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Post by reed on Feb 14, 2017 6:00:52 GMT -5
And the worse part is all those posts have to moved again. My gardens are on slight slopes so they are terraced to a degree with the larger diameter posts serving as the downhill edges of the beds. Some have been there a long time but the new additions don't have any yet. Still I'm gonna have extras and have to find a place to store them and there are no good places where they can just be rolled to as they are too long to fit between all the obstacles. Some of them will eventually be set for new grape and kiwi trellis and chicken yard expansion. And all the scrap stuff has to be cut, moved again and stacked. I would have made do without and had no intention of taking on a task like this but I couldn't stand driving by such a windfall knowing it would never happen again. Knackered times two or three before it's done.
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Post by templeton on Feb 19, 2017 6:25:43 GMT -5
did another patch of tomato passata. T
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Post by reed on Feb 19, 2017 6:42:24 GMT -5
One of the piles of locust logs has been used up and one of the gardens is mostly put back together except for the fence. The other one can wait a little while as it is a little more out of the way and isn't staring you in the face as you drive in. Plus the big pile of mulch has to be dealt with first as it easier to do that while the fences are down.
Now also to get all the firewood sorted and stacked. Locust, cherry and elm are all mixed up right now. Since winter didn't really show up we didn't even use all I had under the porch and now have to move it again or look at it all year. The locust needs sorted out and stockpiled somewhere and the others left to use up so they don't rot. Locust can lay around for a few years in the open and not go bad. And there is still lots more of it to bring home from up the road. AND there are still more standing dead elm and cherry that need brought down, I am really tired of cutting down trees. Shocking that so many died all at once and not just from the EABs.
O'well, I should have I'm guessing a minimum of five years worth of firewood stockpiled when I'm done. I'm taking a break from it today in favor of gardening and tomorrow for fishing. I'm sick of the sound and smell of a chain saw.
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Post by richardw on Feb 20, 2017 23:25:44 GMT -5
Knackered is commonly used here when you are very tired. Or something has broken down
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Post by richardw on Feb 20, 2017 23:33:37 GMT -5
I tend to have heavy short periods of chainsaw use, get stuck in for about week, get shit loads done and then move on to another job, one such job is fit out the house with new insulation, both roof and under floor
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Post by steev on Feb 21, 2017 1:58:56 GMT -5
Damn! You've got to underfloor the house? Congrats on your ambition, but that sounds like a bitch.
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Post by richardw on Feb 21, 2017 3:17:43 GMT -5
Yes working in both the roof and under the house is going to be a prick of a job, under the house is only just enough room to crawl along and with a few aftershock quakes still happening atm just get the job done and get out.
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Post by steev on Feb 26, 2017 22:52:37 GMT -5
The flooding was gone, but the creeks are all high and rushing, mostly clean and blue-ish, not latte, like last week. I noted that the "flooded" signs had been turned off the roads, but not removed.
One ancillary benefit of the copious rain is that the organic garden of one of my clients (which I've maintained the past ~30 years, through three owners) has produced a bumper crop of miner's lettuce (they think it's a weed) of gourmet quality; some of that, a can of oil-packed tuna, a can of chopped olives, and the juice of a lemon makes a fine salad.
The horses on my back ten have been knocking down and breaking the glass blocks I'd stacked there.
It's starting to look like this year's plague will be cottontails; I think they're digging under my critter-corral fence; oh well, might take the coyote-predation off the ranchers.
The farm-soil, having had most of a week's respite from rain (although there'd been 2.9"), was of primo condition for tilling, not sticky-muddy; also moved some drip-lines, weeded, planted Midnight? Moon spuds, and did some light pruning.
Coming back over the pass, the blue sky was broken by layers of cumulus and cirrus clouds; the air towards the Sierra Nevada was powder blue-ish under the clouds; the Sutter Buttes were dark blue, rising from the Great Central Valley; further on, Spring-green fields were broken by orchards of aamonds in full pale-pink bloom.
This is indubitably the prettiest planet on which I've ever been.
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Post by philagardener on Feb 27, 2017 6:32:36 GMT -5
The horses on my back ten have been knocking down and breaking the glass blocks I'd stacked there. Smooth enough to see their reflections? Maybe the think those are strange horses?
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Post by steev on Feb 27, 2017 11:34:25 GMT -5
I think those are strange horses and bored.
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Post by farmermike on Mar 1, 2017 22:05:06 GMT -5
Planted 40 new apple trees to replace the ones that were killed by voles last summer. The new trees will have trunk protection this year. That auger kicked my ass!
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Post by steev on Mar 2, 2017 1:32:44 GMT -5
Several years ago, when the voles were the plague-of-the-year, I found that they didn't just bark 8" up, but 8" down, when I thought to bridge-graft trees they'd hit; good luck with trunk protection.
If you were working that auger alone, no wonder it kicked your ass, being a two-man auger. Dude! You have a family; don't trash yourself willy-nilly.
Which way does that hillside face? Looks north; should be good for apples in our cold-deficient region.
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Post by jocelyn on Mar 2, 2017 6:23:46 GMT -5
Yah, the little mice can be something else! I had new grafts caged with 1/4 " mesh wire, cage down about 3 inches, and the little blighters dug under that, came up inside the cages and ate all of the live trees....root collar, main roots, above ground portions...sigh.
I was grafting low, so I could mound clay over the union, and only one graft didn't get eaten.
Still, 4 more on the kitchen table with buds swelling, and the little eared nibblers have had a population crash.
For what it's worth, a tin can with the bottom cut out can be pushed down into the soil and will protect the root collar area unless the the voles are really bad. When the place is overrun with them, nothing works.
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Post by steev on Mar 2, 2017 23:03:23 GMT -5
Lord! It's gone from slow-march to klezmer, activity-wise. Got to bust my butt tomorrow, playing catch-up with my clients, especially the ones that have the excellent Miner's Lettuce (my Spring light-meal, tuna-salad, of choice; gotta watch mah figger, ya know; I hate not seeing my belt-buckle; this uncommonly rainy Winter has made that a mirror-assisted chore), making time to visit the fire extinguisher place to pick up buckets of monoammonium phosphate (impudent Nasca Lines? Oh, you betcha!). Saturday morning, I'll go by the rabbitry for bags of bunny-beans, then off to the farm, detouring past farmermike's to drop off seed of Joseph's Cherry sweet corn (should do well at his place, which is warmer than inside the Bay).
Should be lovely soil condition for waltzing Sukie around on the farm, weed-control as well as bed-prep; gotta get field peas in; too early for corn, but I'm champing at the bit, same as Sukie.
Noted various Hosta varieties at the big-box store; maybe this is the year I'll drop the Jeffersons to get them going on the farm; they strike me as fripperies at this time, but when have I ever not wanted to goof around? Idle curiosity is my favorite kind. Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction brought him back. Hey, when you've got nine lives; take a chance!
Oops! Gotta get favas in, too, and then there's the Brassicas, etc, etc. This is gonna run me 'til I can see my belt-buckle, no prollem; 'saright!
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Post by farmermike on Mar 7, 2017 14:14:21 GMT -5
If you were working that auger alone, no wonder it kicked your ass, being a two-man auger. Dude! You have a family; don't trash yourself willy-nilly. Which way does that hillside face? Looks north; should be good for apples in our cold-deficient region. Fortunately, we had 3 of us men on that 2 man auger...on a steep hillside. Alone, it would have had me spinning around like a pinwheel. It was hard work, but that is how I keep in shape without ever going to the gym! I always encourage my crew to work carefully and deliberately, practicing appropriate form and technique, so the result of a laborious day is only sore muscles instead of musculoskeletal injury. Unfortunately, that hillside is south-facing (which I advised against). A local organization planted the orchard for us and then bailed out on any management of it. Those trees may have to be irrigated indefinitely; I'm planning out a gray-water system for this eventuality. If trees continue to fail, I may throw in the towel on that location; we have a north-facing slope that would be ideal -- but still has voles though.
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