Goals Past & Future

Our second year on the farm is drawing to an end, so we're looking back on what we've managed to accomplish and planning out next year's To Do list.  We can only completely cross off half of the 2017 list; one item is postponed indefinitely and we at least made progress on everything else.  Of course there were plenty of projects big and small that weren't on the list!

Speaking of lists here's our progress for this past year's wish list:

1. Buy a tractor - OH YEAH!

2. Finish grading/sprucing up the front yard of the cabin - Not done
This has been on the list since 2016, and each year we make progress but don't get it all the way done.  This year we added azaleas and a crepe myrtle, but still need to do the grading, paint the concrete block foundation, and plant more shrubs.

3. Clear brush and small trees along the lane - partially done (about 15%)
It's a marathon, not a sprint!

4. Prune the grape vine and clear vines from the Catalpa Tree - DONE

5. Start our orchard(s) - We added pear, peaches, apples, pomegranates, loquats, more blueberries, blackberries and persimmons. We plan to add even more, but starting the orchards is definitely DONE.

6. Get our gliders refinished and on the front porch - this is half done, one out of two are finished.

7. Build a farmhouse table for the dining room - On hold. Neta is still deciding whether she wants this or not. More to come possibly.

8. Clean out the little barn and make it a workshop and add a greenhouse - DONE (mostly). Four steps forward and one step back...on the cleaning front. But we have electricity and a workbench and, obviously, a greenhouse.

9. Plant a wildflower meadow - DONE (and progressing each season). It was only a wedge of wildflowers stretching about 75 feet in each direction and about 15 feet wide, but we'll give ourselves credit.  It's a good start as we'll expand each year until we fill the field.

10. Put up bird and bat houses and hummingbird feeders - Partially. We did get the hummingbird feeders up and at one time had over 8 hummingbirds fighting over a spot.

Some of the other things we got done this year include:

• We cleared the underbrush and weeds from the first few rows of pines, expanding our back lawn.   
• We had several loads of fill dirt brought in, which Craig used to fill in low spots and areas where the logging trucks left deep ruts.  
• We expanded our vegetable garden, more than doubling it in size.  
• Craig cut numerous small trees and innumerable blackberry brambles on the island, as part of our plan to make the island more of a focal point in the landscape.  

So that wraps up 2017. We'll be back in 2018 with a new list of goals.

And speaking of new goals:  as we were discussing our plans for next year, our son Robert suggested we take a poll to find out what our readers would like to see.  He also made us promise to give him credit!

This is your chance to tell us what to do.  We've got three options (you didn't think we'd give you free reign, did you?!).  Let us know what you want to see and we'll include it in our 2018 To Do list.

1. Build a vine trellis tunnel - something like this (just not as impressive):
   
2. We've got part of the trunk of the cedar we had taken down when we demolished the old house that we think we can make into a bench.
3. Make some bird houses to put up.  We grew (and are currently drying) birdhouse gourds this year, plus Neta will probably get crafty with stuff she finds around the farm.

What project should we do in 2018?

If you're on a mobile device and cannot see our poll above, click the link at the bottom of the screen to view the Web Version.

The Greenhouse - The Finale

Just as 2017 is coming to a close - more on that in another post - our greenhouse is ready to go.  In the last couple of weeks I managed to get all of the air gaps covered, filled and stuffed with the silver bubble-wrap and spray foam. Anywhere I could see daylight or feel cool air, I covered or sprayed it.

It's not pretty, but it works!

Once I was confident that it would hold heat, or more accurately keep out cold, moving outside air, we moved the flowers and plants in that we wanted to protect from freezing weather. The "R" value of the plastic isn't much, but throw in a heater or two and it'll stay above freezing. Once the air-tight integrity was addressed, we were still waiting on getting power to the barn and greenhouse.  In the meantime I ran 200' of extension cord from the house to the greenhouse just to run one 1250 watt heater. On our coldest night (so far) the temp got down to 28 and the greenhouse got down to 36. Not bad for a single heater in a 10' x 20' space (8'-10' ceiling). And as of last week once the weather warmed back up into the 60's - 70's...

We got power!!!

Our current set up

The midday temps on sunny days have been in the high 80's to low 90's (heaters off, obviously). Our flowers and tomato are loving it!

January tomatoes, anyone?

Blooms on the Spider Plant.

Our Satsuma Orange is putting out new growth. Looks like flowerbuds too!

A blooms loving the "summer" warmth

So that about wraps it up for the greenhouse. I still have a shelf to build along the windows, but for the sake of checking off a list item, this greenhouse is done as it will safely protect our plants in the winter and even allow us to grow citrus and tropicals. That was our goal.

Speaking of lists...we'll recap this past year's wish list in our next post (coming soon!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

The Greenhouse - Part 2

When we last left off there were still two walls to go. The urgency grows because as they say on "Game of Thrones", "Winter is coming." I'll grant you that winter down here isn't much of a deep freeze but more like a handful of days sprinkled throughout late December to mid-February where the nighttime temperatures get into the mid to high 20's. But still...it's enough to hurt or kill some of our tender plants and especially our citrus and tropical plants.

So the latest progress is... I've put up the third wall, which consists of 1/2" plywood at the bottom and I took advantage of supplies that I had on hand and used a large roll of sheet plastic for the upper wall. It was a quick and easy solution and will get me through the next year or two.

After that was put up and screwed and stapled into place, it was time to use the tractor to scrape the ground smooth (relatively so) and put down weed-stop cloth and order a dump truck or two of gravel to spread over the floor.

Third wall and some of the weed-stop cloth

The gravel is spread here...

...and here. I wanted enough to make things nicer for the heavy equipment too.
Greenhouse wall is to the right.

Once all of that was in place, I was now free to put up the final (front) wall.

Beginning to frame out the front wall with a door we reclaimed from the old house

All framed in. Door and window installed and plastic panels in place.

With the main part of the work done, now comes the detail work to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. The means covering up the spacing in the rafters at the edges of the roof and other overhead areas. It also means injecting spray foam into the open channels of the plastic (corrugated) panels at the top, bottom and around the windows and door. There are a lot of gaps and each type requires a different solution.

These are the rafters (and spaces I have to fill). Actual pine posts of an undetermined age.

This is the gap at the back end (same on the front) where I'll have to
cut pieces of the panels at an angle to fit.

I started with the biggest gap of all, where the front wall meets the corner of the barn. For that gap I used spray foam (in a can) to fill in every place I could see daylight coming through. Plus, it was sort of an out of the way place to practice my first time using spray foam. It's not pretty, but it filled everywhere I needed to fill and I cannot see any holes where air can pass through.

Ugly, but it's an airtight corner.

Since I was already using spray foam, I decided to keep going and fill in the gaps along the bottom and around the windows where the corrugated panels allow air in.

It expands quite a bit. I'll trim away the excess in a day or two

Along the bottom of the windows.

A better view along the ground and the window bottoms

I ran out of spray foam (4 cans so far and I'm about 40% done) so I turned my attention to adding weather-stripping to a window (as a test), a hook to hold it closed and a lid hinge (or stay) to hold it open.

I purchased storm door weather-stripping as I could get it in thicker sizing as some of my window gaps are quite large. I estimated I'd need over 40 feet of it as each window opening is approximately 28" x 28" and I have 10 windows. We'll see how far it all goes.

Weather-stripping and a hook to hold it closed

The lid hinge (or stay) to hold it open. No idea how long that cheap brass-looking metal will last.

It works!

For the rafter ends on each side I'm going to use the shiny aluminum bubble insulation. It will wrap around any shape and can handle moisture and humidity which is perfect for a greenhouse.

It staples into place, wraps around things and covers very large areas.

There are a lot of little things left to do, but the greenhouse is essentially done. It can now fulfill its purpose of protecting our plants from frost and mild freeze. The next step is getting electricity to the barn so I can run a couple of heaters out there. That should happen in the next couple of weeks.

We'll be back with another update after that happens.

If we don't blog before then, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!