Low Creeks and Stubby Baguettes

The creek is well grown over, on the banks and in the creek itself as canoeists find as they go up the low, weedy creek.  Interestingly, the brown grass on the banks died early in the year from the drought.  Some of the first things to grow after the prescribed burn and before everything else filled in.

And I like the new baguette baking tray that I was originally hesitant to buy because of the rounded bottom (it flattens a bit on the cooling tray and is not an issue).  The tray seems to minimize the hot spot toward the back of the oven with the last row empty.  I'm foregoing any pointy ends and trying to make the baguettes more 14-15 inches instead of 16 so they can more easily fit in the bread bags I bought for freezing, as 18 inch bags appear to be standard. 

After the break is a preview of what I plan to post about next. ;)

Greenway Walk

I was this close to capturing the biggest poo bag I've ever seen.  From the horse, of course...

We took a walk through the Dixon Greenway on the way to try a new place for lunch on Sunday, but the mounted police picture is from a day or so later on another walk.  The native plant restoration project is coming along nicely with many beautiful wildflowers.  I'll put a couple pics after the break.    

Sunflowers Update

The big sunflower is over 8 1/2 feet tall now, almost as tall as me standing on the landing outside the back door.  Certainly taller than my lovely 5 foot 4 inch wife who kindly agreed to pose next to it for scale.  

All of the sunflower plants, even the smaller ones and the barely alive one behind the one in the corner, are finally starting to grow their flowers.  Whether they all come to fruition we'll find out, but I expect at least the big one to bloom eventually.  This has been an interesting experiment, and I look forward to growing sunflowers again next year, though maybe a different type.

Low Mow Summer

We got some rain early last week, some beneficial rains for a change.  The first things to start growing back were crabgrass and all the other weeds before the grass started greening up again.  Me, being pragmatic, first attacked the weeds by pulling and spray before attempting to mow for the first time in a long time.

To backtrack, this year I mowed the whole lawn for the first time on May 13, then mowed just the back yard on June 4.  So an unusually long time between mows with a one mow May, a half mow June, and zero mow July.

The state of the lawn yesterday.

After tending to weeds for a couple days and after a day grace period to give the spray time to work, I tried to start the mower and it wouldn't start.  It was really hot out, so I figured I'll try the next day.  The next day was the same.  It was even hotter out but I texted a mechanic friend who told me anything carbureted would run like sh - poorly in this heat, so I waited but was still unsure.  The following day, last Friday, I tried it again in the morning but it just didn't seem like it was getting any gas, so I called the service I've used to come out and tune up this and the snow blower every couple of years.  They came out on Monday this week, diagnosed the mower and tuned up the snow blower.  The mower went back to the shop and I hadn't heard back all week until this morning, and they delivered it back around midday.

A relatively simple fix, if expensive by having home service and delivery.  After 14 years a little dirt in the gas tank and carburetor and a pump that stopped working was preventing the engine from getting fuel, so a clean carburetor and tune-up and it starts on the first pull, as it normally has except for the first start in Spring.  I could have gotten a new mower for the price of this whole episode.  Not as good of a mower, but still my next mower may be electric to basically eliminate these maintenance costs.  No gas, no oil, no spark plug, so essentially no engine maintenance and I can sharpen my own blade.

So I finally got the lawn mowed this afternoon, after 61 days.  Pretty incredible for this time of year.