Thursday, April 26, 2012

Shed

Finally found a shed and was the first to respond to the ad on craigs list. The first step was cleaning up the area behind my shed to make room for the new "old" shed. We got some cinder blocks from my dads house and made a fire bit to burn up the old rotten lumber I had stored behind the shed.
Then I set those blocks to make a foundation for the new shed to sit on.
Me and a neighbor went to where the shed was, and took off the end walls and the roof so we could get it to fit on his trailer. And hauled it home.
Next step was to move the floor and walls into position. This was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Me and my son used some steel pipe borrowed from a neighbor to put under the skids and a couple boards to make a ramp up onto the leveled out spot.
Here it is sitting in its new home.
I need to patch a couple spots and get the walls & trusses back on. Then I got some galvanized steel at my dads house that we are going to use for a new roof.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Easter weekend work

Our new doe had a litter! Eight kits and all are doing well.

We had a fun and busy weekend. On Friday me and my son went out fishing for a couple hours in the morning. I was out fished by an 11 year old. He caught the only trout of the day. Saturday morning we left to go vist grandma. We stopped at our favorite place to eat when we go vist her. Then took a tour of Lincoln Caverns. When we got back to her house we took a short walk thru the woods and to an alpacca farm. We got an awesome Easter present from her, a pond kit. Sunday we went to Paps house loaded the truck with bricks for our patio and some cinder blocks to make a fire pit. The kids had a Easter egg hunt. Then we headed home.

On Monday we spent the morning working on the patio. Overall it turned out pretty good. I used a chunk of rubber roofing under the bricks to keep weeds from coming up thru the bricks.

Then we worked on the pond. It's not done yet, need to get some rocks to put around it to cover up the hose. It didn't take the robins long to find it. There were four that took a bath in it all ready.

The garden is starting to grow faster. The carrots are not up yet but the rutabagas and turnips are up. The plants we have under the grow lights inside are doing good. Should be able to put the broccoli plants outside to start hardening off next week.

We have a busy weekend planned this week. Friends coming down from New York for a visit. And its opening day for little league. Going to build a big fire pit and hope that its not to windy to use.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Pressure canner & planting

We got our pressure canner this past week, an All American.
We made a batch of beef stew yesterday. Seven quarts and five pints. I just had a pint of it for lunch and it turned out very good. Cant wait to try something else in it.

We have been busy getting the gardens ready. Got a new compost bin made. It will be used for yard/rabbit waste and then transferred into the other two bins when needed.

Our lettuce and radishes are doing good under the hoop we have set up. Planning on getting some more planted under here this week.

We got our eight pounds of seed potato's planted last week at the neighbors and helped him out with his garden.

Our carrots got planted this past Friday. We dug out trenches and filled them with our compost then raked the soil back over the trenches to make mounds. We got five different kinds planted. Hoping to use the pressure canner for some of these later this year.

Our new doe has been making a nest and has it full of fur. Hoping that later today she has a litter. We had to get a new buck last week. Ours got wry neck. The farmer said that there is not much to do for them when they get that but the meat is still safe to eat. So it being a meat rabbit and not a pet I decided to butcher him. Our new buck is crazy. He waits until the door to the cage opens and makes a run for it. He has gotten out twice so far.

I have been helping my neighbor re-roof his house in exchange for help building our new shed. We have come close to getting two off of craigslist for a bargin, but we we were not fast enough, both were gone before we got a chance to talk to the owners.

Lots to do this week before a small trip to visit some family for Easter.