This, That and So Much More

My father had a saying (or a philosophy) that you never start a project on a weekend.  Of course that was in the days when your local hardware store closed at noon on a Saturday and if you needed or ran out of something you were stuck.  Luckily we live in the age of Lowe's and Home Depot.

Last Sunday I finally reached my breaking point about my lack of organization in the little barn.  Every time I need something I had to dig and scavenge to get to them.  Invariably whatever I used last would be in front and whatever I needed would be behind or under it.  I started leaving the most commonly used items by the door, but that wasn't the most convenient method.  Neta was nice enough to provide me a table to put stuff on which only highlighted the glaring lack of a workbench.

Already having plenty of lumber for the frame, I headed to Lowe's and got some pieces of plywood to build the top of the workbench (and potentially some shelves underneath).  I cleaned out a corner near the front of the little barn and got started.

A blank slate.  It's begging to be utilized.

The last time we organized the little barn, I'd put a bunch of old 2x4's in the rafters.  These were true 2 inch by 4 inch sawmilled cypress boards, approximately 8 feet long, give or take.  No sense in buying new lumber when I had dozens of these available.  One item of note:  I don't have any electricity in the barn yet, so rather than make dozens of trips back and forth to the carport, cutting and re-cutting my 2x4's, I used my trusty handsaw.  That's right...I went all "Amish" on things.  Except for the cordless drill.

I measured for "counter top" height, made my marks on the studs and clamped my first 2x4 to the wall, making sure it was level.  So far, so good...except...something looked funny.  The exterior boards ran at an angle compared to the board I put up.  I doubted myself, but my level told me otherwise, so I trusted my tools and soon had the first pieces in place.

Part one...

It's level, that's more important than aesthetics.

When I finished part one of the frame and put the top on, it proved that the walls of the barn were not very square.  I'm not knocking the original builder (according to Neta's Uncle Donald, this barn is the oldest on the property), but he wasn't a "master" carpenter or he prioritized getting the barn built over how "perfect" he could build it.

By the time I built enough of the frame for the other side and put that top piece on, I could really see just how out of square the barn is.  Fitting the second piece of the top flush against the first piece - keep in mind these are 2' x 4' plywood panels, cut square - left me with an almost one inch gap away from the last stud.  Looks like I'm going to have to build a "back splash" for my work bench, so stuff doesn't roll off the back.

Fitting the second panel to see how well it fits to both the first piece and the wall.

After about 3 hours I was done.  Well...sorta.  I still have one panel left and I'm debating whether to add it as an extension to the top or as a shelf underneath.

Looking at the gaps in the boards behind the bench you can see light peeking over the top left, but the gap is about 2 inches below the right end.  Even the floor is uneven, but that workbench is level.  You could play pool on it.

The finished (for now) product.

UPDATE:  This is the finished product.  I decided to continue with the upper level.  I'll eventually shelves below, but for now I need counter height space.

I've already junked it up to make it look like it's always been there.

In gardening news, we've enjoyed our first produce of the year.  We've got radishes!

The radish patch.  A mix of the round, red ones and long, white ones.

Neta has picked several dozen so far.  She made a delicious radish salad and also saved the tops as the greens are good as well.  We plan to try them roasted with a little olive oil and herbs too.  We'll also give some away as we'll have plenty.

We have plans for you!

Peppery and tasty!  These will add some zest to a mixed salad or can be sauteed.

Speaking of the garden, the deer have discovered us.  We knew it was only a matter of time.  So we had to add more fencing/caging.  To save the beans, sunflowers and okra we surrounded them with narrow fencing.  Even though it's tall enough for them to jump, it's so narrow, they'll likely move on.

Some of our larger sunflowers have been cut down in size by hungry deer.

Our beans have come under attack!  We added a new level of defense.

In other "animals eating our garden news", the geese are still here.  Since they're earthbound for the foreseeable future, they graze.  Unfortunately, they've been grazing on the tender leaves of our young corn, though they've left all the other veggies alone.  Whenever I get the chance to run them off to the big pond, I do.  The key is to make sure you're between them and the small pond giving them no escape to water.  Anything to get them away from the garden.  They can have the full run of the big pond if they want.  And so while taking a break from workbench building, I noticed they'd strayed further far enough from the little pond that I had my chance.  So off I hustled to herd them away.

Papa (or Momma) has some choice words for me.

Lulu Belle was off to my right and one of the adults was making their displeasure known.

We keep a respectful distance when we run them off, as an adult goose can put up quite a fight if you get too close.  Just this morning I saw Lulu Belle run past them a little too close and one of them got airborne as it jumped at her.  Luckily she was running too fast for them and didn't even seem to notice the "attack".  She doesn't seem to care about them unless she sees me trying to herd them, then she joins in.  She's smart enough to know that these geese mean business if you get too close.

As you may remember from our blog entry about Hurricane Matthew last October our best producing pecan tree was pushed to a perceptible lean by the high winds.  We finally got around to hiring a man who said he can save it.

Last year after the hurricane.

He (and his helper) started last Monday using an array of winches, straps, augers, anchors and a whole lot of persistence.

Those straps have a ratchet on each one so they can be cranked tighter from time to time.

They wrapped straps around the tree about 15 feet up and screwed anchors about 5 feet deep into the ground.  Once that was in place and the straps tightened, they wrapped another strap around the tree and hooked it to the big truck.

Trying to pull it up a little straighter.

The strap broke on the first attempt, so he used a cable and a "come along winch".  In the meantime we've had the hose running on the roots for a couple of days to soften up the soil enough to get the tree moving a little easier.

Tightening the come along winch.

They only managed to get the tree to budge a few degrees the first day, so on Tuesday they pulled the tree (with the truck) from a higher point while also injecting water deeper around the roots to see if they can soften the ground even more.

They've been coming back each day and cranking more on the winch and this is where things stood as of Friday evening.

Just a few degrees off plumb.

Our final news item is that we have Barn Swallows.  As of last Monday they've been flying in and around the front porch and seem to like the top of a particular post.  According to what we've read, swallows scout various locations before deciding on one.  Keeping our fingers crossed that they like our neighborhood.

UPDATE:  After almost a week of nest building, it looks like they've chosen our house to be their summer retreat.  Here is the progress of the nest.

Almost ready for eggs!

They're messy neighbors!

One last item...  It's "Love Bug" season down here.  While not as bad as Florida, these nasty (harmless) bugs, with no known predators, just seem to fly around in "flagrante delicto" doing things that no women and children should be subjected to.  It's been about 3 weeks since we've seen the first of them and they get into everything.  We'll be glad to see them leave.

These bugs have no shame!

That's all we've got for now.  We hope to have updates on more produce in the coming weeks.

Tomatoes, Peppers, Blackberries and Wildflowers

Gardening was in full swing this past weekend.  It was up to me to get the remaining areas of the garden and wildflower meadow tilled up one more time so Neta could work her magic.  She had close to 60 tomato plants, 30 pepper plants, a couple of eggplants and some marigolds to get in the ground.

Potentially there is a boatload of salsa and other delights in that wagon.

On top of that she had a five pound bag of wildflower seeds, a couple of smaller 1/4 pound bags of other wildflower seeds, a 5 gallon bucket of sunflower seeds from last year's dead-heading and a whole bunch of zinnia seeds also from dead-heading last year.

Looks like a lot...but once you start spreading them...

Let the games begin!

Saturday morning I made a second tilling pass on the wildflower meadow.  The wind was at my back and the soil tilled up dry and fluffy, almost like powder.  When I finished I looked like a real farmer as I was covered in dust and sweat.  I needed a good hosing down, but settled for hosing down the tractor instead.

After lunch, I made a final pass on the parts of the garden that weren't planted yet.  In the meantime Neta was working on the flower garden she'd begun the weekend before (from the last blog post), putting down cardboard to suppress the weeds and grass and mulching with the tons of shredded pecan we have left from the tree we had taken down.

Before

After

We spent the rest of the day getting grass cut and doing other stuff around the place in preparation for a full Sunday of planting.  Oh yeah...and chasing geese.  That's right...they're back!  We're guessing it's a pair from last year raising 3 new goslings.

The goslings are tucked up next to the adult on the right.

Goslings are next to the goose on the left.

They are undeterred and don't seem to feel unwelcome, no matter how many times we run them off to ensure they stay out of the garden.  We've tried to convince them that the big pond is much nicer, but they seem to prefer the little pond, no matter how many times they've been herded away.  But enough about geese.  Let's get back to gardening!

Sunday was planting day!  Let me begin by mentioning that the bulk (at least 50.1%) of the dirty work was done by Neta, while I had the easy job of using the tractor to do my bidding.  Neta planted all those tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, marigolds and other flowers (Borage) to help with pest control.  She did it all by hand, down in the dirt in the hot sun.  She put cages around them all, mulched the tomatoes and added a labeled stake to each cage.  I gathered pine straw (in the shady woods) to mulch the tomatoes and used the post-hole digger to put up an old gate and plant a couple of blackberry vines (that part was in the sun).

Each tomato caged, mulched and lovingly labeled.

Beans to the right (planted a couple of weeks ago) and peppers to the left.

The eggplants.

While Neta was planting the garden, I was putting up an old gate for the blackberries.  We have a lot of old gates and pieces of fence around the farm in the big barn and goat barn so we figured we could use them as accent pieces and let plants grow in front of or climb on them.  Despite the plethora of blackberries that grow wild...everywhere...on the farm, we bought a couple of thornless varieties for this particular gate.

Digging holes for the posts to hold up the blackberry "gate".

The finished product.

Once Neta and I were done with all of that, it was time to spread some love over the wildflower meadow.  I carried the ten gallon bucket of seeds out to the field (it was the least I could do after Neta worked so hard in the garden) and she and I spread the seeds by hand after the handheld spreader wasn't quite up to the task.

Field of Dreams

It really is a "Field of Dreams", though not of the baseball type, despite its diamond-like appearance.  I tilled up a large "V" in the field, probably about 100' - 150' in both directions.  Our 10 pounds of seeds probably only lasted about 30' in each direction, so we'll (hopefully) have a lovely wildflower meadow "corner".  We'll see.

As for progress in the rest of the garden, we have some hits and misses.  Neta used seeds from our inventory and some are older, but we thought we'd try them anyway.  We didn't have a single eggplant sprout which is why we bought live plants.  There isn't a carrot in sight and our okra and sunflowers have been spotty.  So far, no pepinos and we've also had a couple varieties of peppers that didn't make an appearance.  Despite all of that, we still have plenty of sprouts and plants.  Here's a sampling of what we have growing:

A row of zucchini

A few sunflowers.  We'll need to plant more.

One of our okra plants.

Radishes.  The pinwheel is a volunteer.  Damn weeds!

Planted last year, our artichoke is beginning to form.

A row of cucumbers.

All we are saying...is give peas a chance.

A sprinkling of zinnias at the front of the garden.

That's it for now.  We'll keep you posted as we have progress or if any surprises pop up.