Mulch Bonanza

The last few weeks have been a frenzy of activity here at the homestead.  Warm and dry weather started much earlier than normal and allowed me to aggressively plot out some large structural changes to the grounds and gardens.  We added some dirt mounds (see 10 Yards of Black Dirt and Front Yard Dirt Follow Up) and planted some new perennials and flowers in the mounds.  Since these are still tiny specks of green plant material, they don't photograph well and I'm going to wait a bit for them to grow and become more photogenic.

It was with some tired muscles and slightly grumbly disposition that I stood in my garage the other day surveying the land. When lo and behold a large dump truck drove by...

Then the large dump truck started backing up into the driveway.  I tried waving my arms and yelling, but it was to no avail, that truck was determined to back into the driveway.

No matter how much a yelled, the driver kept back up in to the driveway.  He seemed to be ignoring me or impervious to my yelling.  

Suddenly, to my horror, and without warning from the driver, he started to dump a huge pile of mulch into the driveway.  Was this some kind of nightmare?  A sick practical joke?  I'd just finished shoveling large piles of dirt last week and now there was more impending manual labor?    

Mulch started spilling onto the driveway!!!  Not to worry gentle reader.  This was not an unexpected delivery of mulch from the heavens or a cruel prank, I had ordered it.  A few areas on either side of the driveway around the apple trees and currants need a serious mulch refreshing and there were some areas of grass that need to be converted to vegetable beds through the magic of mulching.

The mulch guy though said he only had 5-6 yards of this particular kind of mulch (the cheap stuff) so I was prepared for a day/day and a half of work.  I fact he had more than he thought, 13 to 14 yards, even though he only charged me for 10 yards.  This was more than twice the amount of mulch I was planning on, but no big deal.  We'll get all our fabulous mulch apportioned to its proper place and snap some photos, so more to come in a later post. 

I also completed my 3-Bin Compost System (more on this in a later post) and planted more apple trees, plum trees, and dogwood shrubs (more on this in a later post as well).  Whew, I've got  lot of writing and photo-documenting work.  It's been a busy Spring here as I'm sure it is for you.  We'll try to get pictures and blog posts on everything that's gone on over the last few weeks.  Stay tuned!!

Cub Cadet Lawnmowers Are Crap!!!

I wrote and sent an angry letter to the Cub Cadet Company today.  Cub Cadet isn't even really a Company anymore, just a brand name (that used to signify a quality product) that is slapped on lawn and garden machines so they can generate a premium price.

This damned lawnmower has been the bane of my existence the for the last three years.  Alycia's Dad got it for us as a gift and I think that it was just a lemon, a dud, a bad mower, perhaps one possessed by evil spirits, it's hard to tell.  It performed so poorly I'm still partially convinced that it was a joke lawnmower, bought by Alycia's Dad at some gag gift store online to play a prank on me (if so it was a magnificent prank).

On the one hand this mower has caused lots of wasted time and energy and generated significant amounts of John-angst-rage, but the positive thing that has come out of it is that Alycia and I have decided to finally get an electric lawn mower. I'll post more information on the new lawn mower once it gets here and after it (hopefully) demonstrates its' awesomeness.

Here's the letter I sent to the Cub Cadet Company.  The letter won't do anything, it was just a cathartic expression of my anger at the countless hours spent trying to get this damned mower to work.  Regardless, it felt good to write it and send it. 

To Whom It May Concern,

I received a Cub Cadet walk behind, self propelled lawn mower three years ago as a gift from my Father-In-Law.  My initial happiness at the gift quickly turned to disbelief at the mowers performance and over the last three years has morphed into outrage and anger.  This lawn mower has NEVER worked correctly and Cub Cadet products in my opinion are complete and utter pieces of crap (I apologize for the language but since I know this e-mail won’t result in any substantive changes, it serves merely as a vessel for me to vent).   The only reason I keep trying to make this mower work is not only because I don’t want to litter (by throwing it off a cliff), but also because I don’t want to hurt my Father In Law’s feelings since this was a gift from him.   

The mower constantly stalls, sputters, and refuses to run.  I’ve spent near $300 (equivalent to the purchase price of the mower) on tune-ups, repairs, and other attempts to fix it over the last three years, all to no avail.   I’m not sure what the problem is or why the mower doesn’t work, but this situation has me frustrated and angry beyond belief.  

Since this item was a gift, I don’t have the warranty information or a receipt, and as such have never been able to make any headway with your customer service department over the telephone.  I have taken the mower to every repair shop in town that services Cub Cadet’s and each repair shop tells me that the necessary repair wouldn’t be covered by the warranty anyways.  I’m tired of throwing money down the drain and I’m profoundly disappointed by your product, your service providers, and your corporate customer service department.

I’m only one person and I realize that my opinions or anger don’t mean much to a large company such as yours, but please know that I will make every effort to communicate my experience with your product to my friends, neighbors, colleagues, fellow gardening enthusiasts, and everyone on the Internet.  I am an avid gardener and blogger and will make every effort to let other folks know that I think Cub Cadet’s are pieces of junk and make every possible overture to dissuade them from every buying a Cub Cadet product.  At a recent Garden Club meeting in my area, during a roundtable discussion of “What was your biggest gardening mistake?”, I informed the 35 or so people that the biggest gardening mistake I’ve ever made was getting within 20 feet of a Cub Cadet, they are unequivocally pieces of crap.  

Please consider this letter as my last ditch appeal to you to make this situation right.  I don’t want anything free.  I don’t want money.  I don’t want a coupon for 10% off my future purchases of Cub Cadet equipment (there will NOT be any).  I don’t want a referral to an authorized service shop in town.  I want this lawn mower to work.  Period.  I want you to make the situation right. 

I can be contacted at the e-mail or phone below:

Angry Regards,

John (last name redacted)

It's a Rough Life for Deaf Dogs

It's been a fun filled day of puppy activities and shenanigans - walks, racing around the yard, yelling at the squirrels, wrestling and chasing each other.  Plus we decided that Shadowfax the puppy is getting a kiddie pool to play in this summer, so she was quite excited when we told her about that.

Shadowfax is sacked out in her slumber ball. 

Tito and Shaak Ti are about to fall asleep in their fort of pillows next to the couch.  It's a rough life for these poor unfortunate creatures. 

Retiring Professor at UND

Alycia's colleague at the University of North Dakota stepped down as the Department chair this semester, and even though he'll probably stick around for another few years teaching classes, there was some celebration this semester at his first step towards retirement.  Since this professor is well known for his unusual tangents, funny stories, and crazy non-sequitors during lectures, a few enterprising students decided to spend the semester compiling his funnier quotes.

These are some of the more entertaining mid-lecture statements they compiled in just one semester...

• "I fancy myself an amateur mountaineer"
• "I have short eyeballs"
• "I get choked up when I talk about these hearing aids"
• "Time is ticking away while you sit there in your ignorance"
• (when handing out course evaluations to students) "I have to vacate the room so I can't exercise mind control"
• "I'm practically a saint"
• "I don't know what a serious hedgehog breeder is...I guess a breeder that doesn't make jokes about his hedgehogs"
• "Are those voices in my head?"

I'm actually bummed that her colleague is retiring.  He was by far the most entertaining person to talk to at their department events and we chatted a lot about everything from basketball to remote controller helicopters to back country hikes in National Parks.

Front Yard Dirt Follow Up

We built upon (literally) the foundation of 10 yards of dirt by making and shaping some mounds for perennial/annual flowers and ornamental plants in the front yard.

Our mound looked like this when we last left you in our previous post 10 Yards of Black Dirt.

With some manual labor and lots of shoveling, it turned into this.

We took a couple of currant plants from the front yard and transplanted them in the mound.  These are Ben Sarek black currants and we discovered that they were extremely NOT tasty.  As such we'll leave these particular currants un-netted and let our bird friends snack upon them as they ripen. 

This will all look even better in another month once we get some more flowers planted and they start blooming.  We just received a mail shipment of live plants from one nursery and I'll be out in the yard tomorrow planting Bee Balm (monarda), coneflowers, hostas, and sedum.     

Blooming Yellow Tulips

10 Yards of Black Dirt

We're in the process of redesigning the front yard a bit, replacing lawn area with flower beds and perennial shrubs.  This will mean not only less area for me to mow all Summer (Yay!!!) but also more pretty flowers to look at, and to attract birds, butterflies and beneficial insects to the yard.

I'm a big believer in working smarter, not harder.  At times I do take this to the extreme by not working at all, thus ensuring that there is never even a threat working harder.  This however is a philosophical discussion for another day.  

Part of working smarter means that I'm not going to break out the shovel and dig out all that lawn or turn it over by hand unless I absolutely need to.  Instead I'm quite fond of using some serious mulching to break down the lawn over time.  This is the so called "lasagna mulching" technique, laying down newspaper or cardboard and then covering it with a hefty layer of dirt and/or mulch.  You plant stuff into the dirt/mulch on top and over time the grass underneath dies and turns to happy organic matter that will add nutrients to the soil.  I've used this method before and will use it now to create some mounds in the front yard and turn ugly work-intensive lawn into flowering perennials and annuals. 

To this end we had 10 yards of dirt delivered to the house earlier this week.  It was an impressive full sized dump truck and dropped an impressive sized pile of black dirt on the lawn. Perfect.

When I told him where to dump the dirt the driver looked at me quizzically and and said "You know this is gonna really rut up your lawn, right?"  And he was right, this was a big ass truck and it did put big tire ruts in the lawn.  However I didn't mind at all since getting rid of the lawn is the one of the core motives behind this operation.

It was a whole lot of dirt.  This was another one of those situations where I may have gotten a wee bit too ambitious and my gardening eyes were bigger than my gardening stomach. 

Yeah, that's a whole lot of dirt.

The pile was six foot high and ten or twelve feet in diameter.  I may be occasionally envious of people who live in warmer environments and feel pangs of longing for my old Zone 10 climate in Southern California, but now is my chance to make other gardeners envious.  Take a look at the good dirt.  They just call it "black dirt" and it's sold as such.  It is good stuff.  

I started moving the dirt to the area underneath the pine tree in the front yard, placing a barrier of newspaper on top of the grass to kill the lawn below.  This should prevent grass coming up through the flower beds.

This is how the raised dirt bed looked.  I've made some additional changes since and will have more pictures up in another few days. And even better pictures later this summer when the area is fully planted and blooming. 

Spring Flowers - Tulips and Siberian Irises

We had a few flowers pop up recently around the garden here at the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes homestead.

The first tulip of the year has opened.  I share it with you.

In a very strange development, we've found almost opened tulip blossoms on the ground, two to three feet away from the plants the last two mornings.  They're cut about 4-6 inches from the ground with a diagonal cut but there's no other damage to the stem or the plant.  I'm assuming it's rabbits or squirrels.  It's not all lost since Alycia takes the cut flowers and puts them in a vase and we have lovely tulips indoors for a few days. 

Even though I've seen a bunny near our yard the past few days, in general the rabbits and squirrels stay out of the fenced in yard (where the tulips are located) since we have three dogs who would very much enjoy chasing them, playing with them, and likely eating them.  Since we've lived here, there have been no critters that venture into the yard except for the occasional bold daytime squirrel.  Perhaps it's time to have the dogs posted outside on nighttime sentinel duty to protect our flowers from marauding flower chomping wild beasties.

In the front yard we have Siberian Irises blooming.  These are very small (3-4 inches) plants with delicate blue flowers and are usually the first to bloom in Spring.  In fact these have been blooming for a week or so now and are almost done for the season.

Alycia planted these in a semi-circle around the trunk of a large tree in the front yard.  These little flowers are supposed to naturalize and (possibly) start spreading a bit, and they look perfect nestled among the tree trunk and large roots.  They're very cool little flowers and the sign for me that Spring is here.