There’s this strange liquid substance I can’t quite identify…
It’s everywhere! It combines with the dirt on the ground to make another substance I think I’ll call “mud” – we’ve got lots of that now! I wonder what you can do with it?
We’ve had sunshine for the past couple of days, which is nice, but before today it really hadn’t done anything positive about the temperature. Nighttime temps with clear skies are always frigid, but daytime temps are usually more moderate. Today it actually climbed into the fifties! Briefly.
So far this winter has reminded me of the winter of ’08-’09, when I was just always cold. That was the first “Winter of Solitude,” when I hadn’t worked out how to transport propane bottles to/from town and so in addition to living in that little RV trailer with its homeopathic dose of insulation, I was constantly rationing heating fuel. So even though this winter is at least as cold as that one was so far, I’m a helluva lot more comfortable.
Took the opportunity for a first crack at the enormous pile of backed-up laundry. Three weeks worth of socks!
The new and improved Secret Lair notwithstanding, I still kinda hate winter.
Don’t talk to me about mud… if and when we ever do get any more rain or snow, our mud is bentonite clay in lots of places, including my front yard. That’s mud mixed with super glue. I put down pea gravel in the walk ways, hoping to cover it, but the gravel sinks into the clay and the sticky mud comes right up through it. Doesn’t “pancake” quite so bad on the shoes or dog paws, so I guess I’ll have to be happy with that.
Why do we have winter? Well, so’s we appreciate the rest of the year, of course.
Four months from now I’ll be griping about having to mow the lawn weekly, but the furnace won’t be running.
Indeed… but I simplified my life even more by having no “lawn” and no furnace. 🙂
Oh come on now, ML. Just dust the walkways with mortar mix next time they’re wet, and then put down another layer of gravel after they dry out. You may have to do that a couple of times, but the new gravel will stop sinking. Of course, what you should have done in the first place is dig out the walkways, form the sides with 1x6s, put down about four inches of coarse sand, and THEN put down the pea gravel. There’s a reason that GOOD landscape contractors get paid what they do…
Wouldn’t I just love to do all that, Mark. Two problems… no money, and there aren’t any landscape contractors in rural NE Wyoming. We just have to muddle through with what we’re able to manage ourselves. At the age of 70, I’m not ever going to be doing any more digging anyway. 🙂
MamaLiberty, can you scrounge enough 2bys or timber of some kind to make corduroy walkways or long duck boards? I live in Bentonite too, been there, done that. The other thing you can do is use a specialty geotextile made to separate the underlying “soil” from the top layers but that requires money. I used it and it works. If it won’t attract critters, you could also try laying down leaves of hay bales. I’ve done that too. That should give you a solid pathway if the leaves are about 3 inches thick. Straw is too slippery when it gets wet. If you have physical limitations are helpful neighbors or children available? because anything you can do with local free or cheap materials will be better than slipping and falling in Bentonite. I don’t think it ever comes out of clothes, the clay particles are too fine. But it’s great for cooking meat and fish in, face masks, emergency bandages, a smooth temporary writing surface on the ground, chinking logs, maybe a wood preservative because of the small particle size. Bentonite is just awful to walk on. Please be careful. But you know that.
Thanks, Zelda. 🙂 Thank goodness this mud isn’t pure bentonite or there’d be little I could do. I bought bags of “builder’s sand last summer, to pour over the pea gravel where the clay came up. Then I put another layer of gravel over it. We’ll see this spring if it helped any. Not much chance of hiring any of the rest of that done, and I can’t do it myself. Had a devil of a time putting down the gravel one shovel full at a time. I’m looking at about $4,000. of maintenance and repair work to the house this year, so I won’t be spending anything more on the paths for a while. One thing I did think of was planting some creeping thyme or other ground cover along the edges to see, first if they’d survive, and second to see if they might spread out and sink roots into that mess. Might help a little.
MamaLiberty, creeping thyme, creeping Jenny, chamomile and low growing mints can probably be seeded, even in your climate, and I think they will thrive because of the sand and gravel. Starts of course would be a faster way to cover the ground. They are all walkable ground covers that spread quickly, are used in public places as well as private gardens. And they smell wonderful when you walk on them. There’s always bindweed, it’s a nice thick groundcover that grows anywhere and can be started from the smallest piece of root…JK!! JK!! JK!! Guffaw Yes I have bindweed too. My native land is abandoned stream gravels in a matrix of Bentonite with occasional sand lenses. Lost track of how many times I slipped and fell in the early days.