I managed to get the pair of door locks for the FMT in the mail so the first thing I did today was install those. It turned out to be way easier than one would expect. The lock mechanism is held in by a U-shaped clip and snaps to a linkage that hooks to the rest of the lock mechanism. Funny thing when I went to open the doors I found out the damned things were both locked! Luckily the vent window was open on one door so I was able to open the door. But anyway, I went ahead and worked the passenger side door, pulling the clip out.
After pulling the clip, I worked the lock mechanism out, snapping it free of the linkage rod. Quick. From there I took the new lock and put the gasket on the piece and worked it in the hole in the door then snapped the linkage on from the inside since it was easier to do things this way. From there I snapped in the clip to finish things up. I tested the lock successfully, then moved on to do the same on the driver's door. With the FMT's door locks done, I moved on to the garden. There was an old apple tree that had leaned over a long time ago but was still alive. Well as time progressed the tree started getting to the point where more and more of it was dying off, which would show how these trees are actually a grafting of several branches on a parent plant. Well after cutting off all the dead branches and pulling up some weeds that intertwined with the branches, I was left with a former shell of a tree with only three living branches remaining on the tree. There's a good probability that this tree will end up being pulled up later in the year or next spring if it doesn't come back enough. A new mindset that I've had lately with plants in the garden is the idea that I won't save plants just because they're alive. If they aren't producing or are so far gone as to not look like they would have a chance of coming back then I'll pull them up. This includes trees. As is the case with this apple tree, if those few branches don't show signs of coming back then I'll pull the rest of the tree up more likely next spring. Until then I'll give this tree a chance to possibly come back. Another little thing that we did was set up a hanging basket with some strawberry plants inside. Since the porch is currently gone, the ole lady planted a hook in the ground next to the staircase that can accommodate two hanging baskets. She hung the strawberry basket on the hook then installed a self watering globe that holds approximately 10 oz of water. The unit is supposed to allow water to trickle out into the soil, keeping the soil moist for several days, maybe up to a week, depends on the temperature and level of humidity. The unique thing about that small piece of apparatus is that if it works pretty good for this hanging basket, I may consider adding several of these things or maybe something of a larger size that can accommodate a larger quantity of water, for things like the bucket or barrel raised beds where I don't currently have the micro irrigation system running to yet. This would allow us to keep all of the raised beds hydrated in our absence despite not having many of the beds hooked up to the irrigation grid yet. With that the last order of business in the garden was to finish filling up the last barrel raised bed that I made last time. I only had about a half a bag of dirt within so I only needed to put one full bag to top the drum off. After putting the dirt within I was able to plant the last two sweet potatoes that I had in one of the flats we recently picked up. With that I have three barrel raised beds next to one another with sweet potatoes in some grade-A dirt. Hopefully they'll produce good with the investment in quality soil. As we continue to get more done in the garden, I can start looking at things to do in the garden that are more infrastructure related, such as expanding the micro irrigation or making the concrete foundation for the compost bin, which is by the apple tree I just cut up. These are the things that will make the garden a more functional system just the same. Even finishing up the dog kennel greenhouse will add to that functionality. The more we get done in the garden and elsewhere around here, the more you will see here. Until the next time....
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