Apocalypse Averted – redux

Wednesday, Jun. 19, 2002 – 1:18 a.m.

2002-06-19 1:18

 

Lafayette, entry bane…

You know, trying to write something with a cat in your lap can be VERY frustrating…. especially when he likes to put his paw on the keyboard. I had been writing a nice long entry and gotten through most of it when he reached up hit a something and the next thing I knew, it was gone and the page refreshed! Gone into the ether…. It didn’t post so the only thing I can think is that somehow I managed to highlight the whole thing and hit the delete or spacebar or something and replaced it with nothing.

Ok, here is a reconstruction of the entry….

 

Projects….

This past weekend was another spent working on projects. I managed to paint three full banner stand bases and the center columns for 4 more. Last fall, I had made a bunch of banner stands in time for Crown Tourney and everything had been completed except painting them. Then it got cold so I couldn’t paint, and other things intruded. They got buried in the barn until now. Just four more sets of legs to paint and then I am done! Now I just need to find the vertical poles….

I also made a whole batch of ropes so I can set up (or I guess it should be tie down) the tarp that I will be using for a rainfly/sunshade at Pennsic. Once the ropes were done, I was able to test the whole setup in the back yard. Looks like it will work pretty well… it does, however, take up significantly more room than just the tent. The tarp is 16×20 and then there are the ropes…. We will see.

I have also been spending some time in the woodshop at the Craft Center. I have a number of projects that I am working on including a chandelier for Briana & Alejandro, a box for Francesca, a new bed for me (my existing camp bed just doesn’t fit in the tent… I checked…), a wooden case for my PDA (so it doesn’t look so modern at events), and probably another 4-poster bed. I am going to be busy between now and Pennsic… Ok, only the beds and the PDA case need to be done by Pennsic… Given that I can only get into the woodshop Mon-Thurs, I may have to take a day or two off from work to work on projects…

 

Shade of the Approach of the Apocalypse

One of the things that also happened this weekend was my keyring broke. It may not seem like much but I had been using this keyring since high school! It had been given to me by a customer on my paper route and I had been using it ever since. Needless to say, in the past 22+ years, I had never lost my keys.

So, there I was, standing in the driveway with about half of my keys on ground and two pieces of the key right in my hand. It had been a Jean Ring , one of the solid brass ones. Oh, it had taken a lot of abuse over the years, including getting bent and stretched/uncurled on a number of occasions so it finally just failed…. metal fatigue. At one point, it had had pattern embossed in it but that had long ago worn off.

After transferring all the keys to a new keyring set, it just hasn’t felt right. So I went out on the net and search for “Jean Ring”. They still make them! And there is a lifetime guarantee on them as well! I sent the company an email and they replied that I should send them the pieces (so they can determine why it broke…) and they will send me TWO of them (since I have had mine since 1979). Cool! Apocalypse averted…

 

The Battle of the Roses continued….

I have continued to check the roses and the battle with the Japanese beetles continues. I figured out that it is best to check for the bugs early in the day; if you check them in the middle of the day, the beetles are awake and just fly away (if they escape my initial attempt to crush them.) I have sprayed a number of the emerging blooms and have found that, while the beetles do a number on the blossom, they end up dead. That works for me! This morning I only found about 6 or 8 live bugs but plenty of the dead ones. Hey, tomorrow is spray day! and now I have some neem concentrate….We will see how that goes.

The other good news is that two of the new roses that have been slow in starting have blooms on them… not big ones but blooms none the less. These two are Europeana and Dolly Parton. The St Patrick and Glowing Peace are still not growing very much so I am going to have to do something about that. The latest issue of American Rose came today and there was a column in it that had some suggestions. One idea is to mound up mulch and cover the bush with a clear plastic bag to give it a warm moist greenhouse-like environment to stimulate growth. However, given that the temps have been in the 90s lately, this sounds like a great way to COOK the plant. I don’t think I will try that. The other idea is to dig up the plants and trim off the damaged roots (that should have been done when they were planted.) We will see if I have the courage to try that. I also need to figure out an extended watering system. The current setup works for the beds but doesn’t do anything for potted plants. Since I now have a number in pots, this seems to be a high priority. Oh, I also still need to plant the last Kitty Hawk in the nice blue pot.

Enough for now. I have to get up early to do the spraying…

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