A STAND UPPITY GARDEN 2013

Back in 2009, a neighbor built me an elevated garden (http://possumlane.blogspot.com/2009/07/stand-uppity-garden.html) It was a wonderful creation, a real back saver, but, alas, like so many other wonderful things, it was not built to last. One must NOT use treated lumber in a garden – the poisons leach out of the wood and into your food. So, the untreated wood next to wet earth for several months of the year tends to rot – quickly. I truly meant to rebuild it, possibly using synthetic wood for the sides, but, well if you keep up with what has been going on here, you can see how my time has been spent. Running a Kitty-Hospice was just so much more important. Then after losing Punkin, it has been extremely hard to work outside as Punk was never more than a few feet away – unless I was on the mower or had the weed-eater out. It is hard working with a little kitty ghost seeming to be peeking out from everywhere… But this week-end I bit the bullet and demolished the old one that by now was propped up on concrete blocks. Much of the wood was so rotted thru I had had to prop it up so it would not fall on Punkin who loved to camp out on the pallet I kept under it. In fact he spent most of his last week that he was outside on that little shelf which is why I did not knock it apart sooner.

     

Once down, I managed to move some concrete blocks in place, and given the lateness of the season and my time restraints and other obligations, I simply put a pallet on the blocks, nailed a half sheet of plywood to it, and opened up a BIG garden bag. That is a dustpan in there… I use that to scoop the old soil from last year, stored in the garbage can, to fill the new bag and smooth it off.

You might recall, I have used these garden bags to grow potatoes in for a couple of years, and last year grew carrots and onions in them. But this BIG bag has a diameter of 4 feet and holds as much potting soil as the old 4x4 garden it is replacing. So, last night, when it was not raining as they said it would, I planted a couple rows of yellow wax beans on one half saving the other side for Italian flats to go in as soon as the wax beans have 3 good leaves. Today I will fill 2 new potato bags with soil and start the carrots. Then this Saturday I hope to visit an organic grower and pick up some baby plants for the rest of the garden areas. I guess Spring has sprung even tho they are saying we might have temps in the bottom of the 40s by this week-end. SIGH.

This years potatoes and a bag of onions…

CRÈCHE, FINAL WEEK

The CRÈCHE came down this week. These are the final scenes. As you may remember, the location of the people and animals changed every week for a month. The Wisemen never arrived in Bethlehem, as in truth, they did not head there, since Mary and Joseph were only in town for the census (tho ancient records debunk this story also). The purpose of this blog is not to argue the truth and fiction of the Christmas story, there have been books enough that do that far better than I can in this small space. But, suffice it to say, the Wisemen were shown, just not in Bethlehem. Stables back then were not barns but small caves or areas in the rocks that could be closed off to contain animals. Roofs were unnecessary for the animals but tradition makes us put some sort of shelter over the couple and child. Wood was scarce and too much of a luxury to put over an animal, plus it very seldom rains in this area. Most stables were on the outskirts of the city. You can see the gates to the town in the background.

In this last scene, the shepherds and their sheep have arrived. If you look carefully, you will see some chickens and little biddies, and the rooster. The trees are live (except the palm trees)… those are real rocks – most from my place in the Poconos, a couple from Maine, one from NH.

The Wisemen are still traveling, supposedly to meet up with the Holy Family a year later in Nazareth. 

There was a different ground underneath everything when I first set it up, but whoever put the tree up behind the display moved everything from its original table (where the poinsettias are) dumping sand, kitty litter, and straw on the floor – so we just put a table cloth under everything. If I do it again next year, I will bring in a piece of plywood and get rid of the tablecloths… but, sometimes ya just gotta make do given the circumstances. As I said, everything moved to a different place in the church every week. This last week Bethlehem was closer to the middle of the church, to the left of the tree, just in front of the poinsettias. (For those of you who know me real well, yes, the roof is still standing! Lightning did NOT strike!)

BUILDING PROJECT

OR MORE OF WHAT KEEPS ME SO BUSY… Sadly I have slowed down to a crawl lately. The Lyme's has been in its mean, bad , and nasty cycle… which means not just a lot of pain, but it means my muscles have been locking up when I try to do certain things – like bend over… reach over my head… sigh. So, it has really slowed me down. Somehow I thought I would have a lot of time to get things done before it got too cold to work outside – but today is the last of the warmer days, and so much has not gotten done. Cold is an enemy of Lyme's.  I did get my addition to my greenhouse finished… got the heat lamps installed yesterday. It is also painted since it is not made with pressure treated (called salt treated around here) wood and there is an added roof of 2 rug samples and a half inch piece of plywood that goes on it when the sun is not shining to keep it a bit warmer – and to keep the cats from scratching the quarter inch Plexiglas. That sheet of Plexiglas for the roof cost a small fortune… double what I paid the last time I had any 1/4th inch cut for me. The rest of the Plexiglas is only 1/8th inch – some of it scrap, most of the wood is scrap, too. It seems I just get more and more plants somehow… and then, I take cuttings of Strobilanthus and coleus – some of them make it, some do not. I am trying to winter over some begonias this year. The Mini-greenhouse will come apart come spring as it is held together with only 4 screws and several corner braces. The floor is brick, for retaining heat. It is amazing how many plants one can cram in a space 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. 

The heated cat box is on top of the larger greenhouse… and is already well occupied on chilly days and nights.

SPRING – for NOW

AND THE YARD WORK STARTS IN ERNEST. They tell me spring is here. Well the daffodils are blooming, that is a serious clue. The buds are popping on the trees, and the birds are getting scrappy as breeding/nesting time draws near.  The forsythia is in full glory, the camellias are a sight to behold. Onion sets are already sold out in one local store. I had to drive 40 miles to get some Vidalia onion sets. My peas are ready to go in the ground. It was a temptation to put them in as it was 78 degrees on Friday. However, the morning temp is supposed to be 28 by next Friday, so I guess I will hold out for another week or so.

But, the blueberry bushes have been moved. They got little sun in their old space as the pine trees grew.They were only about a foot tall when the bushes were first planted. But first, this azalea had to be moved – it went in a hole left by a blueberry bush.  The fence was taken down, rolled up, the net removed, and the posts pulled up. I did have help moving a couple plants and then putting the posts in the ground. Fortunately I had my own shatters (Eastern Shore for pine straw) to put around the bushes for weed control. This is the old Blueberry garden with the netting covered in snow. Honest! Isn’t that amazing? The center pole kept it from collapsing.  

Have you ever seen a Pussy Willow this tall? The tree stump on the left is 4 feet tall.

I love to see the daffodils turn into glowing spots of beauty in the early morning sunlight.

Because of the unusually cold winter, the camellias are blooming out of sync. Red Emperor is blooming early, this hybrid is blooming late. All around the edge of the woods, there are bushes filled with huge blooms.  

Aunt Alice is pretty much on schedule. It is one of my favorites.

A friend gave me a present – a reddish violet. No not a house plant or African violet, this is supposed to grow just like the others that grow like weeds in the yard. She has a huge patch of them.

And, Ginnie, this shot is for you.

AND THE NEW LIBRARY (in maybe 8 months time…)

I just posted pics of the White Haven (Pennsylvania) library as it is today, nestled in a coffee shop (Coffeeworks on Main St in the basement of the old hardware store that only we old timers apparently remember.)  See previous post. But this is where it will be this time next year when they finish renovating this building. The outside is quite impressive, isn’t it? This is called the Engine House Project and this is an effort to rehab a former Lehigh Valley Railroad engine repair shop into a multi-purpose library and Heritage visitor’s center.

It has been used for a few fund raising events and programs, but you can see the inside has a lot of work left to be done. check out the beautiful stone walls.

White Haven has a lot of tourist potential as it is in the center of an area that includes 3 state parks (Hickory Run, Lehigh Gorge [which took some of my land] and Nescopeck, all within 6 miles, the Gorge being within feet of the bldg) and welcomes over 400,000 tourists annually. Interstate 80 runs thru one side of the town and 940 goes thru the middle. White Haven is 4 miles from the NE extension of the PA Turnpike and is on the Lehigh River which separates White Haven from East Side, where my house is, on the East Side of the river. East Side is in Carbon County and somewhere in the middle of the river is the county line, with White Haven in Luzerne County which is known as “the Gateway to the Poconos.” 

The library that will be housed inside these walls will meet the needs of children from Crestwood, Weatherly, and Hazleton school districts by providing hard copy resources, literacy programs and state of the art communications technology. But I bet people will miss the coffee! Think they will at least have an espresso machine???? a Starbucks vending machine????

Train and history buffs will appreciate the magnificent structure as it is believed to be the last railroad repair shop still intact in the Commonwealth of PA. I have known the building all my life and I am still impressed. It cleaned up good, as they say.

“Green” people will appreciate the fact that the building will be climate controlled with geothermal wells… a bit ironic (a double pun, that word) since the railroad was practically invented to move coal from the area and the coal was used to make iron that previously had been imported from England. Did you know the FIRST rails for the FIRST railroad were made out of WOOD? Funny, they didn’t last long. Did you know that people laughed when Josiah White tried to get people to burn those black rocks he found in these hills? They were very different from the coal found in England, big shiny black rocks that were slow to ignite, but burned much hotter than wood, hot enough to melt the ore to make iron. The railroad was first made to move the black rocks to the canal locks he built on the river. If you are interested, you might want to read a book that is both interesting and boring all at the same time on Josiah White, for whom the town was named. He was the founder of Lehigh Coal and Navigation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad – whose logo is on the building. 

The Project is a true community, grass roots effort, with the White Haven Borough council members voting to purchase the building in 2002 in response to hundreds of signatures (including mine) asking them to do so on the community’s behalf.

The library has been in existence, in one place or another, for 13 years, most recently in the coffee shop, so you can imagine how exciting it will be to have ALL the books unpacked and on shelves and available to the public. You can learn more at www.whitehavenlibrary. Years ago, my step mother (a librarian) used to drive 28 miles one way to Wilkes-Barre to check out a stack of books to last her a week or so, to help her survive “this god forsaken back woods place.” This was back when she had just recently been evacuated from Saigon with the rest of the American dependents and found herself in the old family home. I guess it was too quiet for her… no bombs going off day and night, that sort of thing… sigh. Anyway, she started back then to push for a local library, but nothing happened for many, many years. She gave up and moved to Bradenton, Fla. Fortunately, others kept up the fight, but it has been a struggle. That ride over the mountains to WB was a rough haul in the winter! Trust me.

Train buffs will recognize the brick pattern in the parking lot. Anybody want to guess why it is there? What it once was? (that is a clue). Both the circle and the straight section????? See the tracks currently in use just a few feet from the parking lot and building, like mid point in the picture?

A view from the entrance to the parking lot.

WHAT? ANOTHER BLOG????

YEP, due to popular demand - I have succumbed to the pressure of my admiring public (both of them) and have started another blog - POSSUM'S PENNY PINCHING PROJECT POINTERS - which will include all kinds of ideas for gardening on the cheap, building projects for the klutz (that would be me) and other dumb stuff that can save you time and money - or just makes good sense (and cents) - even sometimes scents? (I am so glad I learned English as a kid because it sure can be baffling.)

Anyway, come visit me and my back yard projects at http://possumsprojects.blogspot.com. At least I think that's where it is. Or go to my profile and click on something that sounds like that. LOL!


So many projects, so little time (money) (energy)!