Sod off!

It all started with the satellite dish. The honking big old dish in the middle of the back yard.

We didn't want this dish in the middle of the back yard so last fall we set about dismantling it.

Of course it was a crappy job--all of the bolts were rusted, the thing was bigger than the both of us, and the pole was embedded in cement.

We got the bolts undone, the dish lifted off, the wire pulled out of the ground. But no matter how we dug and pushed and grunted, we could not budge the mounting pole. So it sat and thumbed its nose at us all winter.

Then I had an epiphany. If we couldn't move the pole, we would plant something useful around it. And that's how we decided where to put our asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberries.

Now, if we had come to this conclusion earlier, we would have laid down a thick bed of mulch to kill the grass and come spring we would have only had to turn the plot.

Instead, any time the weather permitted during late winter, I took my trusty shovel and hand-turned a row or two. Finally, by spring, we had a dug bed approximately 6' x 34'.

Of course, turned sod is not ready for planting anything. Now the real work began--getting the grass and roots out, leaving loose, mostly weed-free dirt.

If there is a less labor intensive way to do this, no one has ever shared it with us. It's down on your knees, pound each clump with a trowel and shake off the dirt. Repeat until you ache even more than usual.

The grass and roots get dumped in the wilder part of the yard.

We have about half of the plot done,

not quite up to the pole that started this whole project.

It rained overnight, so we get a day off but we are on a deadline: strawberry plants and asparagus roots are on order and should arrive within the next few weeks and I have rhubarb seeds started under lights. Weather permitting, it should get finished this week.

And the pole? I'm thinking the ex-satellite dish mount would be perfect for bringing us the morning glory channel, in full technicolor.

Tar without feathers

Last weekend I spent part a sunny spring day trying not to be covered in tar.

The roof of our new chicken coop, see Chicken Coop, leaks (I may  have mentioned that building roofs is not our strong point). We might have to redo the metal panels but decided to try covering the nails and seams with yet more roofing tar first.

I climbed up onto the roof and wielded the putty knife with as much precision as possible, which is to say, not very precisely at all.What is it about this stuff? No matter how careful you are, it gets everywhere you don't want it to. At least this time I didn't end up sitting in a glop of tar.

Tar is useful, if smelly, stuff. Pine tar is good not only on bats but can be put on wounds on animals--on chickens it will keep other birds from pecking at the sores (but it also sticks to feathers and coats and fingers--I've switched to Bluekote which also stains but at least it isn't sticky).

And everytime I use tar, I come away thinking of the LaBrea Tar Pit or Brer Rabbit. I'm hoping this dinosaur won't need the stuff again anytime soon.

What a difference a day makes



Same hen, yesterday and today

 As a mother, all I can say is "ouch".

Mother of all projects

I bought wine last night.

I can't emphasize enough how unusual this is. In fact, I can't remember ever buying wine before.

It's not that I'm against alcohol; I just can't stand the taste. I can't even swallow Nyquil.

So, me paying money for the stuff is a newsworthy event.

I don't like wine. But I do like wine vinegar.

I finally found Bragg's Vinegar in our grocery store. Bragg's is notable for not only being a wonderful apple cider vinegar but also being unfiltered, i.e. it contains the mother.

And then I found this gallon of wine which was discontinued and drastically reduced.

A-ha! A serendipitous turn of events means wine vinegar at a reasonable cost is mine. Or will be after a few months of me ignoring it while it does its thing.

I just poured a glug of Bragg's into the wine, covered it with cheesecloth (I learned the hard way to use REAL cheesecloth, not that wimpy stuff sold for cleaning. Otherwise, you'll be raising fruit flies with your vinegar), and set it aside. Simple, no attention or further steps. My kind of project; now if only I could find rabbit cages that would build themselves...

The answer, my friend

From the moment he set foot on Skillet Farm, Tom started in with the where do you want this-es?. Where do you want the garden? Where should we put the orchard? Where would you like a clothesline?

Sometimes I knew right away. The garden will go where the previous owners had a garden. The orchard is out front. The clothesline is attached to the poles already in the backyard.

But mostly I said, "I have to live with the place for awhile."

I need time in a house, time on the land, time in a new state. I need to see how the rain collects around the yard, where the birds build nests, how the creek behaves when it's dry and when it's wet. And, literally, which way the wind blows.

At Woodchuck Acres in New York, the prevailing wind was from the northwest. We were in a small dell surrounded by trees. We rarely felt the brunt of high winds and calm days were the norm.

Skillet Farm is in a river valley but it is still Midwest. And Midwest means prairie and prairie means wind.

This is country designed for outside clothes drying; it makes me consider the possibilities of wind turbines and dream of pinwheels; days with 20-30 mph winds aren't uncommon. 

So I needed to consider very carefully where I will situate my beehives.

My beehives are plastic (there, I've said it. All of you natural material only people can stop reading and hang me in effigy if you like). I chose them over woodenware for two reasons: the weight is less (and being a small senior citizen who handles the hive by herself, this was a big consideration) and the insulating value is greater than wood. I had no idea if bees would overwinter in the crazy upstate NY weather. They came through in these hives with flying colors. And that insulation will be of special value here where the summers are sunny and hotter than blazes.

But the plastic hives being lighter means they also are more prone to being tossed about by the wind. Hives full of bee brood and honey weigh enough to withstand stormy winds but the tops and covers will take off like kites in March. 

And bees don't have the advantage of storm windows and doors. In windy weather the air will whistle through the hive disturbing the girls and lowering temperature. So it was important that I find a place with some protection from the gales.

Not an easy thing on this wide-open property. No windbreaks, few trees, no bushes.  Luckily, the tumbledown shed that came with the place has an open area behind it. I've added a pallet with some extra boards on one side and nestled my two hives in the lea of the prevailing southwestern winds.

And added two bricks to the tops to ground them further.

I won't be getting my bees for another month or so which gives me time to make sure this is a good place for the hives.

I knew my honeybees needed protection from the winds. Humans are a different matter. Some days we need to be safe and sheltered from being buffeted about. Some days we need to run against the wind.  And there are days when we need to reside in the calm, even if it's only the eye of the hurricane. Many times this past year, I've felt like I'm barely riding the storm out; just gotta have faith that the answer is indeed blowin' in the wind.*


* Extra points for identifying all of the song references!

Heating Update

The results from my experiment planting tomatoes with and without bottom heat :

Germination average using bottom heat: 5 days
Germination at room temperature: 8-9 days
Germination percentage wasn't affected.

I don't think the 3 day advantage is worth the effort (side note: if you try the Christmas lights route, don't use a styrofoam cooler. Either the heat or the weight of the plants or both caused the lights to partially imbed themselves in the cooler).

So my holiday lights are back in storage 'til next winter and the cooler is back in the garage and all of my seed pots are toughing it out without special treatment.

Have any of you tried bottom heat? Did it make a real difference for your plants?

All the News that's Fit to...

...pot.

We get our news mostly from the internet and the radio but I'm glad that newspapers are still being printed.

Did you ever try to start seeds in a webpage?