Click images for desktop size: "Abseits der Wege" by Michael Kutsche Gardening is just one of the many things I know nothing about.
Mindless destruction, on that, I'm pretty good and knowledgeable.
Kind of cool to combine ignorance and experience into making something that, well, works.
I've nearly finished clearing and making the sunning garden, and within my self imposed deadline. All that's left to do is destroy the huge pile of detritus and Virginia Creeper. I'm still figuring over that one. I did use some of the Creeper to add a small moat around one of the fences. There's a section that's been damaged by kids and less savory types hopping it. I'm pretty sure a four foot tangle of that nasty stuff will deter all except the determined. You can't stop them except with a baseball bat . . .
By rounded sweaty estimation I've pulled about 2.5 miles of Virginia Creeper from the ground and out of the trees and shrubs. If there were a professional tug of war league I think I'm in shape for a tryout.
(That reminds me. Once, years ago, I was in the mid-west, for reasons I don't remember.
A high school had decided to go for a world's record by having the longest ever tug of war. They were going to string a rope 3 miles over a river! It might have been the Mississippi but I think it was the Wabash.
The idea was that the losers would get tugged off the bank and tumble through 10 feet of briars and roots to land in the water. Then, I guess, we would laugh uproariously as we looked at the wet and muddy bleeding jocks.
I watched them use an old tug to drag the rope from one bank to the other. It was the first sign of trouble when a second tug had to come in and assist the hauling. It took them nearly an hour. It was a massive hunk of hemp, a good three inches thick. I pulled it and shredded my hands on it.
Soon they had two hundred kids on each bank and the contest began. The only problem was the rope
Click images for desktop size: "Synthetic Storm" by Alex Isuss was so heavy that they couldn't move it. They couldn't even stir it to raise out of the water.
I watched two hundred kids sweating and slipping while the rope barely created a ripple. The rope wasn't taught across the river it hung down in the water completely submerged.
After about 15 minutes the kids all collapsed exhausted. he rope never moving.
They bought in tractors. {Where was I that a couple of huge John Deere tractors were that handy?}
Then I discovered something interesting about hemp. When you let it soak in river water it not only gets heavier but it stretches. The tractors went about 100 yards but the rope remained resolutely submerged.
One of the reasons that playing those "farm boy" football teams was always worrisome is that those guys never knew when they were beat. For some reason the kids decided to give it another try . . . The now stretched rope still didn't move. At least this time there were some ripples. I almost cheered when I saw the rope move but stopped because I thought it would probably be misinterpreted and get me punched out. (there was a crowd of a few thousand present and people were making money selling food and drinks.)
The kids, at least on my side were really killing it. Faces were purple with exertion, veins were popping out of arms and temples. They dug in hard. It was pretty entertaining . . . except the rope refused to move. It was like watching a condemned prisoner try to dig an escape tunnel through a concrete wall with a plastic spork. I admire determination and fear the mindset that refuses to accept the impossible.
They gutted it out for a good twenty minutes as the crowd thinned out till it was just girl friends and parents. Dejected the kids gave up. I drifted away too.
I hope they just left that massive rope at the river bottom. It clearly wanted to stay there but I figure it was too expensive to just forget about. I never found out. I should have stuck around.)
It rainy today, or at least still wet, the perfect excuse for no yard work today. Its worth mentioning I didn't blind myself.
I watched a few movies this weekend. The most notable was Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate".
It was awful. Boring and dull.
I have certain issues with an admitted child molester who flees the country to avoid prosecution being allowed to make movies. And I have a silent boycott of the American distributers who allow Polanski
Click images for desktop size: "Virtual Anime" by Unknown to make money, the same silent boycott I give to the politico's who fight for the extradition of draft dodgers but are cool with multi-millionaire child molesters making a living by thumbing their noses at us all.
I can understand how messed up Polanski had to have been having his wife and unborn son murdered so violently by whacky Charles Manson and followers. I can see how that got him involved with Houston and the Nicholson crowd (not a group known for curbing its excesses) but it doesn't excuse harming a child. And all the defenses Polanski through up (She was asking for it. Her mother set up the date. etc) just made his lack of control all the more heinous to my eyes. Then to flee . . . that's not an artist that's just scum who deserves old fashioned rusty scalpel castration. Anyway this rather boring tale of Satanism was interesting only in proving the resilience of Johnny Depp.
It made me realize Depp has only made a few good and/or profitable movies. Watching "The Ninth Gate" it was hard to remember if the guy has any talent at all.