.
And today is going to be a perfect example.
What I have not mentioned is that I believe we have some hawks who have been taking some of our chicks. Two have gone missing this week, no sign of them anywhere.
Raptors are incredibly beautiful birds. God certainly knew what He was doing during creation. And it is illegal to kill them. That's a problem when they decide to set up housekeeping within diving range of a flock of chickens.
So for the last few days we've kept all the chickens locked inside the chicken coop, until my brain could come up with some sort of solution. Not easy. We have a large yard so the hens have plenty of room to run around and forage. It is also near quite a few trees.
As we worked outside, we could hear the beautiful cries from the hawks. I hoped we'd continue to be lucky and not have to deal with it, because once they decide to eat at your place, you'll lose 1 or 2 day until the flock is gone.
Guineas can help. I used to have them, but they can also be problematic as well. Very noisy, and don't stay home all the time. It can be hard to get just one or two, as ordering has to be done in bulk so the keets survive without a heat lamp by group cuddling.
But just now, searching the internet, I have found something I am going to try today.
Fishing Line Deterrent
Faith
.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Expanding the Garden Fence
.
We left early for our window washing job to get it done before church, but the windows ended up being so dirty, and it was raining as well, that it doubled our time doing the job. We missed church, sadly.
Michael and I went and picked up one more hose. I hope the 150 feet will be enough to reach the compost pile. However, I went down later today while Michael did evening chores and found the rain had added an inch of water, with more expected. I mixed in more grass cuttings, dead leaves, and manure.
The rain was a little in the way, but you learn to not complain about it, because it is such a gift! We did not get a lot done today, but did get to work on the fencing. This is how we want it to be on all four sides. One important thing is, if you make it hard to maintain, you will probably never do what needs to be done. So making sure the garden edge is easily kept under control will go a long way to keeping the garden itself neat, clean and weed free.
But this is how the upper side looked. No room to get through with the mower. We have mulch to move and some piles of rocks that we've been picking up from the garden soil (as well as having those piles all over the property). And as soon as we make more room, we'll pick it all up and be able to mow neatly.
I pounded the t-posts in deeper than I wanted, so pulling them out by hand was not possible. Even digging them out was not enough.
So here's a trick I learned from my dad:
A chain, wrapped tightly around a post and a sturdy lever - like a wooden post, pivoting on a tall fulcrum - like a cinder block or two, will gradually give you the force to pull a stubborn t-post.
Sometimes you do it well and it comes right out. But sometimes your chain will slip and you have to do it over, or it will take a few re-wraps to get a deep one out. Be patient.
We drove the posts back in a little further up the hill and rewired the electric fencing around it.
Now we are ready to neaten up the edges.
Another fence to be moved tomorrow.
Faith
.
We left early for our window washing job to get it done before church, but the windows ended up being so dirty, and it was raining as well, that it doubled our time doing the job. We missed church, sadly.
Michael and I went and picked up one more hose. I hope the 150 feet will be enough to reach the compost pile. However, I went down later today while Michael did evening chores and found the rain had added an inch of water, with more expected. I mixed in more grass cuttings, dead leaves, and manure.
The rain was a little in the way, but you learn to not complain about it, because it is such a gift! We did not get a lot done today, but did get to work on the fencing. This is how we want it to be on all four sides. One important thing is, if you make it hard to maintain, you will probably never do what needs to be done. So making sure the garden edge is easily kept under control will go a long way to keeping the garden itself neat, clean and weed free.
But this is how the upper side looked. No room to get through with the mower. We have mulch to move and some piles of rocks that we've been picking up from the garden soil (as well as having those piles all over the property). And as soon as we make more room, we'll pick it all up and be able to mow neatly.
I pounded the t-posts in deeper than I wanted, so pulling them out by hand was not possible. Even digging them out was not enough.
So here's a trick I learned from my dad:
A chain, wrapped tightly around a post and a sturdy lever - like a wooden post, pivoting on a tall fulcrum - like a cinder block or two, will gradually give you the force to pull a stubborn t-post.
Sometimes you do it well and it comes right out. But sometimes your chain will slip and you have to do it over, or it will take a few re-wraps to get a deep one out. Be patient.
We drove the posts back in a little further up the hill and rewired the electric fencing around it.
Now we are ready to neaten up the edges.
Another fence to be moved tomorrow.
Faith
.
May 2, 2009 ~ Time for Fun!
.
All work and no play makes Jill a dull pickle. So after getting together with friends on our usual Friday Fellowship, one of them came home with us and spent the night to get an easier start on the next day. We took off early Saturday morning and went to the Southern Nationals Street Rod Association car show.
Lots of gorgeous cars. I still hold in my back pocket the dream of being able to build one for myself one day.
It was raining, but we made the best of it, and packed a lunch to save money. On the way home we stopped by Bass Pro Shops to shop for guns. L is wanting to get one to carry in her purse for self defense. Then we went to Hobby Lobby to shop for sewing supplies.
Came home utterly exhausted but very happy. Michael took a nap, I got almost all of the rest of the posts for this blog caught up, and then we watched a movie together before going to bed.
And now it's Sunday, May 3. I should be outside moving fences, but it's raining. Still I've caught up to current time since my accident left me unable to post for a while. So I feel very pleased with my productivity today.
Being a well-rounded girl is very important!
Faith
.
All work and no play makes Jill a dull pickle. So after getting together with friends on our usual Friday Fellowship, one of them came home with us and spent the night to get an easier start on the next day. We took off early Saturday morning and went to the Southern Nationals Street Rod Association car show.
Lots of gorgeous cars. I still hold in my back pocket the dream of being able to build one for myself one day.
It was raining, but we made the best of it, and packed a lunch to save money. On the way home we stopped by Bass Pro Shops to shop for guns. L is wanting to get one to carry in her purse for self defense. Then we went to Hobby Lobby to shop for sewing supplies.
Came home utterly exhausted but very happy. Michael took a nap, I got almost all of the rest of the posts for this blog caught up, and then we watched a movie together before going to bed.
And now it's Sunday, May 3. I should be outside moving fences, but it's raining. Still I've caught up to current time since my accident left me unable to post for a while. So I feel very pleased with my productivity today.
Being a well-rounded girl is very important!
Faith
.
May 1, 2009 ~ Planting Some Herbs and More Veggies
.
What I am trying to do is clear the patio of the seedlings first. So my order of planting is based on that. Otherwise I'd be doing it differently.
We planted a variety of sunflowers in the lowest bed over in the fruit crop area. I was going to plant a lot of seeds at the same time, but the thought of having to protect them as as they were sprouting from the weed seeds sprouting at the same time was enough to stop me. I think I will go ahead and make plant starts to set out later, just as soon as we have the other ones planted.
Here is Michael, dropping some herbs into one of five beds my dad mercifully came over and rototilled for us. I would love to find a used rototiller this year! I hope one that does not need any tinkering.
Herb beds we planted today:
Basil, Chives, Rosemary, Fennel, Stevia, Thyme, and Lovage. I have more flats started, but I'm going to let them get taller before I put them out to compete against weeds.
Looking down from the Jostaberries we've got, first is the strawberry bed, then three herb beds, then the cutting flower bed. Below are two lines of posts that used to hold 100 foot long raspberry rows, the blackberry row, the vineyard, and the bush cherries.
Back in the veggie garden; above the melons we planted summer squash. Only Early Yellow Crookneck and Black Zucchini this year.
Above the summer squash, we planted cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and piricicaba.
Above those brassicas we planted kohlrabi, artichoke and eggplants, and sweet bell peppers.
Above those we planted the rest of the peppers.
And we hoed the spot where the second row of peas Michael put in had not been successful. He planted them on his own and we don't know what went wrong, but we replanted, if a little behind schedule.
I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, because I am almost caught up to current time.
:)
Faith
.
What I am trying to do is clear the patio of the seedlings first. So my order of planting is based on that. Otherwise I'd be doing it differently.
We planted a variety of sunflowers in the lowest bed over in the fruit crop area. I was going to plant a lot of seeds at the same time, but the thought of having to protect them as as they were sprouting from the weed seeds sprouting at the same time was enough to stop me. I think I will go ahead and make plant starts to set out later, just as soon as we have the other ones planted.
Here is Michael, dropping some herbs into one of five beds my dad mercifully came over and rototilled for us. I would love to find a used rototiller this year! I hope one that does not need any tinkering.
Herb beds we planted today:
Basil, Chives, Rosemary, Fennel, Stevia, Thyme, and Lovage. I have more flats started, but I'm going to let them get taller before I put them out to compete against weeds.
Looking down from the Jostaberries we've got, first is the strawberry bed, then three herb beds, then the cutting flower bed. Below are two lines of posts that used to hold 100 foot long raspberry rows, the blackberry row, the vineyard, and the bush cherries.
Back in the veggie garden; above the melons we planted summer squash. Only Early Yellow Crookneck and Black Zucchini this year.
Above the summer squash, we planted cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and piricicaba.
Above those brassicas we planted kohlrabi, artichoke and eggplants, and sweet bell peppers.
Above those we planted the rest of the peppers.
And we hoed the spot where the second row of peas Michael put in had not been successful. He planted them on his own and we don't know what went wrong, but we replanted, if a little behind schedule.
I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, because I am almost caught up to current time.
:)
Faith
.
April 29, 2009 ~ Big Garden Planting Day
.
I do wish we'd had more planning go on for the planting, but chaos reigned once again and it was all we could do to get things in the ground. Really, the biggest problem is we do not have enough ground ready for the plants and I did not know how I was going to go about doing it.
So we semi- winged it. This first day we spent planting celery, celeriac, and about 6 different melons.
Collecting the celery and its kin at the patio...
The celery and celeriac are a very temperamental crop. I've never grown them before. But then again, I've never eaten so much celery before either and I figured I ought to try celeriac alongside it.
They need a lot of water and they will need shade when it's hot. Honestly, I expect these to fail. But I'm going to give them a chance. They went in the lowest part of the garden area and we dug troughs to plant them in so they can be kept wetter than the surrounding ground. We can fill the trenches to water them, and when it's hot, I am hoping the shade from the melons will be enough for them.
\
Melons planted were Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Prescott Fond Blanc Muskemelon, Orange Honeydew, Arava Cantaloupe, and Hale's Best Cantaloupe.
Can't wait for chilled melon on the patio table this summer!
Faith
.
I do wish we'd had more planning go on for the planting, but chaos reigned once again and it was all we could do to get things in the ground. Really, the biggest problem is we do not have enough ground ready for the plants and I did not know how I was going to go about doing it.
So we semi- winged it. This first day we spent planting celery, celeriac, and about 6 different melons.
Collecting the celery and its kin at the patio...
The celery and celeriac are a very temperamental crop. I've never grown them before. But then again, I've never eaten so much celery before either and I figured I ought to try celeriac alongside it.
They need a lot of water and they will need shade when it's hot. Honestly, I expect these to fail. But I'm going to give them a chance. They went in the lowest part of the garden area and we dug troughs to plant them in so they can be kept wetter than the surrounding ground. We can fill the trenches to water them, and when it's hot, I am hoping the shade from the melons will be enough for them.
\
Melons planted were Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Prescott Fond Blanc Muskemelon, Orange Honeydew, Arava Cantaloupe, and Hale's Best Cantaloupe.
Can't wait for chilled melon on the patio table this summer!
Faith
.
April 27, 2009 ~ Water Challenges
.
What do you think? Do we need a new hose?
So we bought hose. We have one spigot on this entire 6 acres. Until we got this house put on here, which came with a built in spigot on the top side, that was it. But for all our work, we have only one faucet to use. That a whole lot of hose.
Our system is relatively simple. You buy attachments for your faucet that divide it into 2 to 4 spigots, and you run miles of hose off of them. As many as you can afford to take out of your retirement fund. I believe our record for any one section was 300 feet of hose. That was when we were watering the horses further back into the property. It might have been 400 feet though.
Problem is that much hose is either sitting out in the sun, rotting slowly; or it is coiled up in a figure eight pattern in various places on the ground which are perfect for tripping you and have to be lugged around with each lawn mowing caper; or my personal favorite, it is tangled up in an impossible, slug-covered mess inside a plastic hose reel bin that is actually broken and you haven't been able to remove the hose and use it for close to 6 months.
Well, we nurtured the one above for probably about 6 years. Those years included probable unclaimed mower massacres by perpetrators who shall remain nameless, and massive amounts of stimulus for plastic hose repair companies. I believe there are several CEOs in the Bahamas right now writing thank you notes to our local home improvement store for their loyal customer.
And so, we got another hose. A Swan, lifetime warranty 100 footer!
And began uncoiling it down to the horse trough. Sadly, it did not reach. Michael expertly snagged enough good hose off that old one to reach the trough and barely make the herb garden. If you hang on, pull real hard and water at the same time, you can reach everything but the strawberries. LOL (We will be harvesting the hose repair pieces from the green, semi-coiled cadaver near the tool shed this coming week.)
We also got another Y so we could run a hose off to the garden and compost pile. Fortunately, my dad bought us another hose for my birthday to take us at least to the garden. But we still need more to get to the compost pile, and we need a little more to get to the herb and flower beds that are above the vineyard and thornless blackberries.
See? Now no one said this type of thing is not a challenge. LOL
And here are our PVC pipe umbrella holders in action.
5 dollar umbrellas from Big Lots 3 years ago, and 2 dollars worth of PVC pipe make for a simple little getaway. More big news... I received cash for my birthday and will be able to replace the liner. We are going to get to swim on hot afternoons after work again this year!
It's so peaceful to let the water float your aching tiredness away.
Faith
.
What do you think? Do we need a new hose?
So we bought hose. We have one spigot on this entire 6 acres. Until we got this house put on here, which came with a built in spigot on the top side, that was it. But for all our work, we have only one faucet to use. That a whole lot of hose.
Our system is relatively simple. You buy attachments for your faucet that divide it into 2 to 4 spigots, and you run miles of hose off of them. As many as you can afford to take out of your retirement fund. I believe our record for any one section was 300 feet of hose. That was when we were watering the horses further back into the property. It might have been 400 feet though.
Problem is that much hose is either sitting out in the sun, rotting slowly; or it is coiled up in a figure eight pattern in various places on the ground which are perfect for tripping you and have to be lugged around with each lawn mowing caper; or my personal favorite, it is tangled up in an impossible, slug-covered mess inside a plastic hose reel bin that is actually broken and you haven't been able to remove the hose and use it for close to 6 months.
Well, we nurtured the one above for probably about 6 years. Those years included probable unclaimed mower massacres by perpetrators who shall remain nameless, and massive amounts of stimulus for plastic hose repair companies. I believe there are several CEOs in the Bahamas right now writing thank you notes to our local home improvement store for their loyal customer.
And so, we got another hose. A Swan, lifetime warranty 100 footer!
And began uncoiling it down to the horse trough. Sadly, it did not reach. Michael expertly snagged enough good hose off that old one to reach the trough and barely make the herb garden. If you hang on, pull real hard and water at the same time, you can reach everything but the strawberries. LOL (We will be harvesting the hose repair pieces from the green, semi-coiled cadaver near the tool shed this coming week.)
We also got another Y so we could run a hose off to the garden and compost pile. Fortunately, my dad bought us another hose for my birthday to take us at least to the garden. But we still need more to get to the compost pile, and we need a little more to get to the herb and flower beds that are above the vineyard and thornless blackberries.
See? Now no one said this type of thing is not a challenge. LOL
And here are our PVC pipe umbrella holders in action.
5 dollar umbrellas from Big Lots 3 years ago, and 2 dollars worth of PVC pipe make for a simple little getaway. More big news... I received cash for my birthday and will be able to replace the liner. We are going to get to swim on hot afternoons after work again this year!
It's so peaceful to let the water float your aching tiredness away.
Faith
.
April 26, 2009 ~ Spring Time Crunch Is Here,.
.
But I don't mind too much. There is just this one time of year that everything really takes off and you have to scramble for a couple of months. However, there is so much energy as the sun warms your skin, the wind whips up once in a while, the plants get a massive burst of life, animals play in the fields and little ones are born...
We just feed off it, knowing that about the time summer hits, things will slow down a little and we can enjoy some lazier afternoons in the heat of the day.
It's the surprises that get you. LOL The little extra we had today was a baby shower for a couple at church. We have been trying to get home in the middle of the day on Sundays so we can get a little work in before heading back to church in the evening. So we leave very early to do our window washing job before church.
I knew we'd not make it home, plus we had shopping to do. I somehow always manage to wait til the last minute for those.
To make a long story short, we decided to stay home from church that morning. Michael mowed with the tractor mower and I huffed and puffed, pushing the little mower around all the nooks and crannies the big mower can't get to. It was warm and I had to take a break for a cool drink and catch my breath. It takes a while to get used to warmer weather.
This has been a great little mower. I drug it out from behind the shed after a couple of years of not being used, and after just needing a fuel line replaced last year, it starts up every time. I'm very grateful for that.
Over there is the area I mowed. The building on the other side of the fence line is one of our neighbors, but I did around all the various crops, fences and jutting rocks on steep slopes over. Whew!
Michael had the tractor over by the studio for blowing it off after jobs as usual. That little air compressor does not put out a lot of air. It's only good for about 5 seconds before the motor kicks in, and 10 seconds til it's out of air. Then it runs for another 5 minutes to fill. I will be keeping my eye out for a larger used one.
Then it was off to town to quickly get our window washing job done, shop for a present, and head to the shower.
It was a great time. The couple was very blessed by many gifts, and we played some fun games. A quick visit with my folks filled in our time before the evening meeting of The Truth Project. We try to visit my parents at least once or twice a week. My mother has Alzheimer's and it's harder for them to get out these days.
Hoping my poor memory is due to mere stress,
Faith
.
But I don't mind too much. There is just this one time of year that everything really takes off and you have to scramble for a couple of months. However, there is so much energy as the sun warms your skin, the wind whips up once in a while, the plants get a massive burst of life, animals play in the fields and little ones are born...
We just feed off it, knowing that about the time summer hits, things will slow down a little and we can enjoy some lazier afternoons in the heat of the day.
It's the surprises that get you. LOL The little extra we had today was a baby shower for a couple at church. We have been trying to get home in the middle of the day on Sundays so we can get a little work in before heading back to church in the evening. So we leave very early to do our window washing job before church.
I knew we'd not make it home, plus we had shopping to do. I somehow always manage to wait til the last minute for those.
To make a long story short, we decided to stay home from church that morning. Michael mowed with the tractor mower and I huffed and puffed, pushing the little mower around all the nooks and crannies the big mower can't get to. It was warm and I had to take a break for a cool drink and catch my breath. It takes a while to get used to warmer weather.
This has been a great little mower. I drug it out from behind the shed after a couple of years of not being used, and after just needing a fuel line replaced last year, it starts up every time. I'm very grateful for that.
Over there is the area I mowed. The building on the other side of the fence line is one of our neighbors, but I did around all the various crops, fences and jutting rocks on steep slopes over. Whew!
Michael had the tractor over by the studio for blowing it off after jobs as usual. That little air compressor does not put out a lot of air. It's only good for about 5 seconds before the motor kicks in, and 10 seconds til it's out of air. Then it runs for another 5 minutes to fill. I will be keeping my eye out for a larger used one.
Then it was off to town to quickly get our window washing job done, shop for a present, and head to the shower.
It was a great time. The couple was very blessed by many gifts, and we played some fun games. A quick visit with my folks filled in our time before the evening meeting of The Truth Project. We try to visit my parents at least once or twice a week. My mother has Alzheimer's and it's harder for them to get out these days.
Hoping my poor memory is due to mere stress,
Faith
.
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