Simply brutal!

     Since 1970 I put in over 200 railroad ties in my gardens.  They generally last from 20 to 30 years, so this year I figured 60 ties needed replacement.  I hired some people to do most of the heavy lifting, but I still had to do a lot of hard work.  Ties, seven inches by nine inches and eight feet long, weigh 180 pounds.  Many have to be cut, and I usually use an antique four-foot cross cut saw.  After I broke the handle, I resorted to using a chain saw.  I don't like using it as it gives a rougher cut, and I can usually only get 4-5 cuts before the blade gets dull, probably due to the creosote in the ties.

Looks good enough to eat

    
  Well, I'm not going to try, having virtually no knowledge of mushrooms.  These sure are strange, lasting only one day, two at the maximum, before turning to mush.  If anybody knows the name of them, I would appreciate it.  I never saw this mushroom before, growing in one of my roughly 300 containers of moss.

All because of tires

     Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens is in Akron, Ohio.  It was built by the co-founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company between 1912 and 1915.  I was there in early May, too early for many flowers, but the mosses were quite the scene for me, a moss aficionado.  I primarily visited it because it has a Japanese garden, where mosses are commonly used, at least in Japan itself.
   Stan Hywet roughly translates from Old English to "stone quarry" or "stone hewn."