Front Yard Clean Up – by the gate

June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today was another awesome day of clean up in the yard. It is looking so great!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I so missed this kind of work! I love it so much. There’s the feeling of accomplishment, and at the end of the day, when the body is sore and achy, and I’m tired – it’s a good tired. You know what I mean?

Oh, and I also got some great news today. I got an email from the electrician. The new pole to replace the one the movers broke will be delivered in the next couple of days. Whoot!

Meanwhile…

While the girls started on the HUGE job of raking between the trees I cleared out yesterday, and adding them to the flower garden, I started working on the south yard. I figure, it’s about time I did some work on the parts of the yard people see when they come to our place, rather than the parts hidden away behind houses. ;-)

The first section I worked on was West of the people gate. This is where there was a mass of dead plants that turned out to have a wire fence in it – and a bottomless glass bowl. :-D

Here is what it looked like, before.

Tree tire is tired and broken.

This is how it looks now!

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Cutting away those vines – both the old, dead ones, and the new ones that had started to grow – was a huge job, all on its own. The mass was so thick, it was hard to find what I needed to cut with the pruning shears (those anvil shears (affiliate link) are amazing!).

Then, after getting the big stuff off, I had to go back and find more vine roots and clip them. They spread through their roots, so there was a lot of pulling up.

I like vines. I really do. But my goodness, they are invasive!!

That done, I moved on to the lilacs section.

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This is how it looked after I first started working on it. There was a lot of clipping and pulling out of vines, cutting away dead and dying branches, and figuring out what lilac stems were keepers, and what had to go.

Lilacs also spread through their roots, and can become invasive, if they’re not kept in check. Except when they’re being choked out by vines. :-/

As I worked my way to the far end, I found…

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… Seriously?

The biggest lilac bush at the end of the row was growing straight out of a pile of horse droppings.

I’m getting really tired of finding horse droppings all over the place.

Here are the after photos!

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This is from the West end of the lilac row, after trimming and raking.

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And here’s how it now looks from the East end.

With all the vines I pulled out of there, I think I just extended the life of these lilacs by quite a few years! Well. As long as we keep on top of cutting back the vines as they try and grow back, that is.

I’m pretty sure my mother had flowers planted in here, too, but they don’t seem to have survived the vines. I don’t have any plans to plant anything here this year, but we’ll see what we decide to do with the area next year.

Next post; cleaning up my mother’s… shrine?

The Re-Farmer

Fire Pit Area Cleanup; between buildings

June 5, 2018January 14, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I went back to cleaning up the West yard, by the fire pit area, today, focusing on the area between the other house and the log cabin that’s slowly disintegrating.

Photo heavy post ahead! :-D

The girls finished clearing away the last wood pile from when I cleaned up in the East end of the maple grove. Before they went into the house, we got rid of the old freezer that has been sitting along the side of the other house, for many years.

It was a beast of a freezer, but it is now finally out of the yard, and in the pile of stuff that will be hauled away in the fall.

The baskets and foam were inside the freezer. The chair and the plastic thing on it were dug out from between some maple trees.

It took two of us pushing, one pulling and steering, to drag that old freezer out!

Modern freezers are much lighter. :-D

When I started cleaning up the remains to haul away, I found even more Styrofoam, buried under the leaves.

Time to start working on the rows of trees directly behind the other house.

This involved cutting away dead branches, suckers and picking up fallen branches, just to GET to the stuff I needed to clear away.

The rain barrel that was there appears to not have any cracks or holes in it, so I just set it aside for now.

The roll of wire fencing was almost completely buried in leaves and dead branches.

That plastic bin on top? It was upside down on the ground. After lifting it up, I found…

… old cat litter.

As I was clearing away an area at the base of a maple tree, I found more cat litter, under the leaves and branches.

It appears that, when my dad had a cat, this was where the old litter was dumped. I think that plastic bin is what was used as a litter box and, when the cat died, it just got dumped into the trees and left there.

That cat died many years ago.

I was also finding lots of horse droppings. I’m told my younger brother had let his horses into the yard. Considering how many piles of their droppings I’m finding all over the place, this was either done often, or for a very long time.

I’m not impressed.

More stuff to add to the haul-away pile. Some stove pipe, a roll of cable, aluminum sheets and… I don’t know what that plastic thing is, but it made moving the stove pipe out much easier. ;-D

While clearing dead branches away near the building, I found all sorts of things buried in the leaves. I’ve just leaned them here, for now, for clearing out later.

More was added, before I was done for the day!

In the foreground is an area I’d gone into with the weed trimmer recently. I had to stop, because I was finding so many dead branches, so I started a pile at this end that I cleaned up today. In the background, you can see where I hadn’t used the weed trimmer yet.

There was a LOT of dead branches in here.

I also cleared dead branches from the trees themselves, as well as pruning back live branches and seedlings.

This is another section I’d used the weed trimmer on previously. For now, I’m ignoring the dead branches and trees on the other side of the fence.

That tree in the foreground?

Completely dead. I thought there was one branch that still had green leaves on it, but that branch is from the tree on the other side of the fence.

So this is going to have to come down at some point.

While clearing away the dead branches, I found more metal, buried under the leaves.

There was some cable leaning against the building that I thought was rolled up, like some I’d already cleared away elsewhere. It turned out to be only partially rolled up. Most of it was stretched almost the length of the building, all buried under the leaves.

When my daughter came out to let me know supper was almost ready, she helped me take down this dead branch from one of the group of three maples near the fire pit. I started cutting it with the pruning saw while she used a rake to reach the other end and applied gentle downward pressure to make it easier for me to saw. Then when it started breaking under its own weight, I just stepped back and let her pull it down.

I feel so much better, now that it’s down. There is another huge dead branch just above it, but it will have to wait for another day.

Here are the rows of “living fence” my mother planted. There is a third row closer to the log cabin. I did more clean up and weed trimming after this picture was taken. We will have to go back and work our way towards the log cabin. That area is filled with dead branches, so I can’t even go in with the weed trimmer, yet. There’s quite a bit of oak in there. I’m hoping my mother will let me get rid of some of these, and encourage the oak, instead. They are planted way too close together to be able to grow well.

Here is the area that had the old toilet, rain barrel, and other debris in it. It will still need more clean up before it’s finished, but it looks SO much better now!

The rest of the rows of trees. There is one willow in there, and the rest are maple and elm. There are still dead branches on them, but they are too high to be able to clear.

I noticed, as I was clearing up against the house, that the willow has a huge root, running right under the building. I guess it’s a good thing it’s just siting on blocks, or it would be causing all sorts of damage to a basement or foundation.

Let’s see if I can find some before pictures to include…

What a difference a few hours of work makes!

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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This area became a priority clean up!

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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” !!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Not bad for a day’s work.

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.

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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

Flower Garden Progress: I broke down and did it!

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

It was back to working on the flower garden today. The goal was to rake it and clean up whatever I find in it, before starting to lay down the layer of cardboard on it.

I worked around the edges, at the fence line, first and immediately found…

20180522.found.stuff.bowl

… a pet food bowl, buried under the leaves.

I fought with the fence in this area. I tipped over the tire planter right on top of it. Never had any clue that there was something under the leaves, never mind something in bright purple plastic!

Now, theoretically, we could have taken the lawn mower to it. My older brother did make sure we had a push mower that worked, waiting for us in the garage.

This is one of the reasons why I decided against it.

20180522.found.stuff.brick

At least the piece of sidewalk block in another area was likely there as a stepping stone. Half a brick is just… garbage. It wasn’t even there to mark something, since that bush near it has a stick marking it.

After clearing around the edges, I started to work my way inwards. Clearing off what I’d already started before wasn’t too bad, but trying to rake through a mat of low growing greenery, getting hung up on buried vines, branches and sticks I couldn’t see, it was very frustrating.

So, I broke down and did it.

I went into town and bought a weed trimmer.

It was the cheapest electric one I could find, since it had to come out of the budget for something else, but I got it.

I don’t regret it.

That thing saved me hours and hours of labour.

Plus, it’s fun.

I did have to unreel new line about 5 or 6 times before I was done, though. In the process, I uncovered rotting pieces of wood and branches that look like someone pruned them, then just left them on the ground, years ago, to be buried in dead leaves and greenery.

Not only that, but after going over the garden with the weed trimmer, I realized that I wouldn’t have to rake it at all. I was able to clean up the garden, removing various things I found that didn’t belong, in the process. I can start laying the cardboard down as it is right now, then start layering with the leaves and straw that we already have.

Many, many hours of labor saved.

This is what it looked like, yesterday. (click on them to see full size)

The photo on the left was taken from inside the “gate”. The center picture from the end, and the right photo, from the north-west corner.

This is what it looks like now.

The photo on the left is taken from the south side of the garden. The center is taken from the south-west corner, and the right photo is from the north-west corner.

For now, I’m taking a water break, and then I plan to go out and start laying down cardboard. :-D

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

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

manual labour feels good

Front Yard Clean Up – by the gate

Fire Pit Area Cleanup; between buildings

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

More progress

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

Flower Garden Progress: cardboard layer

Flower Garden Progress: I broke down and did it!

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