After giving the second coat of paint 8 hours to cure – and making sure they weren’t tacky, like we were having problems with before – I put the hinge pins back up.
All of the painting is now complete!
The chain will be held just by the hinge pins for now; I don’t want to start scratching the new paint by wrapping the chain around the posts.
Though the paint was not tacky to the touched, I didn’t want to take a chance of the pins and their washers getting stuck once the nuts were tightened, so I applied spray lubricant, first.
As a bonus, while I was working on it, I met our neighbour, who was out jogging. As she was walking back, we introduced ourselves and had a nice chat. They live a mile away from us which is a pretty typical distance for neighbours around here. :-D I’ve seen them (well; their vehicle) pretty regularly, but we hadn’t had the chance to meet until today. :-)
The posts are now ready to have the gates mounted on the hinges, whenever my brother is ready to come by with the last pieces he has for them.
I’m really looking forward to seeing our freshly painted gate up again! :-)
When we decided to move out here and take care of the farm for my mother, we had some ideas of what to expect, and what we might do in the future.
We were not naive about it, though, and knew that things would have to change with circumstances.
One thing I did not even think of at all.
That we might become a cat sanctuary.
Now, this isn’t all that unusual. Every now and then, I’ll read something in one of the local papers, or see a news clip someone shared on Facebook, about farmers and the 40 or so barn cats that they take care of. Along with their cows and goats and chickens or whatever.
We don’t have barn cats. The house came with yard cats. My dad loved them, and taking care of them was just a given.
I headed out with my daughter to drop her off for work earlier than usual. She was very kind enough to be willing to be stuck outside until someone with a key showed up (which, thankfully, did not turn out to be long) so that I could head over to another town almost an hour’s drive from her work. It was a court date for our vandal, this time in a town closer to us – though not with the extra driving this morning! *L*
Today, I finally had both the time and the weather conditions to work on the south fence line of the spruce grove (there there aren’t actually any spruces left…).
So, while waiting for the freshly washed gates to dry, I brought out the weed trimmer, my new reciprocating saw, and a whole lot of extension cord!
With all the wonderful rain we’ve had, the lawn is quickly reaching jungle proportions. So I started weed trimming the edges before breaking out the riding mower.
It never fails.
Every time I bring out the weed trimmer, I find myself going further and further into the bush.
We’ve broken down and removed the straw bale we got for mulch last year.
It’s amazing just how much material is packed into a round bale.
The girls continued taking wheel barrows of straw to the garden until the core was small enough to tip over and roll away.
There was still plenty left behind, of course.
Despite rolling against the grain, it still left a trail, all the way to the garden. :-D
Note in the above photo, how wide the mulched area in the garden is. We’ve already widened it on one side a bit, since we last worked on it.
Once in place, the core could simply be unrolled, leaving behind a thick enough layer that it only needed to be tamped down in places.
You can really see the difference between what was the bottom of the bale and the top; the part that was touching the ground is still tightly wrapped, and already starting to decompose, while the top is much looser, as it had room to spread while we took layers off to cover the septic tank and mulch the old kitchen garden.
This is where the bale sat all winter. When it was first moved, and my daughter was raking up what was left behind to haul away, she noticed lots of worms. When I was transplanting the raspberries, I noticed plenty of worms, too. This is a good sign!
This area behind the house is very spotty as far as how the grass is going, with the area closest to the house having almost no grass at all. So we’re not too worried about the grass that was under the bale; we’ll need to find some shade hardy grass seed for the area, anyhow.
And here we have the mulched garden area for next year. In the foreground, to the left, is a big gooseberry bush that I hope will actually produce some berries this year. Next to it is a chokecherry, then where the raspberries were transplanted, a crab apple tree, and the compost. Which, I discovered as I tried to turn it, was used for garbage at some point, as I found pieces of food tray foam and the remains of a plastic tray that held transplants. Plus, lots of branches, still. This is where a pile of pruned branches and cut back trees were piled, then moved to the middle of the garden, before we moved here. The plan had been to burn them – yes, even when it was right on the compost pile, under that apple tree! – but we broke it down and moved it manually, last spring. We’ll have fire pit fuel for a long time, just from that one pile!
The next steps for the mulched garden area is to “frame” it with some of those logs we have from getting the trees cleared. The idea is to keep the straw from being dragged around with our feet as we work in it. Other material will be added to it, to build up the layers and improve that rock-hard soil. Covering it all with landscape cloth to prevent the grass and weeds from growing through the mulch would be good, if we can get enough to cover the whole area.
We’re getting a pretty decent sized garden out of this! Obviously, nothing close to what it was before, but we can amend and re-claim sections of it, little by little, over the years, while planning out where we want to put more permanent plantings.
Well, I’m glad my brother has been as dedicated to taking in-progress photos as I have become! After emailing him about what happened to the snow blower, he was able to email me back a photo of exactly where the fuel line was supposed to go (something I could not really see without taking the cover off, but could find by feel). He told me I should be able to push it in, and confirmed that it was solidly in place, when he attached the fuel line to the carburetor. It seems to have vibrated itself out, which really shouldn’t happen.
Well, today is it. The one year anniversary for all 4 of us arriving at the farm.
We arrived shortly after midnight. We still remember the final stretch. Almost 1800 kilometers of driving (with a broken door), and less than 10 minutes from home. I saw a shadow flash across oncoming headlights and stomped on the brakes.
The cat carriers set up on boxes behind us went flying. The cat lying on one of them ended up in the front seat. Stuff fell on top of the bucket we were using to transport the fish.
But we managed to NOT hit the deer.
Everyone was okay, though the cats were pretty freaked out! How’s that for a welcome home!!
The main thing was, we made it. We were finally together again.
For my older daughter and I, all we really wanted to do was sleep. Which had to wait until we got the cats into the house and closed off into a room while we brought in the plants (some died from the cold, though our jade tree recovered), the fish (they died a few days later. :-( ), the computers and most of the other stuff we managed to jam into the back of the van. After that, we could finally sleep.
The house was a complete disaster, even though it was much better then it had been, thanks to the efforts of my older brother and his wife. A couple of days later, we would find out that the movers would cost $2000 more than we expected, and the fiasco with them just kept on going.
I never want to move again.
Which I know will happen. Eventually, as we get older, my husband and I will likely need to move into someplace like where his father or my mother live. Small, barrier free, etc. We’ve hopefully got many years before we get to that point, though!
We arrived shortly after midnight. We still remember the final stretch. Almost 1800 kilometers of driving (with a broken door), and less than 10 minutes from home. I saw a shadow flash across oncoming headlights and stomped on the brakes.
