It's time to hit the trails!

This is how our meadow/orchard acreage up beyond the creek looks in its natural state:

Apple trees, pine trees of various kinds and lots of weeds and very tall grass.  And guess who's hanging out on and around that very tall grass?  Wood ticks...lots of them...as some visitors of ours recently found out. 

So we decided on this beautiful day that it was time to go up there and mow the trails.  Now the above scene looks like this:

We, actually Leann, is able to do this using a walk-behind brush mower.  She makes it look pretty easy but she's always just as happy when the gas runs out and it needs to cool off for a while.  But she's also very pleased with how they look when it's done!  Me too!

Above is another section of trail before mowing and after mowing below.  The little bird houses were gifts to Leann from her students when she retired.  This one says, "Miss Hess."

Below is one of our trail markers that we place where the trails intersect with each other.  We also have maps in the making.

 One of my favorite spots!  A bench to stop and take it all in.

 And what do I do for this project?  I run the SAG wagon!  I have cold water, extra supplies for the mower, and I watch for bears!  Well, not really...we haven't seen a bear around here all summer.  Mostly I think I'm there for moral support and keeping the "wagon" near where she's cutting.

And back at the house...we had these crazy winds all morning and afternoon.  These two poplar trees fell down this morning in all the wind.  We also saw another huge tree blown down in town.

But...other than trees falling down around us, it was a BEAUTIFUL day!

Project Monday - Rain gutters, rain barrel & clothesline poles!

A couple weeks ago I wrote about going to buy all the parts for our new clothesline poles.  We had asked they guys who built our house if they would set them up the same time they added rain gutters to our garage so we could set up our new rain barrel.

Well, today became "Project Monday!"  The projects included: the rain gutters, set up rain barrel, cement in the clothesline poles, and replace one freaky board on our deck...

Out of all the boards that make up our back deck, this one seemed to have a mind of its own.  You can see it was screwed into the supports below, but the "curl" was strong enough to pull out the screws.  And when the weather is warmer, it curls even more!  Then back down in the winter.  We placed a potted tomato plant next to it, but one of us...still managed to trip over it.  So now it is all fixed!

We didn't really need rain gutters on this side of the garage except for our wish to have a rain barrel for watering plants, and there didn't seem to be a better spot for it.

And here it is!  The wagon wheel was something we found in the weeds with all the other old farm equipment.

And here are the clothesline poles.  The don't look very tall but they are 6 feet high and 3 feet down in the ground.  The one that was left over at the old house was six feet high, so we went with that for this one.  And they are 22 feet apart..that's a set of sheets, pillowcases, and maybe more per line.  Jeff took the cross pieces to drill holes for the eye-hooks.  The coated wire will lace through the eye-hooks.  In this picture it looks a little crooked but they tipped them out just a smidge so when the tension pulls them in over the years, they will eventually be straight.

Can't wait to hang up a load of clothes!  Almost as fun as mowing the grass.  Really!

How does your garden grow?

A beautiful day for gardening!  It was 70+ degrees up here by our house and 46˚ down by the lake.  While we were gone yesterday, our raised beds were magically filled with our new dirt.  Thanks, Billy!

After Leann got them all leveled off, it was my turn to start planting.  In the first one I planted a couple kinds of peppers and eggplant.  That will be a new one for us, but I tried making ratatouille a couple times last winter and we decided to try growing our own eggplant.  I also planted a couple kinds of beets around the edges, so we'll see how that goes.

Tomatoes went into another one, but then I realized I needed one more flat of tomatoes.  A quick trip up to Silver Sage greenhouse and we had tomatoes...and more peppers and herbs!  Her plants are so nice...can't just buy what you came for!

Two kinds of thyme, summer savory, lemon grass, oregano, parsley, rosemary and basil.

A third bed has all the beans--green & wax--and peas.  Peas are best eaten right out of the garden because it takes so many for any kind of a meal.  But they are fun to grow.  

And the final bed has several hills of cucumbers on one side, and carrots and radishes on the other.

At the end of the upper right bed is an old washtub that we have used as a planter the last few years.  It is has cucumbers planted in it.  We put a trellis on the side and they just climb up the trellis.

Today was also the day to transfer compost from the old container to the new.  To our surprise we found we had some kind of melon--probably cantaloupe from last weekend--already growing like crazy in with the rest of the compostables.  Which is crazy, because if you TRIED to do that, it would never work!

Two clumps of melon seeds growing...

After transferring the top 6 inches of compost to the bottom of the new one, we decided that we didn't really have any "black gold" yet.  Needs more time.  Gotta get the red wigglers!

We made one quick trip in Cammie up into our meadow today...without a camera!  Most of the apple trees are beautifully in bloom, and we saw a momma deer and a quick glimpse of her new baby.  Tomorrow I bring the camera!

Stop the rain! Our trees need work!

One thing we need around here from time to time is a chainsaw, and with that we need a chainsaw user.  Is that called a sawyer?  We have tried many things here on the farm to keep it looking trimmed up, but we have a healthy fear of using chainsaws and the damage they could do...to us.

So, a couple times in the past we have talked friends or relatives to come bearing their chainsaws to clean up some of the bigger tree problems we've had.  The smart ones arrive with either little or no extra gas, so that puts a comfortable limit on how much they have to do at one time.  The chainsaws are needed for those big trees or limbs--too big for any of the tools we use.

This time Leann hired a young man from town with chainsaw experience to come up and take on a couple of the problem areas we have identified around our farm.  A constant problem is down in the creek area (above).  There is a giant willow tree with one large branch--almost a tree in itself--that has fallen down over the creek behind our house.  The tree came down just fine, but he ran into chainsaw problems when he was limbing it up into smaller pieces.  I think one part of the chain broke.

And those chainsaw problems stopped the work for today.  But he had already cleaned up several other trees and limbs around the yard and in the orchard.  And the rain stopped long enough for it all to happen.  So we are happy for what was accomplished today!

Little by little we get it all trimmed up...and then the wind blows again and we start all over with new tree problems!