Why I Oughta...

Beginning in Spring 2022, I have talked about installing a second yard hydrant in our backyard featuring a self-rewinding hose reel.  I included it on my 2022 to-do list and failed to install the post and reel in 2022.   I carried that task over to our 2023 list and put it at #5:  install a second hose reel .  I had the hose reel for more than a year, so it was simply a matter of installing the post to hold the reel. This is the third of these reels that I have at the house - the first one is in the garage .  The second one is about half-way back attached to our fence .  This third one is planned for close to the spigot.  I have historically used a loose hose to water the patio containers.  I thought this upgrade would keep things a bit more tidy.   Ahead of digging the hole, I called J.U.L.I.E. and had them mark any underground utilities.  In the photo below, you can see the red line for electrical underground.  And the orange stake is where I wanted to dig the post.  All clear.  I c

It seems that September is when we get a big flush of growth on our front yard Bald Cypress tree.  This year is the second year in a row when I've been able to catch (and document) the new, happy feather-like needles that show up in a big, late-Summer blow-up.  Here's last year's post on the same subject .  The last time I posted a photo was from July when this tree had new Summer-time growth . Here - below - is a look at the big, feathery "pom-poms" of growth that are currently sitting on a bunch of the limbs and branches.   I used "pom-poms" because they are sort of little balls of growth on the edges that remind me of pom-poms. And, here below, is a look at the full tree.  It has really grown big and strong this season and comes in close to eight or nine feet tall by my eyeball. I haven't measured the caliper of the trunk, but it is sizable - and way up compared to what I measured 18 months ago when it was less than 1.25" .  I'll get the

Back at the end of May, I posted about how I was trying to sort out my yard hydrant situation .  With our yard being so deep, I needed a way to get a hose about half-way back that would allow me to water everything in the rear part of the yard.  Last year, I solved that (kind-of) by burying a rubber hose underground from the house to a location about 100' or so from the rear boundary.  There, I stuck what is called a "Yard Hydrant" in the ground and called it a day.  That yard hydrant had a place to hold a big mess of hose and had a spigot that would allow me to turn on/off the water from that location.  The problem was that it didn't make using or storing the hose any easier.  And with the Automower in the backyard, I ended up having a sliced hose because I never got all of the hose off the grass.  Hence... why I posted about this project in the first place .   This project made it to my 2019 To-do addendum list , so we can begin to cross that off.  I have a

Inside of our garage, we had a hose bib installed during construction that I intended to use to water inside the garage, on the driveway and out front of the house.  But, when we actually started to use the hose in this area, it quickly became apparent that we had to be thoughtful in terms of where/how we stored the hose.  At first, I considered something like the (highly regarded) Eley hose reel with a traditional hose.  I came across it from Laura on Garden Answer in this video .  But, in thinking about how much the kids are involved in the hose (watering the flowers, playing with the water, etc), it seemed like if I wanted the hose to end up wound up each and everytime, I was going to have to find a self-retracting hose reel.  GeekbeatTV ran a review of a retractable hose reel from Flowmaster that seemed right for us.    Our Home Depot sells the same Flowmaster reel but under the Gartenkraft name .  And after it came home with us, it sat in the garage for a month.  Then I figu