Towers in the Book of Mormon

When I thought of towers in the Book of Mormon, I immediately thought of the tower near the temple that King Benjamin built so he could address his people in that amazing farewell speech.  All of the Book of Mormon readers that I know envision Benjamin's voice being carried to a greater distance when he spoke from the tower.  But I wonder if there was more to his tower than just an elevated podium.

The Book of Mormon mentions tower 26 times.  The two in 2 Nephi are part of Isaiah's teachings, so don't say anything to the use of towers in the Book of Mormon.  The one in Omni refers to the Jaredites who came to the Americas after the Tower of Babel incident.  Two usages are in Mosiah, talking about King Benjamin's tower.  That leaves 21 usages.

The next couple of references in Mosiah are to towers that the people of Limhi built in the Land of Nephi.  The first one was built near the temple, "yea, a very high tower, even so high that he could stand upon the top thereof and overlook the land of Shilom, and also the land of Shemlon, which was possessed by the Lamanites; and he could even look over all the land round about."  This observation tower may have been equipped with a telescope.  Many don't think of the Nephites as being very inventive, but that's faulty thinking.  There is sufficient evidence in the Book of Mormon to demonstrate their genius at inventions.  The tower near the temple is refenced twice again in Mosiah.
King Noah built another tower, "a great tower . . . on the hill north of the land Shilom, which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land."  

Alma talks about every land of the people of Nephi having a tower in the days of Moroni, about 73 B.C..  36 And it came to pass also, that he caused the ^atitle of liberty to be hoisted upon every tower which was in all the land, which was possessed by the Nephites; and thus Moroni planted the standard of liberty among the Nephites.

Also in the days of Moroni, he built towers in every fenced city as part of their protection. 4 And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those ^atowers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them.

In the days of the kingmen, they were compelled to put the standard of liberty upon their towers:  20 And the remainder of those dissenters, rather than be smitten down to the earth by the sword, yielded to the standard of liberty, and were compelled to hoist the ^atitle of liberty upon their towers, and in their cities, and to take up arms in defence of their country.

But they also had many towers in the land of the Lamanites during these wars, as Alma tells us in chapter 48: 1 And now it came to pass that, as soon as ^aAmalickiah had obtained the kingdom he began to ^binspire the hearts of the Lamanites against the people of Nephi; yea, he did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from their ^ctowers, against the Nephites.  
Amalickiah did this in order to rally an army to go against the Nephites.  Amalackiah was successful in the use of towers to raise a substantial army, so great a number that he thought their sheer number alone would gain the advantage over the Nephites.  

Mormon tells Moroni about the tower of Sherizzah, which the people evidently used to flee the Lamanties in Moroni 9:  7 And now I write somewhat concerning the sufferings of this people. For according to the knowledge which I have received from Amoron, behold, the Lamanites have many prisoners, which they took from the tower of Sherrizah; and there were men, women, and children.

It looks as though these were multi-purpose towers used for communication amongst the broader national community as well as safety for the individual communities.  We don't have anything in the Book of Mormon that relates how far each tower could communicate, but we assume from King Benjamin's situation of having to send out the text of his sermon to those beyond his tower that at least at his time there were people outside the communication limits of his tower.  Like in our day, where television and radio towers only have a certain radius of communication.  However, did they have national stations that could broadcast to several local stations, as we do, or did they broadcast from station to station as a chain event?  Those who think the Nephites enjoyed a relatively small possession of land, will necessarily believe they were limited in their scope.  Those of us who believe the Nephites occupied a much larger, contential-size area, have another reason to understand why the Nephites, and the Lamanites, could communicate so well with each other while spread across a vast territory.

Securing against the wind

I started this post last week, but then lost it all because I hit the wrong key.  Discouraged, I didn't write it a second time but went on to something else.

I had picked up a container of worms -- the container said they didn't have to be refrigerated.  I usually buy the ones out of the fridge, but thought I would try something different.  Well, it was different -- not a single worm, not even a dead one, in the container.  So I took that back today for an exchange and went back to the refrigerated worms.  When I got home from WalMart, I divided them up among the 7 totes, putting the extra ones into the newest tote.

Last week I used up my largest on-hand dowel rods to make wind tie-downs for the totes.  You can see from the pictures that I used three per tote.  Last year I had so much trouble with the wind, even with the plants up against the building, so I knew I had to anchor down the totes as well as the cages that will go into the totes for the plants.  Besides driving holes into the lips on the sides of the totes, I drilled holes into the totes for some tie-downs I have so I could anchor them to the totes.

For the strawberry tote, I used one-half of the broken yard stick to secure it to the ground, but didn't take a pic of it.  It doesn't rise above the tote, and doesn't go through a lip on the tote, but it is anchored with a tie-down to the tote.  I couldn't drive the other half in the ground because there is too much concrete next to the building.  I still have the black tote, and the two large totes for melons to wind-anchor, but I will wait until I can purchase more of the big dowels because the ones I still have on hand are not sufficient, I don't think.

Putting the bags of leaves and/or shredded stuff for composting on top of the bins instead of just using the lids helps insulate the soil contents for the sake of the worms.  I've seen worms in two different totes multiplying, so that will add a bit to my worm collection.

Composting leaves

I watched this YouTube video last night and decided to try it out, instead of saving all my leaves to feed my worms and for mulching next spring.

I did exactly as he suggested, except I used 8-gallon white kitchen trash bags.  I took leaves out of the grey bag pictured above, took about 1/2 the leaves out of it.  I crushed them up more as I transferred between the bags and then wet them down, to the consistency of a wet-sponge.  I didn't punch pin holes in the bottom to let the water drain because at this time it's not necessary -- as I go along it may be.

I took pictures of the crushed up leaves in the new bag after I wet them down, and then after I set the bag on top of the strawberry patch tote.

One more adjustment

After I finished up with the newest tote, I did some cleanup of the patio and then thought, instead of covering the totes with plastic, to replace the lids that were difficult to get on and off with the totes being so close together, why not put the bags of leaves and shredded paper/cardboard on the top? They would provide some insulation from the cold and would tidy up my patio.  So that is what I did.

2019 patio garden

These are some pictures of the 2019 patio garden at various stages.

Final tote added to the garden

I filled the final, 30-gallon tote.  I put in a layer of crushed leaves, soaked them with water, and then added about 1/2 gallon of food compost right in the middle, and I just left them sitting on top -- coffee grounds from used Keurig coffee cups, ground up banana peels, and egg shells.

 

Then I took some soil from my other totes to add to it, trying to make the totes as even as possible, and looking for worms as I did.  I did see some worms, and did put 3 worms from another tote into this tote.  And they were nice big worms.  Next time I go to WalMart I'll buy another container of worms.  I'm glad to know that at least some worms survived the arctic blast we had on Monday-Tuesday.

I went out to the street to take some pictures looking at the patio garden.  I also took two pictures from the patio door.  I put the directions on the first picture -- looking at the apartment from the street, I'm looking from east to west, with south on my left and north on my right.  In the middle picture you see the south wall of the patio.  The white buckets in the SW corner will be my water buckets for my drip irrigation.  That white container will be my strawberry patch.  The next 3 grey buckets will be for indeterminate tomatoes, the next black one for dwarf cherry tomatoes, the one on the north end with the green lid will be for cantaloupes, and the one on the north end is the one I just set out today and it will be for watermelons.  The other white bucket is full of leaves, as are the bags.

Some of the bags of leaves I am going to compost by a method I saw on youtube just yesterday.  He just put his leaves into black plastic bags, crushed them up as much as he could, soaked them good with water, tied them up loosely, and then just let them set outside by his house.  He didn't turn them or add anything else.  I'll add the composted leaves to new soil next spring to top off the totes for planting.

I also plan to build a little greenhouse and to start my plants inside it.  I'll put the greenhouse in the tote in the NW corner so it will get most sun.  I'll let a little lamp with a small bulb to provide heat.  I have an electrical outlet on that NW exterior wall.

Patio container garden update

Monday night's temperature got down to -4 actual temperature.  The soil in my containers froze, at least the top 4 inches or so, some further down than that.  I don't know if my worms made it through the cold as I haven't dug around enough to see any.  All I did was use my fork to break up the frozen soil and mix it around a little bit.  I gathered two more 5-gallon buckets of leaves this afternoon.  They had piled up against the retainer wall in our parking lot so they were easy to scoop up.  I get quite a few in each bucket by breaking them down as I add them.  Next month I'm going to get some black garbage bags and fill them up and then wet them down so they will start to decompose.  I'll keep some dry to use as mulch around the plants next year, but I do need some additional soil so I'll fill in with compost.

I bought another 30-gallon tote and experimented to see if I could put the tomato cages I have into the totes so they are secured to the side.  I drilled holes in each side of the tote for two of the cage prongs to go through, and put the other prong through the open handle.  I will secure the prongs to the sides of the tote by drilling my holes and using zip ties to hold them.  That will make the cages very securely attached to the tote.  In these totes, I will be able to get a tomato cage at each end.  They will be for my cantaloupe and watermelon plants.  I will put a plant in each cage and for the cantaloupes, I will put another one in the center between the cages.  I'll let the vines crawl up the cage.

I'll use the same concept for my tomato totes -- I'll put one of the indeterminate plants in each of three 18-gallon totes.  I will also put Tiny Tim dwarf tomatoes in one of the 18-gallon totes.  I'll get smaller cages for them.  I think I'll put 3 of the tiny tims in that tote. tiny tim Dwarf tomato

I plan to use Bush Sugar Baby's for one of my watermelon plants.  I haven't decided on the other one yet.  I'll see what CaliKim suggests as well as others who do container gardens.  Blacktail Mountain is the other watermelon variety that she grows.  Blacktail mountain watermelons

I'll take a picture tomorrow of the patio with all of the totes in place to put up here on the blog.  I have used every possible inch of my patio and I will be growing my favorites -- tomatoes, strawberries, cantaloupes and watermelons.  I am so anxious to have a garden again next year.

Drip Irrigation system layout

Over the years of patio/balcony gardening, I've tried to setup wicking buckets, but have not had success doing that.  This last summer, I used plastic bottles and gallon jugs with wicks dripping into the containers, but that didn't work very well at all.  I finally settled on using 2-liter pop bottles with pin holes in the bottom to slowly water the containers.  That worked best, but of course required that I fell the bottles every day.  And sometimes I had to adjust the placement of the bottles so they would do the irrigation intended.  I had laid down some white paper towels and found it useful because the irrigation water would soak the towels and thus spread the watering out on a broader scale.

Next spring I want to have a better irrigation system in place, one that will not require daily filling of bottles.  I do not have an outside water source, and although I do have a garden hose, I can't leave it always attached to my kitchen faucet, and it is a pain to hook it up and drag it through my living room.

Below is the drip irrigation system that I want to install.  I've looked into getting much larger water barrels, but they are very expensive.

Since I already have the totes that I'm going to use, I'm going to setup this system in Feb or March and test it out to see if it will irrigate all of the totes. I'm putting the water tower in the SW corner of my patio to protect it against the wind and being knocked over.  If I have to, I'll setup another water tower on the NW corner. It depends too on how long my 10-gallon tower will water the totes without having to be refilled.

The diagram is not to scale.  I will have room on the NE corner, next to the 30 gallon tote, to put a 5-gallon bucket as another planter.  If I do, I will put herbs and flowers in it.  I will also put flowers to attract the bees in all of the totes along with the main plants.

This last year, I did a lot of pruning of my tomato plants to encourage more fruit.  This next year I will have them supported much better and will let them get bushy and heavy.  That may curtail some of the height, too, as they both got ridiculously tall, especially the cherry tomato plant.

Patio Garden

I took all of the shredded paper and cardboard out of my black 18-gallon tote and converted it to a compost bin because some of my other bins were too full.  I had some coffee filters and coffee grounds, ground up some banana peels and egg shells, and filled the bin.

First I put a layer of leaves in the tote and dumped the 1/2 gallon or so of food scraps on top.  I then started adding some of the excess dirt from the two 18-gallon totes that were too full, and I found a couple worms to add to the black tote.  After I got it as full as I wanted it, I added a little water because my leaves were dry, and then mixed it up a bit with my spade fork.

I asked three more neighbors to start saving their coffee grounds for me.  I will buy some more worms the next time I go to Walmart's, since I added another tote.

Family History

This work is coming along fine, except that I'm not able to spend as many hours a day at it as I used to.  I passed 80,000 persons in my database today.  I felt in the past that I would reach 150,000 before I got to the 1850 marriages when I was systematically doing the marriages year by year.  Now I'm more haphazard, adding more new names and linking existing names to FS and of course, doing some corrections as I go along.  This way I'm able to generate new names for temple ordinances, as I want to go to the temple once a month.  I made it last December to KS City, then June, Aug, Oct and Nov to OK City.

How many sons did Ishmael have

I've wondered for a long time just how many sons Ishmael had.  I finally found my answer, right in the Book of Mormon.  When Nephi is talking about the rebellion as they left Jerusalem again but this time with Ishmael's family, Nephi specifically says Ishmael had 2 sons and 5 daughters (1 Nephi 7:6).
The sons were already married and had families when they joined Lehi's group.

Gathering more leaves

Today I took two 5-gallon buckets and went a couple streets away in my neighborhood where the leaves were heavy along the curb.  I used a bucket to scoop and stuff leaves -- punching them down a couple of time to crush them and make more room.  I filled both buckets, and then transferred the leaves to some of my bags that I keep punching down to crush the leaves.  I want to gather as many leaves as I can to use in the compost totes as well as for mulching next year.

I turned the contents of the recently added 30-gallon tote and saw one of my worms.  It looks very healthy.  I grabbed the smart phone and snapped a couple pics.  If they don't move around, I can't see them because of all the browns I have in the totes.  I ordered a nice spade fork and it will arrive on Friday, so I can turn the contents better.  All I have to use right now is a hand trowel.

Worms are thriving . . .

I picked up a 30-gallon tote today - this one I will use to plant two watermelon plants next spring.  I dumped the two 5-gallon buckets into it, and in each bucket I saw two big fat worms, and at least one smaller worm.  I was so pleased to see them.  I bought two more containers of worms today - this makes 120 worms so far.  I put 15 worms in each of the bigger totes, and divided the remaining 30 among the 3 18-gallon totes.

I have been gathering lots of leaves from around our building, and a friend and I went to the church building one day to gather bags of leaves -- I had a very large cloth duffel-type bag and she had 3 plastic garbage bags, 13-gallon size.  I gathered a few more from areas in our driveway today.  I added some of the crushed leaves to each tote.

I now have the totes along the front edge of my patio, as that way I can get more totes and more garden next year.  Using the bigger totes will give the staked and vining plants more stability in the wind next year.

I also purchased a drill today to make drilling the holes easier.  It did in fact make it much easier.  I made 1/4" drainage holes in the bottom of the new tote, and 3/16" holes for air circulation in the lid.