Monday, March 5, 2012

A Morning at Home


I fed the goats and the dogs this morning.  The cat showed up late and he didn't get his canned catfood.  Don't worry.  He has a mountain of dry catfood on an old table inside a shed.  I cleaned the goat pen.  Got the wet straw out of the goat shed.  Cleaned the water trough and got those cute goats some clean water.  I decided to take the goats out and let them start eating weeds.  We have just the tiniest bit of green grass coming up and I am counting on those goats to keep the cheat grass and mustard down to a minimum.  Obie, the big goat, decided to take a couple of big chunks out of my nice pine tree on the way back to the pen.  I have got to get a piece of fencing around that tree before it is completely destroyed.


I then got the seed starting materials organized.  Well, maybe organized is a pretty strong word for this mess.  I found a lot of the trays and such that I need to get things moving.  I ordered coconut coir seed starting medium but it hasn't arrived yet.  About March 15th I need to get some seeds in the dirt.  I still have to straighten out the greenhouse and get some water in the reservoir inside the greenhouse.  That keeps the moisture level up and helps even out the daytime and nighttime temps.


Hubby got one of our nice new gates up.  We still have to put wire on the bottom since I don't want the dogs in this area.  I also want to be able to keep little Penny Poo Poo locked into the backyard.  The pots and seed starting stuff are behind the wooden shed.  The shed definitely has a forward lean to it.  The wind has been eating the sand out.  Maybe we will have to jack it up and see if we can straighten it out a bit.  The wood siding is looking really dry so I either need to sand and paint or get some Thomson's Waterseal on that thing.  Painting it white with green trim would look really good and go with our color theme but I really hate to add another project on to my list so we shall see.


Here is the second gate Hubby put up.  Looks fantastic.  We have to get some wire on the bottom of this gate as well.  Penny is definitely going to be able to go right through the bottom rungs. Hubby has the T-post in place for us to get another short piece of wire up on the right side.  Looks like Rusty the Red Dog snuck into the picture.  In the background you can see my giant pile of compost.  I am running a sprinkler on it today.  I can't keep it moist enough to actually want to break down into compost since it has been too cold to run much water.  We'll be spreading it into the garden pretty soon, ready or not, and letting finish composting in the dirt.  That actually ends up working out okay for us.  

You can see the goat pen gate on the right and the shade cover/hay shed/wood shed on the left.  You can't see the greenhouse in this photo.  It is forwards from the shade cover.  The veggie garden will be well protected from dogs and goats when the fencing is finished.  The far left side is going to have a 14 foot gate and a 4 foot man gate.  When both are opened up, we will have an 18 foot wide hole to aim at when we are backing a trailer in there.  Unfortunately, when we designed the greenhouse and veggie garden, we designed a jig jog from the driveway on the side of the house into the back area.  You try to plan ahead but sometimes you just don't quite get it right!

The wind is supposed to come up later today and it is supposed to be warm.  Tomorrow is supposed to go much colder.  This is why we never get any fruit on our fruit trees.  Warm, cold, warm, cold.  Oh well.

Since the wind isn't blowing yet, I decided to take the hedge trimmer out for a spin.  I whacked and sliced and trimmed for quite some time.  Sadly, I am not done yet but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  I still have to rake and gather it all into piles for burning when we get a day that isn't windy.  I might need two days.  That's a lot of dead grass and brush out there.

Noon- Time to eat lunch, take a break, maybe get a little nap in and start all over again!

No comments:

Post a Comment