Everybody Staze…

The weather today lent itself quite well to yard work, which is nice as we still hadn’t cleaned up the mess from the wind storm earlier this week. Tara started with just raking up the driveway, and we quickly moved to spraying the moss on the walk way with iron (a good, low impact, way to kill moss). Then on to pruning our maple in the front yard. Normally, pruning japanese maples should be done either right after leaf fall, or in mid-summer. But, we’re impatient, and I figure since we’re sealing the wounds, bleeding should be minimal.

We removed about 1/4 of the total foliage I would guess. But, I would say after 3 years of doing this, we now have a maple that looks presentable (at least skeleton wise). We will have to see what it looks like once it leafs out.

Acer palmatum dissectum, Summer 2008

You might think it looks spartan (below image), but given what it used to look like, a giant blob (gumdrop, right image), this is a huge improvement. This is more what you would expect from a japanese maple you’d see at a Japanese garden somewhere. I’m no expert, but I know the basic theory of removing crossing branches, parallel branches, branches that move directly toward or away from the viewer, and opening up the structure to allow the viewer to admire the structure of the tree. We also removed or trimmed branches to keep the leaves off the ground when it does leaf out (this was an issue last year).

Overall, the goal is to produce a tree that looks like an older, larger, more mature version of itself or similar tree.

Acer palmatum dissectum, Winter 2010

Not sure if we succeeded, but we do believe it looks better. My only hope is that we didn’t open it up so much that we get bark scalding during the summer, but that shouldn’t be an issue since it will be leafed out enough by then, as well as the fact that it barely gets any direct sun anyway. We have Douglas fir’s that shield it from the south sun. It gets a bit of late evening sun, but that shouldn’t be an issue either.

Also pruned the Rhododendron next to the lamp post in this picture (it was rather blob-ish). This should cut down on the aphid infestations it gets during the summer. Aphids tend to dislike airflow. Also gave all the rhodie’s in the yard a spray of iron to help with chlorosis.

I’ll try to remember to post some more photos once the maple leafs out and we see how it looks. So, expect more on this in about 4-5 months. =)

Acer palmatum dissectum, Summer 2010

UPDATE: Here is a picture of the maple after it has leafed out. You can really see how the width has been reduced from the 2008 picture above. You can see the trunk line in the image as well as the first branch comes off at just about the perfect height (it’s a bit low, as it should be at 1/3rd of the way up the tree, but it’s not bad). While it needs a bit more refining, it’s pretty close to where I’d like it to be from now on. I also need to clean up a couple wounds on the tree. I’ll need to get some concave cutters, and hollow out the stump and seal up the wound. Hopefully I’ll take care of this during the summer. Try to get some “cut paste” to seal the wound, and make it match. There is a hole in the canopy that can’t be seen from the front that needs to fill in as well, since heavy sun on the wood of a maple like this can cause scalding, and the death of the branch. I’ve wrapped it with some trunk wrap for now, hoping that it won’t burn before the hole fills in. All and all, it’s taken 3 years to get this far, and from now on, it should just be simple maintenance. I think it should look even better once the new mulch rots a bit and turns “black”.

This weekend has been pretty good, and pleasantly (un)eventful. Got the yards mowed, pruned front tree (we call it “the ugly tree” because it leafs out late, drops leaves early, and has little leaflets that don’t rake up because they’re too small), a Gleditsia triacanthos inermis, or Thornless Honey Locust. The interesting thing is, this year is the first time the tree has flowered since we’ve lived here. So, it must be healthier than it has been. We’ll see if it sets any fruit. =/

I also planted some Glycine Max, or Edamame (variety Misono Green) in a raised bed. I planted 6 plants, hopefully I’ll get some nice Edamame out of it. =) I’d love to try making Tofu. Here’s some info on growing beans in the Valley: OSU Extension.

Work has wound down at this point. At the J-School, most projects are due dead week, and there are few finals. So, most students will be gone next week. Which means I should be able to start on my summer projects. I’ll probably start building a new image from scratch starting tomorrow.

Progress with AppleCare has kinda stalled. I ran some software they wanted, and got them more info. At this point, sounds like a 10.5 fix is unlikely. Hopefully we’ll see a fix in 10.6, but they can’t tell me one way or the other given Apple’s rather over zealous policies given unreleased products. We’ll see what happens. At this point, I’m looking at implementing NFS home directories as a short term “stop gap”. We’ll see how that goes… right now, I can’t get it to work at all.

Tomorrow is the WWDC keynote. My boss is betting we’ll see the new iPhone, the 3.0 iPhone OS, and possibly even 10.6 (or rather, a release date for 10.6). The rumor sites are saying a new beta build will be released to attendees… perhaps the last before GM. Who knows… I’d love to update to a new phone, since mine has been really laggy the past few weeks… but, I’m hoping 3.0 will help with that. I think the 2.x OS could use some help with memory reclamation after exiting an App. =/

The weather here is supposed to be fairly mild the next week. I’m hoping to get a bunch of yard work done before it warms up again. I’ve been trying to the last 2 years to remove the Morning Glory (Convolvulus sepium) from the yard. From reading online, it sounds like it’s nearly impossible. You just have to continually remove it. Unfortunately, it sounds like it’s pretty efficient at food storage, so just a few leaves can replenish food stores.

This is a pretty good PDF on Invasive Plants in the Willamette Valley: Remove Invasive Plants.

More later… maybe once I have some progress on NFS Home directories at work I’ll post again.

So, after my last post, I figured I’d give an update on that issue as well as other projects for the coming weekend.

As to my last post, there’s cautiously good news. My Apple SE escalated the case to AppleCare Enterprise, who have been very good about gathering the needed data, and keeping me updated as to the status of the issue. So, this last Tuesday, after a weekend of running with 10.5.7 and having a really crappy day Tuesday of trying to make things work, I decided I would downgrade back to 10.5.4. Well, after 3 hours of wiping the two servers, and installing 10.5.4 and things looking good, the next day we still had issues. Better, but not by much. So, I heard from AppleCare Enterprise that day (Wednesday, which I took off), and I got him the info he needed that night, and Thursday. Today, seemingly, Engineering thinks they have a fix. Bad news is, it might not make it into 10.5 but rather 10.6. But, they’re going to try. So, goodish news on that front.

Also for the past week (since 10.5.7), we’ve been having issues with a program called KeyAccess. Basically, this program allows us to “key” an application, and install it on all the computers in the building, then a server piece basically keeps track of how many instances of the programs are running, and keeps that inline with how many licenses we own. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. Job would be extra impossible without it. So, 10.5.7 comes out, I install it in 4 labs, and things seem to work. Only, I only tested on Intel Macs. On the PPCs, KeyAccess doesn’t launch on the client, and therefore applications won’t run. So, I email the company that makes the software (Sassafras Software, Inc), and tell them what’s up, and we think we have a fix, until the next day, when it’s still happening. At that point, I email back, and they say they’ve also had word from another location having the same issue. So, at home I email back and forth with one of their people who is 3 hours ahead of me about the issue. I send some logs, and some ls output, and he basically says they’ll try to work on it in-house the next day. So, next day, I’m working with them, and they get some more info, and finally get the issue reproducible in house. Today, they send me a new build that seems to work. Say it’s a timing issue (not sure quite what they mean by that, whether it’s coming up before networking, or whether it’s not syncing with the server)… so, 2 days, bug fix. Gotta really love small companies (I’m guessing they have probably 12-15 people, at most).

On the home front, we planted a medium sized Daphne ordora ‘Marginata’, which is a “typical” winter daphne, in the space formerly occupied by the very unhealthy Rhododendron (which, I placed in a pot, and is doing much better now). Hopefully we’ll have some nice, knock you on your ass, daphne to smell come next February.

Blueberries are doing about the same, though they seem far less impacted by the warmer weather we’ve been having recently than they have in the past. Be that the mulch, or the older plants, I can’t say. But they seem VERY happy.

This weekend is probably really going to be a fair amount of cleaning the garage, yard work, and various household tasks. I’m going to weatherstrip the front door, maybe trim the door so it’ll clear a rug, which also means changing the threshold. I don’t think I’ll be doing the PRV, but I might try to at least dig the old one out so I can tackle it next week.

Oh, btw, I got some new pedals for my bike. They’re Nashbar (http://www.nashbar.com/) Highlander Pedals, which are rebranded Wellgo WAM-D10′s (Review: here). They’ve got a nice big platform for normal shoe riding (with great spikes to bite into your shoes) on one side, and MTB clipless on the other. So far, I’m very happy. Previously I was using the stock Shimano clipless pedals with plastic clipless platforms, which sucked. Now if I could just get my saddle to not kill me. Oh, and btw, the Nashbar version was $30. The Wellgo ones are $50.

BTW, my bike is a 2001 Bianchi Volpe. I’ve replaced the Saddle with a more comfortable one, the pedals (now), and the tires with some 28 x 700 Gatorskins (hard, but smooth and nearly puncture proof).

That’s all for now… maybe I’ll post more this weekend.

So, last week before leaving for Portland, I fertilized the blueberries again. They’re looking quite nice, though I’m still confused why only two are flowering. My hope is that with some judicious pruning this winter, we can get them all flowering (from reading, flowers are borne on 2 year old wood, so it could be that there’s just too much young wood on them. *shrugs*). Then yesterday, we went and picked up a yard of doug-fir sawdust. Turns out, this was way too much. So, we now have sawdust about 3-4″ thick under the berries, as well as all the way to the fence. =P Oh well, it should really keep the weeds down, and will certainly make the blueberries happy.

Now I’m reading up on lawn care. The front yard at our place looks the best it has, well, ever. It’s extremely healthy, very few weeds, and all and all very nice (bit of crab grass, but I hope to take care of that soon). The back, on the other hand, not as nice. TON of weeds on the north side, I’m guessing due to the lower light levels. So, I’ve been trying to weed-n-feed there. Hopefully that too will work.

We also finally got around to removing the very sick/dying rhododendron that had been planted next to the front door (in a built-in planter). It doesn’t get any rain in that location, and because of the make-up of the planter (mortar, bricks, etc), it was probably WAY too alkali for it anyway. I put it in a 25gal nursery container with a rough 70/30 mix of peat/perlite, some acid loving osmicote, and a good drench of Superthrive. Hopefully it’ll perk up. The one that was sick and dying elsewhere on the lot I did the same thing to last year, and it’s extremely healthy now.

Tonight I’m going to double the RAM in the web server/file server/energy monitor, etc. Hopefully everything will work. I tried turning on mod_deflate on the system yesterday, and was dismayed by the performance. I hope to just enable it on some of the stuff I’m working on that will be a lot of data (further using google visualizations for power use, which 3 days of data would amount to 700KB uncompressed).

Mac OS 10.5.7 came out yesterday while I was getting sawdust, and I’ve installed it at work. So far, so good. They said they fixed some error with Dvorak keyboards, but I never noticed anything. My hope against hope is that it will fix the longterm issue we’ve had with AFP crashing on the server. Somehow, I doubt it.

This month will be the first time I can check my utility bill against the TED. I’m hoping it’ll be close… I really don’t want to have to call the local utility company to check my meter, though a newer digital one would be sweet. PGE up in Portland has been going around replacing analog ones with digital ones. I’m somewhat jealous.

At work we’re writing up a proposal for what amounts to “grant” money to offset probably budget cuts this coming year. I’m really really hoping to get 1-2 servers out of the deal. 2 servers would let me switch all critical systems over to Intel Xserves, and jettison 5 original Xserve’s. 1 server would let me upgrade the mail server and implement CalDAV. I would still need to dual purpose a machine to take up the slack from not getting the 2nd server… so, I’m hoping for 2. Mind you, this should also lower our power usage.

That’s all for now, since I can’t think of anything else.

Links for future reference:
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/ec/ec1521/
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/details.php?sortnum=0616&name=Lawns

Back when we had gotten our bid accepted on the house, but before we had moved in, the previous owner had let Tara and I come plant some blueberries in the yard. We planted 6 of them, 2 3y old bushes, and 4 2y old bushes. That year, we didn’t do what we were supposed to, and remove the blossoms, so they produced the first year. Last year, the didn’t really produce at all (they were exhausted), and this year, only 2 of the bushes are really producing flowers.

But, this year, I’ve started fertilizing with Ammonium Sulfate to see if I can re-awaken them. They look extremely healthy, and are growing quite well, but just don’t seem to produce flowers (except the two). =/

At this point, I think we’ll just have to deal with the fact that we’ll only get two bushes worth. But, since this is the 3rd year, this winter I will need to prune. And, low and behold, the only reason I like Oregon State (=P) is their Botany/Horticulture programs.

Caring for Blueberries in a home garden: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/ec/ec1304/

Hopefully with the fertilizer, and the fact I think I’ll add some doug-fir mulch this year, I can get them nice and happy(er). Hopefully the mulch will also help with the weeds, but we’ll have to see. Now if I could only find a good source of Doug-Fir sawdust…

UPDATE: http://www.laneforestproducts.com/products/?product_id=275 or if we want something less “sawdusty” in color: http://www.laneforestproducts.com/products/index.php?product_id=9 (should have a similar PH).