Cold Day

The lost round saw blade is found.

There are people in Holden with tractors that push the snow off of driveways.  I thought that when we got home from the temple that our driveway would be clear of snow.  It wasn't.  Carol and I got the shovels and started on our long driveway.  We cleaned about 2/3's of the driveway.

The temperature has been below freezing since last night. I ice has grown much larger.  The next few picture are of the same ice, but from different angles.

 Yesterday in house two, Robert and Frank buried some cat food cans in the soil and filled them with beer.  Twenty-four hours later then had attracted slugs.  Two had twelve slugs in it the other one had caught six slugs.  There were no snails.

I covered the slug bait with a butter tub placed upsided down.  I put them on when watering.

 I filled these plug cells with potting soil.  The one above is planted with Leeks.  One seed per cell.

 Above is a small tray of curl-leaf parsley.  One seed per cell.

Here is a group of them on the heating pad.

Transplanted  Tasmanian Chocolate Tomato.  These were planted 2 February 2018

Lettuce that was not transplanted yesterday.  It is perking up a little.  Water every day.

I took some hen scratch to  our black hen and discovered that the water pan was frozen solid.  I took it out to house two to thaw out.  There was a large night-crawler under the water contain.  Black hen quickly grabbed it and down it went.

 I got a a gallon of hot water from the house and poured in on the hose bib and PVC stub.  It took about half of the water.  It water began to flow.  I turned the volume down.  The hen was glad to get a drink.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Transplanting in House Two

After breakfast and after the news and after the sunrise, I went to greenhouse two.  There were plants to be transplanted and pole beans that were ready to climb.  In the pictures below I made a trellis for the pole beans.  I drove to 1/2 inch conduit intp the ground on both sides of the bean row. I wired it to the boards to stabilize it.

The arrow peas are ready to climb.  I drove in a shorter conduit on each end of the peas.  I then strung to pieces of twine to hold the pea vines upright.  There is now wind in the greenhouse so they should be alright.

I found a piece of oak.  I drilled holes in both ends of the oak and inserted a large nail through the hole and into the conduit.  I tied twine to the heads of three other large nails.  They hung down over the pole beans.  The other end of the twine was tied to the wood at the top.

I had twelve bush beans which are planted in the center of the picture below. there are two rows.

 I put the sweet corn in two rows in a different raised bed.   At the top of the picture there are four Yellow Crock neck summer squash.

 I am going to put two raised beds on the west side of house two and they will be in the north south direction.  I took off one of the 2x4's of the bench that is there now.  That took awhile to remove all the staples and screws that was holding it together.  I took the 2x4 that is laying on the floor to the garage.  It has a nice weathered side that I hope to use in some type of furniture.

The amaryllis below was full of weeds.  I pulled all of them out and the dumped out the amaryllises

There were four small bulbs and two larger bulbs.  I put the largest one in the original pot.  The next on in a larger pot and the four in smaller pots.

 They are pictured below.  Several had long leaves that I pruned some.

I dug up a tomato plant in the garden that had a different type of tomato on it.  It is growing as shown in the picture below.

 I cut off two of the stems and put them in a bottle of water.  I cut off the lower leaves.  They are in the kitchen window and should grow roots in two to three weeks.

The following photos are of the ice display, that grows daily.

 This one is in a different location.  Two hose are joined together here and has a leak. It sprays some and is making another ice display.

 I walked to the south east corner of our yard.  The large poplar trees have weakened and I am afraid that the wind might blow them over.  I was investigating to determine the best way and time to cut them down so they won't fall to the east and breakdown the power line and break the neighbors horse fence and corals.

This saw buck was out by the poplars.  I brought it to the patio and took it apart.  I could use the wood in some future project.

 Here,the pieces are stacked.  I put them in the garage.  The bottom one is a large piece of pine.

Comments and questions are welcome

Christmas Lights & One Fast Project

We started out the day with a quick trip to Fillmore for a few groceries.  Also, I made a deposit and a payment.  We prepared our Christmas cards.  I updated our label list. Carol mailed them.

We have Christmas presents to wrap.  I built a small rack to hold a roll of wrapping paper.  I used long roll I thought, for the measurements.  It turned out that there were several rolls longer.  The one i built fits our kitchen table.  It can be fastened to the table on the far end and the whole table is available for pulling the paper.  

I use two small clamps.  One on each end.  I made long square piece of wood to hold the roll of paper.  It is easily moved for and other roll of paper.

The ice display continues to grow.  The following pictures are of the same things but from different angles.

 This show the branch from the nearby sycamore tree that is bent over with the weight of the ice.

The pictures I took were so shaky that I got the tripod for the next pictures.  They are still a little shaky.  The first picture was taken from the road.  The flash shows the dried up plants in the native garden.

 The picture below clearly shows the red light on the Christmas wreaths.

Comments and questions are welcome

Ice When at Home

It was cold yesterday and the ice pile grew somewhat.  The water run all night and most of the day when we got home this afternoon I took the following ice pictures.  We were quite surprised at the interesting formations.  The water looks like steam or even smoke.

Ice has frozen around the pipe.  The hose is visible because of the warmer water.  The spray covered a branch of a nearby tree.  The weight pulled it to the ground.  Branch won't get any heavier.  All the picture show the same ice, but from different angles.  Some are cropped differently.

Every evening around three or four, the cats show up for something to eat.  When the door is opened, One of our cats, Freckles, looking through the screen door,  takes a peek inside the kitchen.

Comments and questions are welcome

Sunday Afternoon Wind - Both North & West

It has been quite warm the last week of so.  The ice on the back lawn is melting and is almost gone.  But the cold front that come in this afternoon will stop the melting and start a build up of ice.  This is the way that it looked morning.

This afternoon the wind came from the south and seemed to blow harder and harder.  I did some watering and the next four pictures were of house four.  When I finished the watering the wind came just as hard from the north.

Looks like quite a job to get that fixed.  I may have enough to coverer it left over from the last time I covered it.  The house is 48 feet long and I bought a roll of poly 100 feet long.  There is some under the house and I hope that is what I need.


Comments and questions are welcome