Tag Archives: Homestead

Progress

Yesterday, I seeded cucumbers and green beans directly in the frames, so that’s crossed off the list. Next up: more cucumber seeding in one of the rows I’ve converted from wood frames to metal. That, however, has to come after I put all my irrigation driplines back in place down that row. This is key because it helps get the correct spacing, as the dripline has laser drilled holes every six inches, spacing that is fine for cukes. The only other thing I’d have to do for those is put the trellises back in place (and BEFORE the seedlings really get going, as trying to wind them into the netting once they’re six or so inches tall is a massive pain in the ass).

The tomato seedlings in the barn are doing well for the most part. One set was older seed, so the germination is not ideal, but I wanted to use up some of the seed I have lying around instead of tossing it into the compost pile. The broccoli and cauliflower likewise looks good, and if the forecast is to be believed, we should be dropping into the upper 80s for temps instead of the mid 90s – which for here means low 90s versus 100 or so as it’s consistently warmer here than the nearest official weather station.

Current tooth situation: the stitches are bugging the crap out of me right now, rubbing against the inside of my lower lip. It also still feels like someone whapped me with a hammer on the left side of my face. That will pass, and the pain meds make it possible to eat even when food does sometimes get jammed up against that socket and the stitches. The only weird thing I have going on right now is very low blood pressure – this morning is was reading 85 over 57, and that certainly did explain the dizziness when I stood up from some business work and a rushing sound in my ears. I was letting the dogs out and things turned black for a moment and I stumbled into the wall. This, too, shall pass, I’m sure. Or it better. Exercise lowers your blood pressure. Weeding and working in the gardens qualifies as exercise. Not a good combination if the BP is already low. We’ll see how that works out.

In a couple of months, I hope we have a real pickling operation going on at the ranch. If only there was an easier way to chop all the sweet pickles that I’ll be making. I tried the mini food processor I have, as it has a chop function (the other is grind), but it made the pieces more mushy than I would like, so it has to be done by hand chopping for now. Will have to work on this and find a solution.

And lastly: did a lot of research online this morning looking for alternative treatments for trismus and radiation-induced fibrosis that go beyond the passive stretching routine, and found a couple of interesting scholarly articles. Next step: trying to find the right person to talk to about the fibrosis and potential treatments for that, given that it appears to be a clear bunch of fibrous tissue in my cheek that may be causing a great deal of the problem in working on my opening.

Life. Luckily we’re here to enjoy and/or fight with it, right?

Second season

The good thing about living in Florida – even northern Florida – is being able to squeeze two growing seasons into the prime spring/summer months. Because our winters don’t generally arrive until late November, sometimes December, we get a couple of extra months of growing time, usually. What this means for yours truly is an attempt to get another round of growing in: currently, I have a flat of tomato seedlings and two flats of cauliflower and broccoli under the lights in the barn. Today, I’ll be direct seeding more cucumbers, as we’re completely out of relish, and I’m hoping to turn into a regular pickle factory here before the end of the season. In addition, I think another round of green beans may be in order as well if we can stand harvesting and processing them for the freezer.

The garlic: a total loss, from what I’ve dug up so far. Most of it rotted from the two feet of rain dumped on us courtesy of a tropical storm, the small amount that hasn’t rotted is stunted because of the constant high temperatures we’ve endured here. Next time: less garlic. Instead, I’ll put in more beans and peas at the beginning of the season and replace those with heat tolerant herbs as those give out to join the tomatoes and peppers as they go in at the same tie. It’s a plan, anyway.

For the winter: a continuation of frame replacements, and getting another truckload of soil/manure mix from the old dairy farm to top them all off for next year. Since we’re looking into getting a whole house generator that will run on gas, I’ll likely be giving up a portion of the back garden so we can bury a huge tank in that area.

Always something to look forward to on the ranch. Like most of life, it’s a work in progress.

After the fact

Kind of a productive day on the ranch. Seeded some flats plus some frames, fed the bees, did a little weedwhacking, played with the dogs, made a good lunch. And then, the time suck: Olympics.

I see the next fortnight (as the British would say) as a less-than-usual outside kind of work time period, although I’m not a huge fan of what most people would consider some of the marquee events (basketball, tennis, soccer). NBC graciously provided about three minutes of US men’s fencing – enough to see one of our guys lose and be out of it (another guy in the same event also lost, but alas, nothing of his matches). About 20 minutes of shooting (women’s skeet), not live, and only that much because it was a gold medal for the US. Some water polo, handball, table tennis, fencing, archery, rowing, and field hockey made it into the mix, but not a ton. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs. Since I have Directv, I could watch the live streams of events I’d like to see – except I also have a satellite for internet, and you only get a certain amount of transfer each day before they start ratelimiting you. I did watch the men’s sabre gold medal match, complete with total freezes of the stream (except, amazingly enough, for the ads). The #nbcfail hashtag on Twitter is there for a reason.

So I’m stuck with NBC’s less-than-stellar coverage of the Games, and it’s almost impossible not to know the outcomes of events they refuse to show except during the primetime taped segments – and sometimes it’s impossible because some talking head on NBC will announce the result. Sometimes they’ll announce the result right before they go to taped coverage of the event they’ve just told everyone about – but only after yet another ad break. It’s silly, stupid, and annoying. That’s not even including some commentary I could give about a few of their talking heads. Ryan Seacrest? Keep him on American Idol and New Year’s presentations, and that way he’ll be out of my face.

Oh, and by the way, NBC: it doesn’t have to be all Phelps, all the time. He’s a man, not a machine, and it was inevitable that he would lose at some point. It couldn’t have been that surprising that he lost to Lochte, since he also lost to Lochte during the Olympic Trials. We don’t need a constant rehash of all his races between 2000 and now, and it would probably make Lochte’s family and fans feel better if there was more talk of his win versus Phelps’ loss. It would also be nice to skip all the human interest stories. You could trim an hour and a half of that and replace it with actual other sports coverage – taped as it would be.

 

This day done

Almost done. After starting off the day with the dispatching and burying of a chicken before morning coffee, I did some company work and watched Olympic coverage, managing to find quite a bit of fencing on, with some archery – including the men’s team event matches, way to go USA for the silver!) – and some handball and beach volleyball. I managed to find in the DVRd early morning hours the women’s 10m air rifle final, which mom judged to be quite boring. The primetime stuff on NBC tonight is tape delayed and already decided, so unless there is nothing else on, I won’t be watching much of it, as I’ve been following the #Olympics twitter feed and already know the results. I also managed to get out and refill all the gas cans around noon when all the soccer and basketball started, none of which interests me. The tricky part will be finding a time period in the coming days to do some mowing before we’re knee deep in grass again.

More jaw stretching shortly. Counting down to the point where it makes more sense to pull the rest of my teeth than to keep working on them, and there will be no dentures for me if I can’t open my mouth. I’ve given up enough foods over this crap, and I’d prefer not to have to be restricted to a completely liquid diet.

Beginnings and ends

I still cannot figure out why, with London only five hours ahead of us, NBC couldn’t show the opening ceremonies live. Tape delayed wasn’t terrible, but the talking heads talked way too much, and the ad-fest was annoying. Still, there were some rather amusing moments (the Queen and James Bond), some rather geeky moments (Sir Tim Berners-Lee), and some great visuals (young athletes lighting the cauldron, which itself formed from 200 individual petals, and the shot of the Olympic rings from the ISS). So begin the Games. In this day and age, almost every sport will get television time, even if those times are rather weird and on the oddball channels. How often do we get to see archery or fencing or competitive shooting here? The fact that these will be on at all will make hunting them down worthwhile.

Ends: one of the chickens needs to be dispatched, so mom tells me. She – the chicken, not mom – is laying about under the palmetto bushes, not going for treats, and it appears she’s on her way out. The last time one got this way, it was somewhat prolonged, since we didn’t know what the hell was going on with it. Now that we’ve seen it before, we know it’s unlikely she’ll recover from whatever it is – old age, perhaps – and it’s better to take care of her now instead of allowing her to slowly starve to death, or suffocate because she gets crop-bound. Later this morning, I’ll go dig a hole, then take up the ailing girl, talk to her a bit, and make it as quick as possible. Then I’ll return her to the soil to join the girls who preceded her. It’s a bit sad, but it is truly the cycle of life on the ranch.

Building a better frame

We’ve built lots of frames here at the ranch. We’ve filled lots of frames. The condition of the soil is so poor it will take many, many years before it is rehabilitated enough to be able to plant directly in the ground. Until then, it’s frames for us. This is quite handy when we get the occasional tropical storm through the area that may dump up to two feet of rain and flood out areas where we may have planted were the soil better.

The problem with wooden frames is the wear and tear of extreme seasons. The wood will eventually rot after a few years, or warp or crack to the point where a board has to be replaced, resulting in another trip to the big box store for replacements. Since we use one foot deep beds, requiring two six inch wide boards, we also have the issue of the horizontal seam not being exact, letting dirt escape or weeds to grow through the opening. What we needed was a better mousetrap.

We found one: using 8′, 26 gauge 5V crimp roofing panels. They’re about $19 apiece, and 26 inches wide. This means cutting down the middle seam yields two 8′ long pieces, slightly wider than one foot. By contrast, the 1x6x8 boards run about seven bucks apiece, resulting in a cost of about $28 for two sides at one foot tall each. Replacing boards when needed increases that cost over time. Replacing the roofing metal will likely never be necessary, so in the both the short and long run this will wind up being the better option for us here. In addition to the metal, we needed balusters to form the supports. A single baluster is currently 89 cents, and they come in a bundle of 16 2x2x36 sticks. For our purposes, once again we cut them in half, as we only need 18 inches, so one bundle of balusters yields 32 for bracing. On the left you can see some lengths already cut for the second frame run and some balusters at the end; on the right, an uncut sheet. All of it had to be moved again thanks to the rain that hung around after the first frame run had been completed and the second was in the early stages.

If the store offers it, I’d highly recommend getting them to do the first long cut on the metal sheets. If they don’t, then you’ll need a way to do the cutting yourself. In our case, we have a Dremel Sawmax as well as a sidegrinder, both of which have metal cutoff blades available. The Dremel will go through quite a number of blades if you’re doing a lot of cuts as we are. The sidegrinder blades are a little larger than that of the Dremel and so last a bit longer to get the cuts done, but still require quite a few. There are other cutting tools available and other blades; you’ll need to use what you have or can get and what you feel comfortable using.

First step after cutting the sheets and the balusters: determining how many 4′ lengths are needed to form the end pieces and/or fit pieces will be needed to meet the length requirements of the frame. Out front, I’m beginning the replacements with some 4′ by 20′ frames. For this frame run, that means three pieces of sheet metal cut down: four 8′ lengths and two 4′ lengths for the sides, and two 4′ lengths for the ends. The end result will not be 20′ in length, as there is some loss due to the overlap required to join the pieces together. That means cutting some of the 8′ lengths in half to get the shorter pieces.

Next step: attaching the balusters. After cutting them into 18″ lengths, these go on the outside of the sides, secured with metal to wood screws.

For the joints, because we’re replacing existing frames where there is already dirt in place, I put the bracess on the inside of the sheets, securing them with screws from the outside. If I were doing this in a run where there is nothing in the way, I’d put the joint posts on the outside, just as with the bracing.

 

The cut down balusters are lined up just under the top seam of the metal (the side opposite the lengthwise cut, as that cut edge will be sharp, sharp, sharp) and attached.

This leaves a six inch hang from the bottom of the frame. What to do with that? Bury it, to provide even more support.

To bury the ends of the braces, I augered out holes using an auger attachment for my drill. I had to order one online, as when I went to Home Depot, the workers who glommed around us trying to help either had never heard of an auger or couldn’t conceive of one that could be attached to a drill. Apparently they’ve never planted a lot of bulbs before. One genius suggested we go rent one from another store where they have rentals, and I didn’t bother to try to explain to him we didn’t need a huge honking, gas-fed, 1-2 foot diameter auger for this. We just needed one that would give us a 1 1/2 – 2 inch diameter that only had to go about six inches or so deep. Fortunately, a quick search at Amazon resulted in exactly what we needed.

The balusters are attached about every two feet or so on the sides, with the corners and joints being slightly closer together as they represent the weak parts of the structure. For the 4′ sheets, I used two, and on the 8′ lengths I used three. This does not include the corners or joints: on the whole, each 4′ x 20′ frame run used  28 pieces, which is 14 full length balusters cut in half.

After lining up one end, augering the holes, and getting the end piece situated, I started on one side. Line up the side with the end brace, mark the places where the holes needed to be augered, auger them out, sit the side into place and ensure the bottom is seated firmly and that it is straight, backfill the holes where the braces are, and then site another baluster into place to mark the joint where the next piece will be attached.

At the end of the line, put in the end side joint, but do not seat that end yet: go back to the original end and repeat the process for the other side. Why do this? To make sure that both sides are about the same length (same loss ratio) and because it’s simpler to adjust one 4′ end than it is to adjust a 20′ side to make the last connection.

Replacing a frame that already has dirt wound up to be interesting. On the first frame, toward the end, I wound up with some bowing, due to the way the dirt line went. On the second frame, I shoveled the edges of the dirt into the center and measured the width when doing the second side, to make sure I was 4′ from the side that was done in order to preserve consistency. The second frame turned out to be much better than the first and took less time, even with the additional shoveling to move dirt out of the way. There are benefits to refining the process, even if the tropical storm blew in after I’d already dismantled the existing frame and I had to wait for the waters to recede before I could begin augering and seating the frame pieces. The left side shows the standing water where the side pieces would eventually go for that next frame run. The soil held its shape amazingly well without its framing, given the amount of rain we had.

Over time, I want to redo all the frames we have in place. Out back, we have eight rows, most of which are 4′ wide by 48′ long – a total of six individual frames butted up against one another. Each of those frames requires six 1x6x8 boards, resulting in 36 pieces of lumber. By contrast, replacing them with metal sheets will require 6.5 sheets: six sheets for the sides, and half a sheet for the ends.

In the end, some of the balusters will no doubt need to be replaced, as although they are designed to be outside, they are not really designed to be buried in the soil (or in mud, as the case may be). However, the cost of these versus replacing entire boards for a wooden frame – particularly if the board that requires replacement is on the bottom, rather than the top – will be less both in terms of dollars and aggravation. It is a bit of work to do the replacement of wood with metal, but in the end, well worth the effort. In addition, if for whatever reason they need to be removed, the steel is recyclable.

Total cost for one 4′ x 20′ frame run with metal: 69.07 for the sheets and balusters, plus screws, plus tax. Same frame run with wood: 84, plus exterior screws, plus tax.