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Clean up: salvaging logs, and bonus clean up

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Today was dry enough that I could work on cutting up the dead tree that had finally fallen, thanks to recent high winds.

This time, I could use power tools! I used my baby chainsaw (aka: cordless pruner), with it’s 4″ blade, to trim off branches, then a reciprocating saw, with a 12″ blade to cut the measured lengths. Unfortunately, my reciprocating saw is giving up the ghost. It cuts, but it doesn’t stop. Sometimes, it’ll slow down when I release the trigger, but other times it would just keep right on going. I had to unplug it to turn it off!

At the last minute, I changed my mind on the longer lengths I would be cutting. These will be used to make high raised beds in the main garden area, and I had been thinking of building them at 10 feet long. As I was measuring, however, I decided to make them 9 feet long. The boxes we built for the beds where the garlic had been planted are 9′ x 3′. I figured if I did these at 9 feet long, any future cover frames we build will fit on both. I kept the short ends at 4 feet, though. With the width of the wood, the inside of the beds will be roughly 3 feet wide, so any covers would still be interchangeable.

So here we have two 4′ and two 9′ lengths. Enough to make one course of logs to frame a high raised bed.

By the time I cut these, the rest of the tree was light enough that I could drag it closer to cut a couple more pieces.

That gave me another 9′ and another 4′ piece. At the top of the long pieces is the remaining top of the tree, which is about 7 or 8 feet. I set that aside for potential future use. When I was trimming the branches off, I found another 6 or 7 feet of the top had broken off and was dangling from a nearby tree. With three 9′ lengths, three 4′ lengths, plus another, say, 7 feet of trunk, and 6 feet for the top that broke off, we’re looking at a tree trunk that was roughly 52 feet. Add in the roughly 3 feet of stump left behind, we’re looking at a dead tree that was about 55 feet tall when I cut it down.

The one that’s still stuck on another tree was a bit taller.

At this point, I had salvaged logs to do 1 1/2 courses to build a raised garden bed. I needed two more pieces.

I didn’t have to cut down another tree, though. I still had the trunk of the dead tree I’d cut down and used the stump to make a bench.

After I finished trimming the branches, the trunk was eventually rolled up against the patch on the right, where there is a currant bush, chokecherry tree, raspberries, some flowers and a crab apple tree that died this spring. So after dragging/carrying the first pieces over to where the garden bed will be built, I cut a couple more lengths from this tree trunk, then set the remaining top piece aside with the top of the other tree, for potential future use.

You can see that the new raised bed will be quite a bit shorter than the low raised beds we had this year. Those are about 13 feet long. We will be losing planting space, but we should also be able to plant more densely, once they are at a more accessible height. For now, I want to make these at least 3 logs high, then see how they work. I expect to finish them off at 4 logs high.

Which would translate to roughly 3 or 4 trees to harvest, per bed. In this area, there are six low raised beds that will be converted to high raised beds, so that means as many as 12 trees to replace all the low raised beds with high raised beds.

Considering that we have more than 20 dead trees that need to be cut down, having enough logs won’t be a problem, even if some of them turn out to be too rotten to use. Some of those trees are thicker and taller than the two I used today, so I’ll probably need even fewer. With the new beds being several feet shorter than the current beds, we could potentially have a double row of beds. That will depend on the space for paths. These are meant to be accessible raised beds, with room for a walker or wheelchair in between, so the paths need to be 4′ wide.

The one thing we do have is the luxury of space. While we are starting with raised beds in this area we are already gardening in, as time goes by we will be adding more beds in this area. Not a lot more, though, as there are too many tall trees on the south side casting shadows. The plan is to build more permanent raised beds in the outer yard, where they will get full sun.

But that is for after we’ve done a lot more logging of dead trees in the spruce grove!

Once the last of the logs were dragged over, I took advantage of having the tools handy and finally took down the dead crab apple tree.

For this job, I was able to use the baby chain saw, and didn’t need anything else. I love that thing!

In the photo, you can somewhat see where the bark as split off the trunk at the bottom. This tree had started to get leaves in the spring, but then just died off, and seeing that damage sure explains why. The tree itself was showing signs of disease, even last year, so all this wood is for burning, not the chipping piles. I noticed that even the raspberry plants near it were also showing signs of disease, so what we will likely have to do is remove any plants growing around the tree and not plant anything at all here for a few years. That should be time enough for whatever disease has gotten into the soil to die off.

Once cutting and clearing away to the base, I could see that this tree was actually the sucker of a larger tree that had died, long ago! The inside of the old stump was so rotted out, I could brush it aside with my hands.

I kept cutting and breaking up bits and pieces for a while, but what I will ultimately do is bring a small metal ring I found and have been using as a portable fire ring, and light a fire on top of the remains of the tree. That will prevent any suckers from trying to start growing and, hopefully, sterilize the soil of whatever disease has gotten into it, at least a bit.

It was good to finally get this cleared up. There are a few other dead and dying crab apple trees that will need to be cleaned up, too. Over time, once enough time has passed, I hope to replace them with other fruit trees that are more disease resistant. This spot, however, will not get anything tall planted in it. There are already too many tall trees shading the area. An awful lot of garden space was lost to shade because my parents planted so many new trees on the south side of the garden, instead of the north! Most frustrating is that they also planted them too close together, so none of them thrived, and quite a few died. I removed a lot of these when I cleaned up the maple grove, our first summer here, but I think I will have to take out an entire row of crab apple trees I discovered in the process. They simply aren’t getting enough light to bloom and produce, even after I cleaned the area up. That’s not a priority right now, though.

But I digress!

I’m happy to have gotten as much done as I did today. Tomorrow, the girls and I have an outing with my mother planned, so we won’t be able to get more done then. I’ll have to use Sunday to take down another tree and hopefully get enough wood to start on the first permanent high raised bed before winter. With several days of rain predicted next week, we shall see how far we will be able to get on that!

The Re-Farmer

Shut off valve installed!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Well, that didn’t take much at all!

With the help of my younger daughter, we got the shut off valve installed on the hot water pipe.

Ha!

Just kidding.

My daughter did all the work. I took pictures and passed her things.

The first thing we needed to do was take off the “clamps” holding the pipe to the exposed floor joists above, on either side of where the pipes were in contact with each other and, I believe, the source of the vibrating noise that is so alarming. The “clamps”, however, were small strips of aluminum, hammered into place with finishing nails. We never did get the nails out. My daughter ended up ripping the aluminum off, instead. !!! While my daughter worked on that, I shut the water off to the hot water tank, then opened the tap to drain the pipe.

One of the things she noticed while trying to remove the aluminum strips is that the hot water pipe was actually bent upwards at this point. No wonder the crossed pipes were so jammed together.

Once there was a bit of flexibility in the pipe, it was easier to access and work on, too.

After deciding where to put the valve, the pipe got scrubbed clean, then the shut off valve was used to place marks on the pipe, so we could see where to cut it, and later see that the pipe ends were far enough inside the valve once installed. Thanks to needing to fix the kitchen sink a while back, we did have a nice little pipe cutter for the job. :-)

About two inches of pipe was removed, to make room for the valve.

The cut ends then got scrubbed and sanded, inside and out.

Then is was just a matter of sliding it in, and making sure the pipe was as far as it needed to go. The water to the tank was turned back on so we could test it for leaks, then the valve was shut off.

The whole thing took about 10 minutes.

With the valve in place, there is no water to leak at the tap, but if we need to use it for some reason before the tap can be replaced, we can just turn it on, use the tap, then shut it off again. Very handy.

Meanwhile, there is still the issue of the pipes.

For some reason, we have short lengths of pipe foam in the basement. It’s meant for a width of pipe I don’t see around. I put a section on the pipe, under the floor joists the pipe had been clamped to. It was just long enough to go under both.

I didn’t have any foam that was thin enough, so I jammed an old sponge I’d been using before, in between the two pipes that had been in contact, to absorb vibrations. I’d tried to squeeze it in before, but there was no give at all. I could only get it part way under, so it didn’t really stop the noise, though it seemed to make it better.

Now I am just waiting for someone to use the enough water to trigger the well pump, and see if the noise is still there.

We didn’t add a shut off valve to the cold water pipe, yet. For that, we’d need to shut water off to the entire house, and the pipe is behind the hot water pipe, so it will be harder to reach. That can wait until we are putting on the new taps.

I am quite pleased with how this worked out. I keep expecting things to go horribly wrong. :-D

So far, so good!

The Re-Farmer

Why thank you, wind.

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While I was working outside with the loppers and lawn mower, in the area we intend to seed with wildflowers, the winds were pretty high. By the time I was done, I was dealing with double ear aches from it. :-/

It has since only picked up. I’ve just come back from a walkabout, picking up fallen branches and closing up the pump shack door that I found blown open.

There was a benefit to the high winds, when it came to the stuck trees I cut down.

One of them broke free and fell all the way down, right were I was intending it to fall! Which means I can start breaking it down to the lengths I want and clearing it out, and can access another dead tree in this group to cut down.

Unfortunately, the bigger tree is on the wrong side of the tree it’s hung up on. The winds are blowing it into the tree instead of away from it.

Getting this one out is going to be an issue. The only direction it can be pulled from is where I’m standing to take the photo. That leaves the stump in the way. A stump I want to keep, to use as the support for a seat or table.

The trunks will be cut into 10 and 4 foot lengths. What I figure I will do is first find something to support the trunk, then cut it at about 4 1/2 feet from the end. That leaves room to trim the end level. The rest of the tree would then be clear of the stump and can be pulled out, once I have something strong enough to pull it with.

Unless the winds shift, and it manages to fall. Unlikely, but one can hope!

The Re-Farmer

Future wildflower area, and something’s missing

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

After breaking the lawn mower in the strip along the road, I finally got back to it, today.

Here is how it looked before I started, from each end.

I suppose one good thing about the drought conditions is that this area has never gotten overgrown. There were saplings starting, so I went over the area with the lopper first, cutting them as close to the ground as I could. The last time I had to do that, we didn’t have loppers, so a lot of these saplings were growing out of the ragged ends of smaller saplings before, that had been mowed over rather than cut with pruning shears. The larger ones had been cut with pruning shears, and there was enough of them that I had needed a wheelbarrow to clean up. This time, I could just pick up the larger ones by hand and didn’t even get an armful.

Here is how it looked when I was done.

The plan for this area is to convert it to native wildflowers for the pollinators. The mix we have has 16 annuals and perennials, chosen for Western Canadian climates. We intend to start at the far end (where the lawn mower can be seen in the one photo), as that end is near the garden. Over time, I intend to continually scatter more seeds down the line, with a goal of this entire strip being full of wildflowers. Once that is established, we won’t need to mow it regularly any more, and we will just need to keep on top of cutting away any saplings that try to establish themselves, and do a single mow, at the highest setting, at the end of the year.

What we can’t do is follow the instructions. This is the method we had intended to follow.

Method Three involves more planning but requires no chemicals. Till in the late summer or early fall the year before planting. You may allow the soil to lie fallow or plant a cover crop after tilling. A cover crop may be important if your site is on a slope. A green manure cover crop such as buckwheat or annual rye grass will hold the soil until spring, help add beneficial organic matter and help snuff out germinating weeds. In the spring, light cultivation will be needed to loosen the soil and turn under all existing growth just prior to planting. ‘

https://www.veseys.com/us/westernmixwildflowers.html

Well, we can’t till this area. Even if we had a working tiller. You can’t see them in the photos, but there are several large rocks peaking through the soil, and I have no doubt there are more that cannot be seen. I had hoped to at least go over the area with a harrow, but we still need to figure out a safe way to get under the riding mower, which has a tow hitch, to put the chain back on, so it will move. It hasn’t exactly been a priority.

Then there are these instructions:

Sowing: 

Once your ground is bare and loose, you are ready to sow. Following are a couple of tips that will make the whole process simple and successful. First, choose a nearly windless day and, second, separate the seed you’re planting, no matter the amount, in roughly two equal parts. Put the first half in a clean bucket or coffee can and add in roughly 10 parts of light sand or vermiculite. There are two reasons for the sand. It will dilute the seed and help you spread it more evenly. More important, since it is lighter-colored than the freshly-tilled soil, you’ll be able to see where you’ve been as you sow. You can simply hand-sow, keeping the seeding as even as possible. Or use a hand-crank seeder. The amount of seed you sow depends on the sort of flower display you want. Many people sow up to two or even three times the minimum seeding rates on seed packages to assure heavy bloom. Avoid planting higher densities since this will inhibit good growth. Sow the first half of your seed/sand mix over the entire area to be seeded. Then go back, mix the second half of your seed with sand and spread that seed over the whole area. This way, you’ll avoid bare spots. Once the seed is evenly sown, you can rake to barely cover the seed with soil. Or, simply compress the seed into the freshly-tilled ground. A lawn roller is perfect for the job, and for smaller areas, a piece of plywood laid down and walked on will do.

Okay, so we can broadcast the seed easily enough, but things like getting rid of all the roots of what’s already there, and having “bare and loose” soil first is out of the question. We’ll be lucky if we can loosen the soil at all. As for raking or tamping down to compress the seed into the soil? Ha! Nope. Not gonna happen. It’s just too large of an area. We will also not be able to do any watering here, at all. We have enough hose that we can reach the furthest corner of the furthest garden bed with the spray nozzle on the hose. I have no intention of buying yet another length of hose, to water outside the garden area.

Nope.

The instructions say to prepare the soil, then plant in the spring, after last frost. Since we can’t water the area, I’m going to throw caution to the wind and broadcast the seeds in the fall. I had expected to be doing that around now, but we are having relatively warm temperatures for the next while, and we’re also getting rain. I don’t want the seeds to germinate. I want them to go dormant before getting covered with snow. Then, when the snow melts in the spring, they will get their moisture.

This goes against all the instructions but… well, these are wildflowers. Wildflowers manage to propagate themselves without freshly turned soil, tamping down or clearing of other plant roots. I’m going to be trying to copy nature, here.

So we will do as much as we can first – which, unless we can get under the mower, is basically what I’ve done today. I’ll be using garden soil instead of sand to help broadcast the seed more evenly. Since I don’t want the seeds to germinate, I will probably wait until the end of the month, or even into October, to do it. Whatever survives, survives. If we keep broadcasting seeds, year after year, eventually the area will get filled. Hopefully with a good variety.

So that’s done as much as possible for today.

This is the first time I’ve been out this way, on foot, all year, which means today was the first time I was able to check out, and get a photo of, this.

This is the corner post of the property’s fence line.

It needs replacing, as does most of the fence, but that is not what I was taking a pictures of.

I was taking a picture of what isn’t there.

My father’s name.

Many years ago, my dad took a piece of red plastic and used gold coloured, metal, self adhesive, letters to put his initial and surname on it. The sign was mounted on this post. Back in the day, before any of these roads had names, and well before the driveway marker system was implemented, the sign was used as a landmark when giving people directions to our place.

We don’t go out often, and the sign can be easily seen only when we are on the return trip, but seeing that flash of red while turning the corner always made me feel good. It was a memory of my father.

Some time ago, however, I realized I wasn’t seeing that flash of red anymore. Today, I got to look around to see why.

There isn’t a trace of that sign. The reflector at the top got broken in half, though, and the rest of it is on the ground, but that’s all I could find.

The road that goes past our driveway has our family name, as well as a numerical name. When we first moved here, the road sign with our family name was at the top of the stop sign across the intersection. One day, the stop sign was lying broken on the ground, and the road sign with our family name on it was gone. I am 99% sure this was done by our vandal, and I’m just as sure that he is responsible for the sign on this fence post being gone. When it happened, I have no way to know.

What a childish, petty thing to do.

If we ever do get the road sign replaced (I’ll have to contact the municipal council again about that), or replace the sign on the fence, we’ll have to set up a trail cam on it, because I just know that our vandal will go after it again.

Switching out memory cards in this location would be much more inconvenient, that’s for sure!! But it would need to be done.

What a pain.

The Re-Farmer

What a drip!

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

The old basement is the heart of the plumbing in this house. It’s where all the pumps and tanks are, plus we have a couple of sets of taps; one for the laundry sink, and one for where the washing machined to be, and pipes with shut off valves leading to the taps outside.

Until the plumber added a shut off valve to the hot water tank, those were pretty much the only shut off valves in the system. Otherwise, there is a main shut off valve at the well pump that shuts water off to the entire house.

One of the things my brother did was install a pool filter to the septic pump system. It has a filter basket that catches larger bits before they get into the pump and sent on to the outflow. It has to be cleaned out every now and then, so he got an extra basket, so one can be quickly switched out for the other, and the pump can be back in action right away, rather than having to stay off while the filter basket gets cleaned. Which is a big deal, since it basically turns black and needs time to soak in a detergent solution after the grit and odd bits of straw that fell into the tank while it was being emptied are cleaned out.

Handily, the laundry sink is right there, and that’s where I wash out the filter basket.

It is also where we shock our hot water tank with hydrogen peroxide every now and then, when the water develops a rotten egg smell. This is done using siphon action by attaching a short hose to the tap. After shutting water off to the hot water tank, then allowing it to drain until the vacuum created prevents more water from draining out, we can put the hose end into a container of hydrogen peroxide, turn on the hot water tap, and the peroxide gets sucked into the hot water tank. Unfortunately, the threads on the hot water tap are damaged, so instead of being able to screw on a short length of hose directly to the tap, we’ve had to use Gorilla tape and a length of aquarium hose. It doesn’t seal as well, but it works.

Those are pretty much the only times that sink gets used.

When I’d switched out the filter baskets at the septic pump, I noticed that the hot water tap had developed a drip. I have no idea how long it’s been dripping, but as I used the hot water to do a rough clean on the filter basket, then set it in a container to soak, it started to drop more. Last night, I switched out the soaking water, and the slow drip because a fast drip.

We already needed to replace both the hot and cold water taps, but until now, that wasn’t much of a priority.

Here, you can see the hot water tap, with the tape holding the bit of aquarium hose. The cold water tap has a length of hose screwed on – without the hose, the water sprays all over. The piece of hose across both taps is what I’d tried to screw onto the hot water tap, only to discover the threads were damaged.

This morning, I headed into town to hit the hardware store, just as it opened. After showing the photo to one of the staff, he found the right size replacement taps for me (I plan to take advantage of the situation and replace both taps). Unfortunately, these taps are soldered on. Which means, to change them out, I need to heat them with a torch, remove the taps, clean the pipes, then solder on the replacement taps.

We don’t have the tools to do that. Even if I wanted to cut the old tap off and put a new one on the remaining length of pipe, I’d still need a soldering gun – and I don’t want to shorten the distance of the taps over the sink, anyhow.

Of course, there are no shut off valves between these taps and the pumps. To work on it means, at the very least, shutting off the water to the hot water tank. To work on the cold water tap means shutting off water to the entire house.

So I picked up a couple of Shark Bite shut off valves.

We have what we need to cut pipe, so we can install the shut off valves ourselves. That will allow us to shut water off to the taps and stop the drip, until we can replace the taps themselves.

I’ve already been able to talk to my brother about this, as he has the tools needed to replace the taps. As for the shut off valves, he had it in his mind to install them in the vertical pipes leading to the taps, but I am thinking of installing them in the horizontal pipes running along the ceiling, so that they will shut off water to the other set of taps as well. Those have never been used since the washing machine was moved upstairs, but considering how old they are, I can see needing to replace them in the future, too.

My daughters are still on “night shift”, though, so I don’t want to start any of this until after they’ve gotten up and had their showers. For now, I just want to install the shut off valve on the hot water pipe, but – as unlikely as it is – if something goes wrong during the install, we wouldn’t be able to turn the hot water back on until it’s fixed, and who knows how long that would be. It’s really a simple job, but I know how easily simple jobs can become major problems, in this place!! Hope for the best, plan for the worst!

One of the considerations for installing the shut off valves; unless we cut out about 3 inches of pipe, they will add to the length of the pipe. That would mean the taps would need to be shifted over by the same distance. Which I wouldn’t have a problem doing, except that parts of the copper pipe have been painted over.

Including the clamps and screws holding the pipes in place. Which is going to make loosening the screws a pain in the butt!

*sigh*

Still, it needs to be done, regardless. We’ve had issues with a loud noise that would start after the well pump kicks in to refill the pressure tank. It is very loud, and I can actually feel the floor vibrating under my feet when I am at my computer. It rather freaked me out because, at first, I thought the noise was coming from the well pump, and we’re already on borrowed time with that thing. Eventually, I was able to trace the noise to the pipes. The pipes run under the exposed floor joists, and have a mishmash of supports attached to the joists, holding them in place. In a couple of spots, there is a pipe that has a 90 degree turn and runs under the pipe it had been parallel to. One of those spots is the hot water pipe that runs from the hot water tank to the laundry sink. What seems to have happened is that, as the house has shifted, those pipes no longer have any sort of gap between them. When the pump starts running, it causes vibrations in the pipes, and with these two pipes now hard against each other, that results in the noise and vibrations I can actually feel in my feet. Right now, the vertical pipes are clamped so tight against the wall – with painted over screws – that there is no give at all. So while we are working on the taps and valves, I want to see if I can adjust the hot water pipe downwards a bit, so that they are no longer touching. Hopefully, I’m right that this is the cause of the noise, and it will stop.

If it doesn’t, and we still get the noise in this location, I’m at a loss as to what else the cause might be!

So we’ve got our work cut out for us this afternoon, just to be able to stop the drip until we can replace the tap itself. Once that’s done, there is no longer any sort of urgency.

The Re-Farmer

Late bloomers

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Yesterday afternoon, I headed out to gather a few vegetables from the garden. There were sunburst squash to pick, as well as some beans. We’re still getting enough purple beans to harvest to make for decent sized meal portions for the four of us. There were a few green beans, too, and about five yellow beans left. :-D

While heading back to the house, I just had to pause by the new tree stump bench and get a picture of these late bloomers. Normally, they would have bloomed about a month ago, and there are far fewer of them. With average heat and rainfall, this area gets filled with these flowers, and when they bloom, it’s just a mass of yellow. The bench will be mostly surrounded by them, once they recover. It’s going to be such a lovely place to sit in the shade. :-)

The Re-Farmer

I was hoping to avoid that

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After giving my hips a chance to recover, it was time for more manual labour today!

Today, I decided to do a bit more cleanup around the junk pile, so I could access some dead trees that need to be taken down.

Here is how it looked before I started.

We have our ongoing battle with the spirea that’s choking everything out, so I wanted to pull them up by the roots as much as possible.

Some of them had roots so long, they started going under things. I pushed them aside after a certain point, so I could focus on clearing around three specific dead trees.

The thistles were much more of a problem. The thorns go right through my work gloves!

I did leave on thing behind, besides some wildflowers.

There was a little Saskatoon bush, at the base of one of the trees, and it’s actually trying to produce berries! Weather willing, the berries you see will turn a deep, dark purple, and look a bit like blueberries.

Once the area was cleared of tripping hazards, I started taking down the first tree, using a bucksaw. Because of where these trees are, I tried to do it in such a way that it would fall in a space between some other spruces. I didn’t want it falling towards the open yard, because then it might land on the beet bed or compost pile, or some Saskatoon bushes and an elm tree we want to keep.

It almost worked.

It fell too far to the south, and got hung up on another dead tree, that’s right nest to a still live one.

I was able to wrap some rope around the trunk and get it off the stump, but it would not come loose from the dead tree it was entangled in.

So I moved on to the next tree. This time, it actually fell into the gap I wanted it to fall into.

It still got hung up! I had hoped these trees would be heavy enough that the dead branches would break and let them fall to the ground, but apparently, they are still quite strong.

On the plus side, I was very pleased with what I saw after cutting them down.

The wood is nice and solid, with no sign of rot or ant damage. This is very encouraging, because I want to use the logs. These nice, solid stumps will later be used to make seats and tables.

Here is how it looked when I stopped for the day. I did try to use the rope and our van to try and get that first tree loose from the dead tree it’s hooked up on, but the rope kept breaking. We don’t have any stronger rope. If we’re going to need to use the van anyhow, I will pick up some sturdy rope and hook it up to near the base of the trunks, and pull the entire trees out into the yard, where we will break them down.

Since the wood is in such good shape, these will be used to make the high raised beds we will be building in the main garden area, where we currently have the low raised beds we’d planted spinach, onions and carrots in. I’m thinking of cutting the logs into 10 ft and 4 ft lengths, and I figure it will take about 4 logs to get the accessible height we are after, though of course, that will depend on how big the individual trees are. We don’t have a lot of time left, if we want to get these ready for next year. I’m hoping to get at least a couple built for next year. By using whole logs like this, we won’t have any concerns about the sides bowing out under the weight of the layers of wood, compostable materials and soil they will be filled with.

Once these dead trees closer to the edge of the spruce grove are down, we’ll be able to feel the other ones towards the yard, and there will be no other trees for them to get hung up on!

Once all the dead trees in this corner are down, and the area is cleaned up, we will be able to convert the trunks into seating and surfaces. Then we can start planting food trees that need a protected microclimate. I will be testing the soil, and if the acidity from all those decades of spruce needles is high enough, I hope to be able to plant blueberries. We do still want to grow a mulberry tree, since the one we got this spring got killed off by that one cold night in May, and it was in here that we originally intended to plant it. I think, this time, we will try and get a Canadian variety we found out about, that is increasingly endangered. We will still need the microclimate for it, but if we can help keep a variety at risk going, that’s what we prefer to do, if we can.

There are a lot more dead trees further to the east and around to the south, inside the spruce grove. Some will also have their trunks converted to seating, but as we go further into the grove, I want to start transplanting more spruces into the spruce grove! :-)

While we are getting rid of the spirea, we will be leaving the wild roses and red bark dogwood as underbrush. I will probably take out most of the chokecherries I’m finding in here, as there are so many, to make room for the Saskatoons to spread. We will also be transplanting new spruces in here, though more strategically. Lots to do, but I am really looking forward to when we have a lovely little sanctuary in here, where we can sit and enjoy the outdoors, somewhat protected from the elements by the trees. :-)

For now, however, I’m going to get some tweezers, and get that thistle thorn that got through my gloves!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that didn’t happen as planned!

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Oy. What a day!

My main goal for the day, having used the weed trimmer all over the inner yard for the past two days, was to get the mowing done. So I checked over the riding mower, topped up the oil (it burns through oil rather quickly) and the gas, and got it going. I didn’t even have to recharge the battery this time. ;-)

I barely got 30 feet of actual mowing when it simply stopped.

Not the motor. That was still running. It just stopped moving.

The chain has fallen off again.

*sigh*

I didn’t want to deal with it then. Putting the chain back and tightening it is not an issue. The problem is finding a safe way to access it, with the materials we have.

No worries. I broke out the push mower. It would mean a LOT of walking, but I don’t mind that.

My husbands prescription refills were due to be delivered, so I had the gate open for the driver. I decided this was a good time to mow outside the gate.

Which is where I found these.

Little puffball mushrooms!

I’d run over a couple with the mower, but once I realized they were there, I worked around them. They are edible at this stage, but I am leaving them be. I’d rather they reach the spore stage and spread. :-) They are so small, I’d rather get an area infused with the Giant Puffball spores we have, and hopefully be able to have steak sized mushroom slices. :-D

After mowing the area on either side of the driveway outside the gate, I started working on the level area between the fence and the ditch. The far end of this is where we want to spread the pollinator wildflower mix of seeds we have, so I wanted to start preparing the area by mowing it, and cutting away the saplings that are starting to spread into there. I really don’t want that area to get filled with trees. That was allowed to happen on the other side of the driveway, and it really affects visibility.

I started cutting along the the barbed wire fence first. Where it was open enough, I would even go under the wire a bit.

I didn’t even get halfway down the length of the fence, when I somehow managed to get the barbed wire stuck in the mower. It slid over the top of the plastic cover the air filter fits into, then somehow managed to slide in between the plastic cover and the motor, getting stuck.

So I shut the mower off and fought with the wire, trying to get it out. A barb was basically right in the middle, and kept catching, but every time I tried to move the mower so the barb would be at a wider gap, it would roll right back again as soon as I tried to use both hands to get the wire out.

Eventually, I got it out, but in the gap, I could see a couple of wire pieces had come loose.

Of course, it wouldn’t start after that.

After fussing with it for a bit, I took the mower back to the garage so I could take the cover off. After fighting with it for a while, I realized I would have to take off the plastic cover with the air filter, but I couldn’t for the life of me see how it detached. Also, while I could see where the end of one wire piece was supposed to be attached, I couldn’t see where the other one was supposed to be attached. The user manual had nothing about the engine. I went online to try and find a diagram, but while I found some with one of the pieces – which I finally found a name for; a governor control arm – none had both. For my specific brand of mower, all I could find was a pdf version of the owners manual I already had. I knew the general location the piece was supposed to be attached, but I could not see what and where it was supposed to hook up.

This was the point that I decided I needed some guidance. I was able to contact my brother and his wife and arrange to go over. The timing worked out perfectly. I was just starting to load the lawn mower into the van when the driver arrived with the prescriptions.

I’m glad I did.

My brother has the lovely set up that allowed us to work on the mower at a comfortable height. They also had company, so I had two people available to figure it out! :-)

After taking the cover off the air filter and checking out what was loose, we had to take the whole piece off. It turns out there was a reason I couldn’t see how it was removed. The screws were hidden under the air filter.

I have to admit, I actually felt rather encouraged when neither of them could figure it out at first, either! :-D

Here was the problem.

Once it was open, my brother was able to get the end of what turned out to be the control arm for the choke, back where it belonged. The green arrow is where it had come loose, and it was a pain in the butt to get back into place!

The governor control arm is the piece below. The end with the purple arrow had been in the hole on the governor where the other purple arrow is pointing. That end had still been attached.

The other end had been attached somewhere around where the blue arrow is pointing. Somewhere around there, there should have been a hole for the end of the control arm to slide into.

After much searching and moving things as much as could be done without having to unhook the fuel line, we came to a conclusion.

The reason we couldn’t find where it was supposed to be attached, was because something had to have broken off. We couldn’t actually see what looked like the rough edge of broken plastic, but there could be no other possibility.

My brother was determined to get it going for me, with at least a temporary fix. After searching around among his supplies, he found a length of ceiling tile wire. He used it to create a small loop for the control arm, then wrapped it around that plastic part the blue arrow is pointing to, under another control arm with a spring on it (not visible in the photo). I can’t remember the name of that one, anymore.

Once the wire loop was attached, it was still difficult to get the end of the governor control arm in place. That thing has no flexibility! Eventually he got it, though. Then everything was put back together, and the mower got tested out.

It started like a dream. Even better than when I’d started it earlier!

There is still the possibility that the wire might vibrate out of position or something, but that gives me time to try and find the part. Which is going to be a bit of a challenge, since none of us have any idea what it’s called.

By the time that was done, I got invited to stay for supper, which was very sweet of them. :-) Especially since supper included smoked ribs! :-D I didn’t want to stay too long, though, as I knew it would be dark before I got home, and this time of year, there are a lot of deer crossing the highways.

Once home, it was full dark, and I didn’t even bother unloading the mower. I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

I think, however, I will finish mowing the inner and outer yards first, before moving back to the strip along the road!

The Re-Farmer

Golden

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A lovely little bee, laden with golden pollen, on a Hopi Black Dye sunflower!

I was very happy to see it this morning. Strangely, I have not been seeing very many pollinators since we finally got rain. We still have flowering summer and winter squash, beans and peas, along with the sunflowers. With the sunburst squash, which is the most prolific of them all, I can see quite a few losses due to lack of pollination. The Magda squash as well, and we only have the one plant. We have plenty of yarrow blooming, among other wildflowers, so there is plenty to attract them. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t tried to get rid of the wasps nest in the crack in the foundation under the old kitchen. They are almost the only pollinators I’ve been seeing lately!

The Re-Farmer

A little gift

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I’ve had a bit of a dilemma lately.

What do you get a 90 year old for her birthday?

I mean, by the time someone reaches 90, they pretty much have everything they want and need by then.

Ah, but there is an added twist.

The 90 year old in question is my mother.

My mother is… difficult. And often obliviously cruel.

Still, the family is planning a birthday party for her, and I will be driving her to it.

Yesterday, I finally settled on getting her a necklace. I already know she will complain about it but she might actually wear it anyway.

I also decided to make it a double gift, and stayed up late last night to make this little bag, rather than wrapping the necklace in a jewelry box.

It’s about 3 inches square, and the necklace is already in it in the photos. I figure she can use the bag to hold her rosary or something, afterwards.

This was done using a tulip stitch, which I’ve never done before. Here is the video tutorial that I used. It’s really quite simple.

The main difference is that I worked the bag in the round, rather than a flat panel, so I just needed to have a total number of stitches divisible by three, without the +1 needed in the starting chain when having to turn rows. The single crochet rounds in the bag are 48 stitches.

The yarn is from a package of cotton mini skeins in 8 colours, similar to Lion Brand’s Bonbons. It was gifted to me, and I’ve hung on to it for years before finding a project I wanted to use it for! :-) The bag used four colours, and I used a 2.25mm hook. After the bag was completed, I did a round of single crochet to finish the edges and create a button loop, then crocheted bobble stitch flower petals around the button loop. The button itself was from a bag of mixed, vintage buttons.

I’m happy with how it turned out. My mother will probably hate it. At least out loud and in public. Privately, she might actually like it. It’s really hard to know, with her! :-D

The Re-Farmer