Gingerman

Needed Rain

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The weather forecast was for rain all weekend. I figured I had better get the 50 bags of soil out of the back of the pickup before they absorb any more water! I loaded them all up last week alone and they were not that heavy when I put them in there. I was able to get the four new blueberry bins filled and ready for plants. I had to refill our regular bins. Every couple of years they each need a bag of soil to top them off again. I added one new bin to our herb area and think we can get another 3-4 bins squeezed in there. I am not sure we will fill them all with herbs but we can put in low growing veggies. I was also able to fill in a new six footer bin we purchased last year for strawberries.

We had two more new bins in the berry area. One is a new asparagus bin. I cut the bottom of the bin out, it was rusted out, to allow the plants to dig down further into the ground if they want. This bin we are not going to over plant with any strawberries. The strawberries tried to choke out our asparagus in the first bin we planted. The asparagus is still alive but we were just able to keep the plants alive last year. We did not get any asparagus from it. The plan is to just plant a straight asparagus only bin. Once the asparagus is well established I might look into some type of flower that is compatible that will just grow on the surface and is a low to the ground and a late bloomer.

The six foot bin was for more strawberries. I had planted some in the garden area in with the squash as we had more plants than space. So I transplanted them to the new bin and I expect them to fill in the entire bin by the end of the summer. They are pretty aggressive. We did get a lot of strawberries last year! I really need to build a little arbor around them so I can hang bird netting from it and it will be much easier to move out of the way when picking.

After fifty bags I was ready to be done! I am not as young as I used to be and I can feel it these days. For some reason my knee started to bother me. I think I was crouching down in the gravel and forgot I was old. The rain held off on Friday until I got back from town.

I needed to protect the wild rose bushes in the driveway and was going to buy 8 foot T-posts and some horse fencing. But by the time I priced it I was going to need $400 worth of fencing and posts to circle three wild rose bushes. We have to protect the rose bushes from the alpaca. They love eating rose bushes. They will eat rose bushes before anything else. I ended up buying four 16’ cow panels at $33/each instead. I set them up in a square like shape and they are standing up by themselves currently. I had to turn them upside down so the large openings were on the ground. This lets the quail and pheasants crawl through the fence to hide and eat from the quail block. I will probably toss in some old trimmed tree limbs into the enclosure to create a hiding spot. We have been working on creating more habitat for the quail all over the farm and it is paying off. We have a native population of about 150-200 quail now.

I was able to get eight bags of Sackcrete mixed by hand and poured into the hole I dug by the concrete weir. When you back the water up by the pump, the water was leaking out of the dirt berm. I am hopeful this will stop that. If not then we will line the pond with a liner to allow us to fill it up with water for irrigation. I cannot move the irrigation pump alone, it is just too heavy. I need to get the pump out of the way so I can pull the wooden supports out and then jump down into the concrete weir and dig out all of the mud! I have not cleaned it out for a long time and it has about a foot of mud built up in it. All of that has to come out so I don’t have to fight mud and grit on the sprinkler end of the irrigation. I went to town again as I needed a figure 8 Clevis so that I can pull the new plow. I want to plow those two fields I sprayed. I of course could not find the one I know I own somewhere. It was raining by the time I got back from town.

On Sunday the Gingerman helped me move the old irrigation pump and I was able to pull the boards off the weir. I am going to have to get some all thread and drill through the boards to pull them all back together. I had sandwiched eight 2×4 together in two bunches to make a platform for the pump. They are starting to come apart. After that we went over to the Gingerman’s place so that I could crawl into an old water tank. I needed to install a plug so that we can get the tank ready for our fire suppression truck. We just need to get the tank up on the truck, clean it out and get everything hooked up. We have most of the pieces already.

Overall it rained over 0.27” this weekend as of publication time.

Spring is here

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I managed to get the first wave of weed spraying completed on Friday. I have done every fence line but the one down by the schoolhouse. Now we wait 7-12 days to see what happens. It is the only real downside to using Roundup, there is no instant gratification when you drive by a few hours later. I was able to get done by 1400 and it didn’t start to rain until after midnight. In a week or two I will need to set the sprayer up to start laying down 2-4-D and Milestone to get ahead of the thistles. We have been battling various types of thistle since we returned. There are four different kinds of thistle present on our property.

Saturday first thing I helped unload concrete from the progeny’s house. My contribution was driving the tractors! I got both tractors and as I dumped one the Gingerman loaded the other one. It was pretty quick to unload six buckets of concrete. I have been using it to stabilize the embankment. After those two horrible floods our bank got seriously eroded. We just built the dirt back over the culvert and now something was needed to keep it in place. So I have been systematically alternating dumping on each side to widen the coverage along the embankment. It doesn’t look the best but it is a lot safer now crossing in that area. It was getting too soft to cross with the pickup. Now I would feel confident that the pickup would not just slide down the embankment. It is deep and steep enough that getting the pickup out uninjured might not be possible.

We are still feeding the cows. They are supposed to have babies in April so as they transition over to green grass I want to keep them full of nutrients. The sheep are going up and eating the grass every day. They put themselves up in the barn every night. If the weather is nice they sit right outside the barn on the small hill. This makes it very easy for us as we don’t have to do anything with them now. I will need to go out and count lambs again eventually before we move them anywhere.

It is just past the middle of March and the trees are starting to bloom, one is an apricot and the other is a peach I think. I was out adding gravel and fresh compost to the blueberry bins. Annmarie tested the sheep compost piles for me this weekend to see if I can use them for filler. Nope, they are smoking hot and filled with a bunch of nitrogen. So much that not a single weed will grow on the piles. I am going to have to get the manure spreader up and running so I can spread it out this year and not pay for fertilizer. Fertilizer is very expensive currently. I did order diesel for the farm but it’s over $5.75/gallon at the pump currently so I have no idea what it will cost. I figured I just better get it done now and when it needs it in August/September again maybe the price will be lower. I have to have the 150 gallon tank filled twice annually. It is only used for the two tractors.

I took a couple of hours on Friday and Saturday to work on the rock wall. I am starting to make progress and want to get it done so we can start planting bulbs on the left side and getting ready to place the new small metal fence on top of the wall. I am finally starting to see a difference. It took a lot of work to get there. My exercise plan is working!

Wedding prep

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The progeny’s wedding is in 14 days. This realization has been thrust onto my priority list. I painted the wall in our hallway where the old bathroom door used to be the week before and now I have corralled into a wood craft project related to table decorations. Gingerman and I spent over two hours sanding and assembling table decorations. He did most of the sanding and I just did some touch up on the edges and the assembly. Milo wanted to help and the cat kept trying to get in the way. We managed to get 21 done which is more than are needed.

I spent the rest of the day using a Green Machine to clean the living room furniture. I also decided that the large circular light in the stairwell needed cleaned as it had been a couple of years. I have to take the stained glass in the upper bathroom down and then you can get up onto the wooden shelf and reach out and touch the light. I pat myself on the back every time I do this and don’t have to break out a ladder to get up to the light that is 16 feet in the air. There is a small two piece glass skirt that keeps most of the dust off of the light bulbs. This can be removed, washed and put back on. When it is removed it is easier to vacuum the light all the way down to the middle. It also lets you brush the light bulbs with a rag to remove the dust. I recommend NOT using a wet paper towel to do this as I got a solid 120V jolt to my left hand that was holding the light from turning as I used the right hand to wipe the dust off the light bulb and holder. It has been quite a while since I have shocked myself. I kept scrubbing the light and turning it until all of the dust was gone. The light looks so much better now. I stood directly below the light when I took that photo.

Cow sorting

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Last week we did actually get some needed items checked off the winter list. Mr Rainman came out and tackled the orchard. He trimmed all of the fruit trees. Not only did he trim them, he cut them way back so they can gain some limb strength. This was a much needed thing as the limbs were having a hard time carrying a full load of fruit. He also tackled the ancient apple trees and raised the limbs enough that we can drive the tractor underneath the tree!

Mr Rainman is also building up a second pile of limbs near the irrigation ditch for the quail. The quail use the limb piles as cover to protect themselves from predators. This will be the fifth pile we have created on the farm for them. We have two coveys this winter of about 80 birds each. They are healthy and fly around the houses at least once a day. Even if I cannot see them they can be heard as they are quite noisy. This took both days to get completed. The raspberries and blackberries are the last thing that needs to get trimmed this winter.

Gingerman and I went out first thing in the morning last Saturday to sort the cows. We needed to get the bull into Alcatraz and the three weanling calves off the female cows they are 6-7 months old now. It was fairly cold and I could see steam coming off the pile of manure from two years ago.

I drove the tractor and the Gingerman cycled gates. The cows associate the tractor with food so they always come running when they hear it. I opened a gate into the pasture around the old chicken coop and the cows proceeded to rush the fence into the ram pasture. This led them to spot the open gate onto the hillside so they ran up the hillside looking for a way out. I had to get down off the tractor and the Gingerman and I herded them back into the ram pasture and back out towards the gate over by Alcatraz. The horse was locked into the old lamb barn and we had both gates down to the spring closed so it was a straight shot toward the corral. The new gate/fence in the barn lot worked incredibly well and we got the cows into the front barn lot without much hassle. Once we got them into the lot it was not very hard to push them into the corral area. We managed to sort off three heifers and then the bull got stuck out by himself so we pushed him back into the horse area to wait. He needed to go to Alcatraz but with the heifers already getting sorted we need to move them first. The calves all bunched up in the area near the barn and the Gingerman was walking up behind them to get them moving when the pretty brown calf smashed his hind leg backwards to state his displeasure at being handled. The problem with this is the Gingerman was too close and caught the hoof in the left testicle. He did not hit the ground himself but it was a close call. He ended up leaning on the gate while I casually sorted the rest of the cows.

We ran the calves through the yard into the orchard. The heifers just got pushed out into field #4 to continue eating and growing their pregnant bellies.

The bull just sauntered over towards the fence to get to the heifers. The fence and the Gingerman were in his way. He kept trying to get around the Gingerman and he would just wave his head and push forward against the Gingerman. We finally got him turned, then just chased him into Alcatraz so he did not have time to think about what he was doing.

I ended up sanding all of the pine pieces for the inside trim of the bathroom. I would have rather spent the day outside. It was a sunny and clear day, absolutely beautiful. But the bathroom must progress.

Bathroom day 51

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I have been informed that there are a mere 24 days left until company arrives for the wedding! This does sorta put things in perspective. It is only day 51 of the remodel, even though it is week 45. At this rate I will be able to stay ahead of the weeks passed by the number of days worked on the project! Not a great accomplishment but it is something. I have been working on the dreaded Sheetrock. Again, there are just a few things that I don’t care for and Sheetrock work is one of them. I tried something different this time. I was super careful to scrape really well with the next size up drywall scraper/knife. When I was close to finishing I did a wet sand. I had never tried it before, it did leave some slight grooves from softening things up too much it was super easy to repair once it all dried up.

I shot texture on the wall this morning and the main section looks good. It will be ready for primer tomorrow. I will have to dig around in the closets to see if we have any leftover paint. I still need to put some more texture on the wall opposite the closet. I ran out of texture in the can.

I have been working on getting the inside trim dialed in this weekend. I had to tear custom width oak for the top and bottom of the cabinet. I spent almost 90 minutes just sanding those pieces then dry fitting them. This required multiple trips to the saw to get the length right. I installed the top two and the bottom side one. The front needs a nail gun but I only have the air finish nailers and I want to wait to set that up until I have all of the trim pieces cut and dry fitted.

I put a couple of 2×2 at the top of the door to work as spacers so I can nail the trim to them. The trim needed to be lower to cover the hanger hardware. My goal is to hide everything. I am working in pine on the inside of the door as that is what I used on the walls. The outside will be done in the same trim as all the rest of the interior. I was at the hardware store for over 30 minutes just digging through pine boards to find some I could use as trim, too many knots, cracks, chips on edges on a large portion of the boards. I needed one board 8” wide and 7’ tall. I ended up buying a 12 foot section of 1×10” and cut the middle out of it to get a clean piece. Gingerman kept going out in the morning with me to help me tear them down then he went off to do his own chores. It is hard to tear a board down by yourself and make it straight. If I owned some expensive stuff I could do that but my $100 table saw requires two people to carry it into the yard and two to guide the board through the saw.

I have all of the boards ripped and now they need sanded. But I spent about four hours this weekend sanding and wanted to make some progress on the oak cabinet trim before working on the door opening. I have three more oak cross pieces to sand, cut, fit and install. Once that is done then we can talk about how large and how many doors I will need to cut.

I spent almost two hours today trying to find the striker plate for the sliding door. I even went so far as to clean up the old house, cleaned up the mud room and even took all the tools and junk piled up in the laundry room but I did not find that striker plate! I am sure I put it somewhere “safe” I just cannot remember where. Hopefully, I can find it in the next week. It can wait as it only means the bathroom door cannot be locked. On a plus side I did find all the cabinet hinges, knobs and magnetic closures! I would have had to hunt those down eventually. I kept finding needed stuff, I even found the instructions for installing the striker plate, one would think I would have found the actual item.