Modular Cardboard for Mulching

We had a pair of pet possums at home in Moline.
They are supposedly great tick eaters,
and ticks are a problem in this area.

Sassy and I sat down for a time with John and discussed birds and those times he saw me and I did not notice (Walmart Supercenter, one mile away). We usually slow down, honk, and wave at his house, so he and his wife can wave back.

We had a double-load of cardboard boxes in the front yard, which was covering up most of our remaining lawn. Mrs. Ichabod did not approve of storing the cardboard there, so I moved it this morning after Sassy's walk.

I doubt whether we will get enough cardboard to cover all the areas I want this fall, but we keep trying. This time I finished the second small garden adjacent to the bedroom, on the West side of the house. The cardboard was wet from yesterday's rain, so it was easy to tear and flatten out over the grass. That will give us a good planting area almost free of weeds next spring. But certain weeds come back more often than Ben Hur and King Kong put together.

Cardboard is a great modular mulch. Winds can pick it up a bit, but that is nothing compared to newspaper flying around. Both materials are almost the same, but newspapers get wet faster and dry out very fast. Cardboard is heavier, opaque, and gets heavily unmovable after a rain.

Bugs and worms love newspapers and cardboard. When either form of cellulose stays outside wet, the pile hops with crickets, crawls with ants, or attracts other critters.

The top layer of mulch will be leaves, grass, or evergreen needles. If we run out of weights to use, my collection of dead wood will also work for starters.

Mrs. Ichabod asks, "What will you do with the Wild Garden?" That was the first cardboard and leaves treatment, last year in 2015. Some of it plants itself, with Wild Strawberries and Pokeweed moving in, the two extremes. Wild Strawberries form a carpet of food under the perches of birds. Pokeweed grows in the shade, in the sun, over six feet when allowed, content to form little plants in the cracks of the sidewalk, where they also flower and fruit.

I began planting in the Wild Garden this summer. Almost Eden give me a couple of Daylilies that will tolerate the shade and spread. I also bought a row of Willows, which will grow rather tall and provide a pleasant looking screen to hide the quirky backyards of our neighbors. I just realized - it will hide my yard from theirs, too.

Sassy has various ways to tell us, from
whimpers to songs to scratching my arm.

We love the way the forces of Creation take over with a little nudging - not that these forces are slack. We cleaned up the area around the air conditioner fan, to prevent the grasses from sheltering slugs again. The reason? - a slug shorted out the AC on the hottest day of the year last year, a holiday. After a few months of watering the gardens, that wet area has gone green, grassy, and weedy again. I am picturing another disaster on a Saturday night or holiday, so I used cardboard mulch to deny anything green a chance to grow there.

Yes, slugs will still crawl across the soggy cardboard, but they are keen on climbing green things to reach new vistas. I got King Slug on my t-shirt one evening, when I leaned over the bushes in front to turn off the faucet. That was the biggest tiger slug I ever saw, and I have seen a lot of them. I was wearing him around inside the house when I looked down - wow!

Our Army Ranger landscaper on the corner has converted to cardboard mulching. He has raised flower boxes, which have favored the weeds a little more. Water drains from a slope or raised flower box, as it does from hanging flower pots. Weeds will grow up anyway while the roses are short the water they need and robbed by the weeds as a second insult. However, the layer of thick cardboard with wood mulch on top will preserve the moisture better, block most of the weeds, and encourage soil microbes and earthworms.

Mrs. I says, "Is coffee made yet?"

The Chief Article Deniers Are Doomed. UOJ Stormtroopers Just Like the Radical Left

The ecclesiastical world can be divided into two groups.

I. Teaching Justification by Faith Alone.
II. Denying Justification by Faith Alone.

Those who locate forgiveness of sin in Justification by Faith Alone are found in Protestantism, but not among all Protestants. As the Emmaus Conference has shown, the LCMS-ELS-WELS-ELCA faction suffers from leaders who reject Justification by Faith Alone.

Fuddle-mentalists are likely to be in the second group as well, because they add works that must be added to faith, in order to be forgiven and saved. I walked out of a Church of Christ (rural Disciples of Christ) service, with LI, when the minister glared at me and shouted during the sermon - "Faith alone is not enough." Rick Warren (purpose-driven) is quoted as saying the same. No wonder Warren is so popular among WELS clergy.

"Don't compare me to Webber!"

The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics teach against Justification by Faith Alone, but some indivuals may be in those groups while still holding to the Scriptural norms rather than denominational dictates. That is the power of the Word, to lob the concepts over the heads of the apostate leaders, who try to block them, and teach people directly.

The true blue members and Pharisaical priests in each denomination tend to be as snooty, snotty, and loveless as the WELS-ELS-LCMS are, because they share one concept in common - the worship of Holy Mother Sect. "We are the only ones who...etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc..."

On the other hand, those who emphasize faith in Christ have a common love for the Gospel, even when other issues get in the way.

The Chief Article is plain throughout the Bible. Abraham is the example of Justification by Faith Alone, in Genesis 15, Romans 4, Galatians, James, and Hebrews. Through faith alone, the sinner becomes forgiven and saved, receiving the blessings and Promises of the Gospel.

This Chief Article is the Master and Prince of all the articles of our confession, the judge of everything else. Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and Gerhard taught this with perfect clarity, but the Halle Pietists have sought to overthrow this ancient and blessed doctrine of the Bible.

The UOJ Stormtroopers continue to look for
that iconic Biblical passage that proves their folly,
and they never find the target.

UOJ Stormtroopers Just Like the Radical Left
Those who deny the Chief Article have the same corrupt disposition, because they share the characteristics of the Radical Left:

• The opposition must be silenced.
• If the opposition cannot be silenced, they must be hated out of the sect.
• If they cannot be hated out, they must be exiled.
• The punishment must continue - shunning, silence, and revenge against their families and friends.
• Everyone must be afraid to mention their names.
• If their names are mentioned, some gratuitous insult must be added to befoul the air.

Many are nodding their heads right now, because WELS-ELS-LCMS-CLC-ELCA have proven this to be true. The only honest sect among them is ELCA, because they boast about their dogma and their agenda. The others hide their evil unbeliefs and work gladly with ELCA, holding their sanctimonious noses while grabbing the insurance loot.

Pope Herman Otten loves to work with "conservative" Roman Catholics, the ones who really believe in Purgatory and the 435 titles of Mary, as if Theotokos were not enough. Otten apologized to WELS when I correctly pointed out the WELSLavender Mafia while reviewing the Roman Catholic book, The Rite of Sodomy, by Randy Engel. I received a free review copy from Engel of Vol 1. When I asked for Vol 2, after Otten threw himself on the mercy of WELS, she failed to answer my email. Perhaps she was busy with her endless series of books by that title.

Weakland headed a series of public lectures at Wisconsin Lutheran College, WELS,
and the sect scrambled to deny, deflect, and obscure that fact.

Just for background - note this extensive Engel article about RC Archbishop Weakland, who was the chief speaker among a group of priests at a public event promoted by WELS' Wisconsin Lutheran College.

And - just after Otten prostrated himself before WELS and Professor John Brug (CN front page, no less), the FBI raided WELS headquarters for harboring a boy porn file swapper, their own Joel Hochmuth.

In WELS, Bivens plagiarizes Zarling - braying
that the Chief Article is Justification Without Faith.

This deserves to be emphasized - Bivens, The Primary Article [UOJ] in Its Primary Setting: Objective Justification and Lutheran Worship.

Lutheran?

That is why the Chief Article deniers are doomed. They want their meadow to bloom while planting, watering, and fertilizing thistle seed.

WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sects (CLCs included)
have turned No Other Gospel into their closeted blasphemies.