Duct Tape and Baling Twine

Duct Tape and Baling Twine

Micro-Farming on a shoe string

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Oh yesss…

It was very big, very strong, and green. Let’s just call it the Hulk.
So when the rental store said that the new tractor was bigger than last year’s model, they didn’t say how much bigger. This thing was a beast. Just towing it home was a challenge. Between the tractor and the beefy trailer they put it on I think it weighed as much or more than the van.

Last year I wanted to add another gate to the garden gate entrance, but the tractor wasn’t strong enough to pull out the railroad tie posts, so I just left it as it was. The Hulk was too wide to fit through it this year but the ties were no problem for it. It pulled them out like weeds in the mud. One year later than planned we have our double gates to the garden.

The Hulk made short work out of cleaning the neighbor’s horse corral. Fifteen bucket loads into the garden is the best kind of “horsepower” for our garden. The six foot wide tiller on the back churned it all into the garden with ease.

Now that the gateposts are moved, and if I had a choice next year, I think I would choose a smaller tractor. The smaller tractor can do the same job without packing down your tilled garden as much, and it is easier to tow.

But if you ever want to pull up some massive posts, move some boulders, or maybe knock down a barn, then you should see if you can rent a big green Hulk.

May 4th, 2012 | Category: Country living, Gardening | Comments (4)

Spring happenings

We all had a fun Easter this year. The weather was wonderfully sunny with a temp in the 70′s. The dads had to do some very creative hiding this year. Many eggs ended up “hiding” in some very high places. Rakes and sticks were needed to dislodge them from high perches and deep within the arborvitaes.

Planting time is here again. We are still cleaning out garden areas from last year. I found some Habaneros/Scotch Bonnets? that had escaped picking and sat outside all winter on the plants. We had one of the driest winters on records this year. Things left in the garden this year didn’t decompose, they dehydrated. I think the pepper seeds might actually be viable.

After I had broken open four of these peppers to save the seeds, I knew I had made a mistake. My eyes started watering, I started sneezing, my throat got all itchy, and I started coughing. The dust out of these peppers is lethal! It went away after a few minutes with the shop doors open, but I didn’t open any more. Hours later that night when I rubbed my eye, it started burning from the oil that had embedded itself in the skin on my finger. These are some crazy scary peppers.

I am looking forward to seeing how well all of the saved seeds will do this year. I hope to improve my collection to the point where I don’t need to buy as many seeds. The heirloom seeds that I am collecting have to meet three criteria. They have to be hardy, good tasting and have moderately good production. Those are the things I look for in the seeds that I buy now, so how much better would that be to get all of that for free?

After bleaching everything that the new seedlings would be in contact with I got everything planted. It would be nice to not have a repeat performance of last year when most of the tomatoes died from a virus just as I put them out in the garden. It was a pretty potent bleach solution in that tub. I might have ruined some clothes in the process, but if I don’t have to replant 100 tomatoes this year it will be worth a pair of jeans.

April 10th, 2012 | Category: Country living, Family, Gardening | Leave a comment

Lincoln City Oregon 2012

It was a wet vacation, but we had fun. The amount of foul weather we had just about cured me of ever wanting to live on the coast. We had some sun the first two days, and if we had known this was to be the sum total of what we were going to get,we would have chased the kids out of the house to enjoy it. As a result I just discovered that we were never out on the beach all together once on this trip. Something for next time I suppose.
I did manage to build some sand castles with our youngest girls though. Later I took a three mile run on the beach with the dog. Beaches are very low impact surfaces, and this would have been fun to do every day, but the weather got progressively worse after this.

On one of our wet days we went to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum in McMinnville. We have been driving by this area for years and have always talked about stopping and going, but this year we finally did it. We bought a one year membership, which is cheaper for our big group, and we have the chance of possibly using it again next year before it expires.

The biggest attraction in here is Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose. It can be seen from the highway sitting behind its monster glass fronted hanger, looking very much like a giant bird coming in for a landing. We spent hours in this museum the first day, and several more hours on the last day while we waited for our van to get fixed. It’s a great place to visit if you are in the area.

April 7th, 2012 | Category: Family, Travel | Comments (2)

Finished Greene and Greene Style End Tables

They are finally done.

Time to clean up the shop again.

March 13th, 2012 | Category: Woodworking | Comments (5)

Days before the finish

I seem to have a problem with fast living room projects. Part of it is wanting them to turn out exceptionally well, since they will have so much exposure. That kind of pressure makes me put them aside and think over every move of the project. Today I just realized that I spent less time constructing the entire shop than it took to finish these end tables or the entertainment center.

The pressure seemed to be off when I made the two nightstands for our bedroom. they took 75 hours, and were done in a time frame that could have been measured easily in weeks. I had high hopes for the living room end tables, thinking that they would be in and out in the same manner. Sadly, they followed the same pattern as the entertainment center, but I don’t think they took much longer in overall time than the nightstands.

There were a number of other factors that definitely slowed things down, and here is the list:

1. This was my first project with double tapered legs. The subtle taper constantly had me double checking to make sure that I didn’t rabbet out the wrong edge for the side panels. The upward taper gives the tables a strong wide stance though, which was something I was after.

2. The legs were made out of sycamore, and had some very unusual ray fleck patterns on them. This supposedly happens when the wood is quartersawn, but the patterns I saw would disappear completely when I cut the planks in half. So in other words the ray fleck effect only went part way through the plank. So the wood was rare and I only had enough for these two tables and I didnt want to mess them up.

3. The Greene and Greene style was new to me. The black walnut splines on the tops took some time and preparation. Every one of the 40 square walnut plugs were hand made, shaped and fitted. The “cloud lift” detail on the doors and baseboards, and the 1/8 inch round over of every possible edge took plenty of time too.

4. Doors that required careful fitting and placement of the hinges. Doors have never been my favorite things to mount. They are fussy critters that let you know immediately if they aren’t quite right by their poor performance.

5. The lift lids required a lot of tweaking to get them hinged right, and to get the hold clips in the proper positions. The hold clips keep the lid fastened down tight enough that all 44 pounds of the table can be lifted by it. By opening the door the clips can be released and the lid opened. This design allows enough space to place a laptop without having to make the doors wider. I am not sure how much use these will actually be, and am not sure I would do it again, due to all of the time it took.

 

 

 

Lots of good excuses for the time spent on this project and surprisingly few pictures of the whole build process. The most important construction detail was the discreet use of many pocket screws used to hold the panels to each other. There were also large deck screws under each walnut plug holding the legs to the panels and the breadboard ends to the lid panels. If the hardware doesn’t show and it holds the project together, it doesn’t matter what you use as far as I am concerned.

March 13th, 2012 | Category: Woodworking | Leave a comment

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