Absolutely! The kahakĆ (there is no âsâ in Hawaiian; plural is demarcated through the noun marker ânaâ or a quantifier) adds stress - and thus strength - to the vowel. In your case, clearly an outward stress against the soil was required.
Rember, all the umlaut does is change the sound, no matter which way you stick the impacted vowel in the ground!
Eric
Thanks Eric. I did notice the umlauts from Umlauts-R-Us kept emitting a faint âeewâ sound whenever they contacted the soil, as if they were mildly offended and immediately in need of a shower.
Itâs also good to know kahakĆs are strong enough to survive volcanic soils. I assume they come at a premium?
In the mean time Iâll try Kormâs advice and plant my fancy umlauts upside down ŐÌ€ or double up UͧÌ.
Metal & plastic stakes are surprisingly expensive and quite obtrusive, so I am using bamboo plant stakes and wired them together with bonsai wire. The idea is that I can control both sides of the edging and keep it from riding up during the build. It worrked well for The DĂRR PART 1.
They hold the garden edging down until the soil settles, then can be pulled or left to rot.
I cut a number of wooden blocks from the sleepers cut-offs that were left over from the vegetable garden bed build.
They space the right of way.
I am using vegetable garden mix sandy loam for the garden and the garden railway it settles, holds, fast but allow roots to weave their way through the soil.
Once I get the spacing, and level correct, I use the stakes and make a slurry to tamp in place.
It is kind of like building a sand castle at the beach, but with much more swearing.
This section pictured here has been the most labour intensive as both sides of the edging came out of the groundâŠ.
âŠand I am at the maximum length of my level, so need two to get this section finished.
Once I have the spacing correct I pour a bit of the slurry in between the edging strips then try to butter the other sides with the sandy loam.
Then I pat the wet slurry down to get it to settle. Later I will walk in the trench to ensure compaction.
Put the level on a longer straight board. Immediately you have a longer level.
It doesnât look like Iâve done much on the DĆȘRR in this update, as Iâm finding the rebuild of this section of layout is taking a lot longer than expected. I suspect itâs because the soil is mostly a sandy loam variant. When dry itâs quite hard, yet it behaves nicely once hydrated, so Iâve been remixing the garden soil a bucket of water to make it workable.
There has been some diacritical issues as well. Korm, so far the umlauts are holding up as promised, but as Eric predicted theyâre now making a lot of noise in the heat. I really wish Iâd known about kahakĆs earlier. However I do understand that there could be future problems with the track lay lei.
And of course, since Iâm disturbing the soil anyway, I have found that I couldnât live without improving some minor eye sores so I have straightened out and extended the mountain cuts, as Iâve repaired the future road bed.
Additionally we have been breaking state temperature records every day. This weekâs temperature hit 46 °C (115 °F) and that hasnât really helped the build either. However, by the end of the week it will be NZâs problem. Apologies Neil, but the rain youâve been complaining about is going to clear right up.
Adding insult to injury during the re-vamp Iâve managed to chop the watering system in two places, and lost a few plants. Iâve learned the hard way that Herself was right to roll her eyes when I purposefully buried the irrigation pipe 2â5 cm below the soil surface. So Iâm now raising it up wherever I can as I go along.
As I write this I notice that Iâm finally having whimsical thoughts, like wouldnât it be nice to be working on something else indoors? Perhaps I should have started a MIK projectâŠ.
yes.
like i did in 2011. in 2012 i said, i would not start another MIK project, before the 2011 would be finished.
(actually there is hope, that it gets escavated from my workbench sometime in 2027⊠)
experience tells, that most spades have a 30 to 40 centimetres blade.
meaning buried waterpipes need about 50 cm/20" of depth minimum.
on the soil - waterpipes are close friends to lawn mowers. they meet, whenever possible.
on above ground water in general.
where it gets hot (over 100F/40C) you shouldnât use white pipes - they let light through to the water, growing algae. need regular cleaning or poisoning of pipes, pumps and cranes.
you should use black pipes neither.
theyâll heat the water enough, to boil your plants.
as you seemingly not like to dig, the best choice would be the good old garden-hose (3/4 or 1" ) in green (green = less algae).
best managed by somebody, motivated to stay in the sun for longer time than you.
(wife - motivation her plants)
(gardener - motivation his wages )
did i mention that gardenhoses and lawn-mowers are friends too?
at this point this comes into play:
that looks like a fine spot, from where to supervise these activities
Bill, your roadbed is looking great! Keep at it, itâll be done soon, youâll be on to trackwork, woo hoo! and be missing those days of playing in the dirt!
Regarding the heat, have you considered a cheap canopy tent and mist fan? Or, for a more mobile solutionâŠ
Oooh a Spy vs. Spy, Mad Magazine outfit! Iâm in!
if the white spy sees THAT, he dies laughing. 
Cliff, you retain your title of North America Emperor of Influence. But then Korm the Kaiser des Einflusses SĂŒdamerika does have a point, along with the requisite umlauts.
Option 1 (black) risks increased heat retention benefit with solar gain, but as Korm points out the option 2 (white) risks sudden death by jocularity.
So buy 1 get 1 free has risks.
I think Iâd like to see some further testing done halfway, perhaps in Hawaii where garden railroaders wear similar headwear?
Good point. We tend to water at sunrise.
As are 20 Amp extension cords and lawnmowers. Donât ask how I know!
Roger all that, Bill!
Aside from the hat*, Iâll still suggest a canopy tent, because itâs helped me a lot. And a battery-op bucket-top mist fan, those can be nice.
* The hatâs kinda ridiculous enough, even without having to fill its tiny reservoirs every other minute! So to avoid that, one would have to rig two tubes to gravity-feed from a water bottle somewhere over your head, and have a backpack with a heightened frame to support said bottle. Now weâre talkin, baby!
Edit: Of course, there has to be a range of said crazy contraptions, fromâŠ
âŠtoâŠ
hehehe
when we had an electric mower, i always bought good quality industrial cables, about ten yards longer than necessary, plus a handfull of male and female plugs.
each time, the mower didnât work anymore, i revised the cable, cut it, where it was less than perfect and mounted a pair of plugs.
since then we got more than enough cables of all thinkable lengths (and a gasoline mower)
really??
now i understand, why these campaigns exist: âshower with a friendâ.
if watered in the morning, the water, that hits the ground evaporates over the day - lost.
the water, that hits leaves, not only evaporates, but burnes the leaves, like spy glasses would - lost water and damaged plants.
we water in the last half hour of light and longer, if needed.
the water gets time to penetrate the plant and the earth deeper, before the plant starts sucking again.
same with people.
everyone tells to drink a lot. - so everybody drinks lot of ice-cold water till he has no power left.
the twenty-plus years i did farm and ranch work, i learned, that drinking and sweating drains the salts from the body.
in the first years, when going behind horse and harrow for twice four hours per day, i ate a spoon full of salt with breakfast, a quart of luke warm water (much more for the horse), salty lunch for me, salted millet for the horse and the same in the afternoon.
but after a shower dinner had to have more than a pound of flesh plus some tortillas or bread and butter beside, a quart of water, another of beer and some spirits to stay awake.
(my mistake was, that i went on eating, after i stopped working. now iâm a fat old sissy, who needs aircondition at 30°C to feel cold enough)
did i mention, that i live in a semi desert? per year 700mm rain average, 1,400mm evaporation on open water.
Understandable Korm.
We used to live in Broken Hill. Broken Hillâs average annual rainfall is low and variable, typically around 225mm to 246mm .
We tend to go with early morning watering as since moving to Adelaide we get high gully winds in the evening and through the night. We get about 500mm reportedly here.
ööööööööh vottt? twohĂŒĂŒĂŒĂŒĂŒndÀÀÀÀrt?
how to live there?
with deep groundwater, like in south africa?
i donât.
we have them more or less every 8 years.
itâs always impressing, to see a roof a mile behind the house.
