BEAST OF A BUSH REPRIEVE....AND ROSES



Beast of a Bush In Full Bloom
  

In a previous post Beast of a Bush, I featured an unidentified bush which started as a seedling and over a few years has mushroomed in to a structure enveloping monster. This past week the strange buds have opened into beautiful star-like flowers. I still do not know its origins, but it is a native bush/tree. I am spotting them everywhere--undeveloped lots, fence rows, in forests, etc. It has a lovely faint, sweet odor, not at all overwhelming, which turns me and my allergies into tyrants in the nasal passages.

Adding to our angst this week, was a balky freezer which was defrosting water. We never decided if it was a faulty seal, faulty frost free mechanism or I had it packed so full there was not a good seal. Since I was disgusted with fooling with it, and Husband was tired of hearing me gripe, we decided to buy another.

It was a learning experience. First of all the first was a lower end 17" which I thought was all two people needed. Howevever smaller ones seem to be "low end" in features such as adjustable shelves (NONE), baskets (NONE) and adjustable door shelving (NONE). Everything was fixed at predetermined intervals.

Further there was no external drip pan! This is where the education began. I knew it did not have a drip pan when I bought it and thought to myself this is strange as a SIDE BY SIDE I bought in the same time frame I think does have. Well, according to two big box stores, any frost free (auto defrost) refrigerator, freezer or combo, does not have external drain pans now.
REASON: Because there is little moisture with frost-free units, so the moisture drains into a shallow well inside the unit which is on top of the compressor underneath. The heat that is under the well evaporates the small amount of moisture into the air inside the unit, at least in theory. Lots of theories when I was in the university doing research, did not "pan out."

Well the aggravating one didNOT evaporate and we were chipping ice out very frequently. Besides what did melt was finding a way outside and damaged the floor.

Three Mini-Rose Bushes
[I pruned these bushss to below the handicap ramp which is the
higher of the two ramps and platform that form the entire ramp.]

So we now have a newer, larger unit with some baskets, adjustable shelves, andelectronic controls on the OUTSIDE of the unit. NO MORE DIGGING around with frozen fingers hunting the temperature control dial.

Fortunately, we watch and minimally keep up a home next to us; we have privileges to use the appliances and even use it as a guest house, all of which we have done on rare occasions. The owners are in New Jersey and visit 2 weeks in Spring and Fall.

This week we have to haul everything back to the neighbor's freezer to the new freezer. JOY! JOY! Just what I love to do--freeze my fingers all over again. I may get out some old mittens.

In February I severely pruned all the roses I have had for years and mainly ignored. It is amazing how they have burgeoned almost as much as the Beast of a Bush. My handicap ramp us being invaded by Mini-Roses, Beast of a Bush and a Forsythia bush. Pretty soon I will need a pogo stick to hop over my invasive plants. I cannot emphasize how severely these plants have been pruned at the right times.



Mini-Rose in a full sun bed near an outbuilding

The Mini-Rose [right] is overtaking the climbing Red Blazer Clinbing rose. I have also transplanted a Knockout rose into this bed which is located by an outbuilding and gets full sun.

Then  my Red Blazer Climbing Rose seem to have developed some different colors, or maybe cross pollinated with something else, or even have some kind of disease. I don;t remember the purplish colors in these closeups. However, it is also mushrooming after a very severe pruning of stems from 6-8 ft. to about 1.5-2 ft.



Climbing Red Blaze Rose

I still have not gotten a night photo of all our solar lights. I need a night I feel like lugging equipment like tripods. May have to use my rollator so I can sit abit while I make time exposures. I am expeiencing a lot of SOB (shortness of breath), despite having reasonably stable control of my atrial fibrillation.

PHOTOS: NitWit1, unless otherwise attributed.

Climbing Red Blaze Rose


Below, Petals in the Straw, is one of those photos that could be portrait or landscape in orientation.
Of course I choose my favorite, PORTRAIT.










Peetals in the Straw