Month: September 2018

Green

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Our day started with thunder and much needed rain.

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While going into the medical centre for my husband’s appointment this afternoon, I couldn’t resist getting pictures of the lush green spruces and their pine cones, along the parking lot.  Such lovely, healthy, trees they have on the grounds.  :-)  It’s amazing how quickly everything perks up after a good rainfall.

While in the waiting room, we heard a massive peal of thunder!  The storm didn’t hit directly, though.  We just got some good rain.  It would have been good to get it earlier in the year, but I’ll take what we can get!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 3

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Yes!  I finally got to the area where the trees had fallen on the fence!

What the area looked like before can be seen in this post.

First, I got rid of part of the tree further into the grove, so I could drag things by.

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The next area actually had three fallen trees in it, each having fallen at different time.  One had fallen with its top just touching the fence.  In clearing that out, I discovered it was so rotten, the branches I grabbed to move it just broke off.  Then, when I tried to shift the trunk itself, to decide where and how to saw it, it broke, too.

I cleared away the broken part and left the rest for now.

Another fallen tree was under the three that had fallen the most recently, but it was small enough, and smooth enough, I was able to just pull it out from underneath, then carry it away.

Then I cut branches from the one that had fallen onto the fence, before cutting through the trunk itself, a few feet away from the fence.  Once that piece was free, the reduction of weight shifted the center of gravity, and the rest of the tree lifted and shifted!  I ended up rotating it a bit further, and left it.

This left things clear enough for me to continue on the fence, so I’ve left it for now, too.

Here are the after pictures to match the before pictures from the previous post.

I will leave pruning the little stuff for another day.  If I had a heavy duty enough weed trimmer, I’d just use that, but my little trimmer isn’t able to handle more than grass and smaller weeds.  When I’m done clearing the fence line, I plan to use the trimmer outside of the fence.

Here is another view.

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I will leave continuing outside the fence for another time, too.

Also, the beer can I had noticed before turned out to be a bottle. :-D

It’s the brand my late brother drank, which means he was probably the last person to do maintenance on the fence itself.  He passed in 2010, so it’s been there since before then!

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The next section has these oak trees at the fence line, and some juniper.  I’m going to leave the juniper as ground cover, clearing out any other trees that have started to grow in them, and I am deciding on whether or not I should leave the oak to transplant next year.  When I get back to this area, I will decide based on how in the way they are, or not.  I’ve seen quite a few oak saplings about that can be transplanted, so if I do end up having to cut these away, there are others I can use.

At this point, I’m about 3/4 of the way to the gate.  If all goes well, next time I work here, I should be able to reach it. :-D

I love how much better it looks, even if it’s not quite finished.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 2

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I’ve got some before photos, and some taken during the clean up.  By this point, I had pretty much stopped with the pruning shears, except to clear things that were in the way.

These three before pictures were taken in an area just before there a tree had fallen on the fence.  I wanted to at least clear that area, as my goal for the day.

One thing that was noticeable is that, over the years, there was some maintenance done around here.  Despite the weird tops of some of the fence posts, they are all good posts, and still straight.  There is a bit of wiggle on them, but that could be attributed to how dry it has been.  The fence wire itself would also have been good, if trees hadn’t fallen on it!

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I didn’t want to go too far into the grove, but this tree top had to go.  It was in the way of clearing things out.  The stump of the tree can be seen where I’d cleared previously, near the open, mossy area.

I also went outside the fence to move away the top of the tree that fell on the fence.

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This is what my older brother had cut, to get it off the fence itself, shortly after we moved out here.  For now, I’m just leaving this here.  It will need to be cut down a bit before being hauled away, due to its size.

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Here’s where it had fallen on the fence.  I took a closer look at that ant hill, and there’s no sign of ants left in it.  It has been abandoned.  Which is good, because I had to cut some small trees out of it!

Then I made some discoveries.

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In the next section of fence, I found the end of a string of Christmas lights.

Notice the wire it is wrapped around.  If you follow it up, you can see it end in a loop.

In this next photo, you can see where it should be.

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This is where two lengths of barbed wire were joined together, but when the tree fell on the fence, on end broke off.

Once the fence line is clear, I will be repairing this.  I even found a tool for tightening fence wire that I can use; one of the few useful things that didn’t disappear while this place was empty!

I started unwinding the Christmas lights and found…

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… the fallen tree had also unplugged the string of lights.

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This is where it had been plugged into.  This string of lights reaches to the outlet box and still works.  I will leave it for now.  Eventually, I want to replace them with LED lights.

After this, it was time to climb back through the fence and start clearing on the inside, which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 1

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I was able to get back to working on the fence line of the spruce grove today.  I got quite a bit of progress, so I’m splitting the before and after photos into several posts.

I also came back to some updates about my mother, and am happy to hear her surgery went well and she is recovering quite nicely.  She is in good hands, too. :-)

Here is the progress I got done in the first section.  For these pictures, I propped my phone up on a fence post near where I left off last time.

To the right of the fence line, I’d already done some work clearing things around the trees, but not so much the fence itself.

I decided to clear the trees growing on the road side of the fence.  One advantage of having barbed wire fence.  It’s easy to get through.  Handy for work like this, but not very secure.

I discovered something while clearing the trees on the road side of the fence.

Someone had tried to do this before.

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Many of the saplings were like this; new growth out of the remains of an older little stump.  None of the stumps were cut, though.  From the jagged edges, I wonder if someone just broke them?

The pile at the bottom of the tree in the after photo is what I tossed over the fence while clearing on the road side.

Almost all of this was done using pruning sheers.  Which is much more time consuming! A lot of what I was clearing was wild roses, and my goodness, they are a pain!  Literally!  Those skinny little thorns like to slide right through the rubber palms of my gloves.  Then, when I try to toss them onto the pile, they stick to the gloves, instead.

I used the extended pruning saw to take down some of the low hanging dead branches as well, though I am not doing this as thoroughly as I did previously.  I can come back to do the rest later.  I just want to focus on getting that fence clear as quickly as I can, while the weather is good.

Now to process the next set of pictures. :-D

The Re-Farmer

A kitten let me pet it!!

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It’s just one, so far; the tuxedo.  My daughter tells me he let her pet him yesterday, too.

Progress!!! :-D

I was out for much of the morning, taking my mother to the hospital she will be going for surgery at, tomorrow, for her pre-op blood work.  We took her car, since it’s easier to get in and out of for her.  When we needed to replace our old van, I very specifically chose a vehicle that would meet my husband’s mobility needs, which are pretty much the opposite of my mothers. :-D  The trip went really well, and we got back early enough that we could go to church together, too.

When I got home, I noticed branches in the yard, so after lunch I went out to pick them up.

I got distracted by a Beep Beep, who really wanted attention!  So I sat on the side of the concrete landing at the door and started petting her. Her tuxedo kitten was out and, at first, he didn’t want to go near me.  Then, much to my surprise, he came over to snuzzle his mom as I pet her – and let me pet him, too!

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Then they both went behind my back and rolled around on the concrete.  I reached around to pet Beep Beep, and a kitten head pushed itself under my hand!  It was so awesome.

I tried reaching my phone over my shoulder to get some pictures of them behind my back and actually got a good one of the tuxedo. :-D

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I’m hoping, as the other kittens see him enjoying human attention, they’ll relax and start letting us pet them, too.

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The grey tabby, however, still won’t go near me.  I moved to a chair we have by the sun room, and he wouldn’t even go past to get to the food bowls.

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The teeny tabby used to come close and even let me touch, sometimes, but these days, he is acting more skittish for some reason.  He will, at least, go past me to get to the food.

His big brother, on the other hand, almost did, but when he heard me shift on the chair, he ran off again.

He has such a lion-like appearance doesn’t he? :-D

I even caught a glimpse of one of the calicos, dashing away.

I’m so happy.  I got some kitten therapy! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Old Roof

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Thanks to the cows’ trampling, I was able to get further into the back of an old log building that is collapsing in the outer yard.

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The remains of the roof, long since stripped of shingles, are rotting away.  In the process, it is supporting new life.

The Re-Farmer

Digging

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While walking around the west yard after a rainfall, I found more of these.

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Something is very enthusiastically digging shallow holes in our yard!  Whatever it is has been doing it in different areas throughout the summer.

Best guess, I think it’s a skunk digging for grubs.

Anyone else have an idea of what it might be?

The Re-Farmer

Trampled access

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After a lovely rainfall this morning, I took a walk around the outer yard to take a closer look at the areas the cows got into.

They did a fabulous job of trampling down the grass and burdock.

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In fact, their trampling meant I could access places I couldn’t before, including the door to the old chicken coop.  It had been blocked off by burdock before.

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When my parents bought the property, this log building was the summer kitchen.  They eventually converted it to a chicken coop.

Yesterday, while walking around with my sister and our relative from Poland, I tried to open the door, but couldn’t.  There is some shifting in the building, which resulted in a board that ran horizontally across the top of the door, now running across the door itself.

Overnight, however, something has managed to pull the bottom of the door out!  It was not like this yesterday.  The other side of the door is also partially pulled out, but there’s a board in the middle that’s basically jammed into the ground.

I thought I might be able to just pull the door off, but it’s pretty stuck, at top and bottom.  I’d need to get some tools to get it done, but there’s no reason to do that right now.

What I was able to do, however, was stick my phone through the opening and use voice command to take some pictures.  These made for my first view inside this building since I left the farm, 32 years ago!

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It looks like no one mucked it out since before my parents stopped having chickens!

Also, it looks like someone started using it to dump things in.  :-(

The openings at the back are the nesting boxes.  The roosts are on the right, with stuff stacked on them.  On the far right of the photo, you can see what was a ramp for the chickens to use to get up there.

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The caged area on the left is where my parents kept new baby chicks until they were big enough to join the adult birds. We were able to set up a heat lamp in there for them.  In the wall under the window was a little door near the floor.  When we had chickens, there was a fenced area around two sides of the building, enclosing the wall with the main door, and the wall with the window. Outside this little door was a partitioned off area, so we could close off the chicks from the adult chickens outside.  When the chicks were grown enough, we would just leave the doors open for all the chickens to access.  Most times, spring through fall, we opened the door to the fence during the day, so the chickens could range freely.

After checking out the old chicken coop, I went over to the pump shack to check the power cord to the storage building.  From the outside, everything looked fine, so I went in.  I’m glad I did, because I found that when they came out of the building yesterday, the light was forgotten on!

I found the problem, too.

The cable coming through the wall cannot reach the outlet, so there is a short power cord in between.  It’s one of those power cords that, when it’s plugged in at one end, there is a light that turns on at the other end.  When I came in yesterday, I could see the light, but the cable through the wall was gone.  I guess, after I left the pump shack to find the cable, my sister unplugged the short power cord, then went outside. When I found the cable the cows and pulled out, I pushed it through the opening in the wall again.  My sister went back in, grabbed it and plugged the cable in, but didn’t plug the short power cord back into the outlet!

It was a relief to find that.  I still checked for power in the storage building, just to be sure, and it’s working fine.  No damaged cables! :-)

So while the cows did get into all sorts of things, they caused very little damage, and have actually made some things easier to get to. :-)

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Pleasant company, and learning new things.

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Today, I got to meet a couple of people in person, finally!

The first was the owner of the cows. :-D

I had expected him to come earlier, so I was a bit surprised when I saw the cows still in the outer yard.  They had gotten into the burn barrel again, so I went out with a big garbage back to pick up the mess and put the burn barrel pieces into a pile again.  I decided to put the bag into the garage and headed that way, only do see the door was more open than I left it (with no handle, I didn’t close it all the way), and stuff was scattered around.  When I came over, I found a cow inside, standing by the van! Continue reading →