Lawyer's office called - closing moved from 3:30 pm to 10:00 am tomorrow.
darius hope your creek did not spill over the banks !
May Flowers on the "Homestead"
Dyson, do you want some seeds for Buttercup (winter squash, good keeper but not the best)?
http://rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/squash/winter-squash/buttercup-squash.html
I don't know if these seeds are the bush type, or the vining one; I saved them from squash from the farmer's market. I probably have lots of other veggie seeds to share too.
Thanks darius! I have lots of seeds to start and hopefully a place tomorrow to start them! I plan to build a "lean-to" type greenhouse onto the back of the house. Many other ideas but I have to get moved in first.
Hopefully I will see you at the round - up.
The house closed, we have the key, I have to be there at 1 when the city guys come to turn on the water. Found a small puddle in the hallway where the roof had leaked during the recent storms so the roof goes to the top of the list ! I told Sue not to worry about paint if we did not fix the roof we would not have anything left too paint.
Congrats, Dyson! Nothing like having the key (and the title). Roofs can be fixed (except the flat roofs Frank Lloyd Wright loved).
Got water - but the pressure is very poor - I see a pressure tank installation very near in my future. I checked everywhere I could see and could not find a leak but a: my vision is not as good as it used to be & b: there are a lot of lines underground ( out of sight ).
Power tomorrow.
Do you have city water?
Turn all the water faucets off everywhere and watch the pressure gauge. If it drops you've got a leak somewhere.
Onward and upward!
City water. I will work on it in the morning.
There's no better feeling than holding the key and knowing your new home is paid for. Good for you and Sue! Sorry about the low water pressure and hope the City folks were able to help you resolve the problem today if you weren't able to fix it on your own. Fall before last, we replaced our shingled roof and had to call the roofers back to repair a leak after the first heavy rain, like the deluge we just had. They were great and also came back after high winds blew a few shingles off and replaced them at no charge.
May Night Salvia is on the way out but will rebloom with a haircut. Missouri Primroses are just starting to show their pretty yellow blooms again. NOID Hostas gifted by a neighbor three years ago are starting to bloom. Penstemon "Red Husker's" is in full bloom as is it's counterpart "Violet Dusk". Many Daylilies have scapes and a few are about to put on a show.
Got the power turned on yesterday - all circuits seem to be working except the florescent lighting in the kitchen. Not the top of the list as the back bedroom has some extensive water damage from the roof leak. I want to put a steel roof on for rain water harvesting but do not know if we can swing the cost. In the mean time I will get up there and see if I can find and patch the leak enough to stop it until I can secure materials.
Sue wants to be moved in within the next two weeks - and of course she wants it all painted first. She is painting.
This morning I have spotted some green fruit on one of the Mulberries in the back yard. Since it is green I will not know what kind until it ripens.
Cool! There's an ancient white mulberry on the grounds of the Settler's Museum up near Rural Retreat, but I've heard the white ones are fairly bland in taste.
Amanda (remember her from the last RU?) is giving me a couple of seedlings she thinks are female since hers bears fruit, but all of them need a male nearby to fruit. They are marginal here but I'm going to try them up by the barn where frost doesn't settle as quickly. (I'm a zone colder here that you are.)
Had some earth moved yesterday...
I'm building a BIG hugelkultur bed to absorb the rain runoff from the barn roof
I had him scrape the sheet compost I put over the drain field last year, before I knew it was the drain field. The pile of it has broken down much better that I expected since September, and I have a huge pile of almost black gold.
I also had him drill some post holes for a trellis to grow vines to shade the south wall of the house...
I got the cedar posts stuck in the holes but need help to get them plumb and tamp them in place.
After I found that fruit I searched for awhile (the place is literally surrounded by mulberries and have concluded that one bush is the only female - none of the others have any fruit.
I am so jealous of your mulberries. :) I have one snall one I am growing from seed. It's in a pot right now. I think it is a white one.
Dyson great news on the house. nothing like a good feeling iwth the key in hand. congrats.
darius looking good !
been pretty busy
got a 1/2 acre garden.... yea i know what the heck was i thinking ??? .... just trying to stay busy at an insane level i guess ...
but last night
was going to get tomato's in last night but our neighbors cat got in the way of the hay baler. Kyle was out cutting the hay last night and he saw me at the GH. asked if we had a kitty. poor little kitty... cut the tail right off of her tore the skin on her belly clean off. The hay was so tall and the kitty was hiding in it .
i m just amazed that he even noticed he hit her ? so i tried to grab her but couldn't get a firm grip as she tossed in pain. took off my shirt and wrapped her in it. Like a burrito.
good thing we live in the middle of no where i had a sport bra on so it was not the show anyone would care about
called my neighbor and she came and got her. Took her to the vet and she may recover. Lets hope no infection . but i guess she will need a new name . I was also glad she was declawed ! i m also amazed she didn't try and bite me when i picked her up ? wow what a great cat she is.
so no tomato's in the ground yet but i may try again tonight later on around 7pm.
Wow, taynors, I hope that cat still has eight lives left.
Great progress, Darius, and a lot of work.
I pulled the spinach and onions in the big bed. Planted 14 tomato plants and put shade cloth over it until the plants get acclimated to the heat. Watered them today. One of my melons died in a tire so I will plant another. I had 9 extra tomato plants I had no room for so I took them to church and found new homes for them. My broccoli plants look great but still no heads forming. They look like cabbage plants so I am wondering if they were mislabled. :( Pulled up the lettuce to make room for the peppers. Left one for seed. Pulled the 2 containers of carrots today. Going to put a squash plant in each pot.
I got your e-mail, Darius. Thought I'd better check in with the homesteading forum before May is gone. I don't know where all my time is going, just know I don't have enough hours in the day :0) Your gardens and cuttings are looking amazing!
Cajun, got a kick out of your camping story. Glad you survived :0)
Sue, hope the kitty makes it. Thanks for being brave and helping out (speaking for the kitty here :)
I'll visit the memorial next, sounds like you've busy. Hope you have been holding up well.
Dyson, I'm surprised you don't sound panicked.lol The closing of a house is enough to drive a sane person crazy. Keeping your son in my thoughts.
The garden is doing well this year, except the dreaded tomatoes. Since when did tomatoes become one of the hardest plants to grow? lol I planted extras, so I hope to still have some sort of harvest.
The cow girls are dried off, buying milk, but should have enough butter to see me through to calving. I am expecting a calve mid June, but she hasn't bagged up very much, I could be wrong on the date.
I finally got a trellis up against the south end of the house. I'm growing vines on it to shade the house, and already the pole beans are about 2" tall but too small to show in the photo. I still need some help to get the top cattle panel up and fastened, hopefully before the vines get that tall!
Very nice, it looks great against the house! I could use more panels, I love those things and they keep going up in price. I like them looped in a circle as compost bins and have seen some very nice hoop houses made with them. Someone should come out with, 101 ways to use cattle panel :0)
Nice shots of uses, Lynea. I used one a year for an arched bean trellis. I loved how the beans hung down inside for easy picking.
I want to get myself a collection of those panels. Yours are working great.
Darius, what vines will you grow on your trellis after the beans are done?
Dyson, prayers for your son.
I took some goat milk out of my freezer and thawed it in the fridge. It has seperated. It tastes fine so I guess I could still make cheese or yogurt from it? I'm gonna give it a shot. I hope it works. I've got about 4 more gallons in there. My does are both due to kid next month.
I got 2 more tomatoes planted. That makes 16 in all. I have 4 red mortgage lifters, 2 yellow mortgage lifters, 2 orange ky beefsteaks, 1 sweet orange cherry, 1 galina's yellow cherry, 1 honkin' big black cherry, 1 white cherry, 1 matt's wild cherry, 1 yellow stuffer and 1 gooseberry. Can't think of what the last one must be. I planted 1 straightneck yellow squash and 1 yellow scallop squash, 1 shepherd pepper, 1 hopi yellow melon, 1 charleston gray melon, 1 dessert king nelon, 1 moon and stars melon and 1 early silverline melon. I also have a red raspberry to plant.
Been battling shipping fever at the barn. 17 out of 20 horses got it. Been giving penicillin and gentimicin shots for 6 days now. My 3 are doing well. My buckskin mare is completely over it. I rode her yesterday. Small amount of thin mucus from Godiva's nose but no more coughing. He neck is sore and stiff from the injections. Gave he a couple rings of bute this morning. Vet says it's normal and will pass. Ben, the 3yo, is over the runny nose and coughing. He has had the hardest time with the stiff neck. Have been giving him bute for 3 days. He has a pocket of what appears to be fluid on the underside of his neck halfway between his throatlatch and his chest. It's about the size of an egg. Not sore or warm to the touch. It's smaller today than last night. Vet said to keep an eye on it. Mine finished their meds day before yesterday. Started them on penicillin and switched to gent. Wanted to keep ahead of the worst of it. There is one horse at the barn that needs to see the vet. He is coughing and has not eaten in 3 days. Worse yet is that he has only drank about 2 1/2 gallons of water in the last 2 days. I advisd the owners to get the vet out.
The boys are out of school but we don't know when they will be able to get up here. We can hardly wait to see them. Got a few projects planned.
We have had a rough month. DH had to get an injection in his eye for swelling and a bubble of fluid that is distorting his vision. He will have more laser done in 2 weeks for bleeders. He also had some minor surgery on his foot again. To top it all off we have lost 5 dear friends in 20 days. Two were church members within 4 days of each other. One was a minister friend. The other two were an estranged couple we had been friends with for years. The husband broke into the house, killed his wife in her sleep and then killed himself. Their 18 month old baby girl was unharmed as she slept in another room. It has been very hard for both of us to deal with. We keep wondering if there was something more we could have done.
been busy busy
got about 90 % of the garden in
tomato's are looking a bit yellow already :? and its only been 4 days ?
lost 3 chickens to a raccoon .
Tim lost the job in PA ... he got laid off... what next ? wait i don't want to know
wow love that arbor ! wtih the climbing rose .. to die for !
Great news on the kitty.
she is going to be ok as long as no infection get her . broken leg, no tail and ripped skin . Vet fixed her up and she is doing fine.
Cajun i m so sorry to hear of the news about the couple ... no there was nothing more yo could have done. Sending prayers to you .
well off to bed.
Thanks for the encouragment, Sue. I guess I will always wonder about it. It was such a waste and that poor baby girl has to grow up without her parents. It's just sad.
So sorry you have lost more chickens. I hate it when that happens.
Is there another job opportunity for your DH? I hate he got layed off. PA is much closer than China.
How many tomatoes did you put out? I have 16 in all. I just got them out a week ago and they are small but looking good. Finally got a rain on them yesterday. Sure needed it. I still have shade cloth on them too. Guess I will leave it a few more days.
Today was a very good day. DH had an appointment with the foot doc so we had breakfast in town at Micky D's. Haven't done that in quite a while. I enjoyed a steak biscuit with grilled onions and milk. Mmm Some of our friends were there and we ate with them. We had a good visit.
Good news at the doc. The foot wound is smaller than it was last week. Doc did some minor surgery on it last week and it got the results he was looking for. Even better news was last week's culture came back clean so they pulled the PICC line!! No more antibiotics and infusion!!! Such a relief.
We went to Walmart afterward for a few needed things. While we were there I got a couple plants for the garden. I also ate a few cherry tomatoes that were ripe on their plants for sale.
After we got home, I fed the animals and put the goats out on the grass. DH hooked the trailer up and we went and picked Firefly up. We brought her to the big barn to let somebody see her and ride her. They may be interested in buying her. I had a really nice ride on her. She was on her best behavior. We kept her outside the barn because of the "crud" the other horses are fighting. The couple seemed to like her a lot. We will hear from them this weekend if they want her.
The rest of the horses are all doing better. A couple are still coughing but we didn't give any shots tonight. Going to give them a day to see if they can fight it off completely. The gelding who had quit eating started picking at his grain today so he is turning the corner too. It sure is welcome. I have been worried about them. I called the vet about Godiva and Ben because their necks are sore but the vet says it's nothing to worry about. I stopped at his office and got more bute paste today. I think I may sleep late in the morning.
good to hear the foot dr went well. good the wound is healing
raccoons got our chickens ... * sigh *
Tim starts a new job tomorrow.
busy busy this week
got two houses to clean this week
lot of garden stuff going on
got about 90 % of it in the ground. hooray ! my chinese lantern didn't die
my litchi tomato has thorns ! ouch . no one told me that part LOL
deer are staying away from my garden so far knock on wood
Jessica's memorial is this week. *sigh*
other then that . just busy week
My new hugelkultur bed is coming along nicely, just slow on my part. I was stupid and bought some Miracle-Gro Garden soil for vegetables/flowers to cover the inverted sod so I could plant my winter squash seedlings. I covered about 5 feet on one end with about 2" of the crap ($30 worth), and put the sprinkler on it. The crap sheds water rather than absorbing it, defeating the purpose of a hugelkultur bed! So I scraped it all off, and will have to buy a small load of topsoil in the next 2-3 days. The "black gold" from last fall's sheet mulching tested with a pH of 9.0 so it will need something like elemental sulfur for a while before I can use it.
I have a new "garden helper" for unloading several truckloads of wood chips: meet Bogart. We've had him a week, and had him neutered (he's from the shelter). He's exuberant, to put it mildly, but he should calm down.
Bogart is a beauty. BC mix?
We have some sadness at our house today. One of my does had her kids today. She was not due until middle of next month. She had twins. The doeling was stillborn. The little buckling is super small and very weak. I am afraid he may also be blind. I am working dilligently with him. I milked his Momma and got him to take some colostrum from a bottle. I gave him some gel paste for newborns to give him a lift and I put some electrolyte powder in his milk. I am keeping him warm in the house and taking him out to see his Momma every couple hours. I am hoping he gets strong enough to reunite with her. He is starting to struggle a bit to try and stand. He layed beside her for a while. She licks him a little and when she called to him he tried to answer. We are calling him Bartimaus (sp?) but praying he is not actually blind. He is a cute lil buggar. I will try to get a good pic of him to post. Please say a prayer for the little guy.
Caj, he appears to be a border collie mix, not sure with what. His temperament is VERY BC.
Every homestead needs a dog ! Bravo !
welcome to the new addition to your house darius. he is a handsome fellow.
Caj i m sorry to hear of the little ones not making it and the little guy struggling. Miracles do happen. :)
well i did a boo boo
i had some left over fingerlings and planted them in another raised bed.... wellllllll couple weeks later i planted pepper plants in it also... duh !
fingerlings are in the middle and the peppers are at the edges... so what do you think ? any problems to arise ? i may just keep it unless it would be bad for the fingerlings.
busy day but we got rain and it felt gooooood. we sure needed it. at last i didn't have to water by hand whew.
Sue, I seldom plant any peppers because I've never had ANY luck with them... so I have no advice to offer. (But I suspect they'll be fine.)
FINALLY, our plumbing is finished!! Next is some minor elec. repairs, and over-roofing the flat roof on the back porch that leaks like a sieve. (There's more, like a metal roof and hardwood floors to cover the buckled particle-board sub flooring, but those above are what's next.)
On another front, I'm EXTREMELY worried about this bit of news...
Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction.
The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.
Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.
These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.
There's NO WAY I can pay an electric bill 8 times what I'm paying now (Thankfully I'm not in Ohio!), so I'm starting to look into alternatives, like hydronic (hot water) heating in the floors and domestic hot water (bathing, dishes) that's solar-powered, and maybe even a few solar panels for general electric usage in the house other than for elec. heat. Obviously, the elec. appliances I now have will need to be replaced with more energy-efficient models. No doubt this will require a lot of soul-searching, and changes in how I live. I suspect a long learning curve is in order.
Wow! I guess that will affect us too. Scarey!
My little buckling passed too.
our county is in a big stink about wind power. many people are pretty mad about it . It did get passed so it will happen sooner or later.
we want solar also. this is just crazy paying so much for electric ?
we have geothermal but still i think other back ups are much better.
got to get Dh in the wood stove mode again.
Darius,
Congrats and great news on the finished project! I would love to be able to say I have finished even one project here. We were making progress at a snails pace, but Tim lost his job so now we are back to survival mode. Oh well, baby steps are better then no steps at all.Lol.
As for the electric prices, I am not surprised at all by those numbers. I am surprised they made the info public so soon though. We had numerous increases in our power costs when we were in Portland and most were not announced until just before they were to show up on the bill.
The good side to the news is that you do have time to get a plan in place and considerably reduce your grid use before the new prices take effect.
Solar panels sound difficult or even complicated to a lot of people but they are a lot easier then you think. I have no special skills or training and have figured them out and to complicate matters even more for me, I am very mathmaticly challenged! It can start small and be expanded on slowly as long as you are always forward thinking . I found affordable cells on E-bay and most of the other materials are available localy if you can be creative. My panel won't last 20 to 25 years like the comercially made panels, but, my panels also did not cost me between 300 and 700 dollars each and if my panels fail, I do not have to rely on the manufacutrer to fix them or force me to buy new ones.
All the options you mentioned are good ones and will save you a ton in the long run. As far as the comercial wind farms and hydrothermal and other options the power companies and other say they are looking into, it's great, but they will not be any less then standard grid power costs are today because the companies will pass on to us all the costs of research, development and implemetation. That is why as dificult as it is for us, we chose to be totally off grid. You have an advantage we do not, you have grid power to build yur off grid power systems before the price changes go into effect. You have to build and use according to your area and for us, solar and wind are the best options.
Liz
Thanks for the encouraging words about solar panels, Liz. My personal preference is passive solar, which can be designed right for heating and cooling (with just a few solar panels for household electricity), but it's not an option unless I could pick up the house and turn it to face south! I taught construction for a pilot Self-Help Gov't program years ago and we built 3 passive solar houses.
I agree that commercial geothermal, wind farms, and whatever they call the system that uses ocean waves will be no cheaper for the homeowner that what's available now. Much as I don't like the increased cost, I'm glad they are enforcing cleaner energy from coal. I live less that 100 miles from coal-fired elec generation and it's terrible on the environment as you get closer to it. Don't even get me started on nuclear power plants!
Sue, I'll be with you in thoughts for the Memorial for your daughter. The garden you are making for her is looking great!