Removing Tomato Vines.

 Soon after breakfast I put on my jacket to finish removing the tomato vines that I started yesterday.  The temperature was cold and I wore my jacket most of the day,  However, I took it off in the afternoon.

Yesterday,  They put the poly on house two. The poly was used last year.  It was dirty and had some holes.  They will be putting new poly on a little later.

We didn't have and Halloween candy.  We could of driven to the Payson Wall Mart and bought a couple of large bags of candy.  We decided get the candy at the Fillmore Market.  They cost more money but we didn't take a couple of hours and we saved on gasoline.  It took us about and hour to make the round trip. to Fillmore. 

There was a frost last night and froze the tomato plants.   I worked most of the day removing the rest of the plants on the north side of the north garden.  I took this photo from the west end.

This photo is from the east looking to the west.  I removed most of the conduit.    Also, I removed the posts and wires holding the cucumber vines.

There is a big stack of frozen tomato plant vines.

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Cold Day in Holden

It was a lot colder last night.  Yesterday morning the inside temperature was 68 but this morning it was 65 degrees.  The furnace has been running most of the day.  I was cold outside all day, but sometimes the clouds blew away and it was pretty warm in the shining sun.

I have a couple of large pictures that I wanted to frame.  I watched a couple of videos on making picture frames.  One video had a link to building a table saw jig to cut perfect miters. I watched it and then watched some selected segments again.  put my miter jig on the table saw and cut two miters and glued them together.  I used my speed square to check the 90 degree.  It was off a couple of degrees.  I loosened one screw of the right side of jig.  I took out the other screw.

I could have adjusted it from either side, but the right side seemed to be easier.

It is already fixed in the above photo.  The speed square is setting on top showing how the square is used to get the right angle.   I did cut another piece of wood and glued the two mitered edges together.  My speed square showed that it is better than it has ever been.

My mother and dad bought us a rocking chair  when we adopted Richard and Robert was born ten months later.  Sometime during our moves from house to house one of the of the back turning was broken.  I thought that I would fix it.  It has been under the house for years.  I brought it up and put it in the garage.  Four or five months ago I did some cleaning in the garage and took it back to the crawl space under the house.  This morning brought it up and put it on the patio were a remove the broken piece out of the seat of the chair.  

The tenon broke off even with the seat of the rocker.  I used a large bit in my drill and was able to remove some of the broken piece.  I used several chisels to remove the rest of it.  I pounded quite hard and broke of some pieces under the rocker seat.

This is the bottom of the seat.  The white part is where some of the seat broke off.  I put some Elmer's glue on the white area.

 I broke off two pieces.  I put the larger piece in place and held it tight with a pair of clamps.

 The second piece is held in place with a small speed clamp.

I found a nice piece of oak.  I need a piece nineteen inches long. I then cut it to the right width.  I used a shaver to take off the corner.  I drilled a hole in the center of each end and mounted it in my lathe.  I took the lathe out to the patio.  It took me quite awhile to get it mounted properly on the two folding saw horses.  I got the motor hooked up and it ran the lathe backwards.  All I had to do was to turn the motor around.   I did that and everything went okay.  I started on the left end.  Tomorrow I hope to finish it.

I fried the frozen asparagus in olive oil.  It tasted very good.  

The low temperature is expected to drop to eighteen degrees by eight this morning.  I had four foot piece of weed barrier on the space to the right of the peas.  I pulled out the spikes on the right side.  I left the spike on the left sided.  I then pulled the whole thing to cover the peas.  weights were put on top of it to hold it down.  The above photo is looking east.  I described it from the east end looking west.

I covered the beets with burlap.  They are barely up.

Some of the radish plants looked like they froze last night.  I covered them also with burlap.

I also covered the strawberry plants.

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Apricots are Frozen

Last night and the night before, it froze.  There was frost on the lawn and on the roof of our house.  It froze the cherries and apricots.   I worked in house six a couple of hours before lunch.  I was hanging the tomato plants and I was getting pretty fast.

I took this picture of one of the plants.  It looked like something had ate a couple of stems. Deer have be in this greenhouse, but they ate lettuce.  I decided that I broke when putting up the overhead wire.

I opened the truck door and found a wasp nest under the handle.  The wasp came out and I didn't get stung.

Alisha called me about five times.  She came and transplanted one of her plants.  She got twenty of them.

Carol and I drove to Fillmore to get the truck registered and get a few groceries.

I planted some more bunching onions.  I also planted a 105 tray of red beets.

Robert stopped in for a short time on his way home.  He was in big water visiting Richard and looking for plants.   He met an Indian man who grew melons.  He gave Robert seeds of five different melons that he developed.  There are two six packs of each kind.  The man's name was Wimmer.  The names of the melons are Wimmer Gold, Wimmer Sweet, Wimmer Green Meat Dew, and Orange Meat.  To finish the tray he planted Topaz.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Unexpect Freeze in House Six

We returned home from the Temple around 2:30.  I changed clothes and checked out the nursery.

Yesterday I pulled down all the tomato plants on the two rows.  This afternoon,  I removed all of the suppurting  poles.  You can see on either side the remaining poles.

 I walked into house six and was shocked at the frost damage.  The cucumber vines are dead.  I turned the thermostat a little lower.  Apparently I turned it too low.

The tops of the tomato plants were also frozen.  The lower parts were okay and that is where the fruits are.

The Black cherry plants that are on horizontal twines were frozen.  I was hoping to watch grow a little more.

After I removed the posts in house six I started removing the plants on the row at the right.  I might be able to remove the rest tomorrow.  There are a couple other jobs that need to be done tomorrow.


Comments and questions are welcome.

House One - Hard Frost

Hard frost this morning.  The garden hoses were frozen.  The furnace was working in house two.  Below are two photos that shows the tomato plants and some tomatoes in house one.  Vine were shot. Some of the tomatoes are still good.

Comments and question are welcome.

Prepared Yesterday, Mowed Today

Yesterday I juiced out a couple of watermelons.  I put them in the freezer.  I brought it out this morning and put it in a sieve resting on a bowl.  My theory is that watermelon juice would melt out first and leave the water as ice in the sieve.  It didn't work out the way that I thought it would. The liquid in the bowel had no taste and pulp in the sieve tasted awful.

The first of the month always brings the bills.  Some I pay with bill pay, and others I write a check.  There were two that required a business check.

After lunch  I mowed the lawn.  The lawn has not been mowed for several weeks because of the snow and rain.  It dried all morning.  I had to go slow because the grass was to tall.  There was a hose laying in the tall grass and part of it I couldn't see.  It took about an hour and I had to dump the catcher three times.

We then drove to Fillmore to get gas for the car and for the lawnmower.  I made a deposit at the credit union and we got ice cream cones at the "Ice Burg."  They served fast and we received the biggest cones ever.

I took a walk around the garden to check out any frost damage. below are Topaz melons.  I picked four of them that looked like they may be ripe.

 Another picture of the Topaz melons.

 The cucumbers in the north garden froze.  Yesterday Carol picked a few large ones.  She took them to the post office.  They were all gone tonight.

 The outside leaves of the tomato plants froze.  The inside leave are still good and there was no frost damage to any of the fruits.

 Bean plants have some frost damage.  There are some of the beans that are still good.

 The cucumber vines on the cow panels are badly frozen.

 The cow panel bow which has Italian squash, luffa sponge and pole beans sustained a lot of frost damage.

The rains and snow that we had last week caused the germantion of winter annuals.  Below are mallow weeds seedlings.  An indication of how many weed seeds are in the ground.  There are other weeds in other places.

This still a little more time before supper.  I cut the strings holding the summer squash and cut the vines at ground level and hauled them over to the new compost pile. The stakes are laying at the left.  I had to run water down the row to soften the soil before I could pull them out of the ground.  I still could not pull them out. With a shovel I wedged a shovel into the stake below the surface of the ground and levered it out.  I then cut down all of the corn.  Tomorrow they will go to the compost pile.  There were a couple of good ears that I had for supper.

I also picked a bucket Anaheim peppers and sweet peppers, and a small bucked of jalapeno peppers.  These are for the post office tomorrow.

Comments and questions are welcome:

Frost Damage This Morning

Killer freeze that froze all of the vine plants.  It did not seem to harm the pepper and tomato plants.

First thing after breakfast was to take the dead chickens to the dumpster.  There were two in the nests, two at the south end of the chicken run and one outside with its head caught in the netting.  I put them in a large garbage bag and drove to the dumpster.  The photo shows the two at the south end on the left side behind the netting is the third one.

Cow panel collapsed because of the heavy fruits and foliage.  This is the first thing I saw when I checked the luffas and Italian squash.  The trees are in the background and the cow panel at the bottom edge of the light is almost flat.  The conduit pieces were bent into an "L" shape.

This is what it looked like from the south side.  The goose neck object is a mature Italian squash.

Did more cleaning.  There a lot of pots where plants have died I need to empty.  What to do with the soil other than dumping in on the ground somewhere was somewhat a problem.  That is when I decided to build another raised bed.  I put the soil in the raised bed.

Last night I put the surviving hen near the heating lamp to help dry her of and keep her warm.  She hadn't moved and this morning.  I opened the gate so she could leave the hen house.  She didn't move until this afternoon.   She did come out, and I gently herded her to the north side where she could get in the sun.  She stayed in the shade.  She did get a drink of water.  I threw her some chicken scratch.  She didn't move.  Later she was out in the sun, but she stayed out for a short time and then sit in the corner looking out.  It looked like she wanted to watch for a fox and being the corner the fox could not sneak up behind her.  I picked up as the sun was going down and put her back into the hen house and shut the gate.

Frost revealed some sweet potatoes.  I have been closely watching the sweet potato vines the last couple of weeks.  The vines have grown so thick they hid the potatoes.  I looking at them this early afternoon and found two large sweet potatoes.

I covered them just before it got dark.  I don't think that the coming freeze tonight would hurt them but to be safe if covered.

Made framework for another raised bed in house two.  I have a stash of lumber.  From this stash I got two 2x6x12' for the sides and there was another 2x6 that was about 11 feet long.  The one left is badly twisted I have a wood clamp with a cement block holding it. It still has a way to go to remove the twist. The one on the right is slightly twisted.

The photo below shows the left corner.  You can see how much more I have to twist it to get it in the right plane.

I made four 2x2 corner blocks  that were 1 1/4 inch longer than the width of the 2x6. They would hold the raised be a little higher in the air.   The one in this corner split while trying to remove the twist, so I used a 2x4.  It seems to be holding.

I picked the watermelons and a Topaz melon.  Some had a drying or a dry tendril and others did not.

This is the biggest melon that I have ever grown, 27 1/2 pounds.  The tendril was not dry.  We will see if it is ripe or not.

Watermelon vines, Armenian cucumber vines and Topaz melon vined badly damaged by the frost.  Burpless cucumbers some slight damage.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Rain, Snow, & Cold

This morning we woke up to snow and cold.  Some snow on the lawn and snow sticking to the roof.  Later on in the morning it changed to rain.  During most of the afternoon the sun was shining between the drifting clouds.  Then in the late afternoon the wind changed from the south to from the north.   Then the snow began. 

Just before lunch I began the transplanting of zinnias and Wave petunias.  We went to Fillmore to get a few groceries.  We stopped at the hospital to visit Carol Gagger.  She is not doing well and has been taken to Provo by the ambulance.  When I got back and after lunch I watered them.  They had really wilted badly.  By this evening they had perked up some.

Left are Wave petunias and right are the zinnias

Bottom left are Zinnias and bottom right are Wave petunias.

We brought all of our plants into the house or in the garage.  Below is the big darcinia  that we have had for several years.  The three lemon trees that have been in pots outside by the garage door.  It was cold and snowing when we did this.  The darcinia was tied down to keep the wind from blowing it over.  I cut the strings, pulled it out and put it on the two wheel ball cart.  I then pulled it into the garage as pictured below.

There were six tubs and baskets outside the front door.  Two were hanging and the others were on the porch and steps.  The larger plant at the top left and the pine tree at the top right are house plants.

We picked up the pomegranate tree and put it on the cart and pushed it into the garage.

We also covered Robert's tomato plants in house one.  There are two doors on the north end that haven't been closed for years.  We moved a few things and pushed down a small tree the was blocking the doors from closing.   I shut the door and blocked the shut with two cement blocks.

The last thing we did was to cover the dahlias.  They would likely freeze.  It was snowing and the wind was blowing from the north.  We put rock on the edges to keep it from blowing away.

I thought that this was the last thing today.  Then it stopped snowing and the wind quit blowing, and the sun came out.  I went out to take another picture.  I have some cucumbers that need to be covered.  picked up another frost protection fabric and noticed none of the corn is covered.  I needed more covers and found one by the old lawnmower.  Problem, a flat tire is on part of the cover.  I filled the tire with air, and with a 4 by 4 lever.  I was able to move the mower far enough to free it from the grip of the mower.  It was the longest piece that I have and was long enough and wide enough to cover most of the four rows of sweet corn.

We will put every thing back to their right places after the danger of freezing is over which is most likely Saturday morning.

Comments and Suggestions are welcomed.