Author: Steve Hardin

Catch up

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I lost another chicken this weekend, unfortunately this one was due to chicken IQ limitations. Do not go into the yard where the old dog is located because he has a tendency to off things, one chicken down. I am still unsure how many chickens there actually are out in the coop. I know there are at least five that sleep out in the back bushes and I am sure there are others camped out elsewhere. I have still not managed to get a lid on the chicken coop yet so I cannot lock them all up to count them yet.

I turned off the water to the front hillside, the yard and the lavender patch. We still have water going to the garden as I have beets sprouting and we are still picking green beans. Annmarie put up another 12 pints this weekend. Our trumpet vine is finally starting to fill in around our second living room window. If we get a mild winter it will give it time to get larger and start to create some wood so it can survive a freezing temperature. Mr GolfPro and myself have been cutting it away from the house several times this year in an attempt to get it to grow so we can train it to the location we need. I am hopeful that next year we can just kill everything that grows towards the house instead of trying to redirect it. It is way easier when you can just cut a clearing around the house.

The furniture juggle that occurred caused us to get a chair and old Murphy bed added to the master bedroom. We added another table to the breeze porch. I was given a Mayer lemon tree that is about three feet tall a month ago. It got down to 41F last night so I figured it was time to find a place inside for the tree. I had to rearrange the entire breeze porch. I cleaned it up, trimmed some plants back and found a spot for the lemon tree. I ended up planting another five starts from trimmings. I could have done 20 but I need more planting soil. I am pretty sure I am going to have more than 30 plants for Christmas gifts at work. I may have to expand my offerings. I still need to get a plastic sheet to cover the wooden table before I can use it. Even though I use the plastic trays a little water gets spilt in between them.

I did polish a lot of wood today, I managed to get about half of our wooden doors polished. They all need it. We got all of the baby stuff that our grandson has outgrown bagged and up into the attic. When there is another baby we will pull it all down again and reuse it.

I need to put more drawer magnetic locks in the kitchen but I need to remember where I put all of the extras. I am still not sure what “safe” location I stashed them in. My goal is to find them this week so I can get them installed. This will not make the munchkin happy.

We are feeding our bees again. One hive is looking fantastic and the new one this year only has one box full. They left the second box empty. We will be moving them soon to the sheltered area. I need to get the gutter up on it so that water does not get blown inside the hives.

I still need to cut hay one more time over at the Naked Gardener’s house. I should get around two tons. I am taking some vacation in October to get the hay done and the barn completed.

I have still not managed to find out what killed our kitten. I have gotten up twice in the middle of the night because I thought I heard a chicken death knell and both times it was a false alarm. We did see something moving around on the camera but couldn’t tell what it was and it was gone by the time I got out there. I had considered putting the camera feed up live but I am always running out at night with minimal to no clothes on so I figured I better not do that!

I got all of my marbles into one location. The next step is to sort them and get all of the modern ones into one large container so the grandkids can play with them. About half of those are not really worth anything other than entertainment value which cannot be overlooked.

New toy!

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It’s time to start preparing for getting older. Moving the 200# rocks is not as easy as it used to be so I am now compensating for my infirm condition by buying a mechanical aid. Hence the purchase of a brand new mini excavator! It can only pick up a 500# rock but I figured that was enough. It will also dig the new water line trenches I had planned on installing. I might even try to get a new power line 50A, 240V line installed to the machine shed. It will definitely help with the new rock wall I want to install on the front hillside. I had to drive over to Idaho mid week to pick it up. It rode just fine once we figured out how to lower the boom to the trailer deck so that we could strap the boom in place and stop all movement. The new and improved farm diesel pickup got almost 15 MPG, which is a big improvement over the old pickup which only got 10 MPG.

I have been reading up on common problems with the mini excavators and I need to go through and check all hydraulic connections, all fluid levels, every bolt needs to be tightened and it needs to be greased up. Once all of that is done then I should be ready to make it do some work. That is going to be my next week’s project.

I had to repair a wooden block toy that used to be Sarah’s when she was a baby. The box was coming apart so I ended up removing one side, sanding it down and then gluing it back together. I got a little clamp happy but I truly believe that there can never be enough clamps on a project. We use the box to pick up all the wooden blocks scattered all over the living room, so it is needed. We put together a wooden toy chest last week so when the grandson is gone all of the toys can be easily corralled and controlled.

The Gingerman scored a “Glimakra standard countermarch 10 pedal floor loom” from Facebook marketplace for free. I just know it is big! We had to move the table and chair and clear out a whole corner of Annmarie’s office so the loom can be assembled. The kid’s brought down half of it this weekend. We have some pictures of it when it was assembled so it will be fun to get it together. It is 90 years old! The paperwork came with it. It looks like a few pieces had to be recreated as they broke/wore out. We won’t really know if it is all there until we try and assemble it. We are hoping we at least have one of the two pieces so we can just mirror a missing piece and cut it out ourselves. It will be a long weekend to get it assembled correctly. Annmarie is super excited! It is designed to speed up production and we are starting to get a lot of alpaca fiber so she could make rugs for the house fairly quickly. I am told there may be something else I have to make that will make it easier to put the thread onto the loom. She had a name for it but I forgot what it was.

Gazebo hillside stabilized

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I was finally able to get some farm work done this week. I have been feeding the horse and getting eggs only up until today. It is Pendleton RoundUp week and I am super busy at work and everyone else in the household is doing something at the event. Annmarie and the Gingerman are riding and playing in the mounted band. Gingerman is playing in Happy Canyon band also. My contribution to RoundUp is to keep the local ER up and running despite any obstacles.

I have been watching the semiannual equipment auction this last week, it has two days left and I am positioned to bring home a mini excavator! I have started to actually bid on one today. There are twelve for sale this time, not just one like last time. I was one of the two final bidders last time but refused to pay more than $4500. This time my bid is under $1k currently. This is a brand new machine. The only downfall is it is a three hour drive one way but for that price it is well worth it!

I spent today moving more rocks! I have the Gazebo downhill pad all supported and rocked in. We talked about creating one long wall from the walkway to the future gravel area so I can level off all of that upper area. This way we will have a nice level area to sit and access the Gazebo. This project is morphing into a much bigger thing than I had first anticipated but as our family grows and expands the ability to have outside gatherings is a bonus. Boy, having that mini excavator would sure be a nice thing to make this happen easily!

I was out scoping the rock wall pathway and how to integrate it with the yard art that is already present. I think I can make one curved wall that will do everything. I still want to put a water feature on the other side of the walkway. Lots of projects still to accomplish.

The little steer is looking great. He was giving me attitude every time I drove by him with a load of rocks. I finally switched and started to get the rocks from the edge of the wheat field. I can only go over there once the wheat is harvested as I have to drive alongside the edge of the field to reach it. It also has a lot of rounder rocks. I used them near where people might fall on the rocks. The sharp rocks are on the backside where no one will be.

Gazebo progress continues

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It was supposed to rain all day and it looked like it was going to so I drug my feet on going outside. I didn’t think picking rocks in the rain would be fun. Annmarie told me I could finish the barn but honestly digging up sheep poop fell to the bottom of my want list. Instead, I went through and prioritized my auction choices and whittled them down to two pages worth of items. I have seven days left to make up my mind about whether I want/need anything. I want several things, the real question is do I need it? I will let you know as we get closer to the deadline. The price may determine my need.

I was able to get more done on the pad reinforcement. I only managed to get the tractor up on three tires twice while loading the bucket by hand. You just have to keep removing rocks until the tractor sets back onto all four tires. Sometimes I just hang on the side of the tractor and jump up and down to get it to fall back on all its tires. If this works then I drive it down the road to empty the bucket. You just have to be careful not to run over anything that will cause the tractor tires to leave the road or else the bump will be exaggerated by the off center load.

I tried to leave the gate into the wheat field open again today. I did it yesterday and the five alpaca ended up out in the wheat field. I had to chase them out with the tractor. Yesterday, they were visible and around the gate when I left it open. Today, I looked to make sure that no alpacas were present. One of them saw me leave the gate open and came running. I again had to go chase them back with the tractor. I am closing the gate every time now. Milo and Chance have been staying in the yard, I open the corral gate and leave it open while I unload the bucket, both dogs stay in the yard!

I was talking to the kids today about leveling off the down hill area near the gazebo and then I casually mentioned that I probably needed to level the hillside approaching the gazebo. I am going to build this up with dirt and rock hillside. This just means bringing more rocks down into the yard, then more dirt. I will keep taking dirt from the old Blacksmith shop area. I just have to pick out the metal I find as I dig.

Once I get the pad supported I will dig a trench at the top and line it with a French drain pipe and run that down the hillside and under the new section I will gravel over. Once that is in place I will bring in another 3-4” of gravel over the top of the pad on that side. I may have to get another load of gravel delivered to the house.

I really need to work on building the new 3-point weight box. This will help the tractor stay on four wheels with a heavy load in the bucket area. My old one was commercially built and it fell apart, even with me welding it two more times. The metal was too thin. I have some 3/8” L stock I can make the next one out of and it will not twist, bend or break. I am going to cut the old one apart and use some of it in the new one, waste not want not.

Gazebo retaining wall

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Since war has been declared on the backyard predators not much killing has been happening. The Ring camera likes to alert on the cats and chickens but we are not having great luck with it sending us alerts for predators. So at night I turn on the camera on my phone and watch it live while we are watching television. This way I can spot it if something comes to the back porch. Well Annmarie spotted something and I have gone out a couple of times to only find a cat. Friday night we spotted a skunk! This is probably the skunk that sprayed our Border Collie in the front yard. Chance still smells like skunk even after three baths. The trouble with this is that the skunk was coming towards the back door and I really did not want to get sprayed directly in the face. Washing the dog was as close as I want to get to the offensive part of a skunk. So I grabbed the spotlight and 22 pistol, Gingerman grabbed a shotgun and his phone light. As soon as it was safe to go out I was headed towards the garden when a voice came over the Ring camera telling me that something had jumped the gate and was headed towards the chicken coop. I went that way, spotted two different cats but nothing else when the Gingerman hollered and said he saw a black and white streak headed into the garden.

I ran that way and we scoped out the entire lavender, garden are and orchard and did not spot a skunk. My bet was it was hiding in the raspberry/blackberry patch. But that is so overgrown you kinda have to push your way through. No way I was going in there looking for a skunk. I went back in and the Gingerman took light and looked some more without any luck. I found a second good flashlight and put it back by the back porch. The weather was rainy and windy last night so the skunk did not come around. I do not believe the skunk killed the kitten but it did spray the dog so it needs to go away. It will spray the dog again if given a chance. I still think there is a town raccoon out there somewhere and that is what killed the kitten.

We are starting to get some washout on the downhill side of the gazebo platform. I am sure it is from the rain coming off the roof. So I switched gears and am starting to support the hillside. Large, barely able to move, rocks on the flat level area and then rocks at least six inches in size above that on the hillside. Some of those large rocks weigh so much that only three can be carried in the bucket of my tractor. It won’t lift the bucket with a fourth one present. I am going to use about half the rocks out in the alley way. I may have enough rocks for the support wall maybe. It will be close. I can always go on the back hillside, there is an endless supply of rocks there.

I know I am getting old, the big rocks make my butt and sternum hurt after I move them around for a few hours. I muscle them into the bucket and then into place. I was able to leave all the rocks in the bucket and just dump the bucket where I wanted them. I could just sort them in place at that point.

Gingerman sent me the link to the biannual farm consignment auction yesterday. There was 30 pages of equipment and supplies for sale. I have managed to cut it down to two pages of watched items. It’s a three hour, one way drive to pick up the equipment in Idaho. Once I realized that it was pretty easy to knock the list down from four pages to two. The list is probably below one page but they have 10 of the mini excavators for sale! I could move rocks all day long with one of those. They also have a bunch of accessories and extra attachments so I have all of it flagged so I can watch them. They also have several mini skid steer loaders. I could get into every nook and cranny of the barn and not have to do any hand digging! This would be the bomb!