Remember when I wrote on this blog about my wish for an audiobook walking club? Well, I have talked to at least one person who is interested in walking with me while we listen to our audiobooks separately so that feels pretty great!1 I have a renewed interest in audiobooks lately which is helping me make headway into my bookclub’s September selection.
This month we are reading The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. After listening to it on Cloudlibrary for about two hours, and getting myself established in the book, I have found that I actually like reading this one more than listening. Now, I am primarily reading this one and it is going well. It is the story of a small-town midwife in 1790’s Maine. It is part historical fiction, part romance and part mystery. Martha, the main character has a strong voice and the story provides something for everyone.
It reminds me a little of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, which is high praise indeed. My only regret is that I did not get started earlier. At 488 pages, I am going to have my work cut out for me this week because my Kindle tells me that I am only 55% of the way through reading it and my book club meeting is this Thursday. I will have to tell you later how I do, if I get through all of it or not. I think that I can finish, I just need to put in the time this week to complete it.
Perhaps, I was distracted last week because I recently checked out Revenge of the Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell at my library. It was published in October of 2024. I was excited last year, when I first heard about this book. Then I got busy with other things and forgot about it for a while, which might have been advantageous for me because when I remembered that I wanted to read it this year, it was actually on the shelf.
I was a big fan of the original The Tipping Point when I first read it in 2007. I also loved Gladwell’s books: Blink, Outliers, and David and Goliath. I read some of them obsessively.
I have never however listened to his Revisionist History podcast . I am not against the concept of re-examining history and how we tell it. I didn’t pursue listening to it because for a while Malcolm Gladwell was everywhere and that made me less interested in what he had to say. And that is how I felt about Malcolm Gladwell for a while, I felt like the sphere of media that I was paying attention to was over-saturated with his brand or his brand adjacent things.
Maybe I changed. Sometime around 2021 I took a purposeful break from the new. These days, I mostly listen to music on the radio now whereas I used to listen to NPR regularly. I took a break from infotainment podcasts. I do not really listen to podcasts very often anymore and maybe it worked.
This book has re-invigorated my interest in the Malcolm Gladwell and his type of pop sociology writing. Maybe, it is because the title, The Revenge of the Tipping Point, is a reference to his first book which I found to be exciting and novel when I first discovered all those years ago.
I am going to say it, my obsession with Revenge of the Tipping Point, has kept me from engaging in my book club book. I have been walking2 and listening to it and I even considered listening to it last Thursday on headphones while I was going yard work.
I have been trying to get some house stuff done this fall.
Which brings me to my next topic. . . I have a landscaping project going on right now.
About fours years ago, we had an extremely overgrown perimeter area around our house. When we first moved in more than ten years ago, there was some nice landscaping around our house. There were a few bushes and open expanses with mulch. Then we had two boys in quick-ish succession and everything got overgrown. So we paid a landscaper in December of 2021 to come in over two days and clean it up. Afterwards it looked great! (I alluded to our landscaping help in this post from 2023 about my raised bed clearing project)
Since then, I have tried to maintain it with weeding. Sometimes, I am better at remembering to do the weeding than other times. My Dorney Park adventuring and early summer Tracker exercising, kept me away from any attempt at controlling the weeds this summer. So lately I have been spending sometime trying to take back the perimeter our house from weeds and unintended plants.
In the past, I used tarping to kill weeds and to take back my raised bed after leaving it uncultivated for several years so I decided to try that with the perimeter of my house. So far, it has worked in the parts that I have covered, waited several weeks and uncovered. I still have a few more expanses to cover and work on.
Here are some areas that I have been successful with removing the weeds from.
Here are some areas that are currently tarped.
Here are some areas that I have yet to cover with black plastic and will hopefully work on this week.
The things is, I am but a baby gardener. I am only an egg. I am fairly dependent on the internet to tell me the next steps in the weed removal process. In theory, once all the beds are cleaned, I am going to order mulch and cover the perimeter area with a fresh infusion of woodchips and things. That’s why I found this handy Mulch calculator to tell me how much to order.
However, veteran gardeners and landscaper veterans: Do you have any tips or pointers about how to not get so many weeds in the perimeter area around our house in the future? I am very open to tips and tricks. Thank you in advance 🙂
Here is my next question for gardeners and people who cultivate the land:
I plan on cutting the weeds in my raised bed garden with an electric string trimmer and some sort of hand clippers. Afterwards I plan to also cover it in black plastic and leave it that way for many weeks or until spring when I will removed the plastic and the dead weeds. If I get this raised bed cleared this fall, I have the idea that maybe I could plant garlic or something that can grow in cold weather, thought I did not really research how to go this yet.
My question for experienced gardeners is: Is there a better way to do this? How do you keep your raised beds from becoming overgrown if you forget to plant things one year?
So anyway, I guess want a solution for a way that I can prevent myself from having weeds that seem to be taking over my house every few years. But I don’t know if that is possible. Gardeners, what are your thoughts?
Reply in the comments below
1Also grateful to the people who like the idea and want to body double while we listen and people who just want to walk with me.
2 I might have to reconsider my audiobook and walking only fitness regime, I recently
Uncle Jim always uses covering in our garden over winter – it really helps keeping the weeds at bay. He uses rubber mats that he gas from where he used to work-uses them every year / he likes yo recycle and reuse. It’s a good idea to try that with your raised bed area/ cut tall vegetation and cover for winter / great idea to plant some garlic – it’s fun to see it poking its head up early in spring
Thank you Aunt Heidi! Reusing mats really sparks something in my brain. I do have something that I think that I can use to cover it all. What does he use to cut down tall weeds and small trees. I have some hand clippers but they aren’t that sharp. I learned that you can rent electric shrub trimmers from Home Depot. I am going to see if that would work after I trim the bushes around our house.