger in women, as is the anterior commissure which links the unconscious areas of the hemispheres. This is thought to be why women are more sensitive to emotions. The right hemisphere is more emotional, and in women this half can communicate easier with the more analytical left half, which means women are more likely to be able express their emotions in thought and speech.

Check out Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter - it's really good! My mum used to go on endlessly about the saying that men think while women feel. She thought it was nonsense but I'm beginning to think there's some truth to it.

I can't run out of gas. Wouldn't look good being a gas station manager. My little Yaris gets filled up every two weeks depending on whether the price of gas is going up or down the next day. If it's going down, I'll wait another week to see what it does the next Friday. (It's regulated here so the up or down happens on Fridays, but we get advanced notice on Thursday so we can change the price.)

I must say though that of all the folks who come to the station to get a jerry can full because they have run out of gas, over 90% have been men...

We all know what men think with :-) End of story.

Karen

LMAO Karen!!!!! I can just see West, Robert, Lloyd, and all with their jaws dropped to the floor right now!!! Sorry, can't stop laughing. I'll come back later... Too funny!!

Got more pictures West?

no, unless you wanna see some dreadlocks, haha.

i am going to take more though, im gonna stake and string my garden plot and probably photo all of that, plus i will try one of soilguys CP methods, and i'll probably pic. that too.

actually i did find some of my front yard.

{{gwi:320522}}

{{gwi:320524}}

here's my front yard, i'm trying not to get anything big and permanent growing next to the house, because hopefully i'll be able to haul this thing off of here and build sooner or later.

the 1st pic is when we moved up here, it's dated...

you can see the garden surrounding the house, had a lot more plant that were ravaged by my dogs each time they got loose, and you can see the increasing organic matter on the "lawn"...ground.....call it whatever...hehe

We all know what men think with

LOL - too true and too funny! There's also a very old saying about it not having a conscience either but I won't say it in mixed company.

Val

Ah West, you are tempting me to sneak over to your place and do something with that patch of "lawn", or should we just call it stubby growth? Could use a lot of colour... I'm sure Val and Karen are both thinking what I'm thinking when they see that front yard. :O)

Keep us posted on when you build.

trust me, i'll take any suggestions. what did you have in mind? just remember, my soil is the stuff nightmares are made of.

the only new plans i have, except for putting more plants around the house, is over there by the telephone pole, i plan to make a lasagna bed, there is already a type of hydrangea nearby, and a type of magnolia (not one of the huge ones).
I plan on shaping the bed....bean shaped?? about 15 -18 ft long.

Frank, sent the garden soil sample off to the lab yesterday.
Will let you know when results are back.
Robert

West: Suggestions? You want suggestions? Tiffy and I would fill the front garden area with beautiful flowers, and we shamelessly lure unsuspecting victims to our obsession. Wintersow flowers for next to nothing. Required are empty milk jugs or other plastic containers with lids, potting mix, some cheap seeds (and we can direct you to some free seeds too...)

{{gwi:320526}}

In Tenessee, I start with things like echinacea and Black eyed Susans, gaillardia and agastache, salvia, melampodium...
Email me or Tiffy if you're interested- we'll get you on the road to a beautiful flower garden by summer. And you can wintersow veggies, too.
{{gwi:219882}}
Karen

oh yeah robert, i ordered that compost thermometer you linked me to via email....should be here friday....thanks again...

kqcrna: thanks for giving me something to do (lookn through all your garden pics on photobucket!! very nice work!

Thanks, West. 99% of my plants were grown from seed by wintersowing. I pretty much put my compost on hold in winter and get my gardening fix doing this through winter.

Karen