The day dawned overcast but dry today, and thanks to our
economy measures the house was at a predesignated 55 degrees. I had slept
better than most nights, and it was 8 before I left my snug warm bed. Spent a
half hour making a blazing fire in the wood heating stove, and turned up the
thermostat to 60, just enough to circulate some air while the wood stove did
the heavy lifting. The result was the central area being warm, and the bedrooms
somewhat cool.
Made corn pancakes for breakfast with eggs, coffee, bourbon
maple syrup, and OJ.
Adam Rust came by with a pair of bolt cutters to cut off the
other realtor’s lockbox attached to our porchlight. We hadn’t seen him since
the signing. We invited him in and had a nice chat. In the end the bolt cutters
did no good at all, but he promised to work on getting it done another way,
through the manufacturer.
Worked on organizing the workshop area of the garage some
more. Reinforced and put locking casters
on the drill press stand.
Lunch was peanut butter and banana with apples and Earl Grey
tea. Thank you MM.
After lunch I found fencing pliers and loaded them, some
t-posts, t-post driver, some baling wire, and some loading straps into the
wagon and went out to repair the cages around the sapling fruit trees North of
the house. Two of the trees were pushed
down severely, and I arranged two t-posts in a braced upright to put some
pressure on the fallen trees to straighten them. Tomorrow I will tighten the straps some more-
hoping to straighten the trunk without breaking anything. There are two apple
and two cherry trees, and a peach tree that didn’t survive. Some other trees in that area I can’t
identify- perhaps more fruit trees. Time
will tell.
The saplings were in awful shape when we saw them last Fall,
some of their cages falling down or crushed by a rampaging mower, it looked
like. They didn’t look any better today. I straightened the cages and tried to put
things right, but I wonder whether the surviving canes are rootstock or scion
in some cases. If rootstock, maybe I can
propagate it to make more root stock trees and graft my own scion onto it.
The ones that live
may bear some fruit this year, but I will not let them bear more than a half-dozen
fruits so that they can grow stronger.
By all appearances we can look forward to a bumper crop of
blackberries this year. The forest will yield a generous supply of fallen
alders and such from the last ice storm, once I can get tooled up and harvest
them for firewood, and 10 foot fence posts, something I will need a lot of very
soon, for deer-proof fences. Anything accruing from my planting annuals depends
on how much I can do while I am in this wrist brace, with all my other
infirmities.
My first thought for the ideal process to build a garden is
to first build a portable chicken house and place it inside the deer-fenced
garden plot. Using the plot for a
chicken run and forage for 8-10 weeks {meat birds) should condition the soil,
especially if I put generous amounts of straw down. Not sure where the parallel
idea of straw-bale gardening will fit in- maybe as a heat source for the
chicken house…
I have sites for two greenhouses- one frame already put up in the upper orchard
which needs a covering, and also between the RV pad and the Annex- a proper
zone one configuration.
MM worked on putting doors back on the seven and a half foot
wide oak veneer bookshelves, which we built together yesterday, and the
division of that area to two small bedrooms is virtually accomplished. If we like it we will build a permanent wall
there. Some books are loaded into that 3-bay system and we are thinking of
adding one more bookcase to close the gap.
Dinner was French green lentil and rice soup, flavored with
some bacon and assorted veggies- served with drop biscuits and cookies made
from some batter I had frozen from the last batch. This took me an hour and a
half to make, so next time I need to knock off work earlier.
And now catching up on journaling- I suppose I’ll never
record some of the things that happen, once they pass me by, but here, at
least, is some of the flavor.
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