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Diary of a Boy Gardener

We are in the Berkshires, the beautiful rolling hills of western Massachusetts where the season is short and the frosts sometimes win. Visit Sally and David's Gardens and see how two old farts spend their time helping what plants they can find their place in this world.

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Location: Hinsdale, Massachusetts, United States

Retired Service Engineer. Installed and repaired diagnostic x-ray equipment. Trained and supported others doing the same thing.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Cedar Waxwing Sighting

This is not really a gardening item, unless you count the fact that David was moving loads of garden dirt from up the road down to the lower lawn where he is deleting a garden that was not getting proper attention.
So several trips up the hill with removed rocks, down the hill with dirt.
Over the big bridge several times. And twice some bird flew over that seemed to have some yellow at the end of it's tail. Turns out it is nesting half way up a pine tree next to the bridge. Had a good look and between the yellow tail tip and the beautiful black mask, David went to the Peterson and found him to be a Cedar Waxwing. Never seen them at the feeder or around and about before, but at least one calls this place home. Hope there are some good babies up there.
Speaking of which, out in the box on the vegetable garden fence the youngins are making quite the racket. Sort of disturbs mama Tree Swallow, so one backs away and then awhile later can see the little head in the entry hole looking at the big world out here. Only knows the inside of a box so far.
Enough birds, back to slave labor, moving rocks, shoveling dirt !!!!!

Friday, June 18, 2004

Code Improvement

David has gotten tired of making thumbnails and uploading them in addition to the full size picture. So he looked around and found phpThumb on sourceforge.net and gave it a test drive. It seems to work well and so it has been incorporated into the code for month.php starting today. The old thumbs are left in place for now, but come July, there will be none made nor uploaded.
Now to find something that can go thru a directory and find all the images and allow them to be entered into the database automatically.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Not for the weak

As we have said before, this gardening stuff here in our little corner of the Berkshires is not always exactly easy. This morning (which is almost the middle of June and not near a full moon) we woke up to a frost out there. I mean to say, the lettuce was white!!!
So at 5am David was trundling around with the hose spraying everything with frost on it so as to break up the microfrost droplets that are supposed to cause the damage when yea old sun rises in east and changes them instantly to Hot Stuff !!
Since the hoses were not frozen we know that it wasn't below 32F for long, if at all. But stuff sure was cruncy. As of this evening, the weary bones don't think anything actually suffered any long term effect, although a few tomatoe plants seemed to be giving us a look.......

Monday, June 07, 2004

Helpin Out anildash

Why not, eh? Helping out
Nigritude Ultramarine: anildash in the rush to prove real links and content over other means.