Gardening and Bonus Canoe!
Apr. 26th, 2011 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillGardening--
Having done some gardening over the weekend, I was apparently in the mood to continue. Well, partly it was that Alice gave me more strawberry plants to replace the ones (about half of my total) that I neglected to death last year. Turns out they're tough, but not tough enough to live for two weeks in small pots without water in August--who knew?
So I had these strawberry plants in a plastic bag in the back of my car and I figured if I left them in there in yesterday's morning sun they would bake like pies, so I took them out. Then I figured that if I was really going to plant them I might as well dig up the lasagna garden bed I used last year and the year before.
I don't have a rototiller, so that was a bit of effort--the grass had grown in from the edges and had to be chopped through and lifted out as turves. Except I rubbed as much of my good garden dirt off the bottom of the turves as possible and threw them in a pile to die. I got the bed properly open again, and planted my new strawberries in it.
Then I looked at the other bed that didn't get much use last year. It was harder to chop open, and the dirt was less good, having been mulched one year instead of two, but I got it open, went down to the hardware store, which is right above the feed store where I needed to get a new syringe anyway, having ruined the last one with epoxy--turned out I wasn't careful enough, left some epoxy on the plunger, and it glued itself in. The hardware store has plants every spring so I bought a cherry tomato and a squash and put them in the second bed.
Then it poured. When it stopped pouring, I borrowed my neighbor's wheelbarrow and chopped through last year's compost, removing the large roots where the grass was trying to grow into it, and took each bed a little gift of compost, which I put gently around all the plants, where it could help hold the water in. I still have some compost left. I should move it into a convenient spot before I start this year's compost.
If I have the energy and time I am thinking about planting sunflowers too. But that will require chopping out another bed and I don't know if I'm up for that.
Bonus Canoe
I did another round of dookie schmutzing cracks. Somehow it seems there are always a few that I overlook. This morning I sanded the dookie schmutz down, and went over the whole canoe with the fairing board. Sighting down the keel it looked hogged (where the ends of the keel line protrude deeper in the water than the middle.) To check, I taped a dark thread along what looked like the two highest spots, and yes indeed, the keel is hogged. By about 3/32nds of an inch.
I am annoyed. This is not a desirable characteristic in a canoe. I have trimmed down the high areas as much as I dare; if I make the wood too thin I will reduce the strength of the hull. The keel line was certainly not designed to be hogged, and the strongback had a smidge of droop in it that should have increased rocker (the opposite of hogging) still more. All I can think is that it has to do with how the ends of the strips in the football are behaving.
I'm not sure if this will affect the handling of the canoe or not.
At any rate, I have dampened the wood to raise the grain and am waiting for it to dry before I do a final light sanding with 120 grit sandpaper, and then put on the seal coat of epoxy. Fiberglass tomorrow if all goes well.
Having done some gardening over the weekend, I was apparently in the mood to continue. Well, partly it was that Alice gave me more strawberry plants to replace the ones (about half of my total) that I neglected to death last year. Turns out they're tough, but not tough enough to live for two weeks in small pots without water in August--who knew?
So I had these strawberry plants in a plastic bag in the back of my car and I figured if I left them in there in yesterday's morning sun they would bake like pies, so I took them out. Then I figured that if I was really going to plant them I might as well dig up the lasagna garden bed I used last year and the year before.
I don't have a rototiller, so that was a bit of effort--the grass had grown in from the edges and had to be chopped through and lifted out as turves. Except I rubbed as much of my good garden dirt off the bottom of the turves as possible and threw them in a pile to die. I got the bed properly open again, and planted my new strawberries in it.
Then I looked at the other bed that didn't get much use last year. It was harder to chop open, and the dirt was less good, having been mulched one year instead of two, but I got it open, went down to the hardware store, which is right above the feed store where I needed to get a new syringe anyway, having ruined the last one with epoxy--turned out I wasn't careful enough, left some epoxy on the plunger, and it glued itself in. The hardware store has plants every spring so I bought a cherry tomato and a squash and put them in the second bed.
Then it poured. When it stopped pouring, I borrowed my neighbor's wheelbarrow and chopped through last year's compost, removing the large roots where the grass was trying to grow into it, and took each bed a little gift of compost, which I put gently around all the plants, where it could help hold the water in. I still have some compost left. I should move it into a convenient spot before I start this year's compost.
If I have the energy and time I am thinking about planting sunflowers too. But that will require chopping out another bed and I don't know if I'm up for that.
Bonus Canoe
I did another round of dookie schmutzing cracks. Somehow it seems there are always a few that I overlook. This morning I sanded the dookie schmutz down, and went over the whole canoe with the fairing board. Sighting down the keel it looked hogged (where the ends of the keel line protrude deeper in the water than the middle.) To check, I taped a dark thread along what looked like the two highest spots, and yes indeed, the keel is hogged. By about 3/32nds of an inch.
I am annoyed. This is not a desirable characteristic in a canoe. I have trimmed down the high areas as much as I dare; if I make the wood too thin I will reduce the strength of the hull. The keel line was certainly not designed to be hogged, and the strongback had a smidge of droop in it that should have increased rocker (the opposite of hogging) still more. All I can think is that it has to do with how the ends of the strips in the football are behaving.
I'm not sure if this will affect the handling of the canoe or not.
At any rate, I have dampened the wood to raise the grain and am waiting for it to dry before I do a final light sanding with 120 grit sandpaper, and then put on the seal coat of epoxy. Fiberglass tomorrow if all goes well.
