Yuck

I told you about the drains. I had to clean them out. We have two regards in the utility room floor, which I suppose are called "access points" in English. They are large concrete basins between the pipe sections where the drain water slows down and drops sediments.

Callie thought the smell was interesting.

So they have to be cleaned out periodically and while it's a yucky job, it's pretty easy to do. However, over the years, the pipes themselves accumulate gunk between the regards. So how does one clean them out? Manually, of course, with a pipe snake.

This is one of the regards with the cover removed. Callie is enjoying the smell.

We invested in a power washer and an attachment that snakes out drains. I used the attachment to clean out our pipes. Unfortunately, I needed to alternate between the manual snake and the power washer snake. Neither one could clear the blockages alone, but alternating them seemed to work out. So that's what I did.

The other regard. The main pipes are on the bottom; the plastic pipes you see come from the utility sink and the downstairs shower.

It took me several hours of working the manual snake through the concrete pipes and then doing the same with the power washer snake to actually dislodge the stone-like build-up inside them. But it eventually broke up and came out. Now the drains are flowing well.

This is the calcium gunk that came out of one section of pipe. Yuck.

I think that there were decades worth of build-up in those drains. I'm happy now that they're flowing more freely. I think the power washer just paid for itself.

The Kärcher power washer.

Not too far afield

Just down the hill from our house, through the woods, there's a big field that is cultivated every year. Last year it was filled with colza (rapeseed). When that was all plowed under last fall, the farmer planted a winter crop of some kind of grass. I saw him last week out there spreading fertilizer pellets with his tractor.

The winter crop looks lush and green right now.

I wonder if this grass is actually some kind of grain that will take off now that it's spring, or if there's another crop planned. I've seen wheat and/or barley in this field in certain years. I don't remember ever seeing corn or sunflowers here, however.

Once the grapes start growing I won't get down there much. The vineyard is separated from the woods where the path is by an electric fence. When there's danger of the deer eating the grape flowers (in spring), the fence is activated and Callie and I steer clear.

I made good progress on cleaning the drains. That's a job well done. Now I need to get back outside and do some more tree trimming. Thankfully, the weather is good.

Little daisies

These are starting to pop up all over. They're tiny little daisies and they're a fixture from spring all the way through summer. They're small enough that most of them are below the lawnmower's blade.

These are called pâquerettes in French.

I started working on cleaning out some of our drains yesterday. The gray water from our house drains down to the sewer system (which we got hooked up to in 2007) through three lengths of concrete pipe laid under the slab of the house. Those pipes get pretty gunked up, mainly with calcium deposits mixed with grease. Yuck.

I've been using a combination of a manual snake and a pressure washer snake to clear the pipes. It's not easy because they're "this far" from being totally blocked. I spent about two hours working on two sections of pipe on Tuesday. One section is completely cleaned out now. The other needs more work. Then there is a third.

Wish me luck. The good news is that I'm cheaper than a plumber.

Periodic Puppy Pics

Monday was a beautiful day, and the rest of the week is supposed to be even better. Callie and I took some time to hang out in the sun, playing ball and snoozing. I actually got some color in my face. Callie did some hunting for lizards. They scurry along the walkway border and she likes to chase them.

I know I heard a lizard in there. I know it.

I took advantage of the nice weather to get our outdoor chairs cleaned up for the season. Today I have a few outside chores I want to tackle. We'll see how far I get.

Trimming the tree

And mistletoe. No, it's not Christmas. Just our big apple tree that is was full of mistletoe. Huge balls of mistletoe. You can see what they looked like here (Ken's picture from Sunday). I think this tree's days are numbered. Last summer a sizable lower branch came down in a wind. The branch was at least foot thick, but it was hollow. I seen signs of other weaknesses in the tree, too.

The big apple tree with the worst of the mistletoe pruned out. It looks much better.

For one thing, the mistletoe is growing on nearly every branch. So I decided to perform some tree surgery and remove the branches with the worst growth. That thinned out the tree pretty nicely which, I'm hoping, will also reduce the apple crop in the fall. We get so many apples from this tree that they have to be picked up several times each season and composted.

Big balls of mistletoe cling to the cut-out branches. The tree just behind this pile is another, smaller, apple.

We have three other apple trees on the property, all smaller than this one. I'm working on pruning them down as well. By the way, here's a photo of the big apple tree from last summer when the limb came down:

Cleaning this up required the chainsaw.

Pruned

A curious thing happens during the grape vine pruning season out behind our house. The parcels are owned by several different growers. Many of the growers are out there themselves pruning their vines. A couple of them burn the trimmings in barrels as they go. The others line the trimmings neatly between the rows and then come by later with a mulcher attached to a tractor and grind them up.

A pruned grape vine covered in frost.

The grower with the largest parcels has employees who do the pruning. In some parcels, they line the trimmings up between the rows, and he drives his tractor over them in late spring to grind them. But in other parcels, the pruners simply clip the vines and leave the trimmings hanging there. Later, itinerant workers go through and pull the trimmings off the rows and line them up for grinding.

This photo is from one of those parcels where the vines are trimmed and left hanging.

Looking forward to lettuce

These are the new lettuce sprouts. There's romaine and escarole. My plan is to keep one of each of the two plants per container. When they're big enough, I'll plant them outdoors under a cold frame (in case of frost). I'm hopeful that we'll have lettuce to eat in May.

One of two trays of little lettuce sprouts.

After these get planted, I'll put some more seeds in these containers to get a second crop going. Let's hope that we don't have any more hard freezes!