rock wall

Getting ready for water

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Despite the fact that we got almost a 1/3” of rain this weekend it is time to start thinking about irrigation. We have a well pump with a conversion to pull surface water ready to go, I just need to get the water storage area ready. Years ago we learned that there is hole in the earthen dam. So I went up there on Sunday and dug down until I hit water. My plan is to fill the entire hole with concrete. The dam doesn’t leak until the water backs up about a foot higher than it is now. I had to find the power cables to the pump first to ensure I did not get popped by 220V of electricity. I also noticed that there is a lot of silt buildup in the throat of this channel. I will need to crawl down there with a shovel and get it all out so it doesn’t get sucked up into the pump and clog our sprinklers.

While I was doing this I heard our Border Terrier, Milo barking. He was supposed to be in the front yard of the house and I was 100 + yards away. He had gotten out through the garden gate, it was open then he found a hole in the orchard fence. I am not sure where the hole is located but he was out and causing chaos. I called him over and he was covered in mud and water. He had been down in the creek and crawling through the mud. I told him to lay down and went back to sticking my head in the hole to get to the bottom. At some point, within a couple of minutes, he was gone again. I heard him raising Cain and had to go over and call him off the blackberry bush. He had something trapped inside and was unable to get to it. He has a serious hate for raccoons and he was pretty agitated but came over wagging his tail. He had blood all over his left ear. The dummy had scratched himself on the bush! He ended up going to Grandma’s house for a spa day.

I decided to spend a few hours focused on the rock wall. It is paying off but now it is getting much harder. I am having to move a lot of dirt and dig down a couple of feet by hand. I wanted to keep the wall straight so I strung up a string line so it would not bow as bad as last time. I do want to redo it a third time! In about two more feet of wall I will have to take down the metal fence and then go pick more rocks off of the hillside. I will have used up all the rocks within reach.

I have decided to take up another hobby. I am going to try and grow some Bonsai trees. I realize they are slow going but I have 20+ years so I am going to give it a go. I have my first one started and will be looking for some more. I have some seeds to start my own trees from scratch. It will be an interesting endeavor.

Getting ready for spring

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Well it finally quit raining for a bit last week and I was able to get outside. Our bulbs we planted in the fall are finally starting to emerge. Now I just gotta work on keeping the grass down in the flower bed. We have not seen any honeybees out this spring so Annmarie has plans to open up the bee hive this weekend to see if they are still alive.

I was able to go out and fill the barn with food for the sheep and since I was out in the barn lot I decided to fix the new gate that the cows bent over. I ended up rolling the gate on one end about eight inches in an attempt to tighten it. The problem was once I did that I could not get the bottom of the gate to stretch into the bottom wire. So I ended up installing a second ratcheting tightener on the bottom also so that I can just tighten the bottom and top at the same time. I got the fence pretty tight but when I went to the middle and hit the top, like a cow, it bent over again. I ended up having to install some triangles to stiffen the fence. Now, the cows cannot just push it over and we can still open the gate if needed without too much difficulty.

I was able to use some Tried & True finish on the oak trim in the bathroom. I needed to finish the trim before I can install the rest of the crown molding that I had to take down to install the cabinet. I even found the correct crown molding, after my third attempt but then I could not find the correct white nails so I had to order some more. Hopefully, I can install the crown molding this weekend.

Annmarie has decided that since I have had pneumonia twice this last winter that I need to workout to stay in shape. My version of working out and hers are not identical. I want something productive to come out of physical exertion. So now as long as it is not raining I am changing clothes when I get home and going out to work on the rock wall. I need to redo about 60% of the completed and then finish the rest. For some reason I kept scooting the wall outward and did not keep it in a straight line. I started digging it back in the middle and once I got it deep enough I found the original base. I still don’t know why I did not do this the first time. It will take a while to get it done but I am starting to make some visible progress.

It has not frozen in two weeks and everything is stating to turn green. I am going to plant peas this next week in the garden and maybe even spinach. The beets we planted in the fall have all snapped back from winter and are starting to grow again. I am going to have to get the two used horse troughs out into the garden and start getting them filled with gravel and dirt. I really want to grow some blueberries but am unsure where to plant them in the garden. I am thinking I may plant them out in the orchard proper along the fence. I still think I want to grow them in elevated bins. This will really help with the deer, sheep and bunny rabbit issues that we have out here.

Rock Wall

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last week I was still waiting on the parts from Delta to fix the bathroom sink so I had a free weekend from the bathroom. The weather was gorgeous and I am ready to get the front yard fence up. We have a decorative metal fence, purchased years ago, that needs to be installed on the front rock wall. The plan is for it to keep the dogs on the hillside during the day and allow us to use the sheep to graze down the hillside. When the sheep get in the yard they eat some stuff I don’t want them to eat. We also want to start planting more flowers for the bees and the sheep will eat those also. Long story short, the rock wall needs to be completed before the fence can be installed. This entails a lot of tractor work and the moving of a lot of heavy rocks.

The ground is dry enough now that I can go up on the hillside and dislodge rocks. You do not want any slick surfaces when you are coming down the hillside and with a bucket full of rocks. As it was a bucket full would still put me onto three tires when I turned downhill. I had to drop the bucket several times and bounce it off the ground to level myself out. I moved rocks and dumped them into the yard for half a day then spent the next two and a half days building the rock wall. The left side was already done, I just had to raise it about a foot and add some more dirt. I am stealing dirt from the area behind the old chicken coop. I am trying to make that area flat so I keep stealing from there. I had been using it for the secondary dike I installed alongside that part of the creek.


The dike is in my field and it is only about 18 inches high. I would have only needed about eight inches during the last flood. By the time it gets that high it is really wide, it just needed a little help to stay in the correct channel. I doubt we will have any more floods as bad as the two we had but I think I have finally gotten all of the areas reinforced and added to so we don’t get widespread flooding.

I remembered why I did not want to do the project about two hours into the hand digging portion. I had to get a pick axe, shovel and breaker bar to move the old rocks out of the way. I ended up digging down to the original footing from the previous rock wall and building back up from there. I made it about half way on the new side. I still need to raise it about another ten inches but I figured I would get the wall up and then work on raising it and adding more dirt. I am only going to go over to the rose bush, end of the upper wooden fence.

As I was driving back and forth collecting rocks I got to study my favorite tree on the farm. I keep thinking I should go up and thin out the dead wood out of this tree but I love the way it looks and the birds use it as a primary stopping point. It is slowly dying and has been for the last 20 years.