Is It Spring Yet?

I WANT Spring so badly as I'm so sick of MUD.  Tons of MUD.  I HATE MUD... I REALLY HATE MUD.  Know why?  It is because the MUD we have is clay, it's THICK and HEAVY and if it gets on your foot wear it feels like you dded another 50lbs to your feet.  So I am tired of MUD. Sad thing is in Spring we normally get tons of rain so that means... you guessed it more MUD.

I also think the idea of daylight savings time is so outdated that it really should not exist.  Now when I went to school we were taught that it was started so that farmers would have more daylight hours to work their farms.  Well, now-a-days it's kinda un-nessicary for the need to have the farmers working in daylight as tractors,combines, etc all have headlights that could bring in a 747. Also I know that Amish farmers generally don't use the concept of daylight savings time, so who really benefits from it?

Kids that's who.  Now think on this... Kids that have to walk any distance to either get to school or their bus stop during the early morning will have more light during fall back than if the time was at normal.  Ok, well I can see a point there... BUT... again I must comment on modern society here.  There are tons of flashlights out there on the market that people can use to see with at early morning hours, so the kids can still be safe.

How many people wind up late for work right after "time change" and use it as an excuse?  Doesn't seem that it is nessicary at all does it? I certainly don't see a point to it.  As it is there are places in the US that do not even use it anyway.  Some are farming communities, strange huh?

Well, I'll get off my soap box now... and talk about here.

Well, aside from my 3 sweet peppers all my tray starts have died.  I have replanted the tomatoes and egg plants, but I'm worried I may have to buy some plants this year.  If so there is a small local nursery here that a nice farmer owns, his plants are always good.  I bought flowers from him the first year here.

Now that the snow is melted and the days are warm enough to dry the mud some, the pond has lost some water.  No worries though as it is still over 1/2 full.  Tuesday I am going out to gather cat tail roots for it, I am also planning on planting the taters then.  My flowers are all coming up and I think I may have a couple more day lilies this year than last year.  I still have to come up with some amendments for the apple trees that are coming sometime this month they are suppose to be shipped Monday.  So we'll see.

That's it for now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Gardening Time

Well it's coming to that time of year my friends, and I am hoping to have my taters in the ground by week's end.  Also I just found out that the Elderberry trees have baby leaves on them.  As the snow is melting in the lovely temps of the last few days our pond shrank a little, which I expected; I hope the rest of the water stays.  My day lilies are coming up as well, so I defiantly think that the warm weather is on it's way.  I set my plant starts outside they have to come inside tonight, but they should be able to get some time outside tomorrow too.  My good tomatoes are not doing as well with the weaker light we have this year.  While the eggplants love it.   Go figure.
 Hope it's warm by you!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Day version 2

As in yesterday the kids had a snow day.  We had a reasonable amount of snow finally for this winter, and due to the rain that fell before the snow...
  As you can now see the pond is now full!  YEAH!  Now if it just stays full we'll be doing very well.  The fun part we had yesterday was that the top was all slush. so just to see we were tossing snow balls onto the top of the pond and it would hit the slush leaving a dent in the slush which under it would fill with liquid water.
Do you see all that wonderful snow??    It was a fun storm that is for sure as it had started us off with rain Monday afternoon.  Then in the evening, and I was watching it happen.  We got large fluffy snow flakes that as I watched were "sticking" to the ground.
 ...and as for my comment about watching it.  I was standing at the door making sure the dogs didn't run off while they went out to go do their business; which took less than five minutes.  So I saw the snow starting to fall and "stick" in that time frame.
 At 4 am yesterday morning we got the message that the kids would be off of school for the day.  Which after I opened the door yesterday morning I understood why buses here wouldn't be able to pick up the kids.  As I know the buses here do not use chains they would not have done the dirt roads here yesterday.
 So this morning looking at all the school closings lists the kids were semi disappointed that they were going to school today.  I guess the school determined that the roads were used enough so their would be grooves in the snow on the dirt roads.  I am not sure how much the school bus the kids are on traverse the dirt roads around here.
 This morning the weather person told us due to what the storm is doing we may have snow for the next few days, on and off.  Well I know this will help our "rainfall totals" so that's good.  Though we may wind up with a bit of flooding when it all melts.  Good thing we live on a hill.
 We lost our internet for a portion of yesterday as after the snow storm the dish was coated with snow.  So Silver had to go out and clean it off carefully, and that did it.  Though  for some reason at some point last night it went out again.  Maybe one of these days I'll get to pintrist and put in all the pics I have to put in there.
 Well I have to run the kids around to get them moving a bit more this morning.  Have a great day.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Pond News

Well this morning on my way to feed the chickens I got myself a nice surprise(yes I know "got is baaaad grammar but in this case it suits my needs).
   As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond.  As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise.  A good surprise  but still a surprise.
 Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond.  That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond.  Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water.
 I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it.  I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond.
 As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days.  So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end.  Now we just have to hope it stays full.  If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter.  He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it.  Hey, if it works that's good.

 Here is the other picture of the pond.
  The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer.  Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there.
 Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now.  Neither does Midnight their daddy.  Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle.
 As for the rest of the water that is in our yard...
 All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well.  Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself.  I'd live to see that much water in the pond.  Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh?
 We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas.  We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area.  I'm going to have to hand dig it.  At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though.
 I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish.
 Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough.  While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees.
 ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera!
 Have a good day all!

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

The "M" Word

Well it's a lovely warm day, and considering what was on the ground that means MUD... the dreaded "M" word. I really, really love mud... don't you? Especially since it's all clay mud which as it sticks to your shoes adds 50lbs to your foot.. or at least feels that way.
 Today we went out and put the rebar stakes into the MUDDY ground.
  The ground is just squishy enough to make it easy to get into the ground, I almost wish we had the ground rods to put into the ground, they would be very easy to get into the ground right now.
 While we were doing the pounding my son who doesn't currently attend a church got to stand in the middle of the mud circle and hold our 100ft tape to make sure we had the right length from the center.
 We also had to measure the distance between each one which needed to be 6ft 8in between each one.  The rebar "arches" need to be slightly off of where we put our stakes so that there is an opening in the center of the top of the dome. traditionally this is where a chimney is put.  We are going to put glass block windows, vents and a whole house fan in a small  addition above the top of the dome in the center.  Silver is planning to find a way to run the chimney up it as well, but we need to figure out the logistics of it first. The ground stakes have to be in the ground 2 foot so the 5 ft rebar stakes need to only have 3ft above the ground.  So after placing all the stakes Silver went back around and pounded them into the ground till they reached the correct depth.    
       We only had issue in one spot:
  I am not sure if you can see it, but this one here is stuck in a frozen block of clay, so once we have enough above freezing days we should be able to go back and fix this one.
 Well it figures we'd have one that would not be able to be at the proper depth.  We should have really gone out and fixed some of the mud piles before the bad weather came through.. but you know what they say about hindsight.
 I'll also have you know that as I am writing this.. all that snow you see in the picture?  Yeah... it's gone, not there... just the MUD!  
   So when we finished putting the stakes in we spent some time looking for the orange "tape" to mark where the stakes are as they are a tad hard to see against the browns. It is much easier to see the outline with the tape on the rebar.  also this is taken at the place where our door for the house will be put.  The nice thing about it is that the door will open to just across from our soon to be outdoor kitchen.  I think that is very convenient.
 As you can see from this picture there is much more mud than snow now, at this point we had the kids moving the rebar from up front to the house ring as Silver is going to start making the arches.
 The arches is what  the second floor is suppose to be connected to so that it is more secure, I'm not sure if we are going to do it that way as yet and Silver is thinking we may only need to make half of a second floor based on how much space there is in the interior.
 As for the start of the arches...
  First, after we set out three pieces of rebar of course.  We needed to bend the rebar, Silver discovered after trying to use his "bending" tool that it wasn't going to work very well.  That is because when he first tried to bend it the tool bent.
 So as you can see he went and got out the pipe wrenches and used them with me standing on one end of the rebar while he hand bent them.  The one downside I have to say for the birdcage dome site is that they do not mention how they bent their rebar.  So we had to figure it out ourselves.
 So we had to bend two of three pieces, the two end pieces.  The center piece gets bent when you attach them together.  We discovered it's much easier to bend with the help of two children in addition to me standing on the rebar.
 So after the bending comes tying the rebar together.
  We are using rebar ties to connect them together, now we have seen people using zip ties.  While they will hold a great deal, I think using the metal rebar ties will be 100% better as then they will be part of the concrete with the rebar.
 Silver is planning on using a couple of zip ties then we put the arches up and need to temporarily secure them to the rebar stakes while we get the others in place.  Then will go around and use the metal ties to finish securing them.
 Incidentally we did not put this one in place as we have discovered we need to have a ladder or a scaffolding in place to do that as we need someone at the top to hold it in place while it is secured. As it is flimsy while being strong.  I know once they are all in place they will be much more secure, jut one by itself would not be.
 We only put one arch together so as to get the "idea" of how to do it for the first time.  Notice in the picture... no snow at all and all the MUD on Silver's shoes?  That was after he scraped the MUD off.  The kids finished bringing back all the rebar, after some issue over figuring out how to navigate over the trench while carrying the rebar.  We found one random plank to place across it, and it's kinda working.
 One child of course fell into the trench and had a fit over getting muddy, I guess a 13yr old doesn't think MUD is fun anymore.  Well at least she had changed into the jeans she didn't want to wear before it happened so the pants she prefers are saved for school.  So now we are all sitting around the house MUDDY waiting turns to bathe the MUD off.  I'll be last as I have to go back out in it to get the laundry down.  Then it's on to start cooking our dinner tonight.  which will be a beef roast mashed taters and peas.  YUM!
 So I hope everyone enjoys their start of MUD season... I know I am... rolls eyes

 Be Well BE Safe and Blessed BE...

Early Weekend News

Yes, I have some minor news for all who are keeping up with what is going on here.  Yesterday evening me and Silver went out to peek at the pond and discovered that it is about an 1/8 of the way full.  So we seem, so far to have a good possibility of having a full pond.  I am certainly hoping it'll be full enough by the time the local farm store has their fish ordering days.  As they will send for catfish, I do not know if they do tilipia or not though.

I will be once the pond is full enough and it's warm enough.  Be going across the street to get some cat tails and one bucket of pond water.   Why the pond water?  Well I have in one of my homesteading books that the best way to make sure you have the right microbial life in your home made pond is to go to a living one and get a bucketful of it's water and dump it into your own.  There by adding the "pond life" that is surviving in one pond to your own.  Also this way you know the microbial life is acclimatized to your area as well.

I already have permission from the people who own the property across the way to go over and gather some cat tails.  They had, had a hard time finding a place that sold them when they put them in, so they were very willing to let me go and get some once we had a pond set up.  Now that said I know of one nursery that has cat tails at it also Lowes has them in the middle of summer in their "water garden" area.  So I do have them available if necessary, but I'd prefer to get some that have grown "wild"

That's  it for now, have a good Saturday!

BE Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

After the Storm

Well here we are the morning after the storm and I'm making brownies.  Sourdough brownies specifically, it takes about 25 minutes after the sponge sets most of the night to mix them.  However I am a tad worried that they might come out a bit burnt as my oven is now running a lot hotter than it was before.

As for the storm...?  Well we have ice, we have snow, and we have power.  That makes me happy, not long after my post yesterday our internet went out for the whole day, it was expected as we have satellite internet; breathe the wrong way and it goes out.  The kids again have no school so lets see... They had a total of 2 days of school this week, guess it's better then them not having any school at all.  Granted though some school are having a late start today it would be near impossible for them to walk to the bus stop safely.  Also as Silver mentioned yesterday due to the ice, we are not driving for the next couple of days.

We are planning on either tomorrow or Sunday to go out and set the rebar stakes into the ground, more likely on Sunday as we are going to be in the 50's then.  Maybe I'll cook something outside on our mini grill if it's going to be that nice out.  Though we had something interesting in the storm previous to yesterday's.  The old dishwasher that was left on our property before we got here that we are going to turn into a smoker was knocked onto it's side by wind.  Now it's sat on it's base for years and a couple of days ago it gets knocked over?  Defiantly a strong wind, or rather strong gusts.  The wind that day also picked up one of our 2 good outdoor chairs and dropped it in the pond breaking it.  So now we are down to one outdoor chair, we need a couple more; hopefully we can find some more cheaply as we still have building supplies to buy.

Speaking of which on next Friday we will have money again and after bills/animal  feed/gas are paid for and my DL is replaced we are going to go and buy soil for the apple trees then the next item on our building supply list.  Which may be either wire, pipe or fencing for the dome itself.  Depends on what we have left really.

Well have a nice day all, I have to go check my brownies as they are starting to smell very done way to soon.  Where did I put that aluminum foil again?

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...