Easter Sunday

Lenten Rose

Today is Easter Sunday. What does this day mean to you? When someone says Happy Easter to you, what comes to your mind? Easter Bunnies and chocolate candy or the day that our savior, Jesus Christ, rose from the grave. Over the years I have come to realize that a lot of our holidays are celebrated for the wrong reasons. I personally am trying to find the truth behind the holidays.
Easter is one of the most important days of the year. A day we should celebrate every day of the year, for without our Lord rising up from the grave, we would have been lost forever. He overcame death to die for our sins, and now sits at the right hand of GOD and rules over everything.
In Mark 10:32-34 Jesus for tells of his coming death and resurrection. In Mark, chapter 16, it speaks of the resurrection of Jesus and the events of that day. I hope that everyone will read this chapter today, and truly celebrate the real reason for Easter. There are other books in the bible that also tell of this day. Try to find them if you can. When you eat the pretty colored eggs, think about this, that part of the celibration comes from the Romans worshiping their sun god. They would have the temple maidens impregnated to give birth at the same time. The babies were then dyed pretty colors, and then sacrificed to their sun god.
I am not saying you shouldn't eat the boiled eggs and chocolate candy, but do it because you enjoy it, not because it is Easter. Search your heart and find out what Easter truly means to you.

Special Finds

Well we bought a new television the other day cause the old one was starting to act up but still worked good. It probably would have lasted us another couple of years but Bi-Mart just opened here in Brookings, Oregon and they had a really good deal on televisions. So we bought one.
We took the old television to the second hand store in Ophir and while we were there, of course we did some shopping. We found a few items that we just couldn't live without. You know how that goes, besides it goes for a good cause. The animals.

In amongst our new found treasures we found what looked like a copper tea kettle. Don found it and I was undecided as to whether to buy it or not. I decided I liked it too so we got it. When we got home, I promptly filled it with water and put it on our wood stove for a source of humidity from the wood stove. It looked great, until I found water all over the top of the wood stove. So much for that idea. Now what to do with it. So I washed it up real nice and sat it on the dinning table and looked at it for a couple of days.

On my dinning table I had a ceramic flower pot filled with aquarium rocks and a large candle and some cheap flowers I had purchased at the dollar store. It was starting to look a little ragged so I decided to make a center piece out of the copper tea kettle.

I put the stones in the bottom of the pot, got rid of the candle and put the nicest flowers in the tea pot. Set it on the table and just looked at it for a bit. I kinda liked it, but Don really liked it so he took some pictures and I decided to post some pictures of it.

Hope you enjoy them as well. All it takes is a little imagination. Have some fun with your next prized treasure.





Spring Planting

Well I got rid of the cage and tried the new tops which seem to be working. I also purchased a couple of live mouse traps. So far no mice. Guess they got smart and left. Anyway, the new plants and seeds that I have started in the greenhouse seem to be coming along OK. I will need to go out and start getting the pots ready for transplanting. This needs to be done as soon and the true leaves come out on the new seedlings. My tomatoes are just about at this point. The new squash seeds that I planted haven't broken ground yet, or at least the last time I checked them they hadn't. I am going the try to get more seeds started soon. I just don't want to go out in the nasty weather we have been having. The rain is non-stop and the wind this year has been unusually strong longer periods of time. I am thankful for one thing, the greenhouse seems to be holding up since we repaired it. I really need to get out this summer and finish caulking it. I tied the vents down when I got them reinstalled and it seems to be working. I will need to untie them when the weather starts warming up. They have automatic openers on them, which I really love, so untying them is imperative. I haven't been as aggressive this year in getting my seeds started, I just haven't had the spring fever bug. I guess it is all this rain and dark weather. Hopefully the weather will break and I can get started soon.
I did get a couple of my garden beds weeded and ready for planting during the time we did have sunshine. Which wasn't long enough. I still have a couple of beds to get ready, then we need to start spreading the compost that has been working all winter and is ready to use. What a wonderful thing the animals give us. Natural food for our gardens, and the plants love it. Don is so good about getting the compost done. I hope we have enough to go around. Up here on the mountain our soil has absolutely no nutrients in it and everything we can get doesn't seem to be enough, even though we have a mountain of compost. I will admit that since we have started making the compost and using it here, the soil has improved quite a bit. Still needs more though.
Well, it is still raining and I am thankful for the embroidery projects that I have, which keeps me busy. On to other things.

Mice...........

Well the cage that I built to keep the mice out of my seedlings didn't work. The zucchini squash was just breaking ground and guess what??? the mice had a wonderful meal. SOOOOO, out with the cage and in with something else. I have some clear plastic covers for the trays that I have the seed starting blocks in and am going to try them. When I used them before, they always got too hot and the new seedlings would rot off at the base of the plant. I am going to try them again, only this time I am going to punch some small holes in the top. I am going to use small holes because if the holes are even a hair to big the mice can get in.
I have the trays setting on some heating mats that have a thermostat on them to keep the temperature of the pots at 70 degrees. I have had great success with the heat mats and love them, especially this time of year when it is so cold. As long as the roots of the plant are warm and the tops are protected from the frost they will do good even if the temperature in the greenhouse is at 40 or 50 degrees. I don't have to worry about the grow lights being to low or to high and the plants grow well with the amount of light they get naturally.
I need to restart just about everything I had planted. The little critters really like the seeds and they dig them up once they realize that the seeds are in the starting mix soil. Hopefully this will work.
Wish me luck.

Ughhhhh

Well it is raining. It has been raining for the last week and a half and it is suppose to rain for the next week and maybe longer. While we had the TWO days of sunshine I was able to get out and get the two largest garden beds weeded and ready for gardens. My flower bulbs are growing beautifully and at least one of the crocus was blooming. I can't wait for the rest of the bulbs to start blooming. They are always such a welcome site this time of year because it usually is RAINING.
In case you haven't noticed, I am not happy with all this rain. I know we need the water but could use some sunshine breaks in between. I haven't been able to let the goats and chickens out either and they are not happy either. The horses are out but they stay in their stalls. It is fun to watch them because they get bored and they change stalls for a different view. One time Dancer will be in her stall and the next time I look out Flash is in her stall. I love to see them getting along so well.
I was able to get some seeds started in the greenhouse, after we put it back together again from the hurricane winds we had. I have some tomatoes already starting to break ground. I am using heating mats on top of the soil inside the garden bed in the greenhouse and put a cage around the seedlings in hopes of keeping the mice from eating the new starts. Last year they pretty much demolished my new seedlings and had to restart them several times. I need to get a live trap for the greenhouse to catch them. I don't want the rat bait in my greenhouse taking a chance of the bait getting into the garden beds in side and poisoning the soil.
I haven't had much of a chance to get outside so I went up to the attic and pulled out some of the embroidery stuff that I had gotten from my mother-in-laws estate. I found a table cloth that had been all but completed and a few other embroidery items that looked interesting so I decided to finish the table cloth. I will probably start working on some of the other projects as long as it is raining. Got to keep myself busy somehow. I am not one for sitting around doing nothing. I love hobbies.
Well I better get some stuff done so I can get out and get the chores done. Hope everyone has a great RAINY day.

Gardening Season is Anew

Time to get ready for the gardens. Lots planned for today, hope to get most of it accomplished. I tend to over extend myself when it comes to doing stuff outside. My poor house gets ignored so much. I will try to do better this year with allowing myself more time to do other things that I enjoy such as riding my new horse Dancer this year. I just turned 60 and I think it is time for me to start enjoying life and not working so much.
I really enjoy working in my gardens, but tend to over do sometimes. I hope to get my gardens to a point that all I have to do is water and weed and then enjoy the fruits of my bounty. We have plans for building more raised beds and putting a hot house cover on them to help with the short growing season and also help keep the deer out of my gardens. They really like my gardens.
We made some seed tapes this year for the first time. It is a project we heard about sometime ago and wanted to try it out. It is suppose to help with the planting. If you go to my garden site, it tells you how to make them. It looks like it might be something we will be doing on a regular basis, and it saves the waste of seeds. I don't know about you, but I would plant the whole packet of seed and then pull up about 2/3 of the plants. What a waste.
My strawberries are really growing nice, but I need to clean them up and maybe spread them out a bit. I have a net over them right now because the chickens use to get into them. Since we have the chickens fenced in the pasture now I am going to try to move the net, although the Blue Jays really like them too. I may just change it a bit.
Well I guess that is it for now. The morning is moving on and I need to get started with STUFF.
Have a great day all.

Back together again

We finally got the vents to the greenhouse repaired and put back up into place. We were very lucky, only one of the four that had been blown apart was really damaged badly and needed repair. The rest just need to be put back together and the panels put back in. This time we made double sure that all the nuts were extremely tight and the we caulked all around the panel to make sure they were in place and hopefully attached enough to not blow apart again. Don got all the automatic openers repaired and I got all the vents and openers put back into place. This was not an easy task as I needed to use our 10' orchard ladder to do it.
I also got the heat mats put into place and built a makeshift cage out of 1/2" hardware cloth to fit into one of the beds. Last year we had mice eating the seeds and the new seedlings that were emerging before they had a chance to grow. So my thought was a cage and hopefully it will help. I don't want to have to replant over and over again like I did last year. I am getting a late start this year and not really liking that. With my mom having her stroke really set me back. She is on the mend and her and my dad may be moving in with us so I really need to concentrate on my gardens this year to produce lots of food for the four of us.
I sure do enjoy my gardens and greenhouse when they are in working order. Love to dig in the dirt, and can't wait to get started again. I think I got that from my dad.

REPAIRING THE GREENHOUSE

We got started repairing the greenhouse today. The reason for the damage was a storm in the recent past during which we got winds over 100 miles per hour. The damage included four polycarbonate panels blowing out, and four vents being torn up pretty badly. Oh, the white on the roof of the house is residual snow, a little dropped on us last night.

 As you can see from the pictures the vent frames were bent and pulled apart.

 This pic shows the one panel that was pulled out of the door

 I took several pictures showing the damage to the roof vents. Unfortunately we will need to build new replacements as the originals are too torn up to repair, although we saved the polycarbonate panels from the vents.

 The vent openers did not escape unscathed. Several will need to be either replaced or repaired.

 The corner pictured above and below had panels missing on both the front and end, as well as another panel in the center of the back.

 Janice replaced most of the panels today and I was helping with the caulking and moving the ladders. We now have the two sides and front of the greenhouse, as well as the roof panels caulked in place. We still need to caulk the rear panels and the vents as we re-build them.

 The caulking we are using, we really like. It stays flexible and is very clear, even if it gets wet.

We are getting this done in between storms so we can get the garden seeds started, time is running out.

UPDATE ON HOW TO MOVE MY TRAILOR

Well you remember a few days ago when I built a contraption to hook my trailer to my tractor, Well things didn't go exactly as expected.

 Firstly I attached the hitch to the bucket and the trailer, and it looked as though it would work great, then all of a sudden the hitch came off the tractor.

Now what, when I checked, I had to remove it from the trailer and saw that the flat bar on the bottom had bent, a lot!

So to the shop we go and straighten as good as I can in the vise. Now what can I do to prevent this from happening again? Blinding flash, I will use the Left over flat bar to weld on sideways to stop any bending, that will work for sure.

The picture now that it's repaired does not do it justice, it had to be at least 45 degrees!

After taking care of this I was back out at the trailer and things again looked great, then all of a sudden, SNAP, the contraption broke off the tractor bucket. When I got it off to look over, I found the entire bottom bar that I had just straightened and added a stiffener to broke at the welds, ARG! off to the shop again. I ground the edges all of the way around and mega welded the pieces back together.

Back to the trailer, I wish I had a picture of that, I had the trailer wheels off the ground and the trailer was sitting on the rear of the trailer up the neighbor's hillside, and on the tongue jack. Precarious at best. looking at it made the hair on my neck stand up, it was that ugly, tongue and tractor on the downhill end. I finally got everything back together again and succeeded in moving the trailer like I had intended, Just took a little longer to iron out the bugs, like most of the day.

THE BACHILOR LIFE,...AGAIN!

Unfortunately Martha, Janice's mom, had some health issues and Janice along with my oldest son went down to Lodi to be with her and help care for Emil (her dad). The last word I got were that things are looking up for Martha, thank the Lord. Anyway this puts me back into bachelor mode.

I got out the Guitar and lesson plan and have been trying to pick up on this instrument again. The last time I worked on the guitar, I was doing better when Janice went to Washington, but that time I ended up breaking my hand, which by the way, I wouldn't advise. I have the animals here to care for which helps, and is the reason I didn't go down with her. But I can sure tell the animals miss her being around, probably almost as much as I do. Dancer is off her feed a little, the goats are bleating in protest, and Janice's cat, Taffy, has been just mopping around. When I was younger or when Janice is around now, I don't have a problem finding things I want to do, though this becomes tougher when you start to age. Things just aren't quite as pleasant when someone you've spent so many years with is away, even when I know it's just temporary. I have lots of stuff I could do , mind you, but the motivation just isn't there. I have practiced my guitar (I suck at it), and I did go out in the shop and whip together a boot jack, yesterday.

  That was self survival, I couldn't get my mucks off any other way. I was determined I was not going to spend the night in my mucks!

Kim, Dancer's last owner asked to come up today, and of course she is welcome. I think Dancer will still retain the bond they had, and it would be good for her.

 Well Kim and her friend Samantha have come and gone. Dancer remembered Kim but was certainly missing Janice.

Dancer came over to me for some loves, maybe the meeting might have been a little confusing for Dancer. Kim bailed off when Dancer headed out of her stall.

I have tried to spread my animal loven around, but it is still not the same.

 I suppose this is just to say I dislike bachelor mode after being married to Janice going on 42 years.

Felting

I just finished a project I purchased months ago.



To see the whole thing you can go to our hobbies site and check it out. What a fun pass time for cold winter days. Great for kids old enough to use a needle. Will really help the time pass.

Scroll Saw Basket

I finally finished the scroll saw basket that I have been working on for a while. I am pleased with the way it turned out.



This project has been a challenge for me but I really have enjoyed doing it. I have other projects in mind to do now but not sure which one I want to work on next. If you go to our hobbies site, you can see the pieces as I was working on them.

Don and I are going to try to get the cabinets in the basement done so we can both work down there. I would like to start working on my tole painting again as well. 

GOOD PROGRESS TODAY

Wow, I really made good progress with Flash today. He even wanted to groom me in return, needless to say I was ecstatic. He would have stood all day letting me just curry and scratch him. This was a really great bonding day. That was this morning, and tonight when we did the chores he was all over wanting loves and petting, I was scratching him under and to the rear of his left front leg and I honestly felt like he wanted to roll over like a puppy for more scratches. So very cool!

Hurricane weather

Wow
That was quite the storm that blew through last week or so. Winds up to 110/114 miles per hour. We are so fortunate to be tucked in beside the mountain, most of it blew past us. Although our poor greenhouse was not quite so lucky. It blew several of the panels out and damaged 3 or 4 of the vents. Literally blew them apart. We are going to have a lot of repair to do before we can start using the greenhouse this spring. Hope the weather permits. I guess that is what we get for not finishing the caulking in the panels and tying down the vents with some sort of latches  when we had the chance.
It is suppose to rain and storm off and on all week. I wonder of it will clear up enough to allow us to fix the greenhouse before the planting season is upon us. I will need to start my tomato seed and other plants soon. Next month if possible. I really enjoyed my veges last year. Hope this season is as blessed as last year. Lots of planning to do for the gardens.
I will try to keep up with my posts as I progress in my gardens this year. We have lots of plans for some new garden beds, now if the weather will cooperate Don can do the digging that needs to be done. Then we can get started the building the new beds.
Stay tuned

SNOW

We got snow yesterday, but look what I woke up to this morning.

It must have really come down during the night. The weather channel said to expect lots of snow, but we usually don't get this much the first couple of snow.



We must have gotten 4 inches of snow last night. This should really help out with the water supply on the mountain. I was starting to get a little worried because we weren't getting the rain we usually have this time of year.

Below you can almost see the icycles on the barn roof. I am so glad we have shelters for our animals. They would not have liked being out in this last night. The horses have a 3 sided stall, but Dancer doesn't like being in an enclosed area. Appariently something happened to her with a previous owner that soured her to enclosed stalls. At least they have the stall.

It really is beautiful to look at. I am sure glad that it doesn't last very long and I don't have to shovel it. Had enough of the shoveling when we lived in Idaho.



Snow Day

Today is the first snow day. It is January 15, 2012 and a very clear, crisp day

It really is beautiful here,

We are very fortunate to have such a lovely place to live.

I must say that the Lord has truly blessed us with life.

We really enjoy being here, even if it does get really cold at times. The summer's aren't as hot as most places.

Our blessing go out to all of our friends and family.

Gardening

Gardening is enjoyable way of relaxing and unwinding from a busy, hectic or stressful day. When you pull weeds one can imaging the weed the stress in ones life and when you pull it out it removes the stress from you. At least that is what I have found. I really enjoy working in the dirt, digging and planting. I can't even go outside in my nice clothes and stay clean. If I see a weed, I pull it. Gardening doesn't have to stop in the winter time.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN TOMATOES IN JANUARY

We finally pulled our last tomato plant up that was in the greenhouse, yes I said tomato plant. This was a plant that had been planted last spring and has continued producing Tomatoes all summer, fall, and into the winter. The plant was an "Early Girl", and a truly prolific plant.

Our Tomatoes were wonderful this year, we had enough to can seventeen quarts of vegetable juice cocktail. We just got the last of the 2011 fruit on January 14, 2012. Oh there were seven, but I couldn't resist and had to eat one. Currently Janice has carrots, lettuce, and radishes, and sugar peas planted in the greenhouse. The carrots and peas have broken ground, but the mice are starting to eat the tops off of the peas. 

HOW TO MOVE MY TRAILER

The problem was how do I move my trailer around without having to hook up to my pickup all the time. I need a trailer ball attached in some way to my tractor, this makes the likeliest choice.. After looking around I found parts for an old bolt on trailer hitch, which will do nicely for holding the ball, already has the correct size hole in one end.

I have decided to make the trailer moving easier by mounting the ball to the loader buck on the front of the tractor, thus I will be able to see where the trailer is going all the time. OK, I have the ball attached to a steel flat bar about a foot and a half long by about five eights inch thick, by about two inches wide, how am I going to attach this to my tractor's loader bucket? What ever I come up with is going to have to be strong enough to handle at least a small load.

The flat bar will lay flat in the bottom of the bucket, OK, I need some measurements. The front cutting edge of my bucket is set about one eighth inch low for about 4 inches, along the front edge of the bucket, that shouldn't be a major problem. The underside of the bucket has the cutting edge lower than the main body of the bucket by about the same one eighth inch. If I can put three pieces of steel bar together in a sandwich, leaving about one half inch between the top bar holding the trailer ball, and the bottom bar, OK this means that if I place a piece of flat bar between the top and bottom with enough meat to hold the two when connected, thus being the meat in the sandwich.

The bottom bar does not need to be as long as the top or it will be in the way of the  ball installation. So the top bar is about eighteen inches, the bottom bar should be roughly one foot, with the half inch by four inch middle piece in between. The picture below is some of the raw scrap metal I used for the bottom and middle peices.

 Now how do I connect all of this together with the strength I need to attach it to the bucket of the tractor. I could drill and bolt them together. I really don't like that method as there will be too many bolt heads sticking out. I think I should weld these pieces.

OK, I will grind the edges of all the pieces and weld beads two to each side of the three pieces, will this be enough? I think to ensure the strength I will drill two holes in the top bar and two in the bottom bar and weld these to the middle piece, that should work,

Now, how is this unit going to be held in place? It's already decided to have a flat bar on top and a flat bar on bottom of the bottom edge of the loader bucket with another piece used as a spacer  to hold the needed distance, so how should this be fastened in place? Two set screws, majorly large set screws, yep that should work. OK two more holes. Looking at the top bar, there are already a few holes in this bar. So more will need to be drilled, the location of one hole is right for one of the set screws, except that the hole is already too big. OK I'll just weld a nut over that hole and tap out the other hole for the set screws.

OK I think this is going to work, now all I have to do is drill, tap, weld etc, we'll see how this comes out.

Well this looks as thought it will work so far, just to finish taping the last hole and getting set bolts (5/8) in both holes, and maybe a little paint. Then the big test.

New Calf Pen

We got the walls up on the calf pen today. Most of it is done, all we have to do is put the rolled roofing on and paint when the weather permits. This little pen started out to be the pheasant pen but when the raccoon got the pheasant it stopped the work.

Now that we are getting a calf on Monday we needed to get it finished. This has been a project in process for a while and am glad that it is about done. Seems that there is always something that needs building or repairing and can't seem to always find the time to do the necessities.

This winter has been so mild that we have been able to finish up projects that we got started last summer. I am really enjoying the weather but hope it will rain and turn winter soon as I am afraid the fruit trees will start growing before their time. We also need the water. Living up here on the mountain, we depend on the water in the crags and cracks of the rocks from the rain. Our pond is full right now but drains quickly down the hill.

Will post some pictures of the new pen and calf when it gets here. Not looking forward to the extra work but enjoy the animals and they are so cute when so small.

Until next time. Hope all have a great evening.

TOUCHING BASE ON WOODSHED

Just to let folks know what is going on here lately, we just finished putting a new roof on the woodshed. During the process we extended it two feet on either side. This should add an area where we can stack wood in the rounds to start drying. 

 I will try to get some pictures up of the completed woodshed roof. Reminder to self take progress pictures. The wood shed is completed except for paint, and flashing on the corners.

It is truly amazing how satisfying completing another project is, especially when this means more DRY firewood. Trying to burn wet wood all the time is really a pain in the tush.

The picture below is how the roof looked before we got the new roof on. Kinda ugly huh.

Now all we have to do is get the cornor flashings on and paint. Can't wait to see what it looks like then. Keep tuned for more pic's.

UPDATE ON FLASH

Well what to say, Flash is starting to adjust to our place and getting easier to catch. Just before Christmas a friend and her sister came up and rode Dancer and Flash for two hours and raved how good they were, and how much they enjoyed the ride. Dancer was said to have a smoother gait than Flash but both were stated to be very good horses.

While Jon was here over Christmas he made it very clear he would like to go for a ride. We chose the synthetic saddle that we got with Flash and proceeded to saddle Flash and Dancer. Janice mounted Dancer and Jon mounted Flash and all went well as they walked down the road.

This lasted about 1/2 mile when Flash decided, for some reason, to buck Jon off. According to Jon he was not ready for Flash to buck or he wouldn't have been bucked off. in other words the buck was not big or exaggerated. Jon remounted and they continued about another hundred yards, and Flash again bucked Jon off.

This time Jon said Flash went into rodeo mode full on, and bucked and kicked like, well he was in a rodeo. After ridding himself of Jon, Flash ran up to where Janice and Dancer were and Janice was able to catch Flash's lead rope. Jon like a true horsemen remounted Flash, who started getting ready to buck again when Jon calmed Flash down and Jon decided to dismount and lead Flash home on foot.

I felt really badly about Jon being bucked off but also proud of Jon for remounting those times. After Jon had gone home, I decided to start cleaning the saddles. During this procedure I removed all the straps, cinch, etc, and learned that who ever had put the front and rear cinch on this saddle cared more for looks than safety of rider or comfort of the horse had installed the cinch straps with knots inside toward the horses side, thus it couldn't help but irritate the horses sides. It also appeared that the saddle may have been pinching Flash full length on both sides of the saddle about half way between the center line and the bottom of the saddle skirt.

I suppose the moral of this post would be to be aware of anything on a saddle that may irritate your horse, otherwise it could ruin your ride,  as well as possible injury to your body.

We just bought another saddle for Flash, cheaply built, but looks nice, and I think it will be comfortable for Flash and the rider.