Another freebie & sweat and sawdust don't mix

Last week I responded to a Freecycle ad for a free pushmower. I needed one so I could do some small trim cutting and mow inside the dogs area, so free was perfect...or so I thought. The e-mail said something like "1 year old Poulon Pro pushmower, free, ran last year but won't now, no idea what is wrong with it." I responded to the email and got a response, "its all yours", yippee! I ened up picking it up late so I didnt get to look at it at all.

The next morning, after everyone was fed and watered, I decided to see what was wrong with it. Usually push mowers are something really simple, like a bad spark plug or fuel line, so this can't be hard to get running. I pulled the rope, and watched the motor flop around like a trout,hmmm, motor loose? I pulled again, only to notice only HALF of the motor was moving.......what the??????? I got down for a closer look and saw the cause. Nope, not a bad plug, nope, not a fuel line, nope. not even a loose motor. The engine block was completely split in half along one side. ARRRGGHH, no wonder it was free! lol

I got ahold of the neighbor who is always working on these things, and sure enough, 2 days later he has a freebie motor for me. The one on it was a 6hp and this one is only a 4.5, but who cares as long as it cuts grass. 20 minutes after I brought the motor home, I was in front of the garage cutting grass. Of course, as my luck seems to fall, I made one single 4 foot pass and ran out of gas. (sound familiar?????) Ah well, at least I know it runs. I got gas this morning and used it, and it ran like a charm. Ahhhhhhhh, I do love my freebies.

Yesterday was a long long tough day. My uncle called me on Sunday and asked if I could come help him take down the tree next to his garage since his neighbor loaned him a lift for a day. (it sure pays to have the guy next door own an equiptment rental!) I didnt get there till after noon since Lisa needed the car for a work meeting, and I was floored when I got there. We had full use of a 60 foot 4wd boom lift. YEEHAW these things are fun. That 50 foot maple looked intimidating, but we got it handled no problem. Limb by limb, it was on the ground to nothing but a 4 foot stump in 4 hours. 4 grueling hot hours in 86 degree heat, direct sun, and high humidity. Add that to 2 cycle exaust and sawdust covering both of us, and we were sweaty, sticky, itchy messes. (reminded me wayyyy too much of walking behind a hay bailer)I ran the lift and tossed the heavy stuff while my uncle did all the cutting. I gotta hand it to him, for 74 years old, he worked his ass off out there. He felt every minute of it, but he loved it. He used to repair traffic signals and cut trees for the county, so it was like old times for him.

Last year I took him to a civil war reinactment at Hale Farm & Village. This place is a museum of sorts, but an actual working farm and village all mid-1800's era, its a really cool place to visit. He asked where the big church was, and we went to see it. He stood there pointing and told me "yep, thats where I sat". It turns out that this 150 year old church was moved to this location from about 30 miles away, in one piece on a trailer. He rode ahead of its 5mph journey in a bucket truck, cutting limbs that were in the way for the whole 30 miles. When it was almost in place, he jumped onto the roof for a good viewpoint, right the the spot he pointed out. He told the story to one of the directors that happened to be there, and she was ecstatic. They had never met anyone that was on that crew before. He was supposed to go up there again for an interview and have an article written about him in their newsletter, but he never went. I suppose I'll have to take him there again someday so they can do that. With a story like that to tell, I suppose I would have enjoyed a day in a boom lift too.

Today I didnt do anything here other than mow. I started some projects that Lisa's work hired me to do. They wanted to clear out some small pea gravel and plants on either side of the sidewalk and replace it with softball sized stones. I took a wheelbarrow, maddock,and shovel and hit it hard. I got about 75% of it done, but WOW was it a lot to move by hand. The areas are both 30 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 10 inches deep. Let me tell ya, that was a LOT of gravel to move and dump with a wheelbarrow! Tomorrow I'll finish the last of it, then wait till the larger stones get delivered so I can reverse the whole process. After that, its just a bit of painting and trimming, so it won't be as bad. I'll do that last little bit tomorrow afternoon, then list out the paint I will need. Of course it's all gonna depend on weather since the forecast calls for thunderstorms on Thursday......figures, lol. If it doesn't rain, something always runs out of gas, hahahahaha.

Remembering....

Today it is raining again, it has since Tuesday night. Normally I would whine and complain, but the garden needs it, and hey, I can actually MOW now! The rain has already pushed the cucumbers above ground, and is doing wonders for the rest of the garden, yep, we needed it.

As I sat here reading some forums and other blogs, I was looking out the kitchen window, watching birds bathe in some of the standing water in the garden. Looking into the garden made me remember the tiny beginnings of what we are doing here, and made me smile.

When we bought this place, and moved in May of '99, this place was nothing but grass and 2 small neglected flowerbeds. Lisa set out that summer to revive the flowers, and to create a few new beds. We decided to grow a vegetable garden, and ended up with a 12x12 area in the backyard as the first one. Each year we decided to plant something new, or plant more of the same, so the garden grew with each decision.

Since that first garden in that first year, we have grown and grown, adding various fruits and vegetables to where we are today. Even with the size we have now, we are planning to enlarge things even more. The garden will expand another 4 feet, the blackberries will extend another 8, we may add more grape arbors, and the strawberries will get thinned into two more 8x24 foot beds. Things always change, and we always manage to grow and expand our production, our knowledge, and our minds.

I have to admit that 11 years ago when Lisa and I met, I would have NEVER imagined we would be doing the things we are today. I would have laughed at the thought of making our own deodorant. I would have said a big "hell no" to the thought of using a wringer washer. I would have said "no way" to the idea of having chickens. But......here we are. All of these years and changes later, and I wouldn't change a thing. I like our life now, in fact I love it. I can't imagine going back to buying everything we eat, or eating frozen garbage out of a microwave. I can't imagine NOT having all of this garden. I can't imagine eating store-bought bread again. (ICK!!) I can't imagine going back to a lot of the things I used to do or the way that I lived in the past, and I can't imagine life without Lisa.

No one else would have tolerated my silly ideas. No one else would GIVE me some of those ideas. No one else would spend days in the house making bread, soap, candles, laundry detergent, deodorant, pies, or stand in front of a canner for a whole weekend. No one else would tolerate my rants about city people, and no one else would tolerate my music. (c'mon,who DOESN'T want to pick strawberries to Iron Maiden blasting from the garage??? LOL) This year will make 11 years together, 10 at this house, and 9 years married. It's been a journey in gardening, a journey is self sufficiency, and a journey in life. There is no one else I would want to share this with. You are my everything. OK....you and the LowBoy....OK, you, the LowBoy and my 45 Colt.....you get the picture lol, love ya Lisa.

Tractor is back from the dead, and a really busy weekend

After a lazy week with our friend from Oregon, we had a lot of catching up to do outside. We just decided to take a week off of most everything and relax with her, so over the weekend we paid the price, lol.
The garden was so far out of control that it took me almost half of Saturday just to weed it. It's fine now, but I know I will NEVER let it get that far again, company or not. We sowed the 2nd double 45 foot row of beans, (total 90ft) so they won't come on at the same time as the first double-row. We made that mistake once, never again. We had one open row, and since we've been talking all spring and early summer about making our own sauerkraut, we put in a whole 45 foot row of cabbage, and around 8 feet of the next one. Though the turnips are looking great, the parsnips and beets never came up, so we had to re-sow them as well. Everything else though, is looking great.

The strawberries are producing a LOT of fruit from the smaller bed,and the second bed is just starting to ripen. After just 3 pickings, we already have around 15 pounds of berries in the freezer. When the bigger bed comes on, it will be a jam-making weekend for sure. I know we have plenty of pint jars, we'll just have to check the supply of seals and rings so they're all ready when it's time for the jam-athon. The other fruits are looking good too. The tiny dwarf apple tree's have small apples hanging on them, the grapes have tiny bunches of pin-head sized grapes already, and some of the new raspberries are showing signs of fruit. One day this week, I'll take a walk around the orchard next door and check on the grapes and blackberries there too....Something really tells me this is going to be a VERY VERY busy canning season!!

TAAA_DAAAA! The lowboy lives! After cleaning the carb, replacing points, condensor, cap, rotor, plugs, plug wires and changing the oil, she sprang to life like she was new. I *FINALLY* got to mow, and got it all done but the small area by the side of the house and the small area by the chickens, and ran out of gas.....figures, eh? hahaha Ah well, it can wait till tomorrow and I'll get it filled up. I'll need the gas to mow a second time anyway. It was so thick and high that it will need cut twice to look decent. If I'd let it go another week, I sware I would have had to have it baled....oops. Pffffft who cares anyway, it's grass. I can't eat it, so it comes last behind everything else.

Back from camping

Well...we got back from our small 3 day camping trip yesterday around 2pm. We got home, parked our a$$es on the couch, ate, and ended up taking a nap, lol. Somehow camping just wore us out, so I was kinda expecting a nap anyway. I *was* expecting to have the truck unloaded last night, but that ended up waiting till this morning. No rush anyway, it's been raining here most of the day, so my plans on picking up the railroad ties from my folks place will just have to wait. I'll just return the truck tomorrow and worry about the ties later.

The weekend trip was a lot of fun. We got to see and spend time with people we haven't seen for a few years, so it was a wonderful time. We had friends driving in from all over the country....Wisconsin, Kenticky, Arizona, Texas, Kansas,Pennsylvania,Oregon, and the two of us, all going to our friends farm in southern Ohio. All in all there were 11 people, though we had expected 14. One had car problems at home in Indiana, another in N. Carolina had work problems and couldn't leave, and another here in Ohio was called to weekend duty by the Reserves. Even though we were light a few people, we all still had fun talking about old times and catching up. next years plans are already in the works, including even more old friends, even a couple now living in New Zealand. I can't wait for next year and we just got back from THIS one, lol.

We got back to more strawberries than we know what to do with right now,so we've been munching on a big bowl full since I picked the first batch last night. We'll start on jam later this week, but since our friend from Oregon is here until Friday evening and Lisa is on vacation, we'll just have a lazy week and let the jam-making wait. Lisa did manage to get out the rest of the cucumbers and carrots before the rain started, and I planted the blackberry and blueberry bushes that we recived as gifts for Lisa doing all the cooking for the party. Everything else already planted is looking great, and we'll put in the second double 45 foot row of green beans when the rain stops. I wont even guess when that will happen, after all it IS Ohio, and the weather changes hourly. lol


For those readers that are also my followers and on my read list: I am reading your posts, I'm just limiting comments to eliminate some computer time. I was getting too busy to spend time sitting here, and sitting here while there were things to be done. I'm just taking a bit of a blog-commenting and writing break for a bit to catch up and enjoy this time of year. I'll be back in the swing again very soon.

Rainy days and garden growth (was that a Freddy Fender song????)

Yesterday it started storming fairly hard around 4pm, and rained all night. Today it was cloudy in the morning, but started raining around 11 and has been since. We had a small scare of water coming into the basement, but lucily it never got any further than 6" into the mud room. This morning I cleaned out the drainpipe that goes from the patio to the ditch, so it shouldn't be a problem again. But...aside from the minor problems, the garden really needed the rain since we did more planting yesterday before it started to rain.

We put in an entire 45 foot row of tomato's, and around 35 feet of assorted peppers. We use a LOT of each every year since we make all of our own tomato sauces, soup, juice, pepper jelly, pickled hot peppers, pepper spread, and salsa from the rest. There are still three 45 foot raised beds left open, and another flat bed the same length. One of the raised beds will be for cabbages since we have decided to make our own sauerkraut, and another will go to cucumbers and squash. The others are still undecided, though I'm sure we won't have a problem filling them.

Everything we started from seed has popped up and is looking great. The potato's are almost all standing 4-5" tall already, and the beets, turnips, and parsnips are about the same. There are a lot of strawberries that are half ripe. Its soooo hard not to pick one lol. I imagine that after the next few days of sun, we'll have plenty of berries to eat...umm.....I mean make jam. The blackberries are starting to fruit too, and look like we'll get a decent crop this year. Thats of course hoping that the neighbor boys dont feed them all to the chickens again lol.

Tomorrow I am going to bring the wringer washer inside and look at setting up the single basin wash sink that I already have in the garage. Whenever I find a double-basin, it won't be a hard changeover, so for now we'll just use the single. I'm excited for the day when I can clean the electric washer and store it away or get rid of it. The drier will stay for now, until I can get the entire laundry room remodeled and permanant clotheslines and racks made and installed. I want to make overhead drying racks, but as always,height is an issue. I'm 6'3" and the ceiling is 7', so anything hanging will be right at that perfect "bust Chris in the skull" height. I'll try to make something that folds to the wall or raises tight to the ceiling. Yep...another trip to the trusty drawing board.

Great score & long weekend

After Lisa got home from work on Friday, we followed a friend of hers (from work) to her ex-inlaws so I could look at, and possibly take, a wringer washer they had in their basement. As soon as I saw the thing, I just KNEW I had to have it! It looked as though it was barely used, and was kept in a dry basement for all these years. I strapped it to a dolly, got it up the stairs, and loaded into the car. (along with enough flowers and plants to re-work our entire front yard lol) I got it home, made sure that the motor wasn't frozen up, and plugged it in. Uh-oh something was wrong with the rollers. It turned out that a braket was broken that held the lower roller in place, but luckily I had the other rusty washer for parts, so I had it working in just a few minutes. The wringers worked fine, the agitator worked just fine, so I filled it with water and gave it a test drive, washing some rags from the garage. I gotta say, I was really impressed at how well it worked since I've never used one before. Lisa's mom had one when she was a kid, but my mom always had a regular top-loader. (washer & dryer but no toilet-go figure) I scrubbed the whole thing down, and now it's ready to come inside. It needs a bit of paint touch-up in the normal hand-wear areas I would expect, but I'm in no hurry for that. There's no rust at all, just wear from use. I just have to get a double-basin washtub and do some minor plumbing. I'll pipe the slop sink like normal, but run a tee out of the side of the drain, and attach the washer's drain hose with a valve since it's female tapped for a garden hose connection. It will be easy to plug later down the road when the time comes to move, as I can't imagine anyone else using a wringer washer here, lol. ( Thanks for the tip tiny dragon rider lol I know you're reading this)

As Lisa said in her blog, I helped her on Saturday cleaning out her mudroom. I had been putting it off, just because I thought it was going to be a nightmare. Well....it wasn't as bad as I thought, though the pile of junk and garbage seemed to be endless. A few loads of junk and 20 minutes with the shop-vac later, Lisa was dusting and remodeling her newly reclaimed space.

Afterwards, I went back to garden work, finishing the last 2 rows of tilling, and started raking the last 6 raised beds. The last 2 got finished today, with the unexpected help of the neighbors 11 year old grandson, with paw-paw's rake, lol. We tend to be kid magnets with gardens, chickens,and bunnies, lol.

On Sunday, I spent a lot of time removing and moving the fire pit we had near the garage. It's now right next to the cookstove, and had a revolving and removable hanger/hook for her dutch oven. For now, its just block with stones piled on and around it, but eventually it will be cemented and wrapped in stone and mortar just like the stove. I can't wait till we can use both, side by side, making an entire meal outside.

This morning, I thinned the turnips that came up so fast, and put the thinnings in the new 8x8 bed where the dandelions didn't come up. Even if we don't eat that many turnips, the bunnies will enjoy the greens. I've already started eating the green onions as always lol I better start putting new bulbs in those empty holes. I cut out some more rougue maple tree's that we always get, cut Lisa enough pieces of wood to make 2 sets of runes, and watched her enjoy walking through her mudroom to use the clotheslines that she loves so much. She made us both salads for lunch, all from greens and onions from the garden already, and later brought me out hot fresh bread with home made honey butter for a snack. YUMMMMMMMMMM

As things wound down today, I had Lisa help me mark out some new garden area's I want to start this week. I'll be adding another 4 feet to the garden, making it 45x65. I marked out another 8x32 strawberry bed, and an 8 foot additon on the blackberries since I have so many new small starts/chutes. We talked about even more strawberries for next year, and we'll probably end up adding another 16 feet to each one of the beds. That will make two beds at 8x48 feet, and the old origional one at approx. 6x15. Just like I always say lol there's no such thing as too many strawberries. Who knows, maybe by then we'll just make it a 32 foot addition. hahaha Things always end up bigger than we initially plan.

This week hasn't been one of those constant busy weeks, but we've managed to get a lot done around here. The whole garden is completely tilled, and we put in two 45 foot rows of beans, and the same of sweet corn. Probably next week, the rest of the plants will go out. Most of the greens are up, some beets and turnips are up, and the row of onions are all standing around 4" tall. I moved the horseradish from the center of the garden to its own area finally. The plants may look awful right now, but they'll all come back. You can't kill that stuff lol I've tried.

Last years new strawberry bed is jammed full of plants this year. That was only 50 root starts last spring! And looking at it now, you would never be able to tell that last week I thinned it out and gave around 120 plants to our friend Tammie. I'm thinking of making another bed the same size right beside it, and transplanting some of these to the new one. I just need the motivation to dig that much sod again, lol.

The small origional strawberry bed is just as over-run with plants. We moved some of the herbs to give them more room on one side, and I pulled the non-growing blueberries on the other side for even more room. There are quite a few plants in here with tiny green berries hanging already....mmmmmm.

I've been slowly working on re-doing the entire back patio. Lisa loves to sit out there in the afternoons and evenings. It's away from the main street, is shaded by the house, and overlooks the whole garden area. I re-worked the little pond and fountain for the 3rd time lol. First I had the water cascading over a birdbath, but that was unstable and kept leaning. Next I had it pump through a hose, up the tiny hill,, and through & out the old watering can. It looked great, but to me (laugh now Lisa) it sounded like a constant peeing. It made me nuts, so I changed it yet again. Now, the water pumps up in little jets from under rocks. It sounds more like a babbling brook or stream, so we're both happy with it. I got a load of free mulch from the neighbor, which did almost all of Lisa's larger flowerbed to the right. I need to get or make more soon to finish it. I still have to get on the weeds in the concrete and gravel, which may end up being sometime today. I'll try good old vinegar first, then if that doesnt work, I'll use a propane torch. We both refuse to buy/use any kind of chemical weed killer.

The new bunny greens bed is looking really good. Everything has come up so far except the carrots and the dandelions. I'll probably reseed the dandelion rows with some kind of lettuce for the bunnies, then do an entire 8x8 bed of dandelions when I get the other rr ties here from dads. There are more there than I though, the total he wants rid of is 8, plus 2 of those concrete parking bumpers like I used to make Lisa's little knome home herb bed. I know for sure that I'll make one more 8x8 bed next to the greens, I just have to decide where to put another one or 2 beds, and what to put in them. Maybe melons, maybe canteloupes, maybe more herbs. Who knows, we've never had a problem finding ideas for things to plant, lol.

Today makes 10 days for me of not smoking cigarettes. I have had four in this whole time, but considering I was a pack and a half to 2 pack a day smoker, I'm really happy with myself. I'm definitly feeling a difference after being used to it for 28-29 years of smoking. Surprisingly, I'm not grumpy lol I pretty much expected to be, but I'm not. I may have one every once in a while, but I have no plans on going back to where I was. I feel better, I dont stink of cigarrettes, and we're saving a lot of money. At $5 a pack, if I was smoking 2 a day, that was $70 a week! Now that's a lot of vegetable plants lol.