i hate bunnies!

just a little snow


ok, not a little


so much snow


the snow is up to the top of the tree trunks. parker pear tree.


luscious pear tree buried in snow, and surrounded by little brown bunny poop from the evil bunnies that, thanks to the snow, managed to reach the lower branches and chew all the buds off! i've no idea how much damage they've truly done but they were able to reach 3 of the 4 trees and i fear i will lose some of the lower branches entirely. only spring will tell.


i had to shovel out the pear trees to keep the bunnies from doing further damage. and the snow was so deep that i sunk up to thigh and waist deep with every step. when i fell over, i put my arm down to help push me up, but my arm just sank thru the snow as well. i was thoroughly exhausted by the time i finished.


the other two pear trees are a little taller and werent buried so deeply with extra snow from the driveway and street.


my garden. thats a 3 foot tall fence.


my backyard bordering the neighbors driveway. that red thing is the top of the neighbors car. that mesh fence is 6 feet tall! i have to shovel the snow away from that corner so the dogs cant just walk right over and escape.


snow is taller than the trash and recycling bins


puppy barking at me, wanting me to play keep-away with his tennis balls


molly chewing on a stick


happy doggy trails to you

pruning pear trees in february

luscious pear tree before winter pruning, and after

hrm, cant see any difference. but i did prune branches away!

parker pear tree before, and after pruning

you can see i thinned out around the center and to the center left. i did a LOT of pruning on this tree. i'm bummed it isnt that clear in these pictures.

summercrisp pear tree before pruning and after

nope cant hardly tell anything changed here. i really did prune!

patten pear tree before and after pruning

there wasnt much to prune on this runt of the litter.

I sewed a blanket sheet thingy

for xmas i made my dad a blanket sheet thingy. see, he's running cold and mom is running warm. he wants more blankets on the bed, she wants less. they tried just putting blankets on his half, but when he rolls around in his sleep, they just fall off. either off the bed, or off him onto my mom. my mom was complaining about not being able to make blankets stay on his side of the bed, so i came up with the idea to sew half a blanket to half a sheet. then it would be tucked in place all the way across the bed, and unlikely to become dislodged. mom thought it sounded like a good idea, so i made it.

but there was an extra wrinkle. my dad is allergic to dogs. and my house is home Puppy and Molly, and thus also home to lots of dog fur. so i had nowhere i could lay this out flat to work on it without getting dog fur on it.

i resorted to using a clothing rack thing i hang clothes on to dry, and draped everything over that. it was metal, and appeared dog fur free.

i bought a twin size comforter and twin size sheet. my parents bed is queen size, not king size, so i had to cut the comforter down to fit (a king size bed is the size of two twin size mattresses). i looked up on the internet what the measurements of a queen size mattress was, and what the measurements of queen size blankets and flat sheets were. according to those measurements, i then cut off a foot of extra comforter.


sewing the edge closed on the comforter was not fun. once i cut the extra piece off, i then had to go and cut an extra inch off of the comforter batting in order to have enough material to be able to sew the edge closed. but it was just an edge, and easy enough to wrangle thru the sewing machine. for the sheet, i didnt cut off the extra foot off. i figured its thin enough, i can just overlap the extra. for future reference, it would have been easier if i'd just cut it off tho. i then needed to lay out and line up the edges, without exposing anything to dog fur. so over the rack everything went.


there was a lot of crouching and ducking under to get everything lined up and overlapping the same amount and then pinned right.


then wrangling the whole thing thru the sewing machine. it was a challenge, sewing down the middle with all the comforter on one side and all the sheet on the other.


i had to roll up the sheet to make it small enough to be out of the way under the machine arm.


here is a picture of it on their bed that dad took for me. its kinda hard to see the seam with both the comforter and the sheet being navy blue. so my dad folded down the edge to show the more visible seam on the back of the comforter


its apparently working quite well for them, especially with these extra cold days we've been having this winter.

snow on the greenhouse

icicles


more icicles

snow melt on the greenhouse roof

a picture to show how the snow is melting and sliding off the greenhouse roof. the whole bottom part is ice. it eventually curved down and around til it nearly touched the greenhouse windows, but i didnt get a picture of that.

shelving, greenhouse post #16

dad took me to pick out shelving. i choose the 20" deep shelves over the 12" deep shelves.

3 - 96"x20" 'tightmesh' shelves.


i worried we wouldnt be able to get them IN the greenhouse. they're 8 feet long, and the doorway is in the middle. dad was sure we'd be able to maneuver them in, and we did.


all other greenhouse work is postponed til spring. i need to work on raking up all the leaves before the snow comes.

closing up the eaves greenhouse #15

worked on closing up the eaves on the greenhouse. i cut pieces of salvaged 2x4's to fit. this worked on the corners where i could tuck one end of the 2x4 behind the roof truss bracket and push the other end back.

south wall, east corner


but you'll notice all the other eaves have a roof truss bracket on both sides. so i had to cut multiple pieces and tuck each end in, pushing the middle together and back last.


same eave, from outside


next eave, outside view. some eaves needed a shim


next eave, inside


same eave, outside. some eaves needed a third block in the middle to make them fit


next eave, inside


same eave, outside. some eaves needed a third piece in the middle, and a couple shims to make it all fit right.


south wall, west corner


the north wall was a different challenge. i could slide the boards in the eaves from outside, avoiding the roof truss brackets. but to do so, i had to slice the bottom off the 2x4's. this worked because the angle of the roof to the wall gets smaller as you push in. this didnt work on the south wall because the angle got larger as you pushed in, and the boards were just loose instead of fitted.

north wall, east corner.


north wall, west corner


north wall, from outside


close up of the north wall, east corner, outside view


bottom sliced off the 2x4. you can tell because its fresh wood, not the dried/aged wood you can see in all the other pictures.






the greenhouse is now closed up fairly well for winter. no fear of bats or birds getting in and making a home.

in spring i'll pop the eave pieces out and paint them. then caulk them back in place to seal out bugs.