Memorial Day I could not do any haying. So I decided to just grit my teeth and finish digging the French drain for the machine shed hay storage area. I only needed to dig the sump area but that took a while as the tractor could not reach down very far. I tried to put the clamp on forks on the John Deere bucket but that did not work very well. I think if the ground had been easier to dig in then it would have worked great but it’s not. I finished lining everything with gravel, laid down the drain pipe and buried the entire thing in gravel. I then went ahead and filled the bottom of the space with a couple of inches of gravel. After a week of being in place the space feels drier when you walk to the back corner. It smells less like moisture and the humidity is even lower. It’s pretty amazing. I
t was early afternoon so I then leveled the dirt mound for the gazebo and laid in about one inch of gravel over it. I tried to break out the compactor but the throttle cable needs to be redone. It’s torn and won’t keep the throttle wide open. It’s an easy fix, I just need to get the part ordered. As soon as we finish haying its back to fencing and getting the gazebo area prepped. The holes for the gazebo supports need to be dug before the ground turns into concrete.
The sheep almost killed the chives that I planted in the big ceramic planters next to the front steps. They really like chives! They ate them down to the dirt level and then even tried to nibble down further into the roots. I have been thinking about making a screen that goes around the planters to hold the chives in place when they get big they drop down and hang everywhere. I had taken a couple of measurements and decided that the easiest way was to paint a circle on the welding table and just free hand it from there. I am still using stick welding. I have a wire feed but have not tried using it. I was under the impression that the wire fed items needed to be clean and ready for a weld. The stick just burns through all that crap. I need the practice anyways. So I started working on it. I had to grind out all of the nails so there were no sharp edges to the design. It was fairly warm outside so I decided to weld in a short sleeve shirt. This is not something I have done before. I remembered why when I went to take a shower. I had a major flash burn to my forearms and lower biceps. It looked like I had been standing in the hot sun all day. It did not feel good in the hot shower. Eventually, I will get back to the project and finish it.
Stewart Creek Somethings 