Category Archives: Homestead
Memories of spring
Can’t wait.
Clearing
Good fences make good neighbors.
Robert Frost said that, and it’s as true now as it was then. Case in point: our redneck neighbor, who lives adjacent to the southwesterly area of our property.
When we bought the place, the entire rear acre-ish was wild and overgrown, and incidentally had three dumpsters worth of trash that people had been dumping over the years. We cleaned all that out, and took down some of the wild area for what is now the orchard (or the beginning of the orchard, anyway). Since then, we find more trash here and there, either bubbling up from being buried, or just from the redneck and his group tossing trash over the fenceline because they’re too lazy to dispose of it properly.
I admit I will never understand people who can’t be bothered to throw things away. For instance, I have a fascination with the two hoarder shows that are on, and I’m simply amazed at their representation of geologic layers – except instead of rock and sand formations, theirs are formations of takeout containers, pizza boxes, cups, bottles, cans, and any other sort of trash that the rest of us (rightfully) recycle or toss out as a matter of habit. Likewise the people who have mounds of crap all over their property, whether it is things they thing they can “salvage”, junk they’re collecting in hopes of it being worth something (scrap metal, which would be if they actually took it to a center), or just trash (because once again, they’re just too lazy to put it in a trash can).
This is how it is for the redneck neighbor, apparently: some things, like bags and bottles and whatnot, they’re just too lazy to deal with, so they toss it onto our property. Then we wind up picking it up and disposing of it. I should point out that the redneck family is not immobile, nor are they disabled in any fashion. They’re just lazy, trashy people. Other things, they’re simply too cheap to properly dispose of: this includes batteries and tires. Not just any tires, either: the kind of tires that are used on very large trucks and construction vehicles.
The redneck neighbor took down his fence at the very rear of our property for some reason last year. After that point, we had a rather massive issue with deer coming in from the state forest that we back up to, who then got into the back garden and treated it like their personal buffet. We dealt with that by raising the fence around the garden to about six feet. No more deer in the garden. However, we were still left with redneck neighbor tossing trash onto our property as if it was still his personal dumping ground.
So we had a fence guy come out to give us an estimate on getting the back 120 feet or so refenced. This time, with privacy fencing, solid enough that redneck can’t just roll dead tires back to our property, and high enough that they’d need to work to throw things over it. Since redneck neighbor’s kids and the neighbor kids to our immediate east also walk across our property to a sag in the wire on the fenceline we share with redneck, the sag is now completely down. So we added another 72 feet to get that portion fenced as well. When we were walking the fenceline to take a look before the fence guy was here, what did we find? yet another tire. Which we promptly rolled right back across the fenceline to his property. It’s your crap: deal with it.
This leaves us with about 150 feet of fencing that will still need to be redone. We went with the almost 200 feet to start because these are the areas most in need at this moment, and because it looks like I’ll be clearing the room they need to work by myself foe the most part. I don’t mind this, but there is a limit as to what I can get done before the actual fencing workers are due to show up, so this will do. Once this is all up, I’ll work on clearing the remaining line and we’ll get them back to complete the line. It will be a great joy to be at the back of the property and not have to look at redneck neighbor and the miscellaneous heavy equipment he has scattered around his property.
As an added bonus, we also noted that redneck neighbor has (illegally) cleared out a section of the state forest just at the back of our property where the line to the forest begins. Back there, he has huge tires – the really big ones, that go on dump trucks and the like – a big pile of garbage (bikes, pieces of heavy truck gear like cranks and brakes, and just general crap), and a dead log picker. That will be an issue for the state to take up with him, because they’re definitely going to be notified about that.
In the meantime, we’ll have the start of a better neighbor in place: a new fence.
Bee feed
If we already had bees, they would have already been out foraging, gathering at least pollen (and probably nectar as well) around here of late. How do I know this? Oh, just an educated guess.
The season comes to a close
The football season, that is! Tonight’s the last game until fall – boo. I’m sure we’ll find a way to keep ourselves occupied in the offseason, which is the real season on the ranch. Tonight we’ll have pizza, subbing for brisket, and guacamole, and chips, and other assorted crap that is suitable for noshing during a Super Bowl.
The flats started last month in the barn are all up. Tomorrow I’ll start the flats of tobacco (for mom) and keep working on the reconfiguration of the frames in the front garden. And f still refuses to rain, more dragging hoses to the trees to try to keep them going. The grapefruit and the orange out in the orchard are striking quite the pathetic poses, as are the lemons. Sad, but I figure they should be able to pull themselves out of it. After all, citrus farmers down here have had trees go through this kind of oddball weather and still produce a crop.
Today I began the first fermentation of the wine (riesling), in the bucket, airlock on, waiting for the yeast to get busy. In a week, time to shift it to the secondary fermenter, and maybe start another round of beer. If only I could drink any of it…
Workaday
Working away at the ranch: taking down Mount Mulch a wheelbarrow at a time. Hauling hoses out to the trees to water them since we’ve had no rain at all. Spraying fish gut solution on the garlic and making the entire front garden smell like a fish processing factory. Pulling weeds. Shoveling soil from where I’ve reconfigured frame lines up front. Checking the blueberry plants to make sure they’re still alive (they are). Realizing while eating after washing my hands three times that next time, wearing gloves while using the sprayer to dispense fish gut solution would be a good idea. Playing with the lazy dogs on this ranch. Wondering if the clouds will finally get together and bring some rain. Sitting down to watch Colony again and try to finish the review of it. Thinking about bees. Laughing at the crow that followed me around this morning, cawing away at me as we moved along from task to task.
In all: a good day. And it isn’t over yet.
Worthy lawsuits
I’m not a huge fan of overly-litigious people or corporations. That’s why I was quite happy to see this suit last year from a wide group against Monsanto. Monsanto, of course, has “security” people that roam around, getting in the faces of farmers when they suspect their GMO crap has “been utilized” by those farmers, when in fact, it is Monsanto doing the trespassing. Most farmers wind up settling – and being bound by gag orders – because they simply do not have the money to fight. This battle, though, is well worth it, and it boggles the mind that anyone would agree with Monsanto’s arguments that the farmers are infringing when Monsanto’s seed invades their fields. It will take a couple of years to get this done, but hopefully more sensible minds will prevail and people can tell Monsanto to get stuffed when they come knocking.
Random things
Looking forward to the (short) series Doomsday Preppers coming up on National Geographic. They had a standalone episode last year, with one guy repeating the same long phrase about coronal ejections over and over – but he and his wife did build a tilapia tank out of their pool and used that waste to fertilize crops in a very nice setup. I’ve been reading the comments on some sites about the new series – in the clips for which I could swear I saw the Dervaes clan briefly, so that part will be muted out or forwarded on the DVR if that’s the case, since they annoy me – and I have to say that some of the fringe dwellers on those sites are absolutely batshit insane. Between the people with grandiose conspiracy theories about how the military is gearing up to take over at least one major city and the armchair commandos blathering about OPSEC, it can be amusing when it isn’t a bit scary. I watch this sort of show for the same reason I watch things like Hoarders: morbid fascination.
I’ve also been watching some bee-related documentaries and working up some reviews of those, including the single most annoying line out of all of them.
Mount Mulch is being taken down, slowly but surely. The back garden area has two walkway areas to mulch to be complete before I move along to the herb garden and berries up front. I figure Tuesday to finish the paths and begin on the other stuff. Wednesday is yet another trip to the dentist, so Thursday will be the day to pick things back up again. Instead of banging/jarring my head around working outside after the dentist, I’ll be starting the wine (riesling!) that we’re going to make here. Fun stuff.
Routine
I’ve been working on Mt. Mulch in the rear garden. Mt. Mulch is the truck full of mulch that we had someone deposit on the grounds in order to mulch in the paths in the various gardens and around the trees. The first load, which was up front, I had some help to finish off from family. This time, it’s only me hacking away at it. It’s good exercise, really, but it takes a toll on your traps, from squeezing together armfuls of it to toss into the wheelbarrow. Why pick it up by hand? Have you ever tried using a shovel on a big pile of mulch? That’s a one way ticket to exhaustion and sore everything (and lots of cursing). It’s faster to do it by hand. The only downside is that while the top of the pile is dry, it’s wet under that layer, making it a chore to carve out a chunk to move to the barrow.
Goal: six barrows a day loaded, dumped, and spread, in order to get the back garden finished. That’s about the limit my morning shake gives me in terms of calories/energy, but it works out well since I can generally get one eight foot long section mulched at about an inch per barrow load- which in turn gives me one full row done on the long side of the garden. It’s a lot of mulch, but I only have four rows left, plus the large non-row area where there is currently nothing but which I’m considering for containers. I should be able to finish the mulching of the back area this week and then move on to the berries on the easterly fenceline to get those done.
After the daily loads, it was dog shaving time, something I did in bare feet on the front porch instead of getting dog hair in my boots and socks. They’re so cute with their cuts, but I suspect they were pooped after the excitement/stress of it all.
Tomorrow: more mulching. More flats to go under the lights. More something else. There’s always something else.
Fifty bottles of beer on the wall
Bottling day at the ranch for the German style lager we brewed. Started on Monday, completed Saturday night. Not too bad, as far as hobbies go, and much of the week was spent waiting – as is the case for most things around here, like waiting for dough to rise, or seeds to germinate, or something to ripen, or a canvas to dry. When the bees finally arrive and are hived, we’ll start the waiting game with them, too.
Step one: siphoning.
As it turns out, this is better with two people, so one can hold the siphon while the other pours in the priming sugar (and takes photos).
It’s a dark beer.
Very dark, to the point where a flashlight comes in handy to see the bottom of the siphon to make sure it isn’t embedded in the gunk at the bottom.
The bucket fills as the carboy empties.
And eventually it’s down to the last that we’re taking out.
Time to bottle!
Capping. Take a cap, center the capping tool over it.
Lean into it and push the handles down until they crimp the cap on the bottle.
Release.
Repeat. Forty-nine times.
Before you know it, you have a couple of cases of beer, ready to go into the cold room to age.
Then comes the cleanup.
I wonder if the chickens would like to nibble on this. Would they get themselves a buzz going?