June 30, 2010

June 13 after planting the tomatoes but before covering with mulch.

The seeder Cris used to plant this weekend.

One of the tomato plants after 2 weeks in the ground


New gutters for the barn and rain barrels.

Using screen door mesh to keep bugs out of water.

Now that the barn is 99.9 percent complete (little odds and ends will be finished when it's not 90-100 degrees outside), we have been turning our attention to the vegetable garden. We planted over 70 tomato plants, some squash, cucs, zucchini and okra. I do not recommend using the 'newspaper pots' that we blogged about earlier..... the plants did not do well in them...too wet I think. As you can see by the photos, we did used newspapers as weed block, followed by a cover of mulch and compost which seems to work pretty good. We decided to do the planting on one of the hottest weekends we have had so far. It was rough but I had a mini umbrella with stand that I carried around with me. We planted on June 13th and despite the lack of rain the last couple of weeks, the tomotos are doing great. Some of our other plants did not do so well but we planted more seeds to replace them. This past Sunday we planted beans, peppers, sweet corn and more squash and cucs. Cris bought a seed planter that you walk behind and the seeds drop out and then the planter has a part on it that covers the seed. It worked pretty good.

We did get a great rainstorm this past Saturday so hopefully that will help the vegies sprout.

We have a lot of wild blackberries growing and the organic blackberry plant we have at home in Memphis is blooming with berries.....unfortunately, the dogs eat them as soon as they get ripe.

As I stated before, at times, it seems like we are working on the equipment more than actually working on the farm. The tractor gave us a fit this past weekend but it's nothing that Cris can't fix....it's just finding the time to do it. He seems to think the gas tank is dirty and it's clogging up the carburetor. It's an old Ford tractor without a filter....but he plans to put a filter in between the gas tank and carburetor to clean up the gunk. I'm glad he knows what he is doing.

This past weekend we also put up 100 feet of gutter and installed rain barrels on the barn. The goal is to catch the rain (if it ever rains) and then use it to water the plants.

This weekend we are harvesting honey. The bees have been so busy so we are hoping for some really sweet honey.

The wheat has been harvested off our property and the natural grasses from the area are growing in nicely. This means we don't have to do much planting in the way of a cover crop...which is a good thing.

Didn't get any pictures taken this past weekend. (June 4-6). We were super busy working on the trim, finishing up the painting and other little things that have to be done to call the barn complete. This weekend we hope to have all the trim inside and outside the barn finished and then insulate the little areas in the corners and certain places on the roof that need some foam insulation to keep the bugs out.

After that, it's clean up the barn and start organizing the inside. We plan to purchase barn gates to use as doors for the area that will house the ATV's so we can keep them locked up. Also, in a couple months, we will buy a dump truck load of gravel to put in the 'garage' area of the barn. We need the entire driveway graveled but that will have to wait until it's in our budget. For now, the dirt driveway is fine but come winter, it may get messy and hard to drive on the dirt.

If all goes well, we will plant the tomotoes Sunday.

Coming Down the Home Stretch

The floor to the shop after it was painted.

The Barn as of Memorial Day 2010

There is an end in sight..... we will have this barn finished hopefully this coming weekend. Memorial Day Weekend was spent painting the 24x24 floor in the shop area, putting up 4 walls which included 3 windows and a 6 ft. wide barn door that Cris made, painting the outside walls (Sandy did ALL that herself), painting the outside trim (Sandy again), plus more roof work.

We met with the electric company and it seems that we will need at least 2 utility poles to get from the road to the barn. They are going to install a temporary electric line like they do for home construction. The cost for the poles run about $1000 a pole.

Windows and Walls and a Door, Oh My

Installed 6 out of 10 walls

The 2 windows and door

This past weekend was the hottest weekend on the farm so far. It was in the 90's and luckily, due to school and church activities, we were only able to work on the barn for about 5 hours each day.....which was good because we were losing more water from sweat than we were taking in and it was taking it's toll on both Cris and me.

We did manage to get up 6 out of 10 walls, put 2 windows in and a door. The wall with the door took longer because we had to frame up the door area first. The remaining 4 walls should be easy to install next weekend.

What's left after the walls: install the remaining roof tin, install some wood panels from the top of the walls to the top of the inside roof area (to keep the bugs out of the shop area), install facia and various other trim on the inside and out and then paint. We started the barn on Easter Weekend so maybe by the end of Memorial Day Weekend, we will be finished.

We hope to start planting the weekend of June 5th. Alex leaves for his Italy school trip on Sunday, June 6th and will be gone until June 17th, then he and I leave for Maryland June 18th until June 21st. It would be great to have the barn complete and then vegies in the ground before we leave. Cris did manage to get some plowing done Friday where we are going to plant the vegies.

We contacted the local electric company and they will take a look at our land and discuss getting some electric out to the barn. It would be great to have some air conditioning at the barn for the nights we camp there.

I checked on the blueberry bushes and they are all fine; many are small but look healthy. I think the major rain we had a few weeks ago stunted their growth a little (from being covered in water) but they look good and I think they will do even better once we get some mulch and more sheep manure around them.

The blackberry plants we have in pots at our house in Memphis look fantastic and one has many berries on them. I can't wait till they are ready for picking! We also found a few wild blackberry plants growing on the farm.

We Were Floored!

Cris working on the floor of the shop

Teddy dug himself a hole and slept in it. I guess by digging a hole, he found cooler ground.

Saturday-Sunday, May 15-16, 2010

Despite the disgustingly humid weather, we managed to get the 24x24 sq. ft. floor installed this weekend. We had hoped to put up the 18 remaining tin roof panels but it was just too hot to be working on the roof and working with hot tin. We put in 40 floor joists and 18 sheets of 4x8 flooring.

On a happy note, we finally saw signs of the fish that we placed in the pond in March. We had not been able to find the fish since the initial placement but this weekend they were swimming near the edge of the pond. Looks like the minnows had baby minnows and hopefully the bluegill will be having baby blues soon too. We have to build a spillway on the part of the pond where water runs off into the ditch because after the major rainfall we had a couple weeks ago, some of the bluegill washed down into the ditch a died. Alex saw about 3 of them so hopefully that is all that was lost.

Next weekend the goal is to finish the roof (going to start early in the morning before it gets to hot) and then start putting up the walls.

Some native grass is starting to grow on the land so that is good. The more native grass that spreads and grows, then less we have to plant. There is some beautiful native fetch growing on the terraces; it has purple flowers. Hopefully it will spread into the fields.

Any more major building projects we take on will be started and completed before summer and the heat hits. Because of having lost so many weekends due to rain, our barn project is taking longer than expected and we are now getting into the hot weather. Saturday I think we both ended being a little dehydrated even though we drank lots and lots of water.

Our planting is behind schedule due to the barn taking longer but we hope to get everything planted the first week in June.

TICKS are really bad this year...I guess because of the rain. Alex walked into the woods and came out with 4 crawling on his pants. Cris and I usually find about 2 on ourselves after checking on the bees in the woods. The dogs...well, the ticks seem to love Nugget but they can't get through Teddy's dense hair. Most are just regular ticks but we have pulled a few deer ticks off the dogs and ourselves.

So far I have learned that I cannot live without running water (showers!), electricity (or some kind of power source to run my a.c.!!) and plumbing for a bathroom. I can live without cable, Starbucks and a house larger than 2000 sq. ft.

I am so over the roof....

At the end of the day, Sunday, May 9, 2010

Well, the weekend could not have been more beautiful May 8th & 9th. We spent the entire weekend at the farm, sleeping in tents Saturday night. With no electricity it is REALLY dark at night but we had our lanterns and flashlights so we were prepared. You can really see the stars at night with no lights around.

We managed to put up 33 - 2ft. x 14 ft. metal panels on the roof this weekend. We ordered 50 but have to wait a week for remaining 17 as we took all that Shelly's Lumber had. We got 3/4 of the roof completed. It is time consuming getting the panels up and after a while, I am ready to move onto something else... like the floor or walls. One more work day though and the roof will be complete, then the rest should go quickly.

We went to a friend's farm Saturday night for dinner and the idea was for everyone to bring something 'local' to eat, either from their own garden or from a farmer's market etc. There were beautiful spring onions, strawberries from a local Mennonite farm, tomatoes, mozz. cheese made locally, corn bread made from corn grown by the person who brought it (he has his own mill to process the corn) and other goodies. We brought honey from our bee hive and it was really sweet. Our bees must be the sweetest bees around to make such good honey. :) We won a couple door prizes; a dozen farm fresh eggs, homemade blackberry jelly and homemade canned peaches plus a container of fresh picked strawberries that are so sweet.

Cris and I are sore from climbing up and down the ladder and from sleeping on an air mattress Sat. night that had a slow leak. We both were already half asleep when our heads hit the pillow Sunday night.

Another Rainy Weekend....

Mud Puppy Teddy with his most precious toy...a red squeaky ball.

The newspaper pots.

The pots filled with squash seedlings

Some of our seedlings. We started them at our house in Memphis then will transplat soon to the farm. We got a late start but next year with the hoop house, we will be ready earlier.

Rain Gauge Says 4 Inches.....other places have much more than we did.

Well, Mother Nature is not cooperating with us so we can't work on the barn today BUT there is always something to do. Cris and I replanted some of the seedlings that needed to be in larger containers. I found a video on youtube that shows how to make seedling pots out of newspaper. What a great way to re-use. And when it's time to plant, we can then put the newspaper in the compost. I prefer to re-use and compost rather than recycle.

It has rained all day with no end in sight. Not sure what Sunday will bring.