Head Gardener During the Ottoman Empire

Here's a rather grisly but fascinating bit of history from Smithsonian Magazine describing some of the details of the inner workings of the Ottoman Empire.

"The job of executioner was held instead by the Sultan’s bostancı basha, or head gardener—the Ottoman corps of gardeners being a sort of 5,000-strong bodyguard that, aside from cultivating the Sultan’s paradise gardens, doubled up as customs inspectors and police officers. It was the royal gardeners who sewed condemned women into weighted sacks and dropped them into the Bosphorus."

You can read the very interesting full article (it's pretty short, but yes quite grisly) at Smithsonian Magazine.  

I don't think I've ever heard of a job where I'd be mulching the azaleas one day and lopping off people's head the next day.  It would definitely give a new meaning to the phrase "dead-heading", you'd probably have to specify if you were talking about flowers or people.

New Advertising on the Blog

You may have noticed that I'm trying out some new advertising from Chitika on Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes.  After our falling out with Google AdSense over a year ago I've been searching for an online advertising shop worthy of the high standards of the creators and readers of this fine blog.  The Amazon Associates ads are good, but not generating enough action to justify being my sole attempt at website monetization.  You can still do all your Amzaon.com searching and purchasing through the "Search Amazon.com" box at the middle-left part of the blog or click on any of the Amazon widgets that look particularly enticing.

The first few days of running the new Chitika advertisements saw some really non-specific ads (pretty much just incorporating "Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes" into some semi-sketchy search engine), but the ads seem to have gotten a bit better over the last week. What's your feedback on the ads?  Annoying?  Tolerable?  Do you have ads blocked or opted out of seeing them?  Do you have any other or better recommendations for web advertisers?  If you blog, what ads do you run on your site?

And please note that any and all revenue from this site goes to help deaf dogs in North Dakota.  We're not an officially sanctioned 501(c)(3) charity or anything, but every little bit helps. 

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