Everyone needs a "hooptie"

Our favorite niece in West Tennessee, SaraNan, has a name for an old beater of a truck that has seen better days. She calls it a "hooptie."

To be a hooptie, a truck must have more than 100,000 miles on it (200,000 is preferable), a faded paint job with a little rust, a loud engine and either a gun rack or an ugly white dog riding shotgun. I chose the dog over the gun rack.

My back-to-the-land vehicle is a 1989 4-wheel-drive Chevrolet Blazer. It has a new 350 cubic inch engine with a rebuilt transmission. A repair shop did the engine and transmission work for the truck's previous owner, but the poor guy lost his job. The shop got a mechanic's lien and sold the truck for the cost of repairs. Basically, I bought the engine and transmission and they threw in the truck for free.

The odometer reads 82,000, but I would bet on either 182,000 or 282,000.

On the front bumper is a 10,000-pound winch that will come in handy pulling trees out of the sinkholes in the back of our property.

One of the "accessories" Willie and I enjoy the most are the front vent windows. When is the last time you've ridden in a car or truck with those babies?

As soon as I get a seatbelt rigged up on the passenger side, I can take you for a ride.

We're once again flush, so to speak

The saga of the peptic septic is over. We are back together and draining nicely.

The problem was a T-connection at the start of the drain field. I now know more about septic tanks and drain fields than I had ever hoped.

Washing dishes in a dishpan, taking sponge baths and visiting nature makes one appreciate indoor plumbing. Now, maybe I can write some more about places where the sun does shine.

Mystery of monstrous rose bush solved

In my post of May 23 I told you about the gigantic Cecile Brunner climbing rose that I managed to eventually destroy with my pruning technique. The rose bush (shown in a 2006 photo) was the largest one I had ever seen and full of fragrant flowers.

As it turns out, our septic tank leak was only about three feet away from the roots of the rose bush. So, putting 2 and 2 together (make that No. 2), we see where the vigorous growth was coming from.

We had the tank pumped yesterday, and I'm waiting on some help to start the repair.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." -- Romeo and Juliet

The rewards of patience: $33

Patience is a commodity I've never enjoyed. My modus operandi normally is see, get and go.

This gardening thing I'm doing may be having some positive effect on my psyche. Take the galvanized watering can in the photo above. We needed one on the lower level of our property, so on my last trip to the garden store I grabbed one and headed for the cash register. I almost accidentally looked at the price on the bottom of the can. It was $40? That's forty dollars! I turned around and put the can back on the shelf. My plants didn't need watering that bad. I told Betty of my non-purchase.

Several days later she came back from Big Lots with what looks to be the exact same watering can. It was $7. That's seven dollars!

I figure I'm $33 ahead. Maybe more than that.

Oh, my peptic septic

If you live in the country for long, at some point you will have septic tank issues. My day has come.

After some gurgling from our lowest toilet on the first floor, I removed the top of the septic tank pump-out pipe in the front yard and was met with an odorous geyser that forced me to throw away a pair of shoes. The tank had been pumped out less than six months ago, so I knew this was more than just a "full house."

I called a friend who has septic-tank experience. He came over and gave me the bad news. He surmised the tank is plugged at the baffle leading to the drain field. The tank has to be dug up, at least so the top can be lifted off.

Take a good look at the nice green spot under the fence in the front yard. I'll be renting a backhoe soon and digging in.

I don't know much about septic tanks, but I guess I will be learning. I did learn after many years in the newspaper business that everything flows downhill.

Check back in 20 years or so

The Cecile Brunner climbing rose pictured in yesterday's post was probably about 20 years old. The photo here is the replacement Cecil Brunner I planted today in the same spot.

After I dug out the old roots, I used the best compost from my private stash to plant the rose. I mounded the dirt to accept the roots just like the instructions said.

The Cecile Brunner is an antique rose first cultivated in 1881. All I have to do now is wait . . . and fertilize, water, prune.

Welcome back, Cecile Brunner

When we first saw the front, back and side yards of our Deerfield house, it was obvious that what had once been a nicely landscaped lawn had been let go. Butterfly bushes were growing out of control. Natural rocks which had been used to line flower beds were scattered hither and yon. The forest was encroaching on the porches and decks.

My first order of business in 2006 was to start whacking, and whack I did.

One of the casualties of my chain-saw pruning technique was a glorious Cecile Brunner antique climbing rose growing on the split-rail fence in front, shown in a 2006 photo. We identified it by the tag on the huge base stem. It had taken over much of the front yard, and though its fragrance was strong and sweet, the rose had to be cut back. It had grown to a height of more than 12 feet. Fast forward to 2008 and Ms. Cecile Brunner, roots and all, is dead.

Betty bought a new Cecile Brunner, and I'm planting it today.