Impact of AC on Engine Temps, and Ballerina Car Wash

Stan, my wife pretty much handles everything growing other than the grass, similar to your situation. She had no experience in any of this before she moved to the US. In addition to flowers, shrubs, and various trees we also have a small raised vegetable growing bed. Our yard is about 3/4 acres. We have a sprinkler system.

After planting a lot of stuff along the edge of our back yard we discovered it is actually beyond our property line in a common area. That hasn't been an issue.

We recently took down a very large Silver Maple.  It had cables holding it together and we didn't want it falling on the house.

Very cool, Stan. I fall in a similar category. I'm good at cutting things and shooting stuff with glysophate where needed, but the grounds manager is Marianne.

Tell Jeanie that we, on the forum, appreciate her efforts to civilize you 🙂

We've always had lawns and gardens around (and inside) the house and felt pretty comfortable with the New England zones and growing seasons.  So when we moved to Rhode Island we were already in tune with all that.  A few trips to the local go-to guy for trees, bushes, perennials and plantings and we were all set.

Then, we moved to Southern South Carolina and went from New England's zone 4 to the South's zone 8.  That's when the compost hit the fan.

Everything we planted down south died, no matter how hard we tried to keep things going.  Never mind that we were now in constant humidity and sitting within 50 feet of the tidal basin of a brackish, tide-influenced river and were only really there from September to May, everything we planted died.  The only thing that grew for us was our lawn's "Centipede Grass" which, we found out much later, thrives on abuse - The worse you treat the stuff, the better it grows.  If you go away for a few weeks and forget to keep the lawn sprinklers on, it'll grow like crazy in the shade and send out runners (often as much as 6 inches or more, per day) and take over your house and garage.

We also had a similar problem as Mr. Picket with the surrounding jungle growth.  We had 14 large palm trees in the yard as well as a lot of Hickory (with Spanish Moss - which constantly grows), Live Oaks (that shed leaves in November and March) and southern yellow Pine and enormous hedges of azalea and bougainvillea planted by the original owner back in the 1960's.  Those guys had deep roots and were probably feeding directly from the river so we couldn't kill 'em.  Palm tree fronds are BIG!  Like the size of a pickup truck bed, big.  Trim a dozen or so of those off of the trees to make them look nice (and they're over 20 feet, way up there) and it was tough to fit them all inside my capped pickup truck.  Fortunately, the town transfer station had a HUGE place for "Yard Waste" which, I figured out after a while, really means "Yahd Waste".

Then we saw an ad in the local paper for a Master Gardening Class series put on by Clemson University and thought it would be a good class to take because we obviously weren't doing anything right.  What we learned, is that we were now in gardening zone 8, ("We're not in Zone 4 anymore, Toto!), but there was also a micro-climate thing going on because of the tides and river.  Then we found that within zone 8 there were six (yes SIX!) distinct growing seasons for our area and we had them all screwed up!

For example, Local old timers would plant their early spring peas right after Thanksgiving and be harvesting them in February.  What a shock!  I had grown up knowing that it was a risk putting your peas in before mid-May in Massachusetts!  The growing season for tomatoes started right after the pea harvest and you harvested tomatoes in late May.  You get the idea....  

After we learned about the zone 8 growing season we totally re-worked our planting and harvesting seasons (as well as what we were planting, when) and then things really took off.  We were growing and harvesting veggies all winter by putting domed plastic over our raised beds and running timed micro-sprinklers and drip irrigation in those little hot houses to keep things happy.  The only troubles we had after that were from a band of renegade Raccoons that took such joy in tearing up some of the beds from time to time while looking for grubs.

If you're familiar with the 3-bin composter in "Crockett's Victory Garden",  on PBS, I built one that each bin was a cube about 5 feet on a side.  It just kept up with yahd waste, except for the Palm fronds.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/533746993307273649/

Don't get me started on raccoons, Gordon. Memories of them regularly harvesting my corn the night before it was "ripe" still haunt me. All I can say is "live traps"!

We've also had the problem with many of our plantings dying here (about 50-75) miles north of Gordon's SC home), but it's due to the &^%@$#*^%!@%$)*!&^@$)!*&$#%^!(#$&%^(*!@$%&(@*#&$%^(!*$%&^!)*$%&^ DEER!!!!!  Ahem.  Sorry about that.

I'm looking for a photo of our raised beds in South Carolina, but that entire garden was enclosed by a 5' tall chain-link fence.  I have seen two yearling deer calmly walk up to that fence and stop mere inches from it, then leap up and straight over it and into the garden without touching the fence at all.  

If they are that talented and can jump over like that, they can HAVE the garden!

We had about 20 southern deer in two groups that would regularly wander around the neighborhood (we had a lot of wooded areas there).  They would really do a job on the azaleas and boxwood bushes but that just meant that I seldom had to prune them.

35 years ago we became empty-nesters! WOO-HOO! Got all 3 kids through college and  their respective weddings! YAHOO! Sold the big house, with all it's lawn care (fertilizing, aerating, gophers), landscaping, fruit trees (aka; rat & raccoon all-you-can-eat-buffet) slope-maintenance, raccoons tearing up roofing shingles, exterior painting, etc.

We scaled-down and moved to Musbjim-World. A barely 1,000 square ft 2-bedroom condo (too small for any grown kids or grandkids to move back in ), small garage, low maintenance, great neighbors (thank God!) and small HOA fees plus close to the beach. YIPPY KI YAY!

The kids & grandkids are relatively close so we can visit whenever (which we often do). Hows do we spend our time? Spur-of the-moment travel, go remote camping excursions, mindlessly cruise the Speedster, hang by the beach eating fish tacos.

I guess I coulda just said...you guys lost me at 'mowed the lawn today'.

I must say @MusbJim that sounds Great my wife and I thought about doing the same thing but I must say living out in the country with No neighbors around has it’s advantages I’m reminded of that every time I visit my son’s house in town. Plus if Sh%& ever hit the fan I could see them coming a mile away.

I still want to be like El Guapo when I grow up!

@MusbJim After today downsizing and letting someone else take care if the yard doesn’t sound all bad!

Cutter blades set too low.

Did you think you were in your "monster mudder" truck for a second?

Kinda looks like the end result of that famous statement:

”Hey!  Hold my beer and watch this!”

@DannyP Nope it’s just been one of those days!! As a matter of fact right before I wrote this post I shampooed the carpet because I just spilled a whole cup of coffee on the living room carpet. Yesterday was my Birthday and I thought I’d take the day off relax and mess around the house. Nothing got accomplished but a tree that needed to be chopped up from a storm that went threw earlier this year. The worst thing was calling my son to help pull Old Dad out.

I have a high school friend, Charlie, who has been a quadriplegic since a sports accident in college.  He has limited use of his arms, enough so that he can drive a car with proper, custom controls for accelerator and brakes - steering is not a problem.

His car of choice used to be a Jeep Wagoneer, in the 70's because it allowed him to go to off-road places for camping.  That jeep really went to some amazing places that you normally couldn't take a car to, especially in state parks, but when the park rangers found that he couldn't walk, well, they let him get away with it.

One time, in the mid 1980's, I got a call from Charlie after 10pm.  He said he was stuck in a pond in the nearby Upton State Forest.  The jeep was still running, but he was somehow stuck and could I get over there with my Bronco and somehow pull him out?

So I throw a bunch of chains and a come-along into the Bronco and head over there, to find him and Hot Rod Ron (before he had a Hot Rod) sitting calmly in the jeep, about 50 feet from the shore in about 4 feet of water, exhaust bubbling up from the back of the car.  Charlie, of course, had this huge grin on and said, "We almost made it through, but we hit a soft spot!"    

Ron climbs out and wades to shore, saying, "I'm already soaked to the a$$ so I'll get something hooked to the frame and maybe the Bronco can pull him out?" so I drag out all of the chains I brought, he pulls the longest one behind him, wades back out the jeep and yells, "Hey! He's got tow hooks!  I'll hook to those!" and gets the chain set on the tow hooks, then wades back and we attach more chains until we reached the Bronco.  By now it's past 11pm.  Charlie is calmly sitting in the jeep but he's sitting in a foot of water which is a quarter-way up the doors.

I get the Bronco lined up, get the chains tight and then tell him, "Don't give it too much gas.  If it gets traction you'll run right into me!" and then I wondered if that was gonna do any good, but gave him a wave and started dragging him out.  Suddenly, the Bronco leaps forward because Charlie was gunning it and heading straight for my bumper but he caught it in time and stopped just as he got to shore.  Ron went over to pull the chains off while Charlie opened his door and gallons and gallons of water poured out.

I walked over and asked how he was doing and he replied, "Well, it's been a pretty good ride, so far!"

Charlie's still around, but now he has a tricked out Mini-van that lifts his wheelchair up from the ground and he can wheel around to the driver's position and drive right from his chair.  Pretty cool.  He's also working and teaching at MIT's Media Labs and working on innovations for prosthetics and mobilization for the disabled.  

And he's still crazy, after all these years.

@Gordon Nichols wrote- "Charlie, of course, had this huge grin on and said, "We almost made it through, but we hit a soft spot!"                                                          And then, "I walked over and asked how he was doing and he replied, "Well, it's been a pretty good ride, so far!"

Ok, Gordon, that's the laugh of the morning right there!   Having a wee bit of 4wheel drive experience, I can see and hear it all.  Kind of like being stuck with water/mud almost to the windshield and all you can say is "we were doing pretty good till we hit this hole!"  I'm just glad Toyota has always had way better door seals than any Jeep.

And... maybe it's just me, but sounds like beer could have been involved?

His 4-wheeling adventures are the stuff of many beers over the years.

My whole family was into snowmobiling and Charlie (who was a strapping 6' before his accident) wanted to go snowmobiling in the worst way, so we struggled him into a snowmobile suit and boots, get gloves on him and a helmet and plunked him on the back of my sled.  My dad and brother then strapped him to me front to back with a few el-cheapo cargo hold-down straps with a couple more straps to hold his feet onto the hand-holds on the running boards.  Got him all in and he then says, "WAIT!  I GOTTA PEE!" I thought about that for a second and said, "Wait a minute.......    You're wearin' a BAG!" and he starts laughing his butt off and says , "Almost got'cha, din' I?"

So my Dad says something like "Take it easy.  Remember he's fragile" and off we go.  And I DID take it easy, swinging down towards the old farm house (we lived just up the street) and off onto an old cart road into the woods and through a beautiful stand of Hemlock trees that were frosted with new snow, with Charlie repeating, "This is awesome!"  Coming out the other side of that stand of trees we entered a large flat field and Charlie yells, "YEAH! LET'S SEE WHAT THIS BABY CAN DO!" and whacks the side of my helmet.

So I figure, 'What the Hell....  Nobody's around', so we take off like a rocket across the field with Charlie yelling on the back.  This went well and we were probably pushing 40mph by the other side of the field when I went into a turn around the edge of the field to turn back.  To anyone other than Charlie, this wouldn't have been a big deal, but remember - He doesn't have control of his legs and back muscles and limited use of his arms so he couldn't lean into the turn!  All of a sudden, the weight of the sled shifted, the inside front ski came off the ground, I hit the brake and the next thing I know we're both in the snow on an overturned snowmobile.  Charlie is still strapped fast to my back.  He's laughing like a loon.  I'm wondering where the strap buckles are.  Next, I hear amongst the laughter, "I gotta PEE!"  

It took a while, but I got him all unstrapped from me, the sled back upright and got him back up on the seat.  Did you ever try lifting 175 pounds of dead weight in about two feet of snow?  Not easy, believe me - Took a lot of huffing and puffing.  Honestly it seemed like an hour, but was probably close to ten minutes.  I temporarily strapped him upright to the seatback, got his feet secured (he was good at holding all of the straps while I worked), got back on and strapped us back together and we were ready to go.

"You all set back there?" I asked, and he replied, "Yeah....  Let's do it again!"