Fawns And Stuff

Spotted in a neighbor's front yard recently:

Judging by size I guess they were born in the most recent batch.
Taller than cats, but not by a whole lot.

While daytime deer sightings are common, unguarded babies are another story.


If they are munching people's gardening they're obviously weaned and mama must have decided it was time to boot them out of the nest:
Too bad mama didn't school them on the dangers of the 'hood.
I was doing yard stuff, then creeping close for pictures, and the expected fear response never kicked-in.
Kinda worried about these little guys...



While navigating Blogger to make this post I noticed something odd on top of my dashboard:
I cropped it tight, but this is actual size.
WTF does it say?


Let's crank up the browser's magnification to 300% and see if it's legible:
Crap...
I hate the new Blogger interface.
It reminds me of the time I tried using Wordpress--not a good experience and I never could get either one to work in a logical or error-free manner.

Hopefully the bugs have been killed by now.

Snake In The Grass

And not just any grass--this is Raliegh St. Augustine, the finest grass known to man.

This is the second checkered garter snake I have caught this Spring. Compared their markings, and it's clearly a different individual of the same size, so they are possible litter-mates.

Getting back to the grass...dude...I finally understand why Hank Hill got all emotional over his Raliegh St. Augustine lawn.
I have around 25 square feet ($1.59/12x18" sod) next to the front porch and it blows our regular St. Augustine all to hell.
THICK carpets of grass with wider blades that lean towards the blue end of the green spectrum rather than the yellow--just beautiful stuff!
Even the saddest 2 pieces of sod that I bought a week later, from the bottom of the pallet at Home Depot, have come back to life nicely and are already impressive.

If we ever win the Lottery, you can bet your ass a crew would be here within days to re-do the whole lawn with Raliegh.
Grass so good, it's endorsed by Luann Platter®

Low Carbs

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I got my lawnmower repaired at Blanco Fix-It.
(Just north of Basse Rd.)
It was running rough and dying, and after I ruled out a clogged air filter and old sparkplug, the only thing left is a clogged or worn-out carburator.
After 6 years, a rebuild seemed like a good idea anyway.

All the small local shops got terrible reviews in my limited Googling, but Blanco Fix-It got raves, so it seemed like a smart choice.
I was impressed by how many mowers and weedwhackers I could see in the just-dropped-off area, and by the huge number waiting for pickup.
The parts shelves area was pretty big, too.
I figured there must be ten people working there, but when I asked the owner today she told me it was just her working the front, her husband fixing the mowers, and a third person handling the weeders.
It was a pleasant surprise when she called me 2 days after I dropped mine off to tell me it was ready. Terrific service. Just DON'T lose your ticket!

After 10" of rain from Tropical Storm Hermine, my grass and weeds really needed some work:

They replaced my almost new sparkplug, rebuilt the carb, and thankfully replaced the priming bulb which had gotten rather soft and didn't work too well anymore.
Well worth $55 in my book.
The nice lady also told me the dirty little secret of small engines.
Would you like me to share it?

75-80% of their business is due to people using old gasoline, and by old she meant more than a week out of the pump!
She said it starts to break down, and damages the carb diaphragm and other parts.
I'm not sure if I buy into that all the way, but on the other hand, why not?
What I did on the way home, on her advice, was stop at my gas station and fill the tank enough for this week's cutting, then put the other couple of dollars in my truck. (It helps that my Dodge takes regular unleaded just like the mower--my old Honda Prelude only took Premium).
I'm going to pour the remainder of my gas can into the truck, too.
Then I'm going to buy the smallest gas can they make.
When it's time to cut grass again I'm going to put around 10-12 ounces in it for the mower, which is enough to cut the front, back, side, and alley.
I'll let you know it it extends the life of my carb in around 7 years.

The severe damage from two years of drought is almost healed.
Where there's grass, the dead spots have filled back in.
Where there are weeds (I call it ground cover to make myself feel better) there's solid weeds with no dirt visible anymore.
Luckily, the "ground cover" is in the rear of our huge backyard, so you really can't tell when looking out the window--it's all a lush green expanse of barefoot friendly goodness.
I'm really glad we have St. Augustine because whenever the rain returns it sends out runners to reclaim territory, then always succeeds in dominating the weeds.
Always liked it better than Bermuda or Fescue, because it's an Alpha grass that takes no crap from anyone.
The clover patches got choked to death in July. I'm the only witness and am keeping my trap shut.



I'm officially an old man now.
Nobody else would talk so much about mowers and lawns and think it was interesting to anyone else.