rock wall

Gazebo hillside stabilized

Steve HardinLeave a comment

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.

Rock wall almost done

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Well the brothers Mr Shady and the T-shirt bandit came out for day two of their farm initiation. I wanted to do a little work on the rock wall and it kinda morphed into an all day event! The spring banks, a path to the gazebo and the back creek fence line all got the weed eater treatment. The boys traded off about an hour into it. The T-shirt bandit started out with me working on the rock wall. After 30 minutes of watching him try to pull his pants up every five seconds I was getting frustrated. I asked him about wearing a belt but he told me he could not find it this morning. I finally went in and found an old belt I had thought I had thrown away and was never more grateful to find. He wore it all day and shockingly did not have to lift his pants up again.

Mr Shady traded out weed eating and started to dig on the wall with me. It was going so well I thought that we might even get finished today so I just kept pushing forward and we kept going. We were able to get the entire front wall installed. We did have to go and pick five buckets of rocks off the back hillside. I will need to get the sprinkler to spray that corner so I can drill a post hole with the tractor auger. I will need to set a new wooden corner post about five feet from the current one. I am pretty sure we do not have enough of the small metal fence panels to go across the entire front rock wall. So I will have to build something on one end to make up the distance.

We picked small rocks for the yard side but I left T-shirt bandit alone to make a straight line from one wooden post to the other across the front of the lawn. He said there were a couple of S shapes in the “straight”line. After looking at it I found the old string we had for the front wall and we strung it up so he could see the S shape. I will need to redo that section but it should only take about an hour. I did find myself with less patience today than yesterday. I believe that is due to me being tired and my overall intolerance of teenager behavior. It could be that new vocabulary words were learned today or at least one was used creatively in various contexts. Everyone survived and that is the goal.

T-shirt bandit did get the hole to China filled in again so Chance will now have a new goal over the next two weeks. The birthday party is at the end of the month but I do not think I can get a ton of sand unloaded spread and several hundred bricks laid before the party.

The next thing I need to focus on is getting the greenhouse door assembled and hung up. Once that is done I need to get the chicken enclosure all fixed and bird tight. Once that is done then I can hook up water and lock all of the chickens into the coop area. We have over 30 chickens and I did not get a single egg today! Once I get the coop area predator and chicken proof then I should jump to a dozen eggs/day at a bare minimum.

Unfortunately, we need to sort and worm all the sheep and dump the rams in with them. This will be the very next thing I do. Besides pick more blackberries! There is always something to do on the farm.

Juggling Multiple projects already

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It looks like I am just going to have to squeeze in an update whenever I can. Last week I worked on getting the garden area all sprayed with Roundup. I am just waiting to see how much it killed before deciding to hit it with anything else. If you get the broadleaf plants when they are small sometimes the Roundup will kill them even though it is not designed for them. Our driveway and the fence lines are finally starting to turn brown. I have a couple of small spots in the driveway I missed. I will need to do some touch up spraying to get everything. I need to spray a lot more around the gazebo. I have to kill the hillside so I can cover it with rocks. I need to make sure the pad does not shift.

I sprayed the two fields down by the old water pump and it got a great kill. I need to hit it with the plow soon. My plan is to keep killing it all summer to knock down the cheatgrass seed. But to do that I will need to add some water to it this summer so the cheatgrass can keep sprouting.

We have someone coming out now and working on our yard. This is great as it will free me up to work on the farm, Mr Golfpro. He made sure and taped up his fingers the first time to ensure he did not get any blisters, he had a golf game the next day. He is excited to be able to get out and about. I even showed him how to use the tractor to fill in the dog’s new hole to China. It was another impressive feat by the border collie and border terrier.

I spent most of last weekend working on the rock wall. I am trying to spend 2-3 hours during the week after work working on the wall. My goal is to get it finished this month. It is getting easier but I still come inside soaked in sweat after an hour or two on the wall. It makes that mini excavator look better and better. Unfortunately, I will be done soon!

I did spend Easter weekend working on the fence down by the cattle guard. My mother-in-law has been buying quail blocks and trying to drop them over the fence. In an effort to not have to cut her out of the fence I decided to shift the fence and open up the dead area in the corner of the field. This way she can just set the quail block down near the rose bushes. It took me two days of solid work to get the fence corners installed, wooden posts reset and all of the T posts hand pounded into the ground before I could move the fence and then retighten the road side. It has been a long time since I built fence all alone. It takes a lot longer when there is only one of you.

I went in and bought 100 cubic feet of soil for the elevated garden beds. I just need to get it out of the back of the pickup and into the beds! This will take a few hours. I can only get close with the tractor then I will have to hand carry them to get them into the garden. This will have to be this upcoming weekend. I also have to purge and circulate vinegar through our instant hot water tank on Friday. When it gets too much buildup it starts overheating. I will clean it first and if that does not fix it then I will have to tear it apart and clean out the bugs out of the fan but that was just done last year. It made it four years before that was needed so I am sure it just needs descaled.

Getting ready for water

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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.