Turnips, brush hogs, and toilette bowls

The popple woods were mowed Thursday afternoon. (And I only ran into one tree!)

July 26, 2013 – Friday

58 degrees/partly cloudy/calm

Pentoga Road

It’s going to be a quick entry today. Mom and I drove to Iron Mountain late Thursday afternoon so Mom could see the Vision Center and we all rode home together last night. We’ll take Sargie back this morning, get the Blazer, and come back home. Right now, we’re playing Bathroom Shuffle so we can get Sargie to work on time.

Driving into a large storm. It missed Iron Mountain, but dropped several inches of rain and hail on other communities to the north.

Thursday morning began by planting more turnips. The ones planted this spring weren’t all that good as they developed during the hottest week we’ve had this summer. There was too much nitrogen in the soil causing too many tops and not enough bottoms. We’ve eaten hearty off of them, but this fall’s crop should be much better. It was obvious the cantaloupes weren’t going to develop and ripen before the first frost this year. I pulled the few scraggly plants, worked up the ground, and planted turnips. We ought to be grazing on them in September and October, after the frost has chance to turn them sugary sweet.

I lightly fertilized the giant pumpkins. This is a lousy pumpkin year but I am somewhat optimistic I may have one that tops a hundred lbs by summer’s end, possibly more. It’s finally growing by leaps and bounds, but we’re going to need some warm weather. Time will tell. If nothing else, I would like to get some seeds from the fruit as I paid almost $5.00 for a few seeds to plant this year’s crop. Since these are hand-pollinated, I know they are genetically pure.

One of the rapidly growing giant pumpkins. All fruits but one have been plucked from each plant in an effort to force all the plant's energy into that pumpkin. Now if the weather will  cooperate.

The bush hog was hauled out of storage and made ready for a day of mowing. I sheared the front half of the popple woods and around the front meadow, also the closest trail into the maple woods. A bearing is going bad in the rotary mower and one blade is loose. That will be a fall project and probably will wait until next year. I use the mower for four hours once a year and after the popple woods are landscaped and become part of the yard, it will be much less than that.

The shelf in the barn was finished and is already full. I’ll begin to build another later today. As I told someone, it’s not pretty, but it’s functional. The barn is slowly going back together and should make building the shop much easier this fall.

It stormed last evening and was raining hard when we went to bed. I don’t know how much rain we received, but any is greatly appreciated. We’re dry, but for this time of the year, everything is still Oz-green. I remember in the past when the yard was brown and the tree leaves pale. I’m still hoping to pound a sand point well in the garden area later this summer or fall. I’d like to install a solar powered pump and irrigate directly from that well.

One of the meadows mowed and trimmed.

We’ll take Sargie back to work this morning, then I’ll be attending a small ceremony for Yooper Brother Mark’s parent’s remains internment. Depending on the weather, I’ll probably work in the barn this afternoon.

After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…

Last night saw me replacing the flapper in the bathroom toilette tank. The job was simple enough after I raided the silverware drawer and extracted a water flow inhibitor.