Yard work and home care visit

June 4, 2018January 14, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Today was very much an outdoors day!

Thanks to the AWESOME riding mower my brother and his wife gave us, I was able to finish mowing the yard yesterday. Which means that one of the goals of the day was to get out the weed trimmer to clear areas the mower can’t get close to.

A loud and messy job, so I waited until after our afternoon appointment with someone from the home care department. This was a follow up on the last visit, with a different person. So while we waited for her to arrive, I started working on cleaning up the flower bed on the west side of the house.

At one end of the flower bed, there is an unusual variety of lilac; it’s bushier, has tiny leaves, and masses of sprays with tiny flower buds right now; it’s blooming period seems quite a bit later than the other lilacs, which are near the end of their blooming period.

One of the problems with it is that there is a maple tree growing out the middle of it.

Plus, lots of dead branches.

So I started cleaning away dead branches and cutting away the many suckers at the base, just to get at the maple. Where I found this.

20180604.maple.wrapped. around.lilac

This is the trunk of the maple tree (which would have been self-sown), bent around a lilac stem.

I had to cut away more of the lilac before I could take out the maple, which had to be done in sections, due to the size.

It was very awkward work. The lilac stems are surprisingly long and bendy, and many were wrapped around each other. So much so, I found myself wondering if someone hadn’t done it deliberately at some point; perhaps they were overhanging the space between the house and the flower bed or something.

20180604.maple.removed.lilac,damage

Once the maple was out, I could see the damage it did to the lilac.

I’d already had to cut away a branch of that stem, and I’m not sure if I’ll have to cut the rest of it away. Without being regularly pruned, the stems are so long that, without the dead and dying branches (and the maple tree) holding them up, they’re just sort of… flopping.

It was while I was working on this, that the woman from home care arrived.

While she was here, she went over her form questions, double checking my husband’s mobility needs and what we’ve got around the house. She even took a look at our bathroom (higher toilet, bath chair, lots of arm bars in the tub/shower, and we made sure to bring the special hand held shower with us when we moved; you can shut the water off at the handle, rather than at the wall, and it has an extra long hose). She asked about how he finds raising his legs over the side of the tub, and brought up that, if he ever needs it, there is a transfer chair available. Which we already have, as my father needed one, and it’s still quite new.

She checked out the hospital bed as well, confirming that my husband is now able to get in and out of bed without losing his balance. He’s really enjoying that thing, and finding it very comfortable to sleep on, too.

She also went through her list, asking about cooking, shopping, laundry, etc. If the girls and I were not around to take care of this stuff, he would be able to get home care to come in to help. As things stand now, it isn’t needed.

Which brought us to the only thing that we are hoping to be able to get; a ramp, to make it easier for my husband to get in and out of the house with his wheeled walker. One of the things we learned is that, if we were to qualify for a ramp, we would need to get a contractor to give us a quote to pass on to them. Qualifying for funding is another issue. I had found out about the program online and read that there is an income cut off that can change, so they said to contact to find out what it is. I’d sent an email and finally got a response.

Based on that, my husband’s disability payments put him at too high of an income to qualify. :-/

She’s still going to see if there are other programs available, but if we can just get someone to assess the location for us, and give us the information we need, then we will have something to go on to get it done ourselves, at some point.

So that meeting went well.

After she left, I headed back out to work on the yard. I just cleaned up the trimmings I’d cut down earlier, then got out the weed trimmer – and the two 100 ft extension cords we’d been using to get power to the garage. With those, I can reach pretty much anywhere in the yard.

While I worked on that, the girls cleared out the large pile of branches I’d cleared away from the maple grove. The dead stuff went to the piles by the fire pit, but most of it was green. The green wood pile by the fire pit is already getting big, so they decided to add to the pile I’d started outside the yard, when I cleared the back of the garage.

I didn’t think to take photos before I started with the weed trimmer in some areas. After going around the house, I went around the east yard, including clearing a path to the Saskatoon bushes. When I started working on the south west yard, I was finally able to go around parts of the “spare” house in the yard (I have no idea what my mother has in mind for that building; I did ask her, but the only answer I got was that it’s for storage. !! It was originally intended to be moved to one of the other quarter sections, for one of my brothers to use as a home), and the south fence line. There had been a single mowed pathway leading to around the back of the other house. There are several curved rows of spindly trees, planted close together. I’d asked my mom about them, and she told me she planted them to be a “living fence.”

Personally, I’d like to get rid of them, as it’s really not a good place for trees. I don’t think she really thought about what they will be like, at full size.

And that doesn’t even include the two rows of fully grown trees immediately behind the other house.

Very little of the area is mowable, and no one has tried to clear in between the trees, at all. So I started clearing parts of it with the weed trimmer. There isn’t much I can do behind the other house, until we clear away the junk and fallen branches, and random cinder blocks. :-/ It’s a big job, and I wasn’t able to finish it today. Weather willing, I’ll continue tomorrow.

Once done the yard work for the day, I decided we needed to have another cookout. This time, though, I did baked potatoes.

I will post about those, separately. :-D

My husband was even able to come out and join us for a little while. Not long enough for the potatoes of finish, unfortunately, but even a little bit is good. :-)

After the fire was no longer needed to cook food, my younger daughter and I took advantage of it and started adding more from the clean up pile. Unfortunately, we seem to be adding to it much faster than we’ll be able to use it for fire pit fuel! :-D

Since we were tending the fire, anyway, we also took turns cutting down some of the logs to fire pit size lengths.

We’re going to be set for wood for a good, long time!

We’ll just have to find lots of reasons to get the fire pit going, I guess. :-D

The Re-Farmer

West Yard; fire pit area clean up

June 1, 2018June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Another wonderful day of yard clean up today!

And a photo heavy post to show for it. :-D

After all the clearing I did yesterday, we had a lot of wood to breakdown and move out. The rain was holding off, so my younger daughter and I started on the big pile. As I was de-branching and cutting down the dead spruces, I was thinking of where we were moving it all and how we were running out of space. With all the rain we’ve had, we could actually start burning some of it in the fire place.

So that’s what we decided to do. My daughter would get the fire pit going, while I continued to break down the spruces.

Wet as things have been, we still weren’t going to take any chances. My daughter started by getting the hose ready.

So far, we’ve got two hoses going; I found a shorter one we’d been using on the south and a much longer one I’d hooked up to the tap on the north side of the house, to use on the flower garden I’ve cleared up and started to layer.

The long hose got moved to the south side when my daughters cleaned out the eaves troughs, and as long as it is, it wasn’t long enough to reach the fire pit. Adding on the shorter hose still wasn’t enough. Is there more hose? I remembered a long hose in the side of the garage, so she went and got it.

It turned out to have several major holes and breaks in it. She tried patching it with duct tape, but two were so bad, the water just sprayed out from under the tape.

I checked the garden shed. Turns out there were two more hoses there, so I grabbed the heavier duty one.

No holes, but it did leak right at one end, where it was attached to the first hose.

We just put that part of the hose over an area of dry grass, so it could water it. :-D

We’re going to need to buy new hoses. Several of them.

All in good time!

That done, my daughter got a fire going. Then she sprayed all around the fire pit, and the trees by the fence line, and basically anywhere else she felt might be at risk from sparks.

Because we err on the side of caution when it comes to that.

As she started working on burning one of the piles of small stuff. We had one pile of larger wood, then a second pile for little branches. That one got huge, fast, so a second pile had been started of those. Which is why I wanted to start burning it. There’s just soo much of it!

In the photo above, you can see the beginnings of a pile of green wood, waiting to be broken down. My daughter and I had already removed the old awning I’d taken out from under some maple trees, and it’s now on the pile of stuff outside the yard we plan to hire someone to hall away in the fall.

After I finished breaking down the three sections of dead spruce trees – they had so many branches that needed to be cut off before I could cut the trunks shorter – I decided to stop with that pile, and start helping my daughter.

By this time, she’s almost cleared up the smaller pile of little things. As I watched the fire, I couldn’t help but feel my paranoia creeping up.

See those spruce tips in the background?

I am really not happy about how close the fire pit is to the spruce. Spruces are just big resin torches. Plus, there was all the other brush and undergrowth.

I started to break down the pile of green wood and stacking it against the back of the log cabin. These will sit to dry until next year, where they will be used as fire pit fuel. I expect that pile to get rather larger before the summer is done!

Finally, I went under the branches of the spruce tree and started clearing under it. The lowest branches were all dead, so I took them to my daughter to break down and start burning. Then I started cutting more branches for as high as I could reach with the hand saw. The branches were still hanging down to the ground, so I got the pruning saw and kept going.

What a difference just a few minutes of cutting made!

I cleared a bit of underbrush as well, uncovering the remains of an old wagon and another electrical cable spool.

After getting under the spruce tree cleared, I tackled the big dead branch by the old gate. I wasn’t sure how much I could clear of it, because the break was so high. Turns out it’s been dead for so long, I could just pull it away. You can see part if it in the above photo.

Here’s the rest of it. I’d already started to clear away some of the smaller branches when I took this photo. That huge piece of tree was just dangling there, for who knows how long.

Getting it down made us feel MUCH more comfortable with a fire. The wind was blowing towards the fence line, so any sparks would have gone right into that area.

After getting this down, we decided to really give the pruning saw a workout and get the dead branch from the maple tree on the other side of the fire pit. This branch had actually been long enough to reach over the fire pit, but I’d already broken some of it off. Still, it was rather close and low enough at the end to be a concern.

Did I mention the pruning saw is awesome?

Oh, how good it is to have the right tool for the job!

We took turns sawing at it. Because of how high it was at the trunk, and how thick it was, it didn’t take long for our arms to start loosing circulation! :-D

Much to my surprise, this branch did actually have a few living twigs on it, so part of it went to be burned, and part of it onto the greenwood pile.

That done, I just kept on clearing along the fence line.

Here’s how it looked before I got back to it.

After breaking down the big dead branch I’d just pulled down, I moved the wire spool and started clearing more under that area, then just kept working my way towards the gate, separating the living from the dead.

Most of it was dead. Dead for so long, that I was pulling bushes right out of the ground, without having to cut anything. Or even yank hard. My daughter had so much dead wood from what I was pulling out of here, she stopped taking from the main pile completely, until I was done.

Of course, there always has to be at least one surprise! :-D

This picture is from the base of the tree I’d pulled the big dead branch out of.

That is some sort of garbage.

It’s IN the tree.

That piece of garbage has been there for so long, the tree has grown around it.

I also found some old beer cans and even a juice box, but nothing else that was grown INTO a tree!

Though some saplings growing through the fence wire came close.

Here is how it looks now.

One side of the old gate is now CLEAR!! Yay!

I am at a loss, though.

The barb wire gate is still there, just like it was when I was growing up. Then that picket fence got added. I don’t know when. It’s actually attached to the posts of the barb wire gate with more wire.

Why would someone essentially block off an entire gate?

At some point, we’ll need to re-fence the yard, and I’d like to keep a gate here when we do. It’ll be much easier for the septic cleaners to get to the tank from this end, then going around the house from the other side.

Here is the mostly cleared fence line. There are still little things I’ll need to get back to, and I’ll need to decide if it’s worth keeping some of the long, scraggly bushes. (I don’t plan to cut back what’s on the other side of the fence this year.) They’re living, and some are even blooming, but now that the dead stems that were holding them up are gone, I really don’t know how well they’ll stay up on their own. It wouldn’t take much to break them.

While clearing stuff away, I found a big metal ring that would actually work well as a fire pit, if we ever needed to set up another one. It’s slightly smaller than the metal ring that makes up our fire pit now. I didn’t try to move the remains of the wagon, yet. There is more dead wood back there to clear away. The spool, I’ve just left there for now, making sure not to block access to the side of the log cabin, as there is more dead wood to clear away in that area, too. There’s also a mostly dead maple tree, but that will need a chain saw.

And here we have the green wood pile, after my clearing away of the fence line.

There really wasn’t a lot of green wood from there to add to the pile.

Though more clean up will be needed, especially of all the dried leaves on the ground, the entire area is now much less of a fire hazard then it had been!

Once we finished breaking down and burning the deadwood I’d cleared out of there, my daughter and I continued to break down and burn more from the big pile. You know; the one we’d originally started the fire to start getting rid of! :-D

It was awesome. My daughter even brought a couple of chairs and made a carafe of lemonade for us to enjoy while we kept feeding the fire.

Our first fire of the year.

By the time we wound down for the day, there was a huge new pile of ashes in there. Since we are only burning wood in here, it will be a great addition to the layers I am building up on the flower garden, when it comes time to clear it away.

I am so loving this kind of work. I missed it so much!

The Re-farmer

Maple Grove Clearing – into the trees

May 31, 2018June 10, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 9 Comments

More progress on clearing up the trees!

The maple grove behind our house has several rows of trees. I worked on only the two or three (depending on the area) southern ones.

Here is the north side of the furthest row I worked on.

20180531trees.before.north.row.north.side

This area starts to have a fair number of trees and branches already down on the ground, including some that had been cut down, cut shorter, and then left there.

This is how it looked after clearing.

20180531trees.after.north.row.north.side

Here’s a before picture from between two rows of trees.

20180531trees.before.between.rows

Note the dead spruces further along.

I’d originally intended to leave those, but they were small enough that it was practical to use a hand saw to take them down. I just had to cut away a section of dead branches, first, so I could reach the trunks and start cutting.

The first one, I cut leaving a stump about 2 feet high; I will go back to cut it to ground level, another time.

The second was actually two spruces so close together that, as they got larger, they grew into each other at the base. I trimmed branches to reach the trunks, and cut the thinner one down first, then started on the thicker.

At which point, I realized there was a LOT of movement at the base.

So I just tipped the whole thing over.

20180531trees.during.spruce.roots

Telling my younger daughter about it later, she was laughing about her mighty mom, tearing trees out of the ground by the roots. :-D

It came down quite easily.

Here is how this in-between area looked, after.

20180531trees.after.between.rows

Oh, and I found something interesting at the base of one of the maples, closest to the pile of chimney blocks. After cutting away the suckers, I found…

20180531trees.gooseberry.bush

What I believe is a gooseberry bush!

It was completely hidden by the maple suckers. Now that it’s cleared, and I’ve trimmed off the dead bits, I hope it will now have enough sunlight to grow well.

All this clearing meant I was getting a rather large pile of cuttings, which my younger daughter says she will start sorting and clearing tomorrow (the green wood will be piled separately, to dry and become fuel for fire pits next year; the deadwood will be for use, this year). Weather willing, of course. We’ve got predictions for more rain tomorrow, and storms the day after, so we’ll see.

By the time I added the second spruce tree to the pile, though, I realized I needed to stop. There just wasn’t room to add to the pile anymore, and I had to leave it off on the side!

20180531trees.pile

That tree the pile is next to, on the right? You can see the fresh cuts from the last of the suckers I’d cut away on there. Most of that tree, plus the lilac beyond it, was cleared last week.

That is a lot of trimmed wood to clear away! All of this, plus the pile from clearing the shed, is just what was cleared away today.

And finally, here is an overview shot.

20180531.overview

Complete with a cream separator basin planter, on a stump. :-D I don’t want to move it, because it ensures that no one will trip over the stump or something. ;-)

I am just so happy with this. The whole area just FEELS so much better. It’s now so open and airy! It’ll be a while, yet, before it’s safe to mow under here – there are still many old branches hidden under the dead leaves that will need to be found and cleared out, first. I should be able to get in with the weed trimmer a bit, though. Plus, as things get raked up, I can add more to the flower garden to break down and build up the soil, there.

This is starting to look the way I want it to! A beautiful, open, usable and accessible space.

After all this, I finished the evening with a trip into town with my younger daughter, to see a dear friend and his lady fair, performing in one of the local coffee shops. It has been many years since I’ve seen him singing and playing his guitar, and never together with his lady love, on an electric ~~cello~~ upright bass!

It was a wonderful way to end a wonderful day.

The Re-Farmer

Maple Grove Clearing – a big, rotten mess!

May 31, 2018June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

In this photo from my last post, you can see part of the mess I also cleaned up today.

20180531shed.south.clear

That round thing of rotting wood is the top of a giant spool that was used for electrical cable. It was likely used as an outdoor table or something, at some point – that was a popular thing for a while. This top part, I was able to tilt up and roll away to the back of the shed.

But not before I had a very close call.

There’s a reason I stopped to clear the area around the chimney blocks instead of focusing on the trees. As I stepped towards one of the trees behind the mess, to clear away branches that had already fallen, I felt something go through the sole of my shoe.

I immediately pulled back, put away what I’d been working on, then went back to dig through the dead leaves and old grass.

I found this.

20180531mess.nails

This area became a priority clean up!

This rotten wood turned out to be part of the remains of an old pallet.

20180531mess.beginning.clearing

The above photo was taken after I’d cleared away the old pallet, and even removed a bundle of wooden stakes.

There’s a tire rim under there.

Because of course there is. There are tire rims fekkin’ everywhere around here! :-D

I’d already moved some sort of basin that was screwed onto a metal base. I have no idea what it was used for since, unlike the other basins I’ve found around the yard, it wasn’t used as a planter.

I used it to hold the rotten, some nail filled, wood I was finding.

20180531mess.basin

Then, when that was full, I used the blue … barrel? … you can see in the previous picture to hold the pieces of wood I found under the top of the wire spool.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After moving out a whole bunch of rotten and rotting wood, I tried to move the wagon that was leaning against the chimney bricks.

20180531mess.wagon1

It promptly disintegrated.

The top half wasn’t as bad, but when I moved the bottom half, even one of the wheels just sloughed off.

20180531mess.wagon2

I wonder how many years it sat there?

After I moved it, I found something that brought a smile to my face.

My stone “ostrich egg” !!

20180531mess.stone.egg

My late bother and I found this in a field somewhere, when I was a kid, and brought it home. The size and shape made us think of an ostrich egg, so that’s what we called it. It actually turned out to be quite handy. My mother used to make sauerkraut in a big clay crock (which I believe we still have in the basement!). After layering the cabbage, she put an upside down plate on it to keep the cabbage in the liquid. This rock (after being cleaned thoroughly, of course) was put on top of the plate to weigh it down.

I’m so happy to see my rock is still around. :-D

Then I moved on to the mess under the top of the wire spool.

20180531mess.wirespool.bottom

The base of the wire spool itself was completely rotten, falling apart as I pulled it up.

Then I raked up the decaying leaves and whatnot that was under it.

Whoever put the spool there took enough care to place it on bricks.

20180531mess.wirespool.bricks

With enough time, not even that was enough to keep it from rotting.

I did find another mystery, though. Can you see it? Just above the brick at the bottom, right.

Seashells.

There was a pair of seashells under there.

I just… accept mysteries like this, now. :-D

I took out the bricks, cleared away around the chimney bricks – found some more small bricks, and raked around it. Here is how it looks, now.

20180531mess.after1

The little stools had been leaning against the chimney bricks. They really should be tossed, as they’re old to the point of unstable, but they can stay here for now.

20180531mess.after2

I forget what the long clay “pipes” are for.

All cleared!

And – most importantly! – no more rotting wood with nails sticking up.

Back to clearing the trees!

The Re-Farmer

Maple Grove Clearing – the garden shed

May 31, 2018May 31, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Today would have been a perfect day to be mowing the lawn.

If we had a working lawn mower. :-(

So, I started working on the maple grove, instead.

And I am in heaven!

I got SO much done, and it looks so much better! I took lots of pictures, though I didn’t think to start doing that until after I’d cleared quite a bit out. I worked on three different areas, all kind of overlapping each other, with a priority on clearing the garden shed door. These pictures were taken after I’d finished the shed area, so they’re all “after” shots.

20180531shed.south.clear

The items in the foreground are a mess I had to clear maple suckers away from before I could start on it, including from the dead maple, which grew out of an old maple stump, near the middle of the photo. With only a hand saw and pruning saws, I wasn’t up to taking this dead tree down yet.

Maples are almost indestructible!

I moved the picnic table to various areas so that I could stand on it to reach. In particular, I wanted to clear the two trees leaning towards the house as much as possible. Lots of dead branches on them.

20180531shed.south.overhanging.trees

I wasn’t able to get all of the dead and dying branches I wanted to. Especially on the trunk in the foreground. That one started to bounce when I started to cut farther along. It’s already touching the roof and, with the bouncing, it was hitting the roof more, so I stopped. That whole thing needs to come down, to protect the house. I’m hoping that the weight I removed so far will make it at least a little bit less of a risk of falling on the roof.

20180531shed.door.clear

Suckers from the tree on the far side of the shed had mostly covered the door. Once it was clear as far as I could reach, I dragged the picnic table over and cut what I could from higher up. Again, lots of dead or half dead branches. That tree keeps going quite a bit further, over the opening to the garden. It will need more cutting back. We’ll need to assess it to see how much of a risk of collapsing there is, to decide how much.

The shed itself has very little life left in it, and there’s a hole in the roof. My mother wants to replace it, though we could probably get another year out of this one.

20180531shed.north.clear

The north side of the shed was overgrown with maple suckers. I cut them back and discovered … stuff. Including a milk crate.

When clearing up the mess by the chimney blocks, I took out the old bed frames (or whatever they are) and those are now leaning against the shed in this space. Basically, I’m putting all the junk in one place for when we hire someone to haul it away.

Also to the north of the shed is a dead spruce tree, but it did have something growing on it…

20180531shed.north.vines

The base of the dead spruce tree is on the left. To the right of it are vines. Some were already dead long enough to just pull out of the ground, while others needed to be cut.

Even as fast growing as these vines are, it takes a LONG time for them to develop such thick “trunks”!! They may well be what killed the tree.

20180531shed.door.pile

This pile is of the stuff I cut from the shed door, and the north side, only. Most of this was blocking the door. Plus, there’s a bit of what I cut from above the shed door.

Shed is now clear and accessible again!

On to upload photos of the next section…

The Re-farmer

So Green!

May 29, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We had predictions for a series of thunderstorms throughout the day, starting at noon.

It didn’t quite work out that way. At least not in our area. The first rainfall (I won’t even call it a thunderstorm, though there was some thunder) didn’t start until late afternoon/early evening.

Which worked out well for us, since today was when one of my husband’s medical appointments was rescheduled to. We left early enough to have lunch in town. Ooooohhh… a date! His appointment was for an hour, though, so it did make things a lot longer than was probably good for him. Especially after pushing himself so much for the family dinner in the city on Sunday, which he would not have recovered from quite yet. The specialist he was seeing cut the appointment a bit short, which was a good thing. We still had to stop at the pharmacy, grocery store and post office on the way home, too. My husband stayed in the van, with the AC going, by that point. No sense in dragging the walker out for quick stops.

It’s been a hot and muggy day today; the main floor manages to stay pretty cool, but the upstairs gets really hot. Just like, in the winter, it got really cold! There isn’t even anything we could do about it. Even if we got, say, an air conditioner, there aren’t enough grounded outlets to plug it in.

When the rains did come, it swept through in short bursts, with one big downpour. We even lost our internet for a bit, which is something we can expect any time there’s more severe weather. At least until we can get about 14 feet cut from the tops of the trees in the south yard.

It’s pretty amazing, how different things are looking right now!

This was our west yard, a month ago.

This is what it looks like now.

So much green!

We needed this so much!

After taking the above photo, I had some issues coming back into the house.

Mom and son, with their noses at the bottom of the door, waiting for me to come back! :-D

The good thing is, when I open the door, they aren’t really all the interested in going outside. They just become a tripping hazard. ;-)

At about 10pm, we’re still at 21C, and its expected to cool down only a few degrees as we get more rain overnight. More thunderstorms are expected tomorrow evening.

I do wish I’d been able to mow the lawn before the rains returned.

Ah, well. At least the girls were able to get most of the eaves troughs cleaned.

My mother had mentioned to me that there was a hooked tool somewhere around that allowed for cleaning the eaves from ground level, though she said a hose was still needed to finish the cleaning. She told me where she thought it was, but the only things there are long handled pruning tools (that I look forward to making use of!). I mentioned it to my older brother and he knew exactly what she was talking about. He’d bought it for my parents! He said it was in the sun room.

So that’s what that thing was! I’d seen it, tucked into a corner, and was wondering.

Turns out that it’s a hose attachment. My brother had demonstrated to my parents how to use it, but he didn’t think they ever did. This was before my mom moved to the senior’s centre, so we’re talking quite a few years ago!

It came in very handy.

It couldn’t clean out the eaves troughs on its own, though. My younger daughter got up on the ladder with a stick to clear out some of the eaves troughs out, then got onto the new part roof through the 2nd floor window to clear the others, while my older daughter used the hose attachment to finish clearing everything away with water.

Thankfully, we do have some very long hose.

There’s still one corner on the north side of the house that needs to be done, but that will have to wait until we get another break in the weather.

With how much rain we’ve been having, I am sure the fire bans can finally be lifted, and I hope the fires around the province have been thoroughly rained on!

We’re basically getting the sort of weather we were expecting last month. Which I suppose makes sense, since the winter weather came in about a month behind, too.

As long as the shift keeps matching all year, it should work out for the farmers and gardeners.

The Re-Farmer

More progress

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Since the ladder was out anyway, after my daughter caulked the screw holes from the previous satellite dishes on the side of the house, I decided to tackle one of the Chinese elms.

There was a large branch overhanging the vehicle gate into the yard. With the power pole being replaced in a few weeks, I figured I’d better get it down now. I don’t know what kind of equipment will need to be brought into the yard, but it needs to be done anyway, so may as well!

Since we don’t have a (working) chain saw, it ended up taking all three of us, taking turns sawing, until our shoulders got too sore.

20180528.elm.branch.down

And it’s down!

The next while was spent breaking it down and adding it to the pile I’d started with the saplings I’d cut away, earlier.

20180528.elm.branch.down.after

The remaining log was a bit much to manhandle alone – the wood is remarkably heavy, compared to other types of trees – so it’ll wait until there are two people available to toss it on the pile.

20180528.elm.after

This is so much better!

There is still a higher branch that should probably come down, as it’s half dead, and there’s another that’s completely dead, but that will wait for another time. At least the one big one is now down.

20180528.days.work

Not bad for a day’s work.

The Re-Farmer

Trimming, clean up and… NOT mowing the lawn?

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

With predictions for rain tomorrow and storms the day after, I decided that this was my day to try and mow the lawn.

Of course, nothing is quite that simple around here.

When I got outside, I was greeted by…

20180528.seed.drifts

… a reminder of one of the reasons I stopped liking Chinese elm. There are millions of these seeds, being blown everywhere. They’re starting to drift in places, and they’re coming off the trees like rain with every breeze.

Ugh.

Before I could mow the lawn, I needed to clear the back door into the garage of trees. This will be needed for when the power pole is replaced, but also to get the mower in and out.

Let me find a before picture…

20180429doors

Hmm. Apparently, I don’t have a picture that includes the fence, as well.

You can see that there are saplings growing in front of the door and along the garage walls. More were growing along the fence to the gate. Most of is was poplar, but I also found some raspberry canes and vines, and along the fence was an unintentional coppice of maple.

I had noticed a metal pipe in the middle of the maple, but had left it until I could start cleaning up the area. So while clearing the saplings away, I pulled it out and…

20180528.surprise.hoe

… it’s a hoe. Someone replaced the handle of a hoe with a length of heavy pipe.

Well, it’s certainly not going to break. :-/

This is the after picture.

20180528.garage.cleared

I started stacking the saplings I cleared outside the yard, alongside the garage, which you can see part of on the right of the photo. I cut away poplar towards the outhouse, too. There’s more that needs to be cleared, there, but it will wait for another time.

Leaning against the garage and half buried in tall grass and dead branches, I pulled out three lengths of … hmm. I don’t know the name of them. They’re used as ramps to drive a vehicle onto a trailer or something like that. Two were longer and the same length, plus there was a shorter one.

I ended up using the shorter one to cover the hole in front of the outhouse. It will do double duty in keeping the door from coming open on in the wind again.

I found other stuff in the grass and leaves.

20180528.concrete.blocks

Along with more branches, some plastic margarine tubs and what might have been a metal tobacco tin, I found these concrete blocks.

I’ve left them for now.

20180528.tire.planter1

Ah, yes. Another tire planter.

You can see part of the remains of the maple I cut away in the bottom right corner. I had some concerns about accidentally hitting the remains with a lawn mower, so I decided to take advantage of wanting to move the planter and cover it with the soil.

Flipping the planter over, I heard an unexpected noise.

20180528.tire.planter2

Metal on brick.

Not sure why the bricks are there. It’s not like they could support anything under there.

20180528.tire.planter3

I don’t know what was planted in there, but it was amusing to see a perfect mold of the rim in the root systems and soil.

Since there was this handy hoe nearby, I used that to move the dirt over the remains of the maple.

Once it was all cleared away, I got the lawn mower out. Finally!

It didn’t want to start, but my brother did tell me it was finicky. It didn’t help that the part that held the throttle cable to the handle frame kept popping off. Nothing a zip tie couldn’t fix.

I finally got it going, but it didn’t have a lot of oompf. Still, I was able to mow along the fence line and around a few trees before I started working on a section in front of the house.

Then it puttered and died.

I checked the fuel. There was still some in there, but low (I’d started with about half a tank or so), so I topped it up with the gas my brother had left for me with the mower, when he did maintenance on it in the fall.

I got it going again, but it kept stalling. It ran as long as I was going over areas where there was hardly any grass, but as soon as I hit slightly greener areas, it would stall again.

And again.

By this point, it was getting too hot to be working outside, anyways, so I finally just put it away.

So frustrating.

I did some research to see what might be causing the problem, and the only thing that seems to make sense is the fuel didn’t handle the winter well. Yet, it was stored properly. It shouldn’t have gone bad in so short a time.

I just don’t have the spoons to fight with it.

It will have to wait. Not after all the clean up I’d already done.

Ah, well. There are other things that need to be worked on.

The Re-Farmer

It’s Raining! Also, we need another wood pile.

May 24, 2018May 24, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This is so awesome!

We’ve got a real, honest to goodness RAIN happening right now!

We recently got more weather alerts, this time for thunderstorms, for the south and east areas of the province. The usual warnings about possible hail, etc. These storms tend to pass us by, where we are. I remember talking to my dad on the phone and asking about storms I was hearing about, and he’s say, no, nothing over here.

I did just hear a rolling of thunder as I wrote that last sentence. Oh, it is so wonderful to see the rain!

So here are some pictures from yesterday.

20180523.flower.garden.leaf.layer1

More was added after this picture was taken, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the entire flower garden.

There are plenty of leaves to rake up that can be added. The maple grove has lots. Unfortunately, it’s such a mess, we can’t actually do any raking.

I started cleaning up around the area closest to the flower garden. Just around a lilac bush and a maple tree.

Most of the lilac bush was dead. Even with the living branches, I still trimmed away deadwood. Thankfully, I’d found some anvil pruners, which made the job easier. At least until those break, too. :-/

I also cut away most of suckers at the base of the maple tree, taking out dead branches that had fallen – including one that had fallen right into the lilac bush – and as much as I could reach of those that hadn’t fallen yet. These suckers have had years of growth, so a saw was needed. The space needed to saw them meant I wasn’t trimming them as close to the trunk as I should be. :-/

(Darn. Sounds like the rain has already stopped. I hope more comes, later!)

This is what’s left of the lilac bush.

20180523.cleared.lilac

I took about about 3 or 4 dead trunks, along with lots of dead suckers, and trimming the excess. I love lilacs, but they do have a spreading habit, so there was quite a bit to trim at ground level, spreading towards the maple.

I moved the old wash basin, once it was clear enough. There’s a maple stump on the left that it used to be sitting on, as a planter (I had to cut away maple suckers from the stump, too!). I considered turning it right side up, but that cats like to sit on it. :-D

Now there’s just the pile of soil from inside the basin to clean up. I might put the basin upside down over the stump, just for the cats. :-D

20180523.mostly.clear.maple

The base of the maple tree is mostly clear; there are still suckers to cut on the other side of the trunk.

It’s amazing how much difference, just this little bit of cleaning did. For one thing, there is no longer dead branches hanging over what used to be an open path.

20180523.trimings.dead.wood

This is what I cleaned out.

We need to start another wood pile. The dead stuff can go where we are currently piling wood, but the green stuff needs to be set aside to dry, to be fuel for the fire pit next year. :-)

You can kind of see what it looked like before; the following picture was taken from the garden side, and you can see the wash basin planter and the stump it had been on.

20180507.cut.trees

In between working on the open areas of the yard itself (that weed trimmer is sure going to pay for itself, over and over!), we will continue to clean up in the maple grove, and continue to layer the leaves we rake up onto the flower garden.

That will take a few months.

:-)

I also moved this…

A strange place for a bird feeder stand. It is now in the end of the flower garden outside the living room window. We’ll look into finding some way to anchor it, since that area is more exposed to winds. Between this and the bird bath I want to move over there, we should soon have a nice little sanctuary outside our living room window. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Flower Garden Progress: cardboard layer

May 23, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

The ornamental apples in the flower garden are very enthusiastically blooming right now!

While working under it last night, I could hear a constant hum of bees over my head!

I worked on layering cardboard onto the cleaned out flower garden for as long as I had light. Most of the time was spent taking tape off the boxes.

That’s one way to use up all those boxes from moving!

I was able to clear out most of the boxes in the Old Kitchen that my sister gave me to pack up my parents’ stuff before the movers arrived. I kept the strongest ones for packing the books and whatnot that are in the sun room when we finally get to it. Then we started on our own moving boxes. Getting those up the stairs from the new part basement was surprisingly dangerous. We have to close the door behind us because it’s not safe for our cats to go down there until we start cleaning the basements out. The door opens inward, over the steps. There’s just no good way to open a door from a steep set of stairs while clutching a bunch of boxes that are busily working on sliding out of your grip and falling down the stairs! :-D

At least the stairs are not as steep or skinny as the ones to the old part basement!

I could really tell which boxes were ones we packed, and which the movers packed. I was reminded, again, of what a terrible job they did. :-( The ones packed by the movers were a lot easier to remove the tape from, though, since there was hardly any, and they didn’t make any effort to make sure it stuck to the cardboard. :-/

So this is what the flower garden looked like last night.

When I ran out of boxes again, I just stopped. By the time I brought up more and removed the tape, it would have been full dark.

The temperatures were just perfect, though. :-D

I actually stayed out after taking this picture and started spraying the cardboard with water, more to add the weight of water, just in case a wind picked up. The hose we were using was too short, so I found a much longer one in the garden shed (using a flashlight) and set that up.

It wasn’t until hours later that I remembered that there is another tap on the other side of the Old Kitchen. Without the sun room to go around, that tap is much closer to the garden.

Oops. :-D

I brought up more boxes this morning – I even managed to bring up more than I actually needed. Which is good. More boxes available to pack up the sun room and the Old Kitchen.

This is what it looked like this morning, after I finished layering the cardboard.

Next thing to do was saturate the cardboard.

I’d grabbed a lawn sprinkler from the garden shed last night, only to have 3 others come with it. Turns out they were tied together. This morning, I went through them to try and figure out which was the least broken and hooked it up.

The adjustment was jammed in one position, so I took advantage of that and started from close to the house and left it there a while. It didn’t quite reach the opposite side, plus there were voids here and there from the bushes and the clothes line platform. After a while, I moved it to the other side.

There were still some voids, but I got more coverage in more areas missed.

After some fighting with the knob, I did eventually get the sprinkler on the “full” setting, so I could put it in the middle.

I left it there for maybe half an hour, so the whole thing got probably an hour or more of watering.

It wasn’t enough, but things were starting to heat up fast.

I didn’t get pictures yet, but after clearing out the hose, I started moving over the flax straw that was used to cover the septic tank cover for the winter, plus the straw that was in front of the cat house by the old kitchen, then started working on one of the piles of leaves my daughters had left by the garden for me.

For all the soaking it got, by the time I stopped, the cardboard was already starting to dry in many spots!

After I finish covering the cardboard, I will set up the sprinkler and have it run for the night, to make sure everything it thoroughly saturated. Well. At least as much as the sprinkler can reach.

This is some of what I’d pulled out of the flower garden while using the weed trimmer.

No wonder the rake kept catching on things.

I’d made the mistake, yesterday, of doing a bit of raking without gloves. This was the result. :-(

I have learned that this is a very bad place for an open wound. It seems everything I try to handle with my left hand (being left handed, that’s most things) hits it.

Nothing a bit of aloe vera and open air can’t handle. :-)

It’s not even 11am yet, and already we’re at 16C, with a “real feel” of 21C. Our high is supposed to be 23C today.

No more yard work today until things cool down.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, with a possible thunderstorm. Which works out, since my husband has medical appointments both today and tomorrow.

While working on the garden and cleaning up today, I couldn’t help but notice all sorts of areas that we need to get into, and think; that job is going to be SO much easier, now that we have a working weed trimmer! :-D Having the right tools makes all the difference!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

Clean Up

Yard work and home care visit

West Yard; fire pit area clean up

Maple Grove Clearing – into the trees

Maple Grove Clearing – a big, rotten mess!

Maple Grove Clearing – the garden shed

So Green!

More progress

Trimming, clean up and… NOT mowing the lawn?

It’s Raining! Also, we need another wood pile.

Flower Garden Progress: cardboard layer

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: