One of the persistent problems that has hampered my gardening efforts has been watering. The garden plot is over 100 feet from the nearest water faucet. A number of years ago, I bought 200 feet of water hose and a hose cart, thinking it would solve the problem. And it did, for one season. The following year, when I pulled out the hose cart, the hose was still wound on the cart, but someone had cut the hose where it connects to the cart's water supply. Strangely, no one confessed to the crime.
I bought a new hose, thinking it would solve the problem. When I tried to install the new nose, I discovered that the screw-on ring (from the water hose) was still on the spout, and no amount of elbow grease would loosen it. I could not attach the new hose to the cart's waterspout. We made do. We continued to use the hose cart to haul the hose from the garden shed to the outdoor faucet, but it meant hand-winding the hose back onto the cart every time we watered the garden.
Every year after that, I'd think about buying a new hose cart, but I never did.
That old cart, with 200 feet of rubber hoses, must weight 100 pounds. Last week, when we were struggling to get water to the fire ant hills in the garden, I wrestled that *#!@ water hose back onto the reel for the last time. The next day, I bought 200 feet of flat, lightweight hoses. The only hose cart in the store was over $100. Knowing that hose carts could be had for less than that, I didn't buy it and still have not shopped for one elsewhere.
Over the weekend, it occurred to me that I could just use the hose cart from the front flower bed in our yard.
Yesterday, I un-wound the hose from that cart. Ants had taken up lodging somewhere among the cart's moving parts. I hosed them off and took the cart and the new hoses to the outdoor faucet at Nanny's. It was the devil to get the new hoses screwed onto the cart's water supply, and when I turned on the faucet, intending to water the plants, water spewed around the connection so badly that no water came through the hose. I un-did the hose and re-installed it but never could get the hose screwed on tight enough that water didn't spew.
By this time, I'd been digging and raking and planting and fooling with water hoses for nigh on three hours. I gave up on watering and came home, thinking I'd ask The Husband or The Grandson to have a go at it.
Mother Nature has taken care of the problem for today.
* * * * * * * *
Yesterday morning, before I started in the garden, I mixed up a batch of Magic Pour to fill up a mold for a cute little snail planter.
Fooling with this stuff is a mess. It is a 3:1 mix of powder and water. Calculation is necessary, and it's hard to figure the right amount. Powder goes everywhere. I mixed up waaaayyyy too much for the mold I'd chosen; there was enough to fill the planter mold and a large jewelry mold with mixture left over. I dripped it all over the place trying to fill the molds before the mix cured. And when I un-molded the planter, I didn't notice that the snail's eyes were on thin "stalks," and both of its eyes broke off in the mold. I glued them back on, but there are visible cracks where they've been re-attached. Maybe they can be disguised with paint.
I'm going to try the snail planter again, but when all this powder is gone, I probably won't get more, not because the product is faulty (it works fine) but because I'm a natural mess-pot who has no business doing this kind of craft.
* * * * * * *
The woodpecker has just informed me that the bird feeder is empty. He's out there hammering on it, hoping to knock a few more seeds out of the hopper., while the redbird waits nearby, hoping it works.
No comments:
Post a Comment