We've been meaning to take that down...

Last week there was quite a storm over night. Lots of rain, not much lightning, and lots of wind. I remember the wind waking me up, and praying our roof wouldn't fly away!

In the morning, I looked out the back door to this view:



A large branch from one of the junk trees had come down!



Right into the rain garden.



Given that the branch had been growing over our roof, I was pretty happy that it blew down sideways instead of right down onto the roof.



Jeremy says it wasn't that big of a branch and our roof could have handled it, but I'm sure it would have at least mangled the gutters and maybe some of the standing seam of the metal roof.

Instead, it just smashed and ruined my whole Turtle Head Flower. Oh well, it will come back next year!

Progress, finally

It has been four months since I posted my wish list / to-do list for the summer. With such a late start to good weather, and then such miserable, hot, humid weather for so many weeks, it kind of cuts into what you feel like doing. Plus, I find my plans change on a daily basis if I don't just do what I plan to do. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing!

So, what has happend since that post four months ago? Not a whole lot until recently. I did 2/3 of the retaining wall out front and haven't continued with that. There are raspberry stalks growing right in the way and moving them would mean no raspberries on that stalk. So I'm going to finish that up in the fall.
I gave up on digging up the boulevard, but plan to continue that in September or October. I did some more work on the terrace (more on that later), but it's not done yet. We still haven't moved the back fence back, but that's because there were three other projects that had to be done before that!

One of them was moving that laundry line pole.



Can't see the bottom of that concrete footing? That's because it goes down really deep! I dug most of that out three months ago and that post has been sitting just so since then. That is a heavy duty, thick metal pipe and the concrete footing is maybe one and a half feet across and about 3 feet deep. (I never really got to the bottom, so don't know!) That much concrete and the pipe is very heavy. I was imagining a large group of people trying to move it...or trying to leverage it out with ropes attached to the tree above it...or swinging a mallet at it until some of the concrete came off...or explosives! just kidding.

Jeremy had to rent a mini jack-hammer for another project (more on that later!) so he was able to get off the lower couple feet of concrete.







You might think the thing would be easier to move after this, but no! This is when we discover there are these metal pieces sticking out perpendicular to the pipe, going off into the concrete still down below (which also has thick metal wire running through it!) which keeps the pipe from moving much at all now.



I'm afraid I don't have pictures between that one and this one, where the pole is safely in it's new home:



What happened!? Well, I dug out as much loose dirt and chunks of concrete as possible so we could move the pipe a little. Jeremy came out with a Sawsall and cut through the pipe. Wish I had a picture of him lying on the ground on the edge of the hole reaching down to the bottom to cut through the pipe. But I was holding onto the pipe with both hands to make sure it didn't fall in on Jeremy!

When it was cut through I was able to pull the pipe down to the ground so that huge chunk of concrete rose up out of the hole! Or close anyway. We grabbed some 2x4s to span the hole and hold up the pipe. Then, while Jeremy dug the new hole on the other side of the yard (which took about 5 minutes!) I raked and shoveled dirt into the enormous pit under the pipe - so if it decided to fall it wouldn't fall that far.

Thank goodness for leverage and fulcrums and hand trolleys for the rest of this. It was easy enough to pull the pipe upright but it was still quite heavy and not possible to carry. So we pulled it upright and laid it back down so the concrete base was facing the way we wanted it to go. Jeremy wheeled the hand trolley up to it and I just tilted the pipe up till it was on the trolley. Jeremy rolled it to the edge of the retaining wall and then he had to pick it up and rest it on a board (to protect the rocks from getting scratched. =)



Then we laid the pipe down and rolled it down that red piece of plywood; Jeremy picked up the pipe and we slid the hand trolley under it, then it was a piece of cake to roll it over to the other side of the yard.

I'm sure that all would have made much more sense with pictures, or a video! We'll have to remember that the next time we're moving some huge, heavy, awkward thing through our yard.

So I know you're asking why we did this in the first place. Why didn't we just buy a new laundry line pole from Home Depot! Well...we like to do things the hard way, that's why!
Actually, the old pipe/laundry line didn't work in its location and it was in the way of yet another project (more on that later!) so it had to go. We could have cut it off at the base and called it done, but then we would have had to buy a cheaper pipe from some store and set it in concrete and all that - when we had a perfectly good pipe already set in concrete! If we could only move it! And you all know how determined we are (er, I am!), so that's what we did.

Now for the hardest part: putting up the ropes so we can hang laundry. Maybe we'll get that done next year?

The Feather Person

Once upon a time, in a CAFO far away, I became aware of myself.



"What the heck am I doing here in this wretched place!?" I bemoaned my wretched existence: crammed in a warehouse with thousands of other birds, our beaks chopped off so we couldn't peck at each other. I knew there must be something better.

One day I saw a light at the end of the tunnel - actually a hole in the warehouse. I peaked out. Sky! Grass! Bugs! Without a thought or a look back, I high-tailed it out of there.

I wandered outside soaking in my new freedom. But I couldn't wander around outside forever: surely someone would find me and put me in solitary confinement - or worse! So I hitched a ride out of there and ended up in the nearest city, Minneapolis.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Why would I go to the big city? I heard rumors that chickens are treated pretty well in the city and I wanted to check it out for myself.

I was milling around outside a tavern, trying to figure out what my next move would be, when a tall farmer-looking man came up and caught me. He was pretty good I must admit. Must have some experience chicken wrangling.

I was deposited into a large crate with lots of straw, water, and food. I didn't really like this captivity, but I guess it was better than where I came from.



After a few days, things changed. My crate was moved and the door was opened so I could get out and scratch in the dirt. I was now inside a bigger cage.



The best part was that there were others of my kind, right on the other side of my fence! Okay, so they tried to peck at me and tell me who was boss, but I ignored them. It was nice just having them around.

I missed my freedom though, so I kept finding ways to get out. One night I escaped and was trying to get comfy in a window well before I was found - and returned to my cage.

One day there was a really loud sound that kind of scared me so I escaped and ran for it! I was found a few yards away - and returned.

A couple nights in a row I escaped (and boy escaping is getting harder - they keep putting up more fencing, with smaller holes!) and I was trying to settle down way up high on top of the wood pile. But I was found - and returned.



I understand these folks are now calling me Houdini. That's fine with me - no one can keep me caged in for long! I've escaped seven times, and I'm just going to keep doing it.

I think these people are getting it. I escaped again last night and this time they didn't come looking for me. They let me stay out all night - to sleep where I wanted and rise with the sun to peck at bugs and scratch and eat greens.



But you know, I kind of missed my chicken friends, and the easy access to food and water. So I went back. And now I'm back in my cage again.

I'm sure this is only temporary. Some day I'll find a place to call my own and live happily ever after.


(with apologies to May Sarton, who wrote The Fur Person)

A steamy update

Well folks, it is hot, hot, hot, hot, hot! And really humid! We're sitting at 96 degrees and nearly 60% humidity. It feels like 108 out there. It's times like this that I feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever that we have central air and are basking in mid-70s and no humidity.

Of course, it makes it really hard to take pictures outside (or go outside if you wear glasses) because everything steams up! In fact, all the windows in the downstairs have been steamed up since Sunday.

I wiped the camera lense off repeatedly, but I just couldn't get a clear (non-romantic-looking) picture!



These are six cucumber plants we planted on Sunday - the hottest day of this humigeddon so far.



I was actually quite impressed with how they looked yesterday, one day after transplanting. Even now some of them are managing to hold up. I guess cucumbers are hard to kill? We'll find out.



This is more of my effort to get most of our plants from neighbors/strangers who planted too much and have to thin out later. Thank you neighbors!

This poor gal is a little lost chicken that Jeremy found hanging near Matt's Bar (home of the original jucy lucy!). No one has claimed her yet so she's hanging out in a dog crate in the back yard. We've got to find someone to take her. She seems to be doing well despite the heat and humidity!

Mushroom update

Mushroom innoculation season is finally over! Jeremy was delayed by a month or so with having to move his whole operation and build the new shade structure and all that. He decided to call it quits at the end of June, no matter where he was at. He got through almost all the logs and there wasn't too much leftover spawn. (Posts on that if he can get those bags to fruit...)

Somehow it's more enjoyable to innoculate while wearing down coats and gloves, than to be in our really hot garage in the summer. So hopefully innoculations don't go this long next year!

One big change Jeremy had to make was with his stacking method. You saw a little of his method in the last mushroom post. Turns out having your mushroom farm in a wetlands area is...wet! And too much moisture causes mold, which is bad. So he had to restack everything, getting the logs up higher and with more air circulation.





Amazingly, some of these logs - which were cut down 5 months ago and have been drilled with hundreds of holes - are sprouting leaves! I guess that means they're fresh.



These are the majority of the oyster logs. They're in bags now but will be removed from bags soon.


And here are the shiitake in the fruiting structure.


Aren't they beautiful?



(mirror image mushrooms - there isn't a mirror, one goes up, one goes down!)



Jeremy did some oyster mushrooms in drilled logs, and they are starting to come up.






He's put a lot of work into keeping the environment just right, and it must be working because he's picked a ton of mushrooms so far!

Loads of raspberries

Our raspberries are doing better this year than they've ever done. They've slowly been ripening and for the past week or so I've managed to find one or two to nibble on every time I leave the house.

We recently had some good rain and then lots of warm weather and the raspberries went to town. I prefer to eat them right off the plant or pick some to have on yogurt or ice cream. I don't like to pick a bunch and put them in the fridge. They just aren't good after that.

But we had a lot of raspberries! A pound and a half to be exact:



I picked everything that seemed ripe and it was an impressive haul (for just growing them in our yard anyway - we're not a u-pick!). These are different colors because we have black, red, and royal raspberries. We also have a variety called Korean Gold but it's just sending up shoots this year, not fruiting.

I dumped them all in that baking dish, sprinkled on a tiny amount of sugar (for the few that were perhaps not quite ripe enough yet), and plopped on some biscuit dough. And out came this lovely:



After cooling a bit, we walked it a couple blocks away and surprised some friends with a dinner-ruining raspberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream snack. They didn't complain one bit. =)

Cherrypicking

Our cherry trees have done very well and we decided last week it was finally time to start picking. I picked a basketfull one day (as much as a pound, I'd say), pitted them, and froze them on a tray.

A day or two later, Jeremy went out with ladders and boxes. He doesn't mess around! I picked the cherries off the little tree while he got the big tree.



This is a little over 15 pounds of cherries! I was worried we'd have less cherries this year after having to cut down the other half of the tree. But we got 18-20 pounds last year so we're practically there now. And there are still more cherries to pick.

Jeremy and his intern spent hours pitting them, which meant cherry mess all over the floor,



all over the table (and everything on it),


and all over the walls and window!


I don't think any of this batch got frozen. Jeremy has been drying them in the dehydrator, so we'll have plenty till next year for cereals, scones, and other baking projects.