Clear stumps with a pig. They root like an SOB and taste great.
Clear stumps with a pig. They root like an SOB and taste great.
I've been told the only thing I'm not allowed to do here is raise pigs. As much as I'd like to, my yard is a swampy mess without them. They'd destroy it.
Speaking of swampy mess.
In order to prevent future swampiness, I'll be planting a weeping willow about where my daughter is standing. Hopefully that will do the job the French drain quit doing and prevent the lake from forming there every year.
Pushing 60 inches of annual rainfall, I'm going to do and plant everything I can to start trying to be able to use my yard as a hard.
I've been giving off and on thought to putting up a hoophouse style green house, but I can't make it work without doing a lot of site work, which involves renting expensive equipment.
My patio is made from special growing concrete. Every year, is gets a little bit bigger.
Now I need to figure out what to do with this wall of dirt. In thinking a small trench filled with gravel. A French drain will ruin my driveway, but gravel should help.
This was the main garden bed last year, well the spot on the right was. I had far too much water, which I've complained about a lot, I've just mentioned I had ideas.
The plan is to run boards across the beds (yellow) and mount buckets into the boards (orange).
Should let me control moisture levels a lot better, and there's enough of a ridge to build cages right on the buckets for the tomatoes.
i support your goal of grilling 12 hotdogs simultaneously, but i question your choice of charcoal retention material.
This is why I feel the need for willows. There are/were 2 different French drains going under the driveway here, most recently about 10 years ago. But because the gravel sinks instead of washing away, well, they don't work.
There used to be some kind of big flowery Bush about where those weeds sticking up are many many years ago, before the township decided septic want good enough and made us pay 2 sewage tap fees because the township line is 1/2 mile down the road and berkeley you homeowner. When the Bush was there, there was still some water, but not like this.
Or maybe I could just shape the ground into a pond?
Labor intensive, but not particularly expensive. Maybe something to do in the future.
The LVP for downstairs. Hopefully
The decision has been made, When I do the floor, I'm going to paint the ceiling in a further bid to brighten it up around here. It's been 10 years, and is currently a tobacco stained off eggshell. The walls are going to stay the same color cause I only have a gallon of paint on hand, and they require a lot of tape work I just don't want to devote the time to. Maybe I'll get another gallon and do the walls in the living room. But that will probably turn into yet another gallon and finishing the dining room too. 3 windows, 2 doors, but the damn railing on the steps is what I really don't want to deal with.
gonna need the specal LVT glue too
I've been working this week breaking down the stack of pallets I got last year. There are 3 left that I'm leaving whole for now, and I have a nice stack of mostly usable wood. If I can get a few more dryish days, I'm going to see about setting up the shelves for the garden beds.
Bought a new stove tonight, should be delivered Monday. Finally. Managed to get a convection oven for under $600. Freaking sweet.
Well that's interesting. I was expecting a price in the thousands. $600 plus building a wooden frame to mount it in is downright reasonable for a rollup door. Not this year, but a real possibility in the future.
Deleted the post with the frigidaire since I deleted the frigidaire. Now expecting a whirlpool march 4. This one. Getting sick of appliance shopping. All the reviews everywhere are so mixed that it just seems like a gamble until you buy commercial grade at $insane.
In a very surprising turn of events, Amazon has proven to be cheaper than Home Depot, Harbor Freight, and Rural King for hardware cloth, chicken coop, feeder and waterer, trailer lights and safety chains, so my happy little tax return is already half gone squaring away parts for those projects. I might actually have some stuff to contribute to the "Show us something you MADE thread" this year.
I keep going back and forth about building a greenhouse. I can build an 8x8 for ~$200, and it would give me much more control over my plants, which would be nice to have. But there's a real possibility of it sinking without a ton of sitework, it will invite snakes and other undesirables, I'll need an extension cord run to it for fans, and it would require considerably more of my time. But having full control over growing conditions instead of making due with mother nature is tempting with all the weird fruits and veggies I'm growing this year.
Everything is ordered. Should be here Tuesday. All I need now is 6 sheets of plywood and some 4x4s, and either the clearance aisle garage floor epoxy kit or a gallon of Kilz Barn paint.
I've decided after almost a year of research that the only way I'm going to get an affordable chicken coop that's big enough for 6 to 8 birds is to build it myself, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to build a 4x6x4-6 coop, on 4x4 posts, that I'm going to set on the ground. This won't end with the coop sinking 
.
The plan, for critique and so I can find it again, is as follows:
I'll add sketchups or CAD drawings at some point soon, whenever I make them. I can see the design in my head, and similar designs all over backyardchickens.com so should be pretty cut and dry.
I'm thinking about looking into a solar powered roof vent fan, but I'm not sure yet. I wanna see how everything works first.
This coop will probably just double as the brooder. it really depends how big the chickens are when I get them. I'll just use a cardboard box with a heatlamp indoors when they first come home, but I suspect by 2 weeks they'll be big enough to move into the coop.
Still haven't decided if I should make a run or just let them roam the yard during the day. I feel like a caged in run is a good idea for all the E36 M3 weather we have, but then I'll need to buy more materials. I have more than enough hardware cloth coming, so keeping an eye out for cheap or free wood on craigslist is a possibility.
With the amazon order placed, lights and new safety chains are coming for my trailer. I need to dig up a bill of sale to send to Maine, since it was free I didn't think to get one when I picked it up, and decide on a floor for it, then I'll have a legal utility trailer. I don't really have any need or use for it, but it would be nice to be able to use it since I have it.
So my tinkercad skills are both rusty and horrible, but it's better than a bunch of 2d autocad drawings.
This is the basic plan. 
Let the difference in height of the 4x4s provide the roof slope. I need to think about which way will be the "front" I guess, I'm thinking either the north or south end so I have more room.
I kept the front wall off in this one to try to show how everything will go together. The 2 roosting poles on either side of the nesting box may be too high during the winter, so i could move thme or rotate them if I have to. There is actually a big step on the inside that was hard to get an angle on. I'm going to start with 3 inches of pine shavings, and if it stays dry enough, I'm going to try the deep litter method which is basically throwing new bedding ontop of old and letting the chickens work it and compress it. If it stays dry, should only need a real cleanout once a year.
Notice the 2 side walls only go partway up, the rest will be filled with 1/4" hardware cloth to provide ventilation year round. As seen in the next picture, the "front" wall will be a full wall with a window in the top to open during the summer. The window hole itself will be covered in hardware cloth, I'll just attach some hinges and a stop to the plywood.
And finally, the nesting box that will attach to the back. It's going to be a triple box, with 3 single square foot nesting areas inside,divided up. The steep slope in the back will serve 2 purposes, the first keeping them from sleeping in the nesting box, and the second, being an openable roof so I can get the eggs.
Good news: all the wood and wire is here for the coop.
Bad news: 
Maybe Saturday I can work in the carport.maybe.
I actually got some stuff done today!
The corner posts are cut and have supports for the floor mounted.
the floor is cut, with corners notched to keep my outside dimensions 4x6
Most of the other walls are cut too but we all know what half sheets of plywood look like.
I also marked out where I think the run is going to go so I can stare at pictures and think. The "posts" are 8x22, the run itself will only be 6x20 but I need to pot in a snake barrier.
I need to buy paint now.
So I'm gonna make links on the first post of this thread to the chicken coop arms whatever other projects.
But in the gardening world, I planted seeds today.
5 each lipstick pepper, Amarillo carrot, Hungarian black pepper, black cherry tomatoes, beefcake tomatoes.
11 brads atomicgrape tomatoes.
The melons need to wait until I can actually plant them outside.
I also drilled 31 buckets today. My hand hurts. 4 foot drill bit worked a lot better than I expected.
Since the chickens branched out into their own thread, and the truck decided it's brake lines wanted to breathe, I've been a bit neglectful of the shop. Today while waiting for a scrapper, I started organizing and finding new problems.
I was able to find the majority of my big socket set, only missing a few bizarre small sizes. I also tore down and redid the toolbox down here. I think I am going to need to bring the big toolbox down from the garage, 4 drawers just isn't enough. The drawers have labels now though, so that's a plus.
Is it really that bad of an idea to hang pegboard from the galvanized square tubing frame? My life would be much easier if I could just hang my screwdrivers, pliers, and hammers on the wall. I could even turn it long ways and spread the weight over 3 of them instead of just two.
Tomorrow I'm picking up some gravel to put in the bottom of the garden buckets, then start filling them up. The plants are outgrowing their starter home, and are really craving some sunshine and room to grow.
Also, the wood chipper is here and running. It's fun. With the new blade, it self feeds most of the time. It's going to take me longer to cut off and stack branches than to actually grind it all.
so the swimming pool and wheelbarrow are all that remains of all the branches on that hemlock tree. Now that it's uploaded I'm going to go find a before picture
there it is
So here is the first set of buckets up. I do have the gravel but just don't feel like messing with it today. The other half will need to wait until I take all the dirt out of the right side. I should be able to fit another 20 buckets if I do it right.
It's stupidly hot and humid already and I'm sick of standing in 10"of mud to work, so that's as far as the garden is getting today.
I think I'm going to put all the tomatoes along the back, so I can use the shadow to slow growth and the wall to hang trellis from. Then work the peppers in, then one or two pots of carrots in the front.
I've got buckets ready for ~3.5 more rows as well, I took the time to move what was left of the dirt on that side over so I can install them, but it needs to dry up some first.
4 atomic grape along the back
3 lipstick pepper on the left
3 King of the north in front of tomatoes, then Hungarian black, then Chinese seven pot.
The beefsteak and black cherry tomatoes need some time before they're ready for outside but they're going in the home depot buckets.
I already want to rebuild this differently.
RevRico said:2019 to do list
- Hang the berkeleying walls on the carport
- plastic over Windows, finish hanging drywall
- Above ground pit for working
- Mount 275 gallon drum to trailer
I really need more friends that will work for food and beer.
Getting there. The run is almost complete, I'll get some pics up tomorrow. But now I have to fix my wheelbarrow. The plus side is that I am ready to play with the chainsaw and woodchipper full time again.
The garden is in and done. I have the plastic for the porch windows, but I've been too busy doing outside work on the warm days. I have until mid June to finish that up.
Don't think I'm going to do a pit. Just spend too much on a couple more sheets of plywood to make a decent all around work surface. Maybe even leave them down full time.
I'm going to start advertising plasma cutting services on craigslist, so I can use it more often and possibly get paid for it. So I have to finish cleaning again. It feels like the cleaning is never done.
So end of April 2019 to do list
Still a pretty big to do list, but it's nice to be able to cross things off for a change instead of just constantly adding to it.
I made headway this morning, but it's getting ready to rain so I'm done.
Foamed more windows on the porch, 2 left.
But then I did this
and a full shot
That's exclusively the branches from the hemlock tree. About 5 wheel barrow loads, at 100 shovels per. There are going to be taller walls, and even a roof, but money and truck issues right now.
I also changed the coop door for the future.
Paracord, some conduit, and a cleat. Honestly kind of annoying now, but when the run is finished and I don't need to unlock the coop anymore, it will be nice to have. Plus it got me my pitchfork back.
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