Junk Piles are good.

~~~ Well when it the frost comes out of the ground and you need your driveway redone, things get messy. I've begun to park my 'Ru at the bottom of the hill where the driveway is solid and has a firm base.

Down on the flat is where all the moisture runs to and it gets pretty slimy and slippery during the warmth of the midday. 

I had a delivery from Amazon coming and well, I didn't believe it was actually being delivered by Amazon. Until now our very rural area is only served by the postal service and UPS, FedEx tends to get lost somehow and can never find our house or road. It was one of those things: When I see it, I'll believe it.

While I was making lunch for us I saw someone running across our yard and thought: Wow! That must be Amazon! 

I met the young man at the porch door and he said, "Hi! I'm stuck can you help?" 

I looked out and there was his van in one of the turn around areas below my 'Ru. Normally it is a good spot to turn around in the winter and dry season. An awful spot when the frost is coming out of the ground.

He'd driven around my car to turn around. He asked if I could just pull him out with the truck. And I replied that the truck didn't work. He looked stricken until I told him that I had a better idea than the truck.

I walked over to the junk pile where I'd stacked hubby's collection of expanded metal mesh. If you don't know what I am talking about, it looks like this:

I had 3 large sheets with pieces cut out of it. They were approximately 6ft by 4ft. I had him help me place one sheet in front of his back tires and the other two sheets behind his tires. 

Thankfully he had a lot of common sense and hadn't tried to rock himself back and forth in the grassy section. He would have just dug holes and we would have needed the skid steer or a tow truck. 

I told him to follow my directions and idle forward onto the metal, then we replaced the sheet behind the tires and I had him idle out in reverse. 

I got my package and he explained that he thought twice about coming down our driveway and going around the car, but then so many people complained about delivery. I assured him that I'd never complain when the driveway was bad.

There actually is a place for delivery instructions, which I will edit in the future. Apparently I can tell Amazon to leave the package by the mailbox.

What amazes me to no end is that modern delivery vans are poorly designed with cheap tires and rear wheel drive only. That is fine for most city settings but very poor for rural areas.

When I got the young man safely turned around, he thanked me, apologized, and apologized again for all the trouble. I set my package down in the snow next to hubby's plow. I told him when he was pointed up the hill to get around the Subaru and 'Give 'er hell' getting up the hill. 

He did and he left with spinning wheels but made it up our hill.

I rescued my package from the snow and when I got to the house I got a message via Amazon: Your Package has been delivered, photo:

It looks like it was dumped in a junkyard. That is where I 

put it while rescuing the van....

A survey was attached to the photo asking how the delivery was. I imagine the young man was apprehensive about his new gig and getting stuck in my yard. 

I took the survey and assured Amazon that their driver had handled the package with care and was courteous.

At least the young man had a good story to tell at the end of the day. About the old lady who ran out grabbed expanded metal sheets off her junk pile and got him out of the mud.

I have experience with a mud.

Here are some mud photos from the years past. Now do you see why I hired someone to finally rebuild the lower driveway??

The driveway only looks this bad during the spring thaw when the frost comes out of the ground. Once we are past that, the ground is solid and I tend to forget what a pain it is in the spring.

Last note.
I woke up with a terrible sore throat this morning and mild headache. Geeze. It's been at least 10 years since I've had a cold.

Charlie and I will be spending the day upstairs in the spare bedroom reading and napping.

Have a great Sunday.

Pallet & Container Garden

Building this garden is turning out to be fun and a matter of using what is at hand to make things work.

The plastic under the pallets are old round hay bale covers that farmers used before they started to use the wraps. The old tubs have holes in them from being bashed around.

I added chunks of wood and a small bit of squished goat bedding to the bottom of each container. A tiny version of Hugelkultur gardening. The manure, leaves, sticks, and tiny pieces of wood break down in the bottom of the container and provide the soil with nutrients.

This is all an experiment afterall,...so why not?

The dirt. I am digging it from an old pile of Bull manure from the pen we kept our Dexter bull in years ago. Under the grass and weeds is a fine textured soil. It has been perculatin' for about 6 years, so it should be good for garden soil. It will contain weed seeds, but I am prepared for that. I haul it by bucket loads in the 4 wheeler's cart. 

Rich made a comment that I was going to use Bull-hit to make a garden.

😲

Rich also voted that I use the green bucket. It is ugly! I may go find a black lick tub that isn't so garish. I threatened to spray paint the green plastic tub but that would only make it look worse!

I'm sure I can find a black one that somewhere in the weeds behind one of the sheds. But in the end, it doesn't matter much about the container other than can IT hold dirt and can I grow a nice plant in it?

Sunday's project is to bring in two more pallets to have a fun little garden between the house and the LP tank. This is a pain in the arse to mow, so with the pallets, I can have flowers and walk through 'the garden' on the wooden slats!

It seems that my Lego People really like the pallet garden too. It is always good to have extra help.

Miss Molly dropped in [we never even heard her!] and jetted out to the shed where she promptly cleaned the rest of Sven's pen and then cleaned Lil' Richard's pen. 

Sweet! She and I fixed Sven's pen [say that 3 times fast] door so it would open properly. She visited with Rich and then helped him with the gates so he could dump manure with the skid steer and mow the one pasture we had made last week.

Today, if the timing works out, she'll come over and we will go riding together in the woods.

Craaaazzzy!

Photos above. Rich moving waste from Sven's pen and smoothing a path out in the Winter Pasture.

I attached a milk crate on the front of the 4 wheeler and set Charlie in it. He likes to ride there and supervise while I am hauling stuff with the 4 wheeler. I GO super slow with him on board. It is better that he ride there than scrambling around on my lap.

Spring is such a busy time of the year. Everyone is catching up with yard work or planting flowers or a garden.

Mowing the grass is a fun change over plowing and shoveling.

Mornings are glorious and the weather keeps changing so we are kept on our toes.

Most early mornings find me wandering up the road checking out the trees and brush leafing out. I'm still trying to figure out which bush is what. I may be getting a handle on a few trees also. I'm taking a lot of photos, but just leaving them in a file to look at later...

I've been morel hunting without great success but I've found enough to give us a taste. I scored some Golden Oyster Mushrooms and may dry them for soups later. 

Deep Woods Morel
Hunting with chaps on to protect

my legs:

Morels are getting hard to spot if they are small:

The neighbor's woods are 

becoming overgrown with Garlic

Mustard!

Golden Oyster Mushroom

I found yet another newborn fawn while hiking. I just get all mushy inside when I find them. They are beyond adorable.

I am ditching the idea of raising a garden. But I am cobbling together a container garden and dropping it in a section of the yard that is too hard to mow. 

It was never really smoothed out after they made a mess while remodeling the house. Each year I ask to hire someone to come in and re grade it or at least fill the bumps and lumps in to make it a nice section of yard. Each year HE says NO, he'll do it. 

Creative gardening can really help. Years ago there was a huge mess of stumps, rocks, and weeds alongside the little Red Shed. I asked if I could re-purpose it into a shade garden. HE said yes. The garden is pictured below. The area around it is very hard to mow, but I'm working on it!

I'm still not sure what to do with my 'containers'. But I placed them here on the west side of the house and then decided that I want the works to be place on the bumpy place which gets a lot of sun but has nothing but lumpy bumpy sand and clay from the construction on it. 

I plan on putting tomatoes in one or two containers and then filling the pallets with dirt and tossing in wildflower mixes along with sunflowers. Basically just toss in the seeds and see what craziness occurs.

The green container is an old mineral lick tub, I may add a second one. The others are washtubs and the buckets are from Rich's Grandfather's farm. They were used in gathering maple syrup.

I know it is ugly, but with the price of wood or even the price of containers for raised beds being what they are, who really cares??? I think I'll go out and see what goodies our old farm has. 

I even found wagon wheels in the Red Shed! Hmmmm!  I love new projects. I never sit down and draw it out, I just get the pieces and experiment. 

This morning I have a Mobility and Flexibilty Class. I like it a lot since I am constantly on the move and need to keep up my mobility, flexibility, and balance. After all...I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I just sat in a chair and watched TV.

From last week's hike. Photo by Wild Bill:

 Have a grrrreat Saturday.

Good and Bad

Old Fred is at least 33 years old. You can see it in his face. The mule who hates being caught, let me approach him and give him a long grooming!

He is still the feisty little pony mule but a bit less 'full of it'. He loves his Senior Feed and comes running for it.
Here you can see the age in his face and across his back. Time awaits no one, right?

So I asked, begged, and egged my husband to see if I could get some dirt for a project that I've wanted to do for a while now. I wanted him to take dirt from an old compost pile of manure and put it under the kitchen window on the east side of the house.

Much to my surprise, while I wasn't paying attention to Rich who had been sitting on the porch...I heard the skid steer start up and viola!

The bearded wonder had not only gotten into the skid steer out in the shed, but had started it and delivered dirt!

Somehow I think this Hermit Life is working for him perfectly!
[The day after this photo, he clipped his beard and now sports a clean face with a goatee and mustache.]

Above is the area that I wanted to make into more garden. I wanted a place to put out my 'non' Fairy Garden.

First load...

 After the second and third load of fresh compost.

I had a LOT of shoveling and raking to do. I sort of had a plan, but nothing fixed in my 'head'. I knew that I wanted a walk way down the middle of it so I could weed from the middle when the plants were up. And I wanted a nice looking border, but decided to use what was available already.

So ....there are the rocks from an obscure place that I'd stored them years ago. The plastic is from old round bale covers that were shredded. I found some flat rocks to use as stepping stone and  filled the missing 'steps' for now with old bricks until I can find the perfect rocks and carry them up from the creek.

I love rocks. I'd love to display the rocks as much as the garden so it will take me a bit to get the just right rocks for the pathway.

I added some gnarly stump pieces from the woods. They will be part of the Unicorn and Dragon hideouts.
After all, can't I just be a kid and have some fun? I don't mind gnomes either, but apparently they are not welcome in this garden either....

As I said, a Dragon/Unicorn garden. The Fairies can go find another place, however they will probably show up.

A look at the walk way that needs mulch and new stones...

I had to spend most of the day waiting for a UPS delivery that has to be signed for. The new way of doing things is that the driveway physically has to see the person to make the delivery and then he signs for you so there is no contact between him and the customer.

After getting the meds, I decided to listen to some music on my phone and get down to the business of picking out the weeds from my vinca ground cover bed and dig out the areas that I'd plant 4 o'clocks in if I can't get petunias or marigolds.

The rest of the afternoon was spent planting two rather sad looking tomato plants in buckets along with moving dirt and weeding around the rest of the house.

This requires very close work on the knees or sitting. I have to be careful to pull out last year's dead stuff and pick only the crabgrass and other tiny weeds that surround some of the bulbs that haven't come up yet.

These are blazing stars.

My daffies blossom first near the house. The bleeding hearts join in a bit later along with the irises. 

The vinca provides a pretty dark green ground cover with purple flowers.

Late summer I hope to have some pots with blossoms of some sort in them.

It all depends on how available these things are and IF I can actually shop for them safely.

I went into my seed bucket I kept in the basement. It is a bucket I use to deposit all the seeds I've picked from my sunflowers and other flowers that I gather the seeds for each year.

I was upset to find that mice had somehow found my seeds! I have plenty of orange cosmos and some zinnia seeds, but most of the 4 o'clocks were eaten along with the sunflower seeds.

Good thing I keep back up packets!
Next year...I'll keep them in a sealed container. And the mice will have traps to contend with!

I hope to get some mulch today for the 'walkway' among other things. I figured to get this done before the large veggie garden and the mowing take over my time!

Note.
Two days ago we had our first confirmed case of Covid-19 in our county. It isn't like this virus knows county boundaries.
I see some friends who are now calling the outbreak a scam and that we should all just get on with our lives. I get that. They have families to feed and their hours have been cut. Things are dire all over.

I was told that the numbers were 'fake', deaths were 'fake', wearing masks was not warranted.
Let me rant here.

I get it.
But the state numbers are still creeping up as are the deaths. I don't have the answers but I know that I am deciding to keep isolated as much as possible.
The Hermit Life has been excellent for Rich. He is doing much better now than in the past two years!

He has been operating the skid steer, taking an interest in grooming, taking an active interest in what I am doing in the yard and gardens. This is HUGE!

So keep your 'fake' deaths, drink your disinfectant, believe the liar liar pants on fire. Go ahead and protest, yell, scream, ... but don't ask me to.

I'll go ahead and plant my Dragon garden, I'll enjoy being isolated. And yes, I am one of those lucky people at least for now...that can stay home.

I have a duty to protect my husband. And I will do so.

The next project

I should take photos of what I am doing. A before... and some in between shots of progress.

I got tired of the 'waiting' for things to happen. Rich kept saying that he was going to get out to the shed and organize things.
In truth, since his stroke, he hasn't had any interest in going out there except when he was to use the skid steer to plow.

Last year the Pulmonary Emboli set him back again. And now? He hasn't ventured to the big old shed at all. I don't think it is a good place for him now anyway with his lung damage. It is dirty, dusty, bird poop, mouse poop, and ... well you get the point. Dirt and dust have a way of accumulating.

In the shed---- once upon a time--- Rich started to work on an Allis Chalmers tractor. He pulled part of the engine out. And then decided to find a larger one at an auction. He did find one and used it for a long time. Until he decided he wanted a skid steer. So he got a tiny one from another fellow that lasted for about 8 hrs before it broke down. He started to take that apart until he decided it was too hard to fix.

Now we have a pretty nice skid steer. It can do the jobs of either old tractor and the tiny skid steer. One tractor and one skid steer have become fixtures in the shed. Along with a Toyota pickup he purchased for hunting. It needed a master cylinder. It still needs that but hasn't run since he parked it there.

Indeed. We can't move that! The bed of that truck is where fencing supplies got stacked.
There are broken down boxes of all sorts of huge bolts pails of nails, light fixtures, metal chunks of 'stuff' plastic pvc pipes and a bit of this ... and that scattered everywhere.

I want to put a stall back in the shed for the elder mules this winter. I was pretty amazed how organizing 'stuff' can open up space. I decided to go on a hunt and gather long pieces of metal...I've been moving all of it to one part of the shed. Aluminum in one section and other metals in another.
Eventually I just stacked and decided not to separate things. I just wanted to move the stuff.

I collected all the shovels and put them in a huge plastic barrel. I have more shovels than I can ever use!

Before this year, the 'stuff' in the shed was off limits to me. It was Rich's personal man space. Now I have told him what I was doing and he just looks at me.

The guy I used to know would have had a cow if I organized HIS stuff. This guy seems vaguely aware that I am doing something. He has asked me not to throw things out.

Well, the scraps of metal will get loaded and taken away.
As will the old tires.
But my neighbor and I had a discussion about the 'stuff'. He said he'd been at auctions where ... he waves at the stack of metal is leaning, the wood that is leaning against another wall, and the buckets of bolts....along with rolls of barbed wire....
"People go nuts for this stuff! Sell it at auction!"


He has a point. I've seen used T posts sell for more than what a person can buy them new.

I am wearing a dust mask. When I peel back an old tarp to reveal a prize underneath it...I am amazed and the air is turned into a cloud of nasty un-breathable dust.
I knew my husband collected things he purchased at auctions and I always cringed when he came home and unloaded his precious cargo into the shed.
It has been an ongoing fight since he started to fill the shed after filling the small shed and the garage. I called it crap, he called it useful stuff. And once in a while he'd prove it to me too.
Something would need fixing and he'd disappear into one of the buildings and come out with the parts that would were needed. Or he'd grab some metal and cut and weld it, fabricating a custom hay fork for the skid steer, or modifying a plow.

The garage was crushed by falling trees 6 years ago. That is a project that will have to be hired out. It too is on my list.

The shed was supposed to be an indoor riding arena for me. That really never happened.

Maybe one day yet? Well. After an auction, that is. Lots of treasures are in that shed!

I am very happy though that the other end of the shed has plenty of open space for our winter hay.

I guess I need to take some photos of the place. Be prepared, it is ugly!

I figured this would be a good October-November project. I'm sort of wondering if I bit off more than I could chew. However, I'd like to create enough space to park the lawn mower, the 4 wheeler and the working skid steer in the shed and have enough room to lead mules in and out and of course pull out my sled of hay and sweet feed each day.

I'm even looking forward to the day when I can park my Subaru and Truck in there. At once time we could park everything inside.

I will be happy with just getting the stall set up before the weather turns really bad.

Dust mask, gloves, and coveralls! Yipee!

About this and that...

Fred gets a bath and immediately does what any self respecting mule will do.
Roll in the closest dirt pile to replenish the dirt.

Here are some of the projects I've been working on. I used an old milker to plant some petunias in.

This is part of the East Garden just before I put the milker in. I needed to make a straight edge to mow a bit easier. I used landscape fabric and planted some petunias and marigolds...then added the black mulch.
I need much much mulch!

View after the mulch job. Be warned, this garden goes through many phases of re-arranging as the summer goes on. The bricks are there in place until I get some nice rocks to replace them with...

Hubby brought loads of black dirt for around the house. The ground settled after the remodel.

So I used a rake and a shovel to move the dirt to where I wanted it.

It took another day or so to get some plants transplanted around in the dirt. I don't like landscape fabric as a rule. I just crowd out weeds if I can with plants.
We will see how that works! Not too sure!

Then I found another new project. Another old chair found in the red shed.
I started this weekend with painting it. I'm not exactly sure how it will turn out.
It will be a porch chair or a chair for inside when we have company.
Last year I made the Happy Chair.

Perhaps I can make another chair ... Naughty Chair?
Lazy Chair? Thoughtful Chair?

Photo of the Happy Chair I worked on from last summer....

Here is a sample of what I've been doing.
Before....

 After...
It need improvements all around, but I like perennials. These all have come from other areas of the yard where I 'stored' them while I was waiting for the remodel to be done and the ground to 'settle'.

And speaking of gardens.
I am just about ready to start the vegetable garden.

Last but not least!
Tadah! We had too many cattle for me to take care of and last year Rich decided we should sell 6 head and keep two for eating. Another few could stay as our forest gleaners.
Rich kept putting it off and off. Part of the stroke issues is an inability to get certain decisions made.
I hooked up with a farmer friend and he arranged it.
We moved the cattle Wednesday afternoon to a small fenced in paddock with metal 'catch pen' gates.

The farm friend showed up as well as the trucker and we loaded up the little Dexters and sent them on their way.

The others tiny group is busy working at mowing and keeping the weeds under control.

And now I think I've caught up on farm work for a bit.

Have a wonderful weekend. I have company arriving tonight to prep for.....

Nagging

Here is what the 'porch' sort of looked like just before they put the concrete in. After the remodel, we had to add dirt around the fresh concrete.
It has settled down after two years and I've been nagging my husband to please get dirt with the skid steer.

So I did what any good nagging wife would do. I dropped it.
And I started to go get dirt by myself.

It was very hard work, but yesterday was nice and cool. I figured it would be a good day to move dirt.

Nagged Husband noticed the wheelbarrow and Wife hauling small loads of dirt back and forth while he and Neighbor Guy visited and discussed the garden tiller.
Neighbor Guy said he'd tune up the tiller for Nagged Husband if he could use it on his own garden as Neighbor Guys' Wife was Nagging him about...the Garden.

Well it worked! Nagged Husband went out into the winter pasture and started to bring in dirt and dump it.

Well many loads later, the nagging Wife had her work cut out for her. Nagged Husband helped for a bit and then went inside.

The nagging Wife worked and worked and worked with a shovel and a rake. And she got most of the work done and some seeds planted. After all, why waste all of that dirt to grass at least for the first summer???
.

By late evening the nagging Wife finished everything but the west side of the house.

If it doesn't pour rain today, nagging Wife will put some grass seed around on the dirt and some flower seed on the west side.

Neighbor Guy returned the tuned up Tiller. Neighbor Guy's Wife was now happy. Nagging Wife was happy. Nagged Husband and Neighbor Guy smiled because they knew they did the mechanical work...however.
Now the Nagging Women would do the dirt work!

And so it goes.
~~~~~~