Farm Tours Restart

Welcome back for more tour of Vicktory Farm & Gardens! Didn't mean to let nearly a year go by. Today we will be strolling in the Barn Garden and talking water and weather, hope you wore your boots. Anna could run to the kitchen and get some bread sacks to go over your shoes but those stilettos your friend there has on definitely won't do.

In the scheme of things this garden sits west of the house, I can see parts of it from my new big bedroom window (the lilac hedge blocks a full view). In past posts you have seen the South Pastures that sit just west of the Barn Garden and share a pond, and in Hang Out Spots tour you saw the yard that is just the other side of the east boundary fence for this garden.

Let's get started, come off of the driveway here and come through the gate in Dirt's special fence.

You'll see a lot of plastic 5 gallon buckets around the Farm, they come in super handy. I use them to pick up my weed piles so I can throw the weeds to the chickens, easier than a wheelbarrow I gotta get up more often than a wheelbarrow load or I won't be able to unkink my legs.

There is a little strip of garden that separates the driveway from the main Barn Garden. We'll come back to that at the end.

For now we are going to go on through this second gate, gate way actually, because the gate is old and needs fixing. This walk way is rather muddy because the rain off of the big barn roof comes through here and out into Barn Pond. This issue is in the process of being solved, unfortunately it isn't at the top of the list.

I do a lot of ditching around here, no the "d" is correct, I dig a lot of water ways. I'm a hydrologist. The biggest issue about keeping someone out of the garden early in the year in the PNW (Pacific North West) is water and soggy soils.

This is what the soil looks like this time of the year when it gets walked on. Not a good look for garden soil.

That is the reason nearly every gardening area here at VF&Gs is a raised bed that has hidden electrodes around it so that you get blown to the next county if you step on the bed. Well, not really but a girl can fantasize about things, can't she?

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A raised bed is one of the basic season extenders here at VF&G, one I wouldn't do without. We make them simple. No treated boards, no plastic "lumber", no concrete blocks (the poison they all leach has a way of undoing that home grown goodness plus they harbor slugs, bugs and fungus) just a three to four foot wide bed not much longer than twenty feet (otherwise you find yourself cheating and jumping the bed to get to the other side). They are sometimes straight and other times they go with the contour of the landscape. We employ them not only in the "vegetable" gardens but also in the ornamental gardens as well.

The soil in these beds is nice and fluffy and can actually pass the soil lump test just fine right now, if you took a similar sample of some other areas like the lawn or the market garden strip in the pasture rotation, it would not pass the test for a couple of months. It is also warmer than soil that is all soggy and wet because it can't drain.

Being able to get into the garden at this time of the year is a real bonus, and in spite of my being slightly jealous of those areas that get real snow and ice for winter, it is why I love living here in the PNW. With a few season extenders PNW gardeners can produce food for most of the year. So yes, our tomatoes are a challenge and fresh corn is barely a month long treat but if well attended to, a PNW garden can provide very well.

It also allows for gardeners to stay ahead of weeds. I suppose that ice and snow has a damper on weed growth but being able to weed during the slower growth months of winter really helps this procrastinator stay ahead, okay, a few steps behind the weeds.

Winter weeding is an art all to itself. I should tell you all about it soon. I hope you noticed a specific pattern to the little garlic plants coming up, it is called equidistance planting.

But for now lets look at another season extender, my cold frame. It sits just to the left and forward as we came through the last gate (the gate way). The area around it is trying to find itself, the beds just in front of the glazing side is becoming Bet's herb garden area but this funny spot back here is having some serious identity issues.

Here is the front glazing side of the cold frame, it is oriented exactly to the south. Not necessarily always the best choice, sometimes it is better to catch the sun a little earlier and orient it slightly to the east, but when you only have one and you can't make decisions well, you go with normal and average sometimes just to get the job done.

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There are some things inside, lets lift the lid and see.

A few flats of last year's left over onion seed, onion seed like just a couple other vegetable seeds is only really viable for a year, but I hate throwing things out so I went ahead and dumped the packets into flats just to see what I could come up with. And I think the showing was worth my trouble. This week I will be seeding flats with this year's main crop of onions and in a couple more days these guys in here will be ready to come out and head to a garden bed. Most likely in the North Garden.

So this is the view looking west from the cold frame area. We rather went crazy with the garlic this year. It will be interesting to see just how much we really need to be planting. Even though Dirt eats lots of garlic, with the varieties we end up growing he doesn't eat as much of it as when we get it from the market. So it will be interesting to see how sales of garlic go this year and how much we really need to plant. Yippee I am so excited about our new adventure. But we'll talk more about that later.

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For now let's go over and look at Bet's two new peach trees.

The names escape me at the moment, I'll get back to you on that in the morning here, They are semi dwarf and won't get much over fifteen feet or so. Bet says she is looking forward to coming out here with a good book and a saddle pad and taking her breaks from work under her peach tree, she has a few years yet before that vision actually fleshes out but I love her patience and I admire her faith. I now understand what it means to have the gift of faith, Bet has it. In spades. About absolutely everything.

Here is the other peach tree, the two trees line up with a spot she has picked out for some other trees. They are semi dwarf and of course deciduous, so the fact that they sit in the center of the garden isn't a real problem. The sun will climb up in the sky before they have their leaves and there will only be a lovely dappled shade underneath them, just perfect for somethings that can't take the heat of our dogs days of summer, five days in August.

This is our hoop house made from livestock panels. It has been a lot of things, a gourd arbor mostly, a cold greenhouse in the late winter/early spring and a great spot for the mums to get their early boost if it is a super cold winter.

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Most recently it served as a chicken coop so that Bet could separate out some of her breeds. It may be that again soon. There is supposed to be a chicken coop built along the west wall of the barn, it will serve to keep the water from the base of the logs of the barn and house Bet's breeding stock but the Hot House/Market Shed complex comes first and then we might collapse for a month before we tackle this project.

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If stock panels weren't so stinkin' expensive at the moment I'd have more of these, I'd anchor them a little differently, but this one was hard to do because there is a concrete slab we were spanning with the hoop.

Standing up here at the hoop house and peach trees looking south we can see Bet's duck house. It finally got its front doors on and so the ducks got kicked out of the big barn and now Bet comes out and locks them up out there at night and lets them out in the morning.

They were being pretty good at staying on their side of the fence until the last couple of days. Something will need to be done to keep them from coming in here and pulling up the garlic and onions. They seem to be attracted to the green, go to pull it out, taste it as they are pulling it out of the ground and decide they don't like it. Unfortunately Bet hasn't successfully trained them to replant it!

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They really like their pond and they can wander all over on the other shore and up around the turkey pens but they seem to like to dabble in my garden this time of the year. I think its the green shoots of the garlic, I haven't seen much signs of slugs and other treats, besides if they are in here the slug and bugs are also out there.

Bet and I have been doing a bit of research about dealing with grey water, specifically the water from processing poultry, for when we apply for our license to process. We have come across some interesting info about cleaning water by running it through bogs planted with cat tails and some other specific water plants.

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The heavy stalks in the water in the center left of the above picture is a little colony of cattails. I am really drawn to cattails and would love an excuse to have a larger planting of them up around the Barn Garden.

The boggish place just to the right of this fence line has been filtering and dealing with the grey water from the farm house every since there was inside plumbing here. It is a great system and rarely puts off an odor, some compost piles smell more than our little un-designed bog.

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The pond just beyond the bog supports bull frogs, cat fish, occasional escapee trout, and the ducks of course appear to thrive here. Not to mention the resident river otters and beaver clan along with clearly healthy pond side flora.

Here's a view from the far southwest corner of the Barn Garden. The fact that the majority of our grey water has its own system and doesn't go through the septic makes our septic all that much more healthy. Besides in a septic system the grey water would pretty much end up doing what it is doing right now. Go through a soil/plant root filter before eventually ending up in the pond.

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It is all so freakishly green I can hardly speak of it. Funny, things on farms were green long before now and old farmers knew how to protect the water and soil supply. They didn't really need the Birkenstock, or black nail polish crowds to tell them how to take care of the earth that they depended on.

Here is a big view of the south west side of the barn and the hoop house. In the foreground is one of the gazillion weed piles. Lots of my weed piles, stuff the chickens would rather not eat or just the stuff that is more than they can handle, are cold compost piles.

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They eventually rot down and no, the weed seeds aren't burned up, but man that takes a heck of a hot pile and I'm just not that into doing that at the moment. The hot compost will come when we have to start dealing with poultry offal from the processing. But as for the weeds, I'm beginning to think they aren't so stinking bad, I really feel strongly, come 'round July or August especially, that we actually ought not to weed any more. But that's a discussion for another day. Right now I love weeding.

And I love tossing the weeds to the chickens so that Bet doesn't have to put alfalfa in the hay rack that you see the hens sticking their little head in (the bluish green square on the right half of the coop. This is the winter housing and where the breeding stock hang out. In the summer the eggers and the meat birds head out to the pasture and will become an integral part of the pasture rotation that we will be incorporating this year. MiG. Managed intensive grazing. Making the most of less land. And something Dirt and I are very excited about. But... you guessed it, we'll talk about that another day.

If we turn around and look east we come across my aronia berry bush. I have some more up at the nursery beds that will be coming down here this month during transplanting days.

I have no idea yet if this moon signs planting business is really effecting the plants and bugs and weeds (there are days for dealing with everything!) But it sure is doing a good thing for making me get stuff done and not get sidetracked with a bazillion jobs all at once. I need a way to keep me focused or I end up not getting anything finished because I am doing too many things.

A better view of Bet's herb beds in front of the cold frame, the bright green little tufts off to the left of the picture are her chives, a lavender and a sage is just beyond that.

The bed between that one and the cold frame is filled with lavender starts from a plant that I rooted in place by heaping soil up around it and in the middle of it. Each branch then became a rooted plant. It is a great way to multiply several different types of shrubs and herbs especially when they have been neglected of seasonal pruning and get all out of shape. A "do over" of sorts.

These are a examples of raised beds that are not straight. I would like to do more large gardens with not-straight beds but that will come later in my life I think. Right now I just like to get it done and get them planted. Soon I will have more time to shape and have fun with different geometrics in the garden.

These big lumps here on the far left are not more weed piles, they are my enormous comfrey plants that if I have time will be busted up this year and dispersed through out more areas of the farm. Comfrey is an amazing plant in the apothecary and out in the garden. Its huge leaves are great in the compost and add some really good extra nutrition, because of deep roots it can pull up lots of minerals from the sub soils.

I can't think of a plant that doesn't like to be near comfrey or have its big leaves as a mulch during those five hot days in August. It is another great bog and pond edge plant and has tremendous water filtering abilities. It is just simply a must have plant.


This for me is a dreamy view. I like to look far across the pond to the other bank and the white barked aspen. To me they are like the paper birch in the painting by Carl Larsson of his family picnicking or the one where they are fishing. Sometimes I like to think I live in Carl's world.

This is the little gate way and walk that Bet takes to let her ducks out. This spot is also in need of an identity and restructuring, something I hope Bet and I can get to and get into process later this spring or at least by early summer.

We turn around and head back for the gate by the barn. Our raspberries here on the right on the fence line await their annual trimming and tying up session, hopefully this year I will get to it before the leaves are out, that makes a tough job tougher. I'm utilizing a bit more of my wonderful black weed mat, Water goes down through but weeds are really discouraged from growing and it is even impervious to armor piercing quack grass.

On the right side of the weed mat walk way you can see a couple of step in black plastic posts. Those mark where I think I want some climbing roses to go up over some hoops toward the raspberries, forming a arbor-ed walkway here. I like secret little walk ways and such so we'll see. The fence post in the fence line are old creosote and I keep the raspberries back from them for the most part but I would like to move the raspberry operation some place slightly less toxic entirely.

As we head back out the gate you can see the walkway, between the barn wall and the chickens, becomes a holding place for my mums in pots and the fruit trees awaiting their new home spots.

Sometimes I get a little crazy with the old and makeshift things we've got going on here but then most of the time I just embrace the character of it all. And then, I am thankful that God has placed me here and not in a modern home on an uninteresting, history-less plot of land.

Like the stories this little garden by the driveway holds for us.

Some where in that center bed lies the first casualty here on VF&Gs. A murdered sheep was buried by yours truly about our second or third year here. Back in '88. Dale's flock of sheep had come out here to live but not before the pet lamb of the wife of one of his worker fellas had been mistaken for a locker lamb. So after the flock had been here a while Dale dropped off a sweet little Cheviot to hang with the group, replacing the mistaken identity lamb.

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Well, sheep are flockish, and they did not accept her, She spent most of her time many yards from the flock, she ate separately from them or after they were done and had moved on she would come and clean up the leftover. She was excluded from coming in the barn to get out of the rain or the heat.

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Then one day it was particularly rainy I was glad to see that she had obviously gotten to go in out of the rain because she wasn't in the barnyard. But when I looked over the door I didn't see her. Well this is turning into a long story and has nothing really to do with gardening so I finish it up later.

Along with buried sheep and my second oldest's pet goose being buried in here, down by the lilacs there, was where the out house stood for the former resident and now neighbor and old work buddy of Dirt's. All another long story about just how small the world is and confirmation on God wanting us here.

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But as for the outhouse part, Dave says that when he left home for the Korean war the out house stood right about where the lilacs are or maybe a little over to the right where the path goes out onto the lawn. But when he came back there was a new addition on the house and indoor plumbing.

Well that's the end of the tour, long one for such a small space, you can come in and take advantage of the indoor plumin' if ya need to and you can stay for a cup a tea ifn' you'd like. I gotta get on with the hallway project but you can pull up a chair and keep me company while I paint.

Several Posts In One

Did it rain a little the last couple of days?

This is a walkway, not a pond.

I know we don't have nearly the rain trouble here at Vicktory Farm and Gardens that some others in the state do. I know that a swamped walkway and a water covered pumpkin patch and some soggy chickens are not a mud filled house. I am thankful that we live on the head waters of a small creek where the beavers take advantage of it and the low lying hay fields (well what used to be hay fields before the beavers moved in in the sixties) and not on the flood plain of a large northwest river.

Hey Anna, that'll leave a mark.

Yesterday, Bet, Anna and I went over to visit Kathy and see her new batch of Visela-Lab pups. Guess who came home with a funny looking chin?

It was hard to go over for just a quick visit. Kathy and I haven't sat down to solve the world's problems in a long time, and boy the world has gotten into a lot more problems since we have had time to talk. Not sure we could catch up with them all even if we tried. We went through two pots of tea and I still had to push myself out the door.

It was a very pleasant way to spend a rainy afternoon. I love the rain, it feels good, but it was starting to get to me a little.

Well that is not a gate worth anything!

Dirt built this gate from old barn boards quite a while ago. He has made me some beautiful garden structures not to mention some beautiful and functional indoor items too. But old barn boards, while very cool looking, are already closer to the end of their life than the beginning so sometimes they have a hard time hanging on to their nails after ten or so years.

All better now.

With a little whappy whap here and a little whappy whap there, I have it fixed.

Fluffy, stay out of the chicken garden!

This gate separates the backyard proper with the chicken or barn garden. Right now it really is the chicken garden because when it rains hard like it has been their coop becomes a sloppy mess, some little farmer feels sorry for them and lets them out.

Fluffy is learning to deal with chickens being where they are not supposed to be. But I like it better when he can't get into the chicken garden area. If the chickens get into the backyard proper, then I can't really blame Fluffy for taking after them. I feel the same way.

Didn't actually plant the garlic in the ground like I expected to today, but boy I got some major weeding in. Now the beds are ready for the garlic. Tomorrow I'll spend some time planting but then I will be doing some more fall weeding, lots, lots more weeding.

I love to weed. It is a time for me to just chat and listen to the advice of my Counselor. The Holy Spirit. He had a lot to tell me, I was especially needy of a good talking to today..

The other day I started reading the book of Acts. I'm not about to say that it is my favorite book but it is action packed that's for sure.

Mostly I have been wondering about how the early church viewed the Holy Spirit, remind myself of how there was no apparent formula for some things like being filled with the Holy Spirit, believer's baptism, gathering of the believers, giving... lots of stuff running in my head.

So I came across two things. I'm sorry if I am about to bore the more scholarly and better informed of my dear readers and if you have something else better to do, go ahead and skip on out, it won't hurt my feelings, I know this is rather elementary.

In my NIV study Bible (I know, I'm such a heretic), while reading through Acts, I came across the timeline of Paul's life. I didn't realize that the Pauline Epistles were not put in the order that they were written. I knew that the Old Testament was not necessarily in chronological order but I had no idea that the Epistle of Paul were out of order.

I got a lot out of a study of the OT where I read the Books of the Prophets and the books of Kings and Chronicles in chronological order. So I figure, what the heck, it could be a groovy way of looking at some familiar things, and maybe it would bring to light some previously hidden things.

The other thing, nothing to do with the chronological thing, really the more important thing, is some words of St. Stephen from Acts 7:51. It shouted at me and so I thought I would leave today's record here:

"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit."

If I resist the Holy Spirit's leading am I not one of the stiff necked people, with uncircumcised heart and ears? Resist the Holy Spirit. Resist, not deny, just resist. Resist. What all do I not want to hear, not want to do, not want to not do? Here, we'll go a little farther shall we.

"Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?"

Was there?

"They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him--you who have received the law that was put into effect through the angels but have not obeyed it."

I'll be thinking some more about that. Good night dear reader.

Sittin' Around?

No time to sit around. Which is probably a good thing considering the state of the weeds around and under this bench.

I love irises.

Am I Always Apologizing? Sorry, I Guess I Am.

Rank weed growth. That is what I came home to. I was already far behind in my gardening efforts because of the Romantic Influenza, okay and who I am, add to that 8 days actually gone, one day packing, one day baking, and there were just to many weeds and mayhem for my mind to handle when we arrived home. So I have completely ignored and therefore failed in my blogging, I suppose not completely failed, there were a few times when I guiltily remembered that I wasn't writing, and at least twice I opened my computer, stared at my apple-blossom screen, woke with a start to a blank screen instead, closed my computer and purposefully went to sleep.

But I press on. Determined to be a better blogger. This of course reminds me all to well of the large stacks of nearly empty journals I own. If I cared to look at any of them, not today, I am trying not to be sidetracked for at least a day, I am sure I would find no more than 10 or so entries in the"fullest" of them. But then there are far more yellow note pads scattered lovingly about the house in a non-incriminating manner full of random writings amid grocery lists and sketches of garden plans or redecorating ideas. So although I understand that blogging is akin to "journaling" I need to view this whole thing as nothing more than a yellow note pad. I am going to ignore the fact that every blog post is dated, very few in my stack of journals are ones with dates pre-stamped, I learned early on that those were the ones that were only going to have four or five entries total. Interesting that some people are encouraged, built up, matured by the very things that kill... alright, hyperbole caught... cripple or stunt others.

I have a matching set of check registries to go with my journals. When I kept a check registry I had the most beautifully handwritten, truly complete registry. For ten days worth of check writing. Which for me usually equaled ten calendar days. Dirt also does not keep a check registry and really never has. The key difference is that he knows within a few dollars how much is in our checking account at any given moment (as long as he sees the size of my shopping bags or the amount of green leafy things in the back of my Exploder). It is bizarre and mind-boggling to me how he can do that. I couldn't even manage a decent guess and if I try I am hundreds off. Which is why he never asks me how much I spent for the day and just looks instead because I always think it is far less than reality. I would like to believe it because I am an optimist and not because I am a knucklehead. But in reality knucklehead (okay, twice now I have spelled knucklehead, knicklehead) is the origin of such nonsense and nothing like a noble attempt at optimism.

Here though is to my blogging endeavors (see me raise my coffee cup slightly to the left of my keyboard) and to you my dear friend who desires to read this silly stuff I think of. May they, my blogs, always be as consistent as we both can stand.

Weeds And Paths, And No Weeds in Paths, Hopefully

Argh. Okay, you have probably surmised from previous posts that I am subject to confusion. I don't mind weeds. In fact, sometimes I cultivate herbage that most people would consider weeds. But in certain places I can't handle them. In some places instead of delight and wonderment they cause irritation, frustration and mild depression. As for instance, our five-eighths gravel drive needs to be weed free because that particular gravel is not a carefree medium. There are some applications of pathways or walkways that "spill over" say of nasturtium is welcomed or when determined columbine, nigella or sedum is allowed to sprout, root and grow. Then again there are some applications that cannot tolerate such wanderings. We have established that five-eighths gravel in a driveway is one of them.

The other is the dry river bed thingy that everyone is doing and that I have succumbed to. Albeit I have put a twist on mine. But that is a later subject. Now I am not against a large clump of something spilling over the large rock edge but the center of the "dry creek bed" must be free of greenery or else it will look like a creek that clearly had gray water waste infiltration from some lady who used a high phosphate detergent and was not very environmentally friendly and the excessive greenery probably had something to do with choking out the natural flow upstream and that is why it went dry . Sometimes green isn't always green.

So now that we have established that there are some applications where I cannot abide by weeds no matter how interesting or the jumping of beds by cultivated plant life, let's also establish that I am a messy do-er. Whether it is in the kitchen, the garden, the craft room, anywhere, I can whip up a mess that is larger than the target product. My mom used to say of even my cleaning projects, "Lanny, you make a bigger mess than you are cleaning up." Yep, that's me, in just about anything. But I do eventually get the place tidied up and a product produced but there is that intermediate mess that those who stumble on to me mid-project are usually surprised by, shocked by.

I have realized late in life, perhaps too late but who knows, maybe not, that if I can possibly not make such a big mess I don't have such a lengthy clean up. There are also times when you really cannot clean up the result of your messiness. One in particular would be in gravel driveways and rock paths where dirt has spilled. Weed control mats work only if you keep the dirt on the underside of the mat and the gravel or rock on the top side. Yes, somethings will grow in pure gravel or rock, but not for long and they pull out at the mere suggestion to leave. But if there is dirt, for get it, Much like Satan they have a foothold. One they will not readily give up. So the only way to prevent herbage gaining a foothold in gravel or rock, you need to keep out the dirt. And that my dear friend is easier said than done for a messy do-er.

So today when I needed to weed along my yet unfinished creek-bed walkway, it's waiting for more rock and some sand, I had to come up with something that would keep the inevitable lump of dirt from landing amid the existing rock on top of the lovely black weed mat. Dirt, my husband, and I have often had issues with my getting dirt, the soil stuff, on his lawn, which he hates. So I will take the time to put down a tarp or sheet of plywood or cardboard on the lawn while I make my hole or take out a strip of sod or whatever. I needed to apply that low level technology to my current problem. Elisabet was a good scout in her dad's garage for me and came up with a sheet, that we split down the middle and a chunk of clear plastic.

There is still the black weed mat showing because all the path material has not yet arrived, so I took extra precaution and tucked the edge of the "drop cloths" around the lip of the black mat and weeded to my hearts content. You know, I really don't mind weeding. It is true what some people say, it is therapeutic. Just one more evidence of Romans 8:28 in my book. Satan means to harass and depress me with the inundation of weeds in my garden over the short span of a couple of lost weeks. But instead God gives me the chance to work some things out, get some needed time in with him, and get a good close look at the soil structure and some things I might need to deal with. Not to mention feeling accomplished over my "invention" of a weeding technique.

Amazing how that can all work out. Something else I just now touched on that I really need to let you know about in case you are a struggling side-tracked nut job like me. The use of children as go-fers. It is a necessity for me to have my children around when I am doing a job. If I had left my job site to go fetch a suitable "drop cloth" I would have begun to organize my husband's garage which would inevitably lead me to another job, and another job and yet another job, never making it back to my original job until dark or even the next day, maybe not even then. I wonder what will happen when we marry the last one off. Well, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow. " Just know that if I have accomplished something, anything, it is with great help, usually from one or more of my beautiful, generous daughters and so I am always thankful for them.

And now look! no large lumps of dirt in my rock path! And except for the time spent thinking about a solution, tucking the drop cloth into place and moving it along in front of my work it really didn't add that much time to the whole job and the job looks better right now and later, when I don't have a bunch of weeds growing in the soil on top of the weed mat.

Thanks for hanging in there for my big explanation of my new trick. I am sure Martha will have it on her show this week saying that she has always used this method. Don't believe her ! I came up with it on my own!

Be a Total Killer or Not At All

You know sometimes I'm just not sure who I am. Like today, I had finally had it with the weeds in the driveway. Driveways should either look like a country lane or be impeccably free of weeds. Even though I live on a farm and my driveway is pretty long it will never be a country lane, five eights gravel will never look like a country lane. But that is a whole different subject and my husband says five eights so five eights it is. I just have to deal with what bugs me and attempt to remove the weeds.

Now mind you I do not try to weed the entire driveway. That would be ridiculous. I just want the stuff up by the house weed free. My garden isn't even weed free but the driveway must be because it is a weed free look - five eights and all. So that said, let me get to my confusion and my question, who am I?

I don't usually load up a sprayer and go around spraying everything in sight. For the most part what comes out of the end of my sprayer is what my husband would refer to as my hippie-veggie concoctions. A little pulverized tomato leaf goes a long way when you are dealing with black spot and garlic will send the aphids to the neighbors a half mile away. But the driveway weeds have never responded to my oldest daughters famed vinegar weed-killing solution.

I have succumbed in the past to using a little Round-Up. I used to distain the use of it till a hippie-type chemistry guy assured me that once the Round-Up hits the ground it is nothing that "ain't natural". Around here the weeds and grass will climb up over your face and suffocate you in your sleep if your not careful. So, in non-garden or non-pasture areas that need to be weed free I have on occasion in the past used a little Round-Up. Trust me I only use it sparingly and only a few time a year. Granted I do sit down while on the phone and gab and pull driveway weeds a few times on top of the spraying but those are usually the crafty ones that hold their breath when the RU comes around. So honest, just once or twice maybe three times in a good/bad year.

But then that is where my dilemma comes in. Call me paranoid but I like to keep the weed killing stuff in a totally separate sprayer from my hippie-veggie stuff But then that means that I have a sprayer that I use infrequently. Which wasn't too bad an idea until it did the typical modern plastic thing and broke. It didn't really out and out right break, it is just that the rinky-dink gasket it came with finally got to rinky-dink to do its job. Granted I did not spend a good deal of money on this sprayer but it wasn't for free either and now I am faced with buying another one cause I just don't see the hardware store having replacement parts for rinky-dink sprayers.

But who am I and should I be buying a better sprayer for killing when I am just and occasional killer?

You know what I dream of when I have to spray my fruit trees (all organic good stuff)? To have a commercial sprayer that I could hook up to a pressure sprayer. That would be nice. I'm getting old, that whole pump thing can really get me. Okay who am I kidding I never liked having to pressurize that stupid little two gallon bottle that is just going to go dead again, all too soon. So maybe I should just become an out right killing machine and by the super max 550 automatic sprayer that sprays 500 feet and just get it over with.

"Everybody gets dead, it was just his time"