Completed One Thing After Another

Watched the new, had breakfast, and went to work.

Yesterday, when I let the chickens out of the hen house, there was a lot of water running.  The above picture is pretty fuzzy, but there was a breach in the pipe in the center and a little bit to the left.  I shut off the water and  started to dig up the pipe.  I had to bail out a lot of water, but finally got it.

I dug up the pipe and pulled it loose.  Inside the ell there is a white PVC that brings the water from house four.  It is a pretty muddy mess.  I washed the two ends that will be joined together.  I went to work on another project to let it dry up.

Last week I covered the carrots with black folded weed barrier.  This morning I began building a poly cover.

The above photo shows the completed project.  Under the poly is the black weed barrier, and under that are the carrots.  They will be protected from and freezing this winter.

I made weights out of several 2x4's that were nearly seven feet long.  There are two pieces on each side.  The poly is put between the two pieces and held together by screws.  

There were two conduit pipes that were two tall.  One on each side.  I pulled the up and cut off about twelve inches.  I then drove them into the ground so the top was a little bit below the to of the raised bed.  The poly easily covers the weed barrier s show in the photo at the beginning of this section.  

Back to the chicken run and the water pipe.  It was pretty dry.  I applied cement two each end of the pipe, pushed them together, and twisted a little so the hose bib was pointed up.  I was going to turn on the water tonight but forgot.

I cut down the rest of the corn on this row which was frozen several weeks ago..  I put it on a compost pile north of the north garden.

 I found four ears of corn that looked like they might be good eating.  I got a picture of only one.  I ate one for lunch which tasted pretty good.  There is a possibility of  a late planting of corn that matures and then there is a frost the kills the corn.  It could it stay in the garden and few ears could be picked each day for dinner.

I stacked these tree baskets on a piece of plywood.

I am considering making a lean to greenhouse either on the west side of the garage or the south end of the garage.

I have five fifty-five gallon barrels that could be filled with water and place inside of the greenhouse to help keep the green house warm during the winter.  A bench would  be on top of the barrels.

Five upright barrels side to side in straight line would require a greenhouse fifteen feet wide.

The above photo is at the south end of the garage.  If the greenhouse were place here there could be three barrels on the west side and two barrels on the east side.  Benches could be on top of the barrels.

Now to house six.  The elder berry shrub was cut down several weeks ago.  It took me a couple of hours to remove all of the branches and leaves.

I started picking up a couple of branches and carried them to house five.  Instead, I got the tarp and filled it with branches and leaves and drug it to the shredder.  It took several trips.  I made several trips with the wheel barrow full of leaves and short stems.

I cut off all the branches almost to the ground.  Then I painted the stems with round-up.

I cut the large trunks that were on the out side.  I also painted them with round-up.

I cleaned up all the stems and leaves and put the bench on four blocks.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Quail Eggs

We have two patches of snap beans.  We picked the north row of bush beans first.  We filled two bowels of beans.  We then picked a lot of cucumbers.  Some of them had grown quite big.  They filled a five gallon bucket and a little more.  After taking them to the house, we picked the pole beans.  We picked more pole beans than bush beans.

We then picked the tomatoes.  I picked 25 ripe tomatoes the from the plant  on the west end of the row.  Carol helped me or I helped her.  We picked about a bushel.  When we finished we started breakfast.

Saturday Robert brought a large container of quail eggs.  He had some pickled eggs at the luncheon after Skyler home coming talk.  I fried eight  quail eggs for breakfast.  I had to cut off the top of the egg with a seirated knife and then poor the egg out into a small bowel.  After the frying pan was hot I pored the eggs into the pan.  After one side was cooked I turned them over. 

The following picture shows the eggs on a dish with a piece of toast.

I didn't get the lawn mowed last Friday, so I did it today.  One of the tires needed air.  I was easy with my new compressor.  It usually take an hour to mow the lawn.  It was no different today.

After mowing I started the weed whip and cut the grass missed by the lawn mower.  I put the weed whip in the truck and cleaned the ditch where we get the water.  It was full of an annual grass.  Carol saw me drive up and asked.  "where have you been? I replied, "Cleaning the ditch where we get our water."  She completed the conversation by saying, "We won't get another water turn."  Interestingly,  the water master came by and told me that I will be getting the water on Friday.

I weeded rye grass between south garden and Robert's garden.  It thought if that was cleaned up some, the place would look neater.  The I cut out all of the dead wood in the huge Elderberry shrub.  It looks a lot different now.  Tomorrow I will haul it the dump.

There is a pine tree and a English walnut tree that hasn't been watered for a long time.  I pruned the pine tree and gave it a good drink.  I also watered the walnut tree.

We have an ugly, large Elderberry bush that blooms but never sets fruit.  There is a lot of dead wood in it.   I worked for over two hours cutting out the dead branches and some live branch that were hanging down to the ground.  Below is a before pictures and  an after picture.  There is still some clean-up to do.  It looks pretty good.

watered nursery second time

New Insurace Policy

Got the chores done this morning.  Tiger, one of our cats, who I feed in the greenhouse was missing.  There have been a couple of times that she was gone, but come back the next day. 

Our car insurance was ready, so we drove to Fillmore.  They had a few questions for us that we answered.  The I picked up my lap top which is now fixed.  I had a tool bar on which prevented me from watching videos.  The tool bar is gone and now I able to watch some.

After lunch I cut down the Elderberry bush that was growing inside house six.  It was growing over and under and all around the furnace.  If I started the furnace it may start a fire.  So cut them down.  I couldn't find my hand saw that I wanted to use.  I think that it is somewhere buried in the snow.   I got my chainsaw, but it was so cold that I didn't think that it would start.  So I used my electric chainsaw.  I had to use pruners to remove some of the lower branches before I could reach the large main branches which I cut down with the chain saw.  Finally I got the furnace cleaned off.

Early this morning I was a little concerned about the heavy snow on house six.  If the next snow was like the last one, the weight of the snow might bend the bows and cause some serious damage.  I was able to get some of the snow to slide off the roof by using it as a punching bag with gloved hands.  I then braced some of the bows with 2 x 4 by eight feet.

This evening just before it got dark, I removed some of the snow in front of the Masner's home.  Someone else had removed most of the snow.  I finished it off moving the snow which was left by the large grader.

Tonight I went home teaching.  We had some nice visits with our three families. David was not ready when I got there, cut soon he was.

The weather has been cold all day, but house two was very comfortable just from the shining sun.  Outside it was cold.