Weird debris falling from ceiling
feddup
8 years ago
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feddup
8 years agoRelated Discussions
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Comments (37)Whoa! Are those aloe flowers?? I saw aloe blooming for the first time in person when I visited Austin. Ok, maybe I've seen them blooming at flower shows, but that almost doesn't count. The good: I water everything by hand, and will take things down off the shelves on a regular basis to check out how they are doing. Almost everything is potted in coco husk chunks or fiber, which tend to let things dry out pretty well while still holding a 'core' of emergency moisture within the chunk without being soggy. Meaning I have a bit of a cushion before things go absolutely bone dry with very little risk of rotting. The bad: ...Except when I get totally absorbed in a project. Particularly knitting. I like to see progress when I knit, so I tend to do 'just a little more' until I end up falling asleep. Then I wake up in the morning realizing what I've done, and don't have time to check on the plants before work. Then I come home the next day, and do the same thing. And then I lose track of how many days it's been. I'm trying to be very good about that this time, and only go a couple days max before checking on the plants. Right now, patella is a major motivator. It is really and truly growing new leaves on those vines, and I want to keep this momentum going! The weird: Um, I like to give the hoyas some 'rain'. I have chemical wash bottles that I water my mounted orchids and some of my hoyas with, which are nice for directing a stream of water to a very specific location. Especially nice if I want to give some hoyas a drink without moving them all around. NOT fun for a really solid watering for potted plants, but fine for little drinks of water. So, I've been using these chemical wash bottles to 'rain' on my hoyas, watering the foliage. I think they enjoy this. My shelves are covered with mylar, and a lot of my hoyas are actually in a tray, so splashing water around isn't a big problem. I especially like to 'rain' on the hoyas when they have new leaf growth starting. I think this does help keep new leaves from aborting. The only downside is that I will get some water spotting, because the water I use is the same that I water the potting medium with, so it does have fertilizer in it. But I figure, in the wild, they often grow epiphytically, right? Meaning they get their nutrition from leaf debris and birds pooping on them. So my fertilizer water is the equivalent of bird poop, ha....See MoreA little debris must fall
Comments (13)Bettylu, what you suggest was my thought in the matter too. So I called the county agent and asked about it. The response was less than encouraging. Essentially, the fact that I am not a COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE, means I do not have access to the chemicals which will exterminate the "worms" once they enter the soil. If you are familiar with the acres of pecan orchards or groves once visible all around the city of Mobile, you will recall the trunks of the trees generally painted white up to breast height. I thought, as a child, that they were painted white to look elegant and to give the "old time southern" look such as the trunks of live oaks going along a long allee or driveway to some columned mansion far from the road. As an adult, I idly mused about there being a purpose other than ornamental, but had no knowledge of bagworms or other such pests. Until recent years, I never saw bagworms in the pecan trees. Now, I think that many older trees are afflicted by them, since the groves were broken up and the land sold to developers who built homes, residences, and thus no longer classed as "commercial property." Thus no help to be had for treating pest issues. I'm still not convinced that bagworms do not take bites out of my hosta leaves. The way the leaves looked this year, same skeletal appearance as the pecan leaves chomped into wispy skeletons of veins and not much else except the ghostly webs making the incubation chamber for the next generation of BAGWORMS. I'm about to ring the youngest/smallest pecan tree to kill it humanely, leaving the stem standing for a birdfeeder post. After last night's cold front came through, most of the brown leaves fell so the three pecans stand bare in the garden. Perhaps I can get the work done this weekend, like George Washington and his little hatchet taking down that cherry tree, that is no lie! Pardon that it took me a while to respond. This week the demolition of part of my house began, and I've been sort of distracted from gardening. The cement mixer truck backing into the New Orleans style courtyard garden destroyed all semblance of a lawn, looks more like a plowed cornfield now. But at least we have peace this weekend while the cement/concrete foundation dries....See MoreThe ceiling is falling apart
Comments (33)A word on the scrapers from Lowes..... We used one for our last house and it was more trouble that it was worth. For one, when standing on the floor holding the pole up you have far less leverage and maneuverability with regards to how deep the scraper goes. Sometimes the scraper just took the top layer off, and other times it gouged the drywall something fierce. The blade is flat, but if you gouge the drywall a few times it starts to bend and creates more problems. Also, to get the popcorn off you have to wet it. When the wet popcorn sheets fall into that bag it gets *heavy* really quickly. This causes the bag side of the scraper to pull down, and you have to compensate for that and re-group your scraping technique. And when I say it gets heavy quickly, I mean really quickly. Like 2 or 3 swipes and then you have to empty the bag. Also, not all of the droppings fall into the bag. Sometimes you get a really wide piece and only 1/2 of it falls into the bag and rest falls onto the floor or onto the dog or you, or whatever you don't want it to fall on to! We finally ended up ditching the scraper, laying plastic all over the floor, using a garden sprayer to moisten the ceiling, and then I climbed on a ladder and used a drywall mud putty knife to scrape it. It was done in half the time. Then at the end we just scooped up the mess into the plastic sheeting and threw it away....See Moredebris in duct from construction
Comments (7)We had to replace our gas water heater this week. When I pulled the flue pipe out of the wall (vents into a clay tile flue next to fireplace chimney), I discovered that the pipe elbow was almost half way obstructed with debris from when the chimney was constructed--chunks of concrete & clay tile. I also learned a lesson in doing periodic inspections of the flue pipe, too. Whoever installed it had the pipe running downhill! The pipe had rusted & corroded. Almost 2/3 of the downhill section was totally eaten away. Probably because condensation had collected there. And age, too, of course. (This portion of the flue was behind a cap and inside the base of the chimney structure, thus hidden away.) We've lived in this house for over 20 years with the original water heater from when we bought the house only now giving out. After seeing the circumstances of the hidden away part of the flue, I was actually happy that the old water heater had given up the ghost! Also explained why I would often smell something kinda' like gas when I was near the fireplace upstairs. (No one else would claim to smell what I was smelling so I would dismiss it until I smelled it again.)...See Morefeddup
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