New House Blog: Episode LXVIIII - Spring Has Sprung

It is officially springtime at the New House Blog, and we are officially back from our long winter hiatus.  Some have noted our lack of updates lately and erroneously concluded that we were idle for a long time.  The long break between Episodes actually indicates that we have been quite busy and have not had much time for blogging lately.  Some of that busyness has been New House busyness and some has not been.  If you keep reading you will read about some of the recent New House busyness.

Lawnmower Repair

Who knew that you have to prep a lawnmower for winter inactivity?  I certainly didn't know that, and El Toro sat idle for a few months until we finally had the right conditions for the first mow of the new year.  El Toro, however, refused to start.  We had seen identical symptoms in the past and taken El Toro to a mower repair shop, where they diagnosed it as a plugged up carburetor due to lack of usage.   Not wanting to have to go to a repair shop again, we did some research and discovered that cleaning a lawnmower carburetor is within our abilities.  With this knowledge in hand I proceeded to disassemble and clean out El Toro's blocked-up carburetor.

 Here is El Toro before disassembly.

 With the air cleaner removed.

 With the top cover removed.

 The carburetor and attached assembly.

With the carburator completely removed.

It turns out that gasoline that has been sitting in a carburetor for a long time turns into something called varnish.  This varnish is a brownish clear liquid that apparently doesn't combust like gasoline, and it can plug up the small holes inside a carburetor.

This is El Toro's carburetor, after cleaning.  There was a good deal of varnish and several small plugged-up holes inside the carburetor.   I initially thought I would have to drain the gas tank, but the gas in the tank looked good,  so draining it proved to be unnecessary.

After reassembly El Toro fired up on the first pull of the starting string.  We have mowed the lawn a few times since, and El Toro has given us no further trouble.

Next winter we will be prepared.

Old Conduit Removal

You may remember the unexpected conduit and coax cabling that we pulled up in the front yard some time back.  There was more conduit and coax cable sticking up out of the ground near the corner of the house just outside my office window.  This conduit was grey, however, and not orange.  We pulled up the grey conduit and coax cable and put them in the recycling.

 This is what it looked like before we pulled it up out of the ground.

This is what it looked like with much of it pulled up out of the ground.  The cable was a continuation of the cable previously pulled up some time back.





Accursed Shamrock Update

The battle against the accursed shamrocks in the succulent garden has continued these past few months, and we are slowly, very slowly, winning.  We have noticed that the repeated outbreaks of accursed shamrocks have slightly fewer plants with each new outbreak, and the number and density of accursed shamrocks trying to grow in our succulent garden is way down compared to the initial outbreak in October, 2013.  We now also know more about them.  They are form of oxalis known as Buttercup Sorrel or Bermuda Buttercup.  Our research indicates that the best, most effective method of combating this scourge is hand weeding, repeatedly.  And it is not always necessary to get the bulb out of the ground - it will die eventually if the plant is pulled up multiple times.  So there is hope.  Below is a picture of an unusually long specimen that was plucked recently.  The glove and weeding tool are included for scale.

We will continue to refer to them as accursed shamrocks.

Satchmo In The Catnip

Satchmo in the Catnip.

Pickaxe Repair

El Toro wasn't the only garden tool team member in need of repair.  A couple of months ago, during some relatively light usage, Spike's handle broke.  It was a nice clean break.  Rather than buy a whole new pickaxe we decided to replace the broken handle with a new handle.

Spike, after breaking, next to the new handle.

Spike with a new handle.  So far Spike is working beautifully with a new handle.

















Rain Drain

Revisiting the corner of the house outside my office, we installed a new rain drainage system.  It is made from plastic, and it is flexible so that we can reconfigure it if we need to.

The main idea is that we want the water to flow away from the house.  We have had some rain since installing, and the new rain drainage system has worked well.














Poppies Are Abloomin'

As it is spring, we have plants blossoming and blooming all around us and Our New House.  Two items of special interest two us are our poppies and our aloes.  The poppies are doing so well, in fact, that we have poppies blooming in places where we didn't plant any poppy seeds.  See below.

The big aloe has been thriving since being planted in the Aloe Arboretum, and for the first time it has stalks growing from it.  They're not quite abloomin' yet, but it won't be long until they are.  You can also see in this picture that the elephant bush is thriving.











Cactus Garden Update

Our cactus garden had a hard winter.  Unknown to us at the time, the spot we chose for our cactus garden is the spot that gets the least amount of sunlight in the entire back yard during the winter.  The lack of sunlight and the poorly-draining soil (we think) killed off several of our prize cactus.  Survivors include the prickly pears, the angel wings, the sunburst, the barrel, and one or two Kosmiks.  All of the others did not survive.

 This is the remains of the blue candle cactus.

 This used to be a rat tail cactus.

 This was once a lovely thriving curiosity cactus.

 What is left of the other rat tail cactus.

It looks as if this former stenocereus dumortierli cactus melted into the ground.

As is our custom on such occasions, we planted some new cactus to take the place of some of the old.  And we learned our lesson about location - we planted these new cactus slightly outside of the borders of the cactus garden, in spots where there is more sunlight.

 Meet the Zig Zag Cactus (Euphorbia Pseudocactus x grandicornis hybrid).

 Say hello to the Silver Torch Cactus (Cleistocactus Strausii), also known (at least to us) as the Yeti Cactus.

 This is the other Zig Zag Cactus.

The updated cactus garden can be seen here, as well as a pit that I cannot discuss at this time.

We have finally planted the geranium that has been pot-bound for the past several years.  It had followed me from apartment to apartment to apartment to Our New House, and it is finally in the ground, below the balcony, between the cyclamens and the pink lemonade blueberry bush.  It is not, technically, part of the cactus garden.

Winter Project Update Teaser

I have previously mentioned our winter project, and it is in progress, but it has become our winter-spring project.  We have all of the requisite materials, and now it is just a matter of the requisite time to complete.  Here is a picture of James at the project site.

As sure as there's a winter there's a
   bIsh