05/21/13

Today wasn't as productive as I had hoped. Even though I have taken the week off from work I had to work half a day today, attending some important meetings. Luckily I was able get outside for a few hours between meetings, though, because it stormed all evening.

I was able to look into the issues with the mower, and determine that the last time I used it the belt had slipped off. It didn't break, though, which is good. I have a new belt, and bought new bearings for it, so I'll put those on and see if that solves the problems I was having.

I also did some work on the front porch. When I had previously taken down the plastic from the porch I just cut it, because the yard was too wet to set a ladder at that time. Today I took down most of the strips that I had used for securing the plastic. I mostly wanted to get them taken down so they wouldn't be exposed to the weather now that the plastic is down.

Today was also the day of Jack's surgery. Andrea was actually on the way back home with him when the storms began. Thankfully they made it home safely. Jack seems to be doing well.

05/20/13

I decided to take a week off from work to get caught up on a few things around here. Today was my first day off, and it didn't start off very well. I began the morning by using the tractor to do some more prep work along the edge of the yard where we are planning to plant some bushes. While I had the tractor out I decided to move a few large rocks that were somewhat in the way. I still haven't really mastered the process of picking up large rocks with the front end loader, rather than just pushing them across the ground. For one of the rocks I was having to try to manually push it into the bucket, and in the process managed to get my finger caught between the rock and the bucket when it shifted unexpectedly. The result was a couple of cuts to the underside of my finger, and bruising to the top. Fortunately it was only my little finger, and the rock just caught the tip, but it was very painful at the time.

I'm not one to work through an injury, especially when I'm bleeding, so I immediately went back into the house and took an extended break. After lunch I decided to go back out, because the pain had subsided. I worked a bit more on prepping the edge of the yard, this time using a hoe and rake to smooth out some of the soil I had moved earlier. I also took a load of topsoil to the garden so I would have a convenient supply for adding to the potato tower. While I was at it I went ahead and added some soil to the tower, and by the end of the day I noticed that the plants appeared to have already grown, which is impressive, if accurate.

I don't know if the issue was just the heat, or if my injury also played a role, but I wasn't able to stay out as long as I had hoped. After a couple of hours I had to come back in, and ended up taking a nap. After dinner, though, I went back out and Andrea went with me. We installed another small walkway in the herb garden. After that we watered the tomato plants, which took longer than expected. Hopefully we'll have a good solution before the season is over, because we'll be watering them very often. I'm already dreading watering them tomorrow because I know that I'll need to haul more water up from the creek. Hopefully I'll get the rain barrels finished and installed soon, so I don't have to haul a lot from the creek.

I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I had hoped with my first day off from work. I did manage to get in maybe 6 hours total, though, which I suppose isn't too bad considering I took some time off for my injury, and it seemed to have slowed me down for the remainder of the day.

05/19/13

This was a fairly productive weekend, even with some rain and more threats of rain. Friday evening we worked in the herb garden, installing more stepping stones. Andrea had previously planted as much as she could in the finished area, so we need to finish placing the rock to allow her to do more planting.

On Saturday we drove to Lexington to attend the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. I was impressed with both the quantity and quality of vendors in attendance. I suspect that in a few years, when we have fiber animals, this event will be much more appealing to us. Still, though, it was nice to see what it had to offer. The only thing we bought was some fudge from The Sweet Shoppe of Hodgenville, KY. Its odd that they keep showing up at events we attend, as we first became aware of them when we ran across their store while visiting Hodgenville. While in Lexington we also stopped by one of the farmers markets, so we could stock up on seasoning blends from Herb'N Renewal, which is pretty much the only place we buy from anymore, since we try to make most of our blends at home.

This morning Andrea worked in the herb garden. At last count she has planted nineteen different plant varieties, with several more still planned. Most of what she has planted so far have been culinary herbs, with only one flower I believe. Much of what is left, though, are medicinal herbs and flowers.

While Andrea was working in the herb garden I worked in the main garden spreading mulch. I had spread leaf mulch a couple of weeks ago over part of the area where we plan to plant the tomatoes and peppers. It turns out, however, that the way I did it left half of the rows of tomatoes un-mulched, while an area that we will not use for some time is mulched. I rake up the mulch from the one area, and used it to finish mulching around the tomatoes. This is a good example of where lack of planning resulted in quite a bit of extra work. Hopefully we'll get better with that in the future.

After finishing up the mulch around the tomatoes I loaded up a couple bales of straw to use for mulching the potatoes. Rather than hilling up dirt around the potatoes as they grow we are trying mulch this year. After completing the mulching its much easier to see, at a glance, how the plants are doing. So far the Kennebecs have had the best rate of sprouting. The Yukon Gold, however, have the tallest plants. The Pontiacs are behind in both sprouting rate and height, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will come around.

It began raining while I was mulching, but I wanted to finish the job before coming in. Because of the threat of rain I decided to work in the dry for my next project. After lunch I worked on building a rain barrel. For the most part I based my design on what I learned from the Field to Fork Festival last year.  Overall the barrel went together fairly well, but I want to pick up a few things before doing the others. Most notably I need to buy a new drill bit that is closer in size to the thread cutter I am using. I also need to pick up some concrete blocks to use for setting the barrel. Once I've finished the project I'll do a post based on everything I learned.

This evening we went on another hunt for wildflowers. Andrea had explored one area a few days ago, but wasn't able to get to some others areas due to the mud. We found a couple of new plants we hadn't seen before, but there wasn't really a whole lot in bloom. Unfortunately most of what is in bloom is the invasive Rosa multiflora, which means we have some serious work to do if we want to try to get rid of it.

05/16/13

Today turned out to be another productive day. Much more productive, in fact, that I had expected since the weather forecast had been calling for rain. It turns out, however, that most of the rain missed us, and it only sprinkled for around 30 minutes just as I was getting off from work.

Before that, however, Andrea had to take Jack to the vet. She noticed a place on the inside of his leg, which was obviously bothering him. As we began to pay more attention we saw that he was limping, and was less active than normal. Fortunately our vet is very flexible and was able to see him today. It turns out this problem was related to the gunshot wound he sustained back in late February. The bullet is still embedded in his leg, and had become infected. They gave us some antibiotics to give him, and scheduled surgery for next week to remove the bullet.

I really hadn't decided ahead of time what I was going to work on this evening. I noticed, though, that the backyard was mostly dried up for a change, which I had been waiting on before trying to clean the ditches. With rain in the forecast for the next three days I thought it was a good time to try to get them cleaned out while I had the opportunity.

I used the tractor with the middle buster to clean the ditches as I had done before. I was able to do a more thorough job this time. However, I've come to realize that it isn't an easy task. This is partially because the terrain is so uneven, since the ditch is along the base of an incline. The other issue is that following an existing ditch that curves is much more difficult than I expected.

The middle buster pushes the dirt out to either side, leaving it piled up along the ditch. Because most of the ditch runs along the base of an incline I do not want dirt piled up on the upper side, as it will prevent water from entering the ditch, and will eventually just be washed into the ditch, filling it back in. Because of this, I had quite a bit of work to do with hand tools after finishing with the tractor.

For part of the ditch all I had to do was use a hoe to pull the dirt from the upper side of the ditch across to the lower side. The result is that the berm along the lower side gets built up, which should prevent the ditch from overflowing as easily. In some places this still needs to be built up, as it is only a few inches above ground level, but in other areas it is close to a foot tall.

Other parts of the ditch were not as easy, however, and required a shovel and mattock to finish up. In these areas the dirt was saturated with water. I know it only makes sense, but I feel that its worth stating, mud is much heavier than dry dirt! Luckily I was able to pile a lot of this dirt/mud along the lower edge of the parts of the ditch that regularly overflow, which I am hoping will help to keep the backyard dry. The ditch itself can't be due any deeper due to rock, so my only options are to build up the berm along the lower edge, or chip out a section of the rock itself. Piling up dirt is certainly the easier option.

Cleaning out ditches is not something I am accustom to, so it tires me out quickly. I ended up not being able to completely finish the job, but did get around 170 of the 215 feet cleaned out, which I'm pleased with. The section that I left unfinished is mostly in a level area, so having dirt on the upperside isn't as big of a concern as the section running along the incline.

While I was working on the ditch Andrea was planting herbs in the herb garden. She was able to get several things planted, and could have done more if not for the fact that we still need to finish up the stepping stones. Hopefully we can get that done soon so she can finish planting.

05/15/13

Today was a very tiring, yet productive day. We decided to transplant the tomato plants to the garden today, which turned out to be a fairly big job, even though we only did twenty plants. I lunch I loaded the push mower into the RTV and got it ready to take to the garden for one last pass over the rye that was trying to grow back. After work I went over and mowed, which only took a few minutes since I only needed to mow an area about half the size of before, as the other area is now mulched.

It was unseasonably warm yesterday, with temperatures in the upper 80s. The garden was still in full sun when I finished mowing, so I didn't think we should start planting right away, since Andrea can't tolerate being in direct sun for extended periods. I knew that we would need to water the tomatoes after transplanting, so I decided to go ahead and haul some water while it was hot, since I would be in the shade most of the time while doing that. I placed a 30 gallon plastic drum near the garden for storing the water. I then use buckets and jugs to haul water up from the creek to fill the drum. I ended up hauling about 35 gallon of water, which should give us enough to water the plants a couple of times more at least.

By the time I finished hauling water the sun had gone down enough that the garden was in shade, so we got started with planting. I'll do a separate post on the topic, so won't go into details here. It was dark by the time we finished.

Using the Swisher Trailcutter Mower in the Offset Position

I previously wrote a post about my Swisher Trailcutter mower. I've also mentioned it several times in my daily posts, as it is my primary mower. When I originally wrote about it, I mentioned the offset capability, but indicated that I never used it. I had no intention of offsetting the mower at the time, but have since changed my mind.

There were several reasons that I hadn't considered offsetting the mower a good option for me. The first was that the hitch bar was held into position by bolts, so adjusting its angle required keeping a wrench or ratchet on hand to remove them. If I were going to keep the mower in that position permanently that would not be a big deal, but around here there are just situations where having the mower offset doesn't work. That brings me to my second point, which is maneuvering the mower when it is offset. I do a lot of my mowing with the RTV, which is nearly five feet wide. With the mower in offset position, I need an area at least seven to eight feet through which to pass. There are several areas that I mow where this just isn't possible. This is made worse when it comes to areas in which I have to make tight turns, since the RTV and mower combined are close to twenty feet long. The last reason I had never considered offsetting the mower was that it seemed most useful for those towing the mower behind a riding mower, where the offset would allow them to mow a wider area than either mower could by itself. Obviously that isn't my situation, so offsetting the mower doesn't result in mowing a wider area or completing the job any faster than towing it directly behind the RTV or four-wheeler.

Recently, however, I realized that offsetting the mower when cutting down the rye in the garden would be beneficial. Because the rye was so tall, I knew that my normal mowing method would result in much of it being pressed down by the tires of the RTV so much that it was below the height of the blades, even with the mower at its lowest setting. To make this easier, I replaced the bolts holding the hitch bar in position with a couple of hitch pins, which could be removed and put back in place much more quickly. I found that this worked well for mowing the rye, other than when it came time to back up. The mower isn't easy to back up in the best of situations, but is much more difficult when offset. I ended up just circling the garden after each pass, rather than wasting time trying to back up for the next pass.

Since offsetting the mower to mow the rye worked well I decided to try it for mowing some tall grass across the road that I hoped to later rake for mulch. The same reasoning applied here, regarding the need to avoid pressing down the grass with the tow vehicle before it was mowed. One change, however, is that I used the four-wheeler this time instead of the RTV. I had never mowed with the four-wheeler in that area, but Andrea was using the RTV and I didn't want to ask her to stop what she was doing. I found that the four-wheeler worked even better than the RTV with the offset mower, because it isn't as wide. The result is that it took less time to mow, as I could step over farther with each pass while still keeping the four-wheeler tires in the already mowed area. The narrower four-wheeler also helped to alleviate one of the issues mentioned above.

While I had the mower offset I also used it to mow along the edge of the driveway. There is a fairly narrow strip there that I like to keep mowed, that ranges from maybe two to six feet wide. Normally this is a pain to mow, because of tree branches and briars that overhang and get in the way of the tow vehicle. When the mower is offset, however, it stays below those obstacles, while me and the tow vehicle are off to the side, beyond their reach. With three quick passes I had the area mowed, and it was much simpler than it had ever been before.

Now that I have more experience with offsetting the mower, and have simplified the process of adjusting it, I think I'll use it offset more often. In fact, I think that the next time I mow the yard I'll likely try it offset. I suspect that there may be even more advantages of doing so that I haven't yet discovered. There are still plenty of cases where pulling the mower directly behind the tow vehicle will be necessary I'm sure. That is the nice thing about having the offset ability, it provides the flexibility to adjust for different situations.

05/13/13

I still wasn't feeling well when I got up this morning, but by the time I finished with work I was feeling pretty much back to normal. I got out the string trimmer for the first time this evening and trimmed around the trailer, along obstacles in the yard, and along the edge of the yard. Its funny how tiring such a task can be the first time I do it each year. When I was initially clearing the land I'd use the trimmer for several hours a day, every weekend. Today, though, just an hour of use gave me a sore back and arms.

While I was mowing, Andrea worked in her herb garden. She did some weeding as well as pulling up some rogue mint. The mint from last year had spread beyond is intended area. This past weekend at the Herb & Craft Festival a lady suggested a couple of ways to prevent mint from growing outside of a specific area. I'm not sure if Andrea plans to try one of those suggestions, or just try to keep it under control manually.

Once I finished my mowing I helped Andrea in the herb garden. We worked on placing more stepping stones. Progress went a little quicker today than in the past, and we were able to get four more stones placed.

We could probably have worked for another hour, but I had to be inside for a call for work at 8:30 PM. Rather than work right up to that time we decided to stop at 7:30 so I would have time to take a shower and eat before the call. Otherwise it was going to be 9:30 before I could eat dinner.

The weather forecast is calling for scattered frost tonight, but we're taking a chance and not covering the strawberries. The chances of it frosting here seem much less likely that last night, and I don't think that the uncovered strawberries were actually damaged last night. We did, however, bring in the tomatoes. We have been leaving them outside during the day, to harden them off, and had planned to leave them outside tonight and tomorrow night, then plan them on Wednesday. We didn't want to risk leaving them out if it might frost, however, so will probably end up just leaving them out one night before planting.