Garden area ready for gravel

It occurred to me this morning after rereading my blog entry from last night that I was not very eloquent.  One may say I was downright dry and factual.  That is what happens after only three hours of sleep in 36 hours.  I usually upload the pictures to the blog on the same day I do the work, but most of the time wait a day or two to write the discourse.  This bites me in the proverbial butt when I am busy and working around the farm on a daily basis.  I don’t like to get too far behind hence my dry diatribe last evening.  I will forthwith correct my lackluster litany. 

Friday, I went to the dreaded Home Depot with Annmarie.  I needed some boards for the heat pump enclosure and Heath was out back digging up the garden area.  So progress was being made while I went shopping.  We picked up the cedar boards for the enclosure and two sets of risers for the stairs, a two and three stepper.  They are not cheap, but I did not want to cut them!!  I also picked up some pressure treated 2×12 for the actual steps.  I am still not sure how I am going to attach them to the concrete yet.  There area multitude of ways, and I have not settled on the easiest way yet.  I will probably just assemble the steps and see how they fit then decide how to attach them.  Annmarie wanted to go look at closet kits.  I will be putting in a real closet kit in our walk in closet soon.  It is coming.  We got a smattering of rain yesterday, not enough to do anything but hopefully the mountains that are burning up will get some precipitation.  I had big plans on going out and painting the front fence but it is starting to look like rain again.  Since the stain is water soluble, I don’t think that will be a good idea.  I will check the weather forecast.  I may have to finish cleaning up the garden area by the back gate.  There is a pile of dirt there that needs to be moved then the dirt on the backside of the fence needs to be raked out and flattened. 

Back deck heat pump view

I had the nephew out again this week for three days.  I had him finish digging the front ditch.  We do still have a little bit of water, it isn’t much but it is still present.  I have decided to make the back deck a priority.  We finished digging it out and I installed the new rock wall.  Unfortunately, I was being a cheapskate and did not purchase the blocks that you can stack vertically and have a ceramic pin holding them all together in a single vertical wall.  They were $9/each and I could not spend it.  Instead I bought the $1.79 blocks and had to overlap them.  This necessitated some gravel behind the blocks to hold them in place.  I had the entire rock wall done, stood back and looked at my handiwork and realized that the heat pump was going to be an eye sore.  There is no easy way to move the heat pump so that means hiding it in such a way that air can still flow around the heat pump.  I had to tear the wall out again and then move it out of the way to dig some post holes for the decorative wall.  I dug and set the posts and then reinstalled the rock wall.  I did not have any boards for the louvers so that will be a trip to Home Depot.  Heath filled in behind the blocks with gravel.  I built a channel to protect the power and coolant lines. 

Brick wall up, now just need to add gravel and compact.

Buried concrete for clothes line.

We struggled with getting the clothes line out of the ground.  I had to use the tractor to bend the steel angle iron back and forth long enough it caved in and broke.  I knew there was some concrete buried.  I had no idea it was over three feet long and 18 inches thick.  It took quite a while to get out and it was the maximum the tractor could lift.  I accidently cut the fence trying to put it on the other side.  Now I will have to patch the hole.  I had to shorten the water box so it would stick lower than anything else.  That way we don’t stub our toes on it when walking across the pea gravel floor.  I am going to use paver sand with epoxy to pour over the pea gravel to make it a solid surface.  I purchased the two sets of stair risers so I would not have to cut them myself.  I would be happy if I could get it all done this week except the for the pea gravel. 

Stuck again.

I spent the morning getting my alpaca shears sent back to the company.  I wanted to save time on the repair job so two weeks ago I ordered the new shear head and comb screws.  They came late last week and yesterday afternoon I finally attempted to install them.  I got all my needed tools, could not find the owners manual so my ipad and the internet came to the rescue and I camped out on the old house porch.  Five minutes into tearing it apart and cleaning it I realized there was a reason that Premier said these need to be sent back to the company for repair.  The shear head has a bearing seated in it.  I did not know this and did not order a spare bearing.  I called this morning and got directions on how to send it back and where to send it.  Hopefully, I will get it in a couple of weeks.  I left a note detailing what was broken and how 3.5 of my 8 alpaca were sheared.  I am hoping my sad story will expedite the repair. 

I was thinking about staining the fence but it was too hot.  I washed the fence off yesterday and Annmarie is supposed to be getting me another gallon of stain today.  It needs to be five degrees cooler.  Instead I fired up the mistress and went out into the orchard to flatten out the mud and dirt piles from the backhoe.  On the North side of the large tree I had great success, the South side had multiple large piles of mud.  These were not dry and the tractor kept getting stuck.  I managed to  spread it out in a semblance of flat.  This will let it dry out faster and allow me to work it flat in the next week.  I went near the house were the bowl shaped earth was and filled it in.  It filled in nicely and was just going to make one pass right along the ditch bank.  The ditch bank was not firm, not at all.  Both my front and rear tire dropped down into the ditch and I could not get the tractor out.  I will have to wait until Thursday when I can pull the pickup around and then have someone pull while I drive the tractor.  There is always something. 
We have opened up all our pastures for the cows, sheep and horses to go wherever they want.  The feed is very dry so we wanted them to find the best feed available.  The horses seem to be hanging with the sheep.  The cows stay to themselves.   

Almost flat enough.



Needs to dry out some more so I can make a second pass

Front ditch cleaned out with backhoe.

chute gate #1

Friday, I got a phone call telling me the backhoe was fixed!  I was at work but I made plans to get the ditch finished on Saturday.  Saturday rolled around and we had to go yard sale exploring.  Our local town has a community days one weekend a year and everyone in town has a yard sale.  We went to over 20 yard sales in four hours.  I love to get yard tools but this year it was mostly clothes and none my size. Last year I found five pair of newer blue jeans!  I am still wearing those but they are starting to show farm wear.  After we ate an entire plate of fresh fries and some barbecue pork we came home so I could fire up the backhoe and dig out the ditch.  I dug out the ditch and knocked down the berm alongside the ditch.  I want to flatten it all out so I can use my little tractor to clean it out.  The backhoe is so large I had no luck using the bucket to flatten out the dirt.  It was mud in places and I kept trying to get the backhoe stuck.  I finally gave up and figured I would use the small tractor.  I am pretty good now using it to level the ground, lots of practice. I will let the mud dry out a little so I can drive the little tractor on the mud pile safely.  I parked the backhoe up by the driveway so I could hose it off. 

Monday after cleaning the mud off the backhoe I tried to start it.  No go, it just beeped at me and no lights came on.  I called for advice and was asked if I left the key on.  I said no, then was informed the ignition switch is very sensitive.  I asked where the battery was and three bolts later had the charger plugged up to the batteries.  It was the batteries.  They were sucking juice down as fast as they could.
 

Chute gate#2 painted

 That left me with wire brushing the two corral chute gates, priming them and then painting them.  They cut down each end of an existing damaged gate from the scrapyard.  Gate #1 will be used for the loading end of the chute.  Gate #2 will be used inside the chute as it has an opening mechanism on the top of the gate, making it safer to manipulate with animals in the chute.  I used green because that was the color the hardware store had.  I really wanted red but no luck.  I am sure they will get scratched up soon enough, but they look mighty good now.  I did not spray any clear coat on them. 

irrigation pond is getting mossed out.

Since the clippers are broken and the parts are on order it was time to get back to making the irrigation pump work.  I had my nephew climb into the pond and clean out the moss and green growing things out of the pond.  I worked on the pump.  I installed a new 1.5 inch valve on the prime line side and cleaned out the pressure switch enclosure.  I had to spray some more hornets as they were nesting on the bottom of the pump housing.  I had to take off the foot valve and clean it out.  I broke a collar used to hold the inlet pipe onto the pump.  Since this is the second thing I have over tightened in a week, Annmarie has pointed out that I need to start moderating my strength. Not a problem I have had in the past. All the dead thistles were cleaned out and I took the tractor and spread out the now dried mud pile from the new irrigation pond.  I did put a cover over the hole in an attempt to fill the pond so I can test the pump.  It needed to be straightened out slightly so I used the back of a very large pipe wrench as a hammer and the concrete weir as an anvil.  I got it mostly straightened but there is a 1/4 inch gap on one side.  I don’t know if the pond will fill with this small leak.  I am thinking about splitting an old hose lengthwise and putting it around the edge of the metal cover to act like a gasket.  I will check on the pond in a few days.  If the water were running faster the small leak would not matter.  There is hardly any water running at this point.

 We stopped for lunch and I checked the outside temperature, 98 degrees in the shade.  We cannot shear the alpaca and the pump pond needs some filling time so it was on to another project.

North side of barn lot culvert crossing.

The barn lot culvert crossing still needed to be finished.  Heath had moved rocks over near the crossing last month.  So we went out into the heat at 1:00 pm.  Heath brought a gallon jug of water 2/3 full and I brought a little 16 oz plastic bottle half full.  The first thing I did was toss my water into the front creek to keep it cold.  I took the north side of the project and Heath took the south side.  After every layer of rocks were placed I would pile up dirt with the tractor and then spread it out and drive back and forth to compact it down.  After my water ran out I went upstream of the culvert, cleaned out a small spot of rocks and moss and started filling my container from the spring.  It was amazing!  Nice and cold and fresh from the source.  I did get a little dirt but not enough to make me think I was drinking cowboy coffee.  Heath was not having any of it and did not partake of the thirst quenching goodness emanating from the ground.  Annmarie has been telling me for years the spring is safe to drink from and just this last two years I have come to believe her.  I have been drinking from the front creek several times this year and have never been sick.

 We just kept after going, it was hot and nasty.  The rocks just kept getting heavier and heavier.  I know Heath was seriously considering whether it was worth the wage he was making.  He was tired when we were done!  I went inside after completion and added salt to my entire meal, then after a few bites doubled down on more salt.  After dinner I asked Annmarie to pop some popcorn.  She insisted she salt it.  Normally, it is so salty most people don’t like it.  I got my own pile and doubled down on the salt again.  About 2/3 of the way through the popcorn I started to taste the salt.  It made me gag.  We should have quit moving rocks in the sun two hours into the project.  It was 102 degrees when we came into the house 4.5 hours later.  Eventually, I may learn to slow down and take things easier but I am not quite there.  The crossing looks great and now I can pull a trailer straight across and not have to drive through the spring.  The animals love it.  This fall after it starts to rain some I will put a layer of gravel over the crossing.  It is so dry and dusty now I am afraid the gravel will just disappear without doing any good. 

South side of barn lot culvert crossing.

Trumpet vine outside the house, covered in honey bees.