New Garden

Well do you remember the Oak trees that we had cut down a while back. Don and a young man we hired for the day moved them up into the driveway for use. We did use a couple of them for a new garden bed along the back side of the driveway which backs up to the forest.

He moved them into place and then loaded the bed up with compost. I spent the day moving the compost around in the bed.

Then I dug the Echinacea flowers up from a shady location because they weren't doing very well there and transplanted them into this new garden bed that gets a bit more sunshine.

 I think everything is going to do very well now and I really like the way it turned out.

This is a different view of the garden. Looks good and ready to start producing stuff for us. I am going to plant some cabbage in this garden and see how it does this year.

The figs are doing really well this year. This is the most figs we have had on this tree yet. It is still a young tree.

My potatoes are doing really well also. I sure like the new 4x4 beds we put in last year. Sure makes room for more growing. We put wire mesh under these beds to keep the rabbits, voles and moles from getting the potatoes.

 I had to take a picture of the Wisteria because it is blooming so nice now.

 The top picture is a top view of the Viburnum Metafile plant that I had shown you in an earlier post.

 My peonies are getting ready to bloom. I put one strand of twine around them in hopes of helping to hold the blooms up because they are so big that the stems can't hold them up by themselves. I hope one strand will be enough.

 Last but not least I had to share a picture of my Azalea now blooming. I love the flowers around my yard and it is so nice when you can hear and see the bees working.

Almost Complete

 We finally got the wings to the gate that was installed about a month ago. Don and I worked on them for a couple of days. Was a bit of a challenge but we did it. I think it looks great. Now we need to purchase the gate opener for it and have it installed if possible.

 We planted a couple of native ferns on the outside of the gate and it really set it off. We have some plants in the yard that we will be moving also. Inside the gate next to the wings we will be building a triangle shape raised bed and we will be planting a Wigalia on each side next to the wings and in front of those we have some Agapanthas that will go in. They bloom at different times so I think it will look really nice. Will take more pictures as we proceed.

The picture above are some Carnealian Cherry (Dogwoods) that were planted in some tiles that we had put in the yard years ago. We decided to move them into the pasture where the Oak trees were that we had fallen because they were getting bad at the bottom. As you can see by the gate, one fell this last winter and really did some damage. Gonna use the Oak trees for raised beds in a different part of the yard. The goats really like the Dogwood so we had to do something to protect the trunks from their little mouths. That is why the trees look like they have stripes on the trunks.

 This picture is one of the tiles that one of the Dogwood trees was planted in. When we took out the tree we moved the Davidii in. We had this planted in the center garden in the yard. It looks good here and gave me more gardening space. I can always use more garden space. Means more home grown food.

 I did get some of my garden planted today also. This is the corn I had started in the greenhouse. I did that last year and it really extended my growing season for corn. We don't get a lot of hot weather here for as long as the corn needs it to grow and develop. I also planted some sunflowers with the corn and some squash plants along the front edge.

I had to take a picture of the Viburnum Metafile in full bloom. I really like it. It is such a different plant. I am not sure how tall it will get, but if it reaches the deck it won't hurt my feelings. In the back ground you can almost see the Wisteria coming to life. It will be in full bloom soon. Our bees are soooooo happy....

MOWING THE YARD

Today was day three that Janice has been down visiting family in Lodi, and it took three hours to do my morning chores today. Of Course I had to scrub out all of the animals water containers.

 My day to mow the yard, it's a tough life, but having horses helps.

Once they start wondering into other parts of the yard I know they have grazed about all they want and I can give them evening grain and they are done for the night.

Poppin

So we finally got the spring snow that we usually get this time of year. It never seems to fail, even though we didn't have any snow all winter long we get April snows. So I had to take a picture.

As you can see it was only a sciff, but snow none the less. That is OK, we can use it and it only stayed for about an hour. We really needed the snow up on top of the mountain.

The Crocus are blooming really nice now. The yellow crocus bloomed early so I didn't get them in the picture. The two little trees next to the crocus are olive trees and we hope to get them planted soon. Don't know if they will grow here but what the heck, why not try...right?

The Asian pears are really putting on the pears, but we shall see how many of them actually stay. Hopefully the bees did their job and got it pollinated in time before we got the rain.

Don grafted the Spartan tree that was having a hard time producing good fruit. We have a beautiful Honeycrisp tree that has wonderful apples so he decided to make a Honeycrisp tree out of the Spartan tree. Hopefully it will take off and grow.

The branches that he grafted in look like they are trying to grow which is a positive for us and from what I can see it looks like all the branches may take off. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Lithadora is in full bloom now and I just love the way it looks on the block wall down the driveway. The bumble bees really love this stuff and I really like having the bumble bees around. Just more pollinators.

This is a peach tree the started from our compost pile. Don found it growing in the compost and so he re-potted it in a small pot to see if we could get it to grow. It started to grow beautifully and so we planted it in the yard about two years ago, The poor thing had been eaten by deer so much that I was beginning to wonder if it was going to make it. I put a fence around it last year and it took off. If you look really hard you can see the first peach,,,,ever. It is the little bitty white spot in the branch all by it self. I am so excited.

While I was taking pictures the babies came out to enjoy the sun. They are growing up so fast.

I think the little buckling has doubled his size already. He is also very strong.

They can be a handful for the momma's. This is Brownie with the three of them and as you can see they are doing very well.

The horses were enjoying the pasture also. They really like to be out of the paddock. Although I did find Flash leaning on the fence and pressuring it to get to the grass on the other side. You know that the grass is always greener on the other side
....

The bees were also out and about all day. I just love to see them working. I really need to get into the bee yard and do some grass trimming. We did get the Escalonia pruned back away from the hives and got them in the ground to start for other places on the property.

Here you can see that the babies really like the hill side. What fun to run up and down and make momma's worry

The fig trees are loaded with figs. Hopefully they will get enough warm weather to ripen. I like figs.

They are growing up from the bottom so Don wanted to experiment and see if we could get more trees so we notched the bottom of the little trees and put rooting hormone on and then pine shavings that had been soaked in water around the base to protect them. If they root we will have about four more trees.

The one tree in this picture is pretty good size already. Hope it works, I would like to have more fig trees. I have a recipe for fig bars in my recipe folder on this site that I haven't really had a chance to try yet. Maybe this year.

And last but not least the Japanese Wisteria is just loaded with blossoms. I can't wait for it to bloom the flowers are sooooo fragrant.

Well that is it for now. Hope your enjoyed the tour. Hope you all have a great day....

TODAY WAS BABY DAY

Well we thought Ghost was going to kid during the night last night, and this morning when we went to the barn we were surprised with a little Billy that weighed in at 11.5 pounds.

This is Ghost's little boy and he is really a healthy one. 

 Needless to say he was not overly impressed when we took him to be weighed and get his navel disinfected.

 He was good enough that we were able to get a good picture.

 We had gone out this evening to check out the new little billy and low and behold Brownie went into labor.

 The little girl with the white face was the first born, Janice helped pull her a little, and Janice and Brownie cleaned her up pretty fast.

 The second little girl came soon after and Brownie is still cleaning it up and stimulating it to nurse.

 We really could not be more blessed as all the kids are healthy and doing well. Both of the little girls weighed in at 7.5 pounds.

 Ghost has already built a strong bond with her little guy.

 Some of the shots of these little ones get so touching.

Before we left the barn, both of the little girls were up on their feet. We are glad we got the girls from Brownie as her feet are great and Ghost has back feet that are not the best and we are planning on keeping these girls for milkers.

NEW ENTRY GATE

We are finally having a new entry gate built and thus far it looks great. It will keep lookie lou's out, as well as some of these pesky Deer. There are still other areas that need to be secured from the deer but this is a huge start.

 It really kind of sucks to be locked out of your own place...but on a good note the only parts left are the side pieces being built and installed and the automatic opener bought and installed.

Although it's only for a couple hours until the cement sets up a little.

This is Natasha's dog Scooby, who we have been dog sitting while DJ et al spend a week in southern California. He is a very good dog, Registered German Short Hair. Without saying the cats of the house are not impressed.

WELDING AGAIN, FINALLY

This post is just because I am happy to have my functioning welder back.

My first project was to weld up a crucible for melting softer metals. I had a shell from an old permanent magnet motor. I set it up in my power hacksaw, to remove a step at the end. Needless to say I need to pay more attention to setup and getting a square cut on a tube that has to be rolled because it's too big for the equipment being used (the ends of the cut didn't meet).

I searched my scrap bin and found a 5/16 in brace I had built for our old deck, and then salvaged when the deck was replaced. I checked the size and it would work for the bottom. This brace was an L shaped piece with gussets welded to strengthen the bend.

I removed the gussets and ground a clean surface. After some grinding on the motor casing they seemed to mate pretty well. I ground a bevel on the edge of the casing, clamped the motor casing to the clean surface of the brace. Time to weld. Oh no wire not feeding, ok, got that fixed, now the weld is porous. Check all of the gas connections, ok, all hooked up correctly. Now weld, wow you can not imagine the good feeling to star getting a good bead.

I still need to use the cutting torch to cut the shape of the bottom I want. I also need to locate, drill, tap, and install lifting ears at the top of the crucible. Then to plan and execute the devise for moving the hot crucible.

I will have to add pictures to this later as our camera decided to go haywire. Sorry! 

SURE FEELS GOOD TO BE ABLE TO DO STUFF AGAIN

Well as the title says it feels great to be able to move around and get things accomplished again, after being pretty much confined to a chair.

I started cutting the tree that fell across the pasture gate and three of the cherry trees we have taken out so far.

I still need to remove and cut fire wood out of one more Cherry tree. It's really a shame to have to remove these cherries, but the trees started too get some issue a few years ago and just kept getting worse.

The next project is going to be a path above and along our lower driveway. I have started excavating the ends already (see below).

 The picture below is the area being changed. We are transplanting our Josta Berries, Current Berries, and the black currents. We will then leave a path along the top of the retaining wall, and excavate wider areas (two of them) along the upper side.

The wider areas are to hold a couple of Green Houses, one for an Orange tree and the other for a Meyers Lemon.

I really need to apologize for the less than great pictures, Our camera seems to have decided to not work correctly.