Gardening and Tools

Once upon a time, my husband bought me a fancy little cultivator Echo machine thingy. He said it would be so easy to use between the rows of the garden and even the ad looked fantastic. Wow, just with a piece of machinery, I could keep a perfect garden.

Yep. It worked once and it was hard to control and it rattled and vibrated my hands so they hurt. It was nearly impossible to pull start and it took a mixed fuel combo.

And it was so noisy!

A friend purchased a Hula Hoe for me and I really liked that too for a bit. I still use it along with the standard old fashioned hoe.

But this old fashioned cultivator works so much better.

It is quiet, easy to start up [yeah I'm kidding] and so easy to control. It does a wonderful job. And the only part that would need fixing would be the handle if I broke it.

Sometimes simpler is better.

Meanwhile

On the farm...

Who thought I'd be doing this?
Hard enough to find the right tool for the job of taking the ice piks off from the skid steer tracks, especially when you haven't done this before and don't know what size tool you need.

I spent a good 40 minutes sorting through 'his' junk pile of tools to find the right size.
Good.
Job half way done...

Then I went indoors to do this...

another job I am not very well qualified for. I sort of burned the edges.

However I am very good at raking and cleaning up the yard....

I make tiny piles and burn a bit at dusk.

Then back to the Sven Pen to put in a gate and get everything set up for Sven's homecoming....

And then back to the inside of the shed. This pile of windows and screens has been here forever. This is 1/2 of the pile and it resides in the area where Sven is going to have his 'stall'.
I have no idea why my husband has kept all the windows from his folks' old house, our old house, and some other house. I found 3 different styles of windows.
As soon as I can pull the truck up to the shed the windows are making a one way trip to the dump.

This was wire from the old catch pen that was destroyed years ago when trees fell on it. Yesterday I removed all the old bent up pieces by cutting them with a bolt cutter and then raking all the dry grasses and weeds into a dirt area to deal with later.
I've wanted to do this job for a while.

It is back breaking work but I did it.

I have to finish up a few more things in Sven's out door pen too. But it is getting there.

I'm happy I joined CrossFit. Much of this work would have made me sore last year. This year my stamina and my strength are beyond my expectations.

Tools

My husband is notorioius for not organizing his tools. He just drops them on a piece of plywood on top of a couple of saw horses.
Yesterday I need one tool as my project was to take apart the old picnic table that had rusted through.

After not being able to find what I needed, I started to unload the plywood and place it on the shed floor so I could see what we did have and didn't have.

I found screw drivers that I have thought I lost while fencing. Obviously they went back into the messy pile to be buried under debri.

When I asked hubby where he may have a 7/16 socket wrench ... he simply lay on the bed and said it was on the 'tool bench'. I said show me...he said, 'It is there.'

While searching [I never found the proper socket] I did find some other items of interest.

Broken things. Things of no use. They were also stacked on the 'table'. I sorted through some things and tossed them on the floor. I realized that I needed to find the tool I was looking for and not get sidetracked by the messy table.

I did find a 7/16 little hand wrench thingy... it worked. Along with a sledge hammer and a pry bar, I spent a few glorious sweaty hours dismantling the old picnic table.
I had to get creative as some of the bolts wouldn't unscrew, they were frozen in rust.

In the end I completed the task.

At one point Rich called out the kitchen window asking if I'd found the tools I needed. I motioned for him to come out and help.
He disappeared from the window but came back to the kitchen window and called out...

"You didn't mess up my tool bench did you?"
Ahhhh, I love how he thinks sometimes.

Mean old me. I pretended I didn't hear him and used the sledgehammer and the pry bar on a particularly difficult section. I then used bolt cutters to get the job done.

No cursing, no swearing, and no blood was spilled in the dismantling of the old picnic table. But one more job that had been on his list for over a year was now done.

I may get sidetracked the next rainy day and actually organize that horrid mess of a table. As of now, he has no interest in using it.
Getting him to leave the house is a monumental effort one I fight with every day.

However I should say he has fed the donkeys for two mornings in a row. I consider that an improvement.

Next up, the broken glider.
If I could only operate a chainsaw safely. All bolts on that are frozen/rusted solid.

Oh...what happened to those bits and pieces of 'saved' broken stuff? They went into my bucket of things toss away. I am cleaning up junk...one small bit at a time.

I have a full schedule for this week. But still plan on finding time for a couple of projects.

I imagine if I clean up the 'tool' table, it may come as a nasty shock to my husband.
I think I'll do it anyway. I'm still looking for that socket wrench.....