Amazon Observations 3

Welcome to the third of my posts containing some somewhat random observations that I have observed while working for and at Amazon.  Once again, I will not be giving out much company-specific information, and I am still not yet the general manager.

1. Wooden pallets are like snowflakes in that no two are exactly alike.
2. HP still makes (or at least sells) calculators.

3. Actual text on a real product's box: "New type imitate the true style."

4. Is there much of a market for barn owl pellets?

5. What happens to all of those unsold 2019 items (calendars, planners, graduation gifts, etc.)?

6. I never before considered the need for tattoo practice skin.

7. Interesting book title: "How to Heal With Singing Bowls."

8. Smokey Bear bobble heads are real.

9. Pallet jack levers theoretically have three distinct positions.

10. Does the world really need a Jason Momoa coloring book?

11. I never before noticed how pervasive the phrase, "I mean" has become.

12. Interesting book title: "How to Read a Book."

13. I mean, I've begun to start my own sentences that way.

14. Always park your pallet jack with the handle turned 90 degrees.

15. To those who complain about seeing Christmas items in September, I have been seeing them since February.

16. Actual text on a real product's box: "A beautiful hand is basic of fashionable."

17. Radio Shack is still around.

18. I recently came upon a whole stack of 2016 calendars in inventory.

19. Do dogs really need tooth whitening?

20. Interesting book title: "How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety."

21. I mean, lava lamps are still fashionable, apparently.

22. Why would snowmen be hanging around a campfire?

23. All wooden pallets are in some state of repair/disrepair.
24. Who buys bat houses?

25. Actual text on a real product's box: "Big receive a space."

26. Interesting book title: "How to Move to Canada."

27. Where would one use espresso-flavoured sea salt?

28. We have officially gone too far with the whole food flavoured to taste like some other kind of food.
29. It is very quiet, and quite warm, out on the robot floor.
30. I mean, who wouldn't park a pallet jack underneath a pallet?

Slowly climbing that  ladder.

    bIsh

New House Blog: Episode CCXIIII - Gardening Galore!

We do loves our gardens.  At our California House we had at least four separate gardens, but here at our Texas House we only have one area that can truly be called a garden.  But there are a lot of areas where we can use gardening skills and techniques, and we may have a second garden in the making.

Gardens 1 - The Garden

Let's jump right into things with some additions to our garden.  You will recall from the previous Episode that we initially planted only two raspberry and two blueberry plants.  Because of the closeness of the two blueberry bushes, and because we likes our blueberries, we decided to get a third blueberry shrub and plant it at an appropriate distance from the first two.  And because we likes our succulents we also added a couple succulents inside our garden fence.

Here is our initial plant staging area, full, and you will notice that we likes our cactus, also.

Left to right: blueberry, succulent, cactus, succulent.

Before we continue, I thought you might like to see a typical example of what I have to dig into in our garden.  The dirt is pretty high quality, but it is chock (or chalk) full of rocks hiding just below the surface.

In the far corner is the new Echeveria 'Dick's Pink' (Echeveria 'Dick's Pink').  To the right is the new blueberry plant.

From left to right: Echeveria 'Dick's Pnk', climax blueberry, brightwell blueberry, premiere blueberry, raspberry variety one, raspberry variety two (I did not note which varieties of raspberry, but there are labels in the garden).

In the corner opposite the echeveria is this lovely Firesticks (Euphorbia Tirucalli).  We really likes our firesticks.

The Golden Barrel Cactus (Echinocactus Grusonii) was planted outside of the fence, next to our sunburst cactus.  Because of its profusion of sharp, pointy bits, we do not believe a deer guard will be necessary.  Note the golf ball.





Gardens 2 - Hoses

Having a garden hose handy is helpful in maintaining a garden.  However, our Texas House seems to have been designed to prevent us from having a handy garden hose, as you can see from this photo.

Yes, the hose bib was way up in the air, and required leaning out from the balcony to turn it on.

And then the hose had to be dragged all the way across the yard to where the garden is.  Clearly something had to be done to improve the situation.

Something was done.  Copper pipe was run down the wall to a human-reachable hose bib.  We also added a shutoff valve up at the top.

A yellow hose connects the bib to this convenient hose reel.  This is a much nicer setup, but it occurs to me now that there is still room for improvement...  Hmmm...

Interestingly, and inconveniently, moving the hose seems to have broken our wonderful hose wand.  Thankfully we had another, identical hose wand to replace the faulty one.

Gardens 3 - Invasion

You may recall that our California House was annually invaded by the accursed shamrocks (bermuda buttercup) between about October and April.  Our Texas House was also recently invaded by unwanted, plant-based invaders.

This, friends, is bedstraw catchweed (Galium Aparine).  Much like the accursed shamrocks, bedstraw is prolific, seasonal, fast-growing, and can be managed by physically pulling it up out of the ground.

Unlike the accursed shamrocks, bedstraw has a lot of clingy seeds; left unchecked it can smother and kill other plants; and it apparently has some herbal, medicinal properties (which you can look up on your own (I will not encourage the growth or use of bedstraw)).  It mostly showed up in the planting areas to the right and left of our entryway, and I was able to pull up just about all of the plants that I saw in those areas.







Gardens 4 - Lizards

We are friendly toward our friends, the lizards.

This friendly lizard was spotted at a local plant nursery (that cactus looks familiar).

This friendly lizard was spotted in a large, scraggly plant near our entryway.


















Gardens 5 - More Firesticks!

We likes our firesticks.  In fact, we loves our firesticks so much that we removed some plants so that we could plant more firesticks (well, that was part of the reason for removing them).

First to go were these two plants on the left of our entryway.  The white one on the left is a variety of Dusty Miller.  It seemed to be growing and thriving, but a random whitish plant in the midst of the greenery just seemed odd and out-of-place.  We do not know the variety of the green scraggly plant, but we did not like it very much.

This firesticks was planted roughly in the same spot formerly occupied by the green scraggly.  Look at how much more beautiful it is.  Ahhh....

What is up with this big grassy thing?  What were they thinking when they planted it?  It is just big, messy, and partially dead.

Much better.  And look - the bedstraw is cleaned up, too!  Please note that firesticks are said to be deer-resistant, so we feel relatively confident in leaving them uncaged.




Gardens 6 - Peppers

Since we have plenty of space in our walled garden why not add some peppers and cucumbers?

Here you see six pepper plants and one cucumber plant, in the plant staging area.

Here you see six pepper plants and one cucumber plant (and one firesticks), in the garden.  Note that ALL of those rocks (large and small) were dug up by me, by hand (and shovel).

Here you see all of our garden plants so far, except for the echeveria.

Look what else we have in our garden!  It seems that they followed us from California.  Took them quite a while to get here. :)








Gardens 7 - More Cactus

We loves our cactus, so why not add more?

Meet our False Saguaro (Pachycereus Pringlei).  It is planted roughly where the Dusty Miller used to be.

This is a broader view of the new look in front of our Texas House.

I mean, who could walk by this beautiful Torch Cactus (Trichocereus Grandiflorus Hybrid) and not want to take it home and plant it?

As you can see, it is situated in the back yard, near our sunburst and our golden barrel.  Do three cactus make a garden?  What if they're surrounded by more cactus?






Gardens 8 - Boulders

And now for a word about boulders.  It's true that most of the rocks I dig up range in size between fist and ostrich egg, but every so often I encounter a boulder whilst digging a hole.  Becky says they move around and place themselves in the places where I am digging (not unlike the creatures in Tremors).  And you know I can't let the boulders win.

This  big beauty was uncovered and unearthed as I was digging holes for the peppers and cucumber.  Gloves are for scale.

 This slightly-less-large beauty was pulled out of the earth while I was excavating for the firesticks in the same photo.  It is very rounded.

Okay, so this is not a true boulder, as it is made of man-made concrete, but it showed up in the false saguaro hole, and it had to be removed.

And the granddaddy of them all, so far, is this two-parter slab.  Fortunately for me, it was already split near its center.  Even so, I had to use rope and ramps (not unlike the ancient Egyptians) to pull each half out of the hole I was digging for the torch cactus.  This behemoth will probably stay right where it is for a long time.











Gardens 9 - BYA

And now for a Back Yard Archeology update.

These rusty nails and fragment of zip tie were dug up somewheres, probably in the garden area, but I don't recall for sure.

This mesh piece is almost certainly from somewheres in the back yard.

The string was wrapped around some plants near an elm tree in front of our Texas House.

This interesting item was dug up in our garden area.  After much study and scrutiny I've narrowed it down to three possibilities, which I present here in order of least to most likely.  Possibility one is that it's just a random rock fragment - not very likely.  Possibility two is that it may have been an ancient, primitive cutting tool or possibly an arrowhead - interesting, and a strong maybe.  Possibility three is that it is a tooth from a long-dead, ancient shark - almost definitely.  Said shark probably swam upriver (possibly chasing an ancient Egyptian), back when the Wadi al Bish was a huge river leading to the sea, and died where our property now sits.  So far we have only discovered one if its ancient teeth.

I don't usually include the same photo twice in the same Episode, but since this is obviously a sentient-made object it needs to be studied by the Back Yard Archaeologists.  As mentioned above, this chunk was dug up while preparing a hole for the false saguaro cactus.  Why was a random chunk of concrete buried at our Texas House?  and why that particular shape?  Was it an early attempt at a massive arrow or spear head?  Was it used at the end of a plumb line?  And why does its shape suggest a model of an advanced spacecraft?

Notice also the black gloves that I use.  They are not gardening gloves, per se, but I find them to be most useful for pulling up weeds, planting new plants, and such-like.  They are thin enough that I get a good feel and grip, and at the same time they provide a layer of protection for my hands.

Gardens 10 - Wadi

Here's another photo of the Wadi al Bish full of water during some recent rain.

This is such an awesome sight that I had to share it again with all y'alls.











Gardens 11 - Early Results

Enough time has elapsed since the beginning of this Episode that we are seeing some early results in our garden.

Yes, folks, we have a few small blueberries.  We don't expect to have enough for eating this year, but it's encouraging to know that they will indeed grow here (despite what one unhelpful lady told us at an out-of-town nursery).

And here is an immature cucumber.  Since taking this photo we have discovered two more developing cucumbers.  And at the time of this Episode there are two observable peppers growing on our pepper plants.


Gardens 12 - Parting Shots

We finish up with some relatively recent photos from nearby Landa Park.

Since this deer is not on our property I did not feel the need to chase it away.

Comal Springs Run One.

A comal is a type of flat griddle.

We conclude with this photo of the Founders' Oak.  It is rather immense, and is quite stunning to see in-person.









Did I mention that we loves our
    bIsh

New House Blog: Episode CCXIII - Yet More Wildlife Fencing

We like our berries.  In particular, we are particular to blueberries and raspberries, and we have been told that they do well here, and that now is the time to plant.  And planting a garden here in deer-friendly territory can be a major undertaking.  Because you can't just dig up the ground, plant plants, and hope the deer don't eat them.

Fencing I - Planning

First you must plan for your fence.

And the first step for us in planning was to mark out the area and then take measurements.  We chose the area on the far side of the Wadi al Bish because it gets the most direct sunlight throughout the day, and it is already relatively flat.

What's under the blue tarp?  Sawdust and garden soil.  Our initial thought was to use the sawdust as mulch.









Fencing II - The Berries

We learned that the right time to plant blueberries in this area is right now - January to February, so we went out one overcast day to the local nursery and bought some blueberries.  And on impulse we bought some raspberries, also.  This put a time crunch on the whole project, as we wanted to get these puppies planted as soon as possible.

Here you can see our four little bushes.  Because of my work schedule, plus three days of fence-building, they had to live in the garage for several days.  The blueberries are on the outside, and the raspberries are on the inside.


Fencing III - Cutting

We based our fence design on one of my brother's successful deer fence designs.  Basically, it consists of multiple wooden frames connected together, with a steel mesh running around the outside.

We went to the local Lowe's to get our lumber, and all was going well as the lumber man stacked the needed lumber on the lumber cart, but when we wheeled it all over to their lumber saw we found a notice that said, "Out of service."  D'oh!  The lumber man called someone on the radio and confirmed that their lumber saw was out of service.  Rather than take more time to drive to Home Depot to get lumber cut to size we just got the uncut lumber and went home.

Fortunately, I have my dad's old circular saw, and two brand new sawhorses (and a fresh blade), so I was able to cut the lumber myself.  What would have taken mere minutes at Lowe's took me around three hours, working alone.  And in the process, the saw fell on the ground and the safety guard broke.  The saw still works great, but is it safe to use again in the future?

The result of all of that time and effort was these 37 cuts from 36 boards.  The longest is 84" and the shortest is 36". 








Fencing IIII - Construction

Based on advice from the same brother mentioned above, I pre-drilled the holes and used deck screws to connect the lumber and construct the frames.

Here you can see the two main sizes of frames - 75" x 84" and 70" x 84".  There was also one frame of 36" x 77" for the gate.  In total there were 9 frames - 8 for the walls and one for the gate.





BYA Interlude

One step of preparing the ground for our garden was clearing shrubs and rocks from the area, and there were A Lot of rocks to clear.  While clearing shrubs and rocks we found some ancient artifacts.

First up is this mishmash of miscellaneous detrius, including what appears to be a Nerf-style projectile.  Was some epic battle fought here in ancient times?

We found another mysterious brick, which matches the mysterious brick we found in this Episode.

Thirdly, we have this seemingly-random length of steel cable.












Fencing V - Assembly

After cutting the wood, pre-drilling holes, and assembling all of the frames, I carried said frames out to the garden area on the far side of the wadi al Bish.

I then proceeded to connect the large frames into pairs and spread the steel mesh across the open spaces.  This is where I left things at the end of the second day of work.

I resumed work on day three.  here you can see two walls erected and connected. 

All four walls are standing!  I used more deck screws to connect all of the frames together, and some steel connectors to add some rigidity and strength.  As with the initial construction, I pre-drilled most of the holes.

The completed structure.  Note that I accidentally got two different sizes of hinge.  D'oh!  That can be fixed later.  The important thing is that my Dewalt cordless drill and impact driver worked great and did not leave me stranded.

The view from afar.  As you can see, we chose to use a green mesh so as to blend in more with the surrounding surroundings.

This is how I left things at the end of day three.  Three berry bushes were left in the new garden, and one was left in the garage.  Notice that a goodly portion of the ground has been cleared of weeds.



Snowy Interlude

Yes, snow.

On the night of the third day we got some snow coming down at our Texas House.  This picture was taken from our back porch/deck (you can just make out the new fence in the background).

The morning after there was still a little snow on my vehicle.












Fencing VI - Finishing Up

The snow did not seem to hurt the exposed berries, or the new fence.

I spent most of the day preparing the soil and planting all four berry bushes.

More ground has been cleared of weeds (and more rocks), and the plants are planted.

The decorative rocks are all from on and under the ground right here in the garden area.

Yes, they are all a little closer together than is ideal, but it was late, and I was tired, and I didn't want to dig any more holes or mix any more soils.

So far all four are still alive and well, and the deer have not eaten any of them.  At this time we are still looking into what other types of fruits and/or vegetables we should be able to grow here.

Fencing VII - The Plans

I thought it would be nice if I shared my carefully drawn fence plans, with exacting measurements, so that you, too, can duplicate what I have done.

Hmmm....  That don't look right.  Something must have happened when the film was developed....









Take that, deer!!
    bIsh