farm life

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 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!

Gazebo progress

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Monday was the day I was going to finish the barn clean out. The trouble with that is I needed to go help the Gingerman unload the flat bed trailer with the hay on it. We fed one bale to the alpaca as they had been helping themselves to it while it was on the trailer. The second large bale went out to the cows and momma sheep. There is plenty of grass still for them but they are lazy. Once that bale is gone they will have to go back to working for their food. We are trying to get the sheep pregnant so some extra calories will not hurt them a bit. It had rained just over half an inch in the last week. But 2/10” was last night so I decided to run the land plane over the gravel road to refresh it and knock down any holes. I love the land plane, it does a great job on the gravel road. I have to wait until the road has had a good soaking or I cannot work it easily. I then switched over the arena groomer and smoothed out all the ground I had disced up for a fire break. I also used the arena groomer to clean up the field that I had plowed. I made a burn pile of all the weeds. I will need to do the other field next and it needs a burn pile also. I can burn those in December/January.

I went inside to have some lunch and another cup of coffee and told wife I did not want to dig out the barn. So she convinced me to just work on moving rocks for the Gazebo instead. I know that sounds counterintuitive but I did not want to shovel in the barn. Instead I loaded big rocks and some smaller ones. I need 50# plus rocks for the base of the support wall then all rocks above those need to be at least six inches or larger. I am told that is what is needed to stabilize the pad to prevent it from sloughing. The amount of rain we are getting has caused part of the pad to slough. So it has moved up the priority list and cannot wait until winter. I had visions of just piling up the rocks but once I picked up a shovel to mark the base layer I just shoveled the entire thing and called it done! I am going to bring over a hand truck so I can just scoop one large rock up at a time and wheel it into place. I will start working on this after work for at least 30 minutes so it can be over and done.

Regardless, I managed to escape digging poop out of the barn today. That is a joy for another day.

Our new back door Ring camera placement did not detect anything last night. We even reviewed all the footage. We had a hard time seeing so Annmarie asked that I move the camera closer. I moved it over to another closer planter bin and the focal length for the camera is much better. We get a clearer picture. Now it is just a matter of it alerting me to a predator and I can do my part and avenge Cheddar!

Predators out of control

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My sister wanted to take the little orange kitty home, she had named it Cheese. Unfortunately, Saturday night something decided that cheese was on the menu. I went out Sunday morning to feed the kitty and found a head, skin and some intestines, the rest was gone! It was on the feeding ledge. Needless to say I was a little shocked as we had not heard anything, disappointed as we had been working on taming the kitty and fairly angry that something ate our kitten!

So I spent the morning moving our ring camera from watching the chicken coop to watching the cat feeding area. I have moved the shotgun to the back porch and we have an alert set so it will wake me up in the night. It is game on and I am going to win! I used the mint planter to put in a post and mounted the camera on top of that. It has night vision so we should be able to see anything that comes in. I even took the dinner bones and put them out to attract any predator that likes meat. This is such a stupid problem.

When I went out to the woodshed to get a shovel I opened the door and a bat fell down off the top of the door! The bat was not happy. I tried to right it several times but it kept rolling over onto its back. I used an old cat dish to scoop it up and try and put it on the ledge. It rolled off the ledge. I finally just left it alone. It kept making this clicking sound and my hearing aids loved it so they kept amplifying it! I did get the shovel.

The Gingerman and I have been talking about changing out the blades on the old mower. He brought over a 3/4” socket and wrench for the job. We decided to tack weld the bolt to the old blade so I could hold onto the blade and keep it from turning. We broke the tack weld twice so the third time it was more of a weld than a tack. It still took a board to pin the blade and Gingerman on a five foot cheater bar on the wrench to get it broke loose and taken apart. I had to grind the bolt off of the old blades and then reshape the head with the grinder. When we put them on we only put them on snugly. We did not put them on with the cheater bar. This is the first time in 15 years that the blades have been changed out. I actually broke one of the blades so they had to be replaced, the thing was so lopsided that you could not use it. When the PTO was engaged it felt like the entire tractor was trying to leave the ground for outer space, the shake was so bad.

I took some extra time and welded the cracks from both sides as we had the mower turned on its side. I tried to hit all the cracks and then paint over them so the welds don’t rust as easily. I use whatever color is on the shelf and works!

I then dug out the barn for an hour or so. I had to do most of it by hand as I am getting into the tight spaces. I only have the feed area left in the main part of the barn. I am not feeling it but it still needs to get done.

I filled the water area in Alcatraz with 2-3” rock in an attempt to keep the mud down. This should allow the animals to walk right up to the water and not have to get into any mud. I need to drag the ground in Alcatraz and remove about two inches of soil off the top. There is so much organic matter that nothing will grow. If I put all of that onto the compost piles I can get it moved out to the fields as fertilizer.

Barn dig out initiated

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The big question of the day, will the new tractor fit into the barn? Before I could answer that question I had to go out and pick tomatoes from the back garden. The onions have been ready but with the party we just left them in the ground. I pulled them all out and hung them over the edges of a bin to dry out and form a skin. We had two bins worth of onions but one of the bins had some volunteer tomatoes come up so I am going to keep watering the tomato plant in the hopes of getting more fruit. I also planted beets in the old pea bin. I will probably plant some carrots this weekend in one of the other empty bins. I need to chop off some of the low growing branches on the back tree as it is starting to get in the way again. I will just add that to the list.

I need to work on the greenhouse again. Mr Rainman told me if I watched some YouTube videos I will need to caulk the panels in certain places to hold them in. I have had two panels pop out this last week. But the next thing after the barn dig out is moving rocks. I MUST get the rocks on the hillside below the gazebo put in place. The plan is super large rocks at the base of the mound and then at least 5-6” rocks all over the hillside to stabilize the gazebo base. After all of the effort to get the gazebo up and build the pad I do not need it washing out.

I was able to find my manure forks for the tractor bucket and install them. I was actually able to drive in and out of the barn without moving any fence but I had about three inches of clearance on each side and that is not realistic for hours of in and out travel. So I removed distal half of the fence on the left side of the entrance. I am going to move the entire fence over 12-18” when I rebuild it. That will be the last thing I do after cleaning out the barn. I put in a few hours today moving dirt and muck and have the barn over 50% done. I was able to hand dig out the entire sorting chute and did not have to remove it. This saved me about an hour of labor. I find that the labor gets a little harder every year. I was even able to turn the tractor around inside the barn. That is the real test of too big. The hydraulics are a little touchier than the John Deere so I am still getting used to them. My hope is to get the barn and gate all completed this weekend then I can switch gears and start hauling rocks.

I moved some water into the chicken yard and the chickens have started to lay in the coop again. I am getting at least four eggs/day now. The dog eats 2/day and the wife 1/day so they are at least out producing our daily consumption. I still have not gotten the roof on the yard but that project keeps getting pushed out to a later date.

I was thinking today in the shower about a seating area outside the gazebo. I may create a level gravel area outside and below the gazebo. There is a section of the hillside below the gazebo that has shallow soil and a rock bluff that not much grows there but cheat grass. I would need to build a retaining wall out of metal panels like I did for the horse area. This would make a nice gathering area. It’s a thought. If I do it I will need to put in some subterranean drain pipe to allow the gazebo roof to drain appropriately and keep the bank stabilized. I will keep musing on this idea to see if it is doable without too much work. Annmarie talked to me about putting in a water feature on the other side and I will want to do that before anything! I love a good water feature. My last one looked like a pair of breasts, it was accidental but everyone said the same thing when they saw it. It will be shallow so there will be no fish but I am hopeful that the birds will use it to bath in and the bees will be able to easily and safely get water.