Yardwork

The flower beds along the southern edge of my property had become overgrown since Kristin was born.  Since the weather was fairly decent over the Labor Day weekend, I decided it was time to reclaim that land.  I still have one bed left, but now I am trying to decide what to plant in them.  Is it too late in the season to plant roses?  I also need to plant some additional strawberries, but I don’t know if they will get enough sunlight with the new, towering house so close to the property line.

Adventurers in Irrigation

Two out of three zones of my sprinkler system have died in the last few months.

After a little trial and error with the one good zone, I found that the solenoids in the control valves had gone bad. Bah. To make matters worse, the manufacturer (Rain Bird) apparently has re-standardized all of their parts which made it impossible to buy a replacement solenoid for the unit I already have. So that meant I got to upgrade the system!

The one good thing about tinkering with stuff is that you actually get to learn a bit about it. Not only did my friend and I replace the faulty valve, but we replaced the goofy maze of pipe that the contractor put in to reroute the one sprinkler head back a few feet in my yard. We got our DIY gold star for the day… and the sprinkler system actually works again!

At some point in the future, I am going to extend the lawn and a real garden down to the lower level of the yard. By then, I think I will feel comfortable putting in yet another, complete watering zone.