5-15 June, 2013 - Greenhouses, car repairs, pruning raspberries, solar power, and more.

It's been an expensive month.

Susan is painting the porch in preparation of putting the screen on it.  I have most of the framing done but still have some minor things to finish up (like trim).  The mosquitoes have been out in force the last week so we need to finish this project up.

 

The garden is a never-ending project.  Susan is pruning some of the raspberry bushed we have.  She cuts out the old, dead stalks to make way for the new (and productive) growth. 

 

The chickens must have heard us talking because they've boosted egg production this week.  We mentioned to them that one egg per day from five hens wasn't going to be tolerated.  We've been a little concerned about them since some of the hens are approaching eight-years-old.  Anyway, they've boosted production a bit so we're now getting three or four per day.  Some of the slack may have been due to moving them.

 

In any case, we splurged and bought some real "layer" food for the hens so they'd best keep production up!

 

We've been working on the greenhouse.  This one will be a small one (6 X 8 feet) in practice for the larger one we plan on building next.  I can adjust the radial arm saw to make angle cuts but then I have to replace the back-stop more often.

 

 

What I prefer to do is clamp a guide board to the table at the proper angle for the cut.  It's easier than replacing the back-stop and easier to get the precise angle I want.

 

 

 

The argument goes on forever whether a radial arm saw or table saw is best.  As usual it depends on what you're going to do with them.  When I bought my RAS it was a choice between a radial arm saw, miter saw or table saw.  I chose the RAS because it was the most versatile and easier to work with on construction projects.  I now have a table saw too which is nice but on construction jobs it can be difficult to cut the rafters and other long pieces of wood.  The table saw is really nice for finer work such as making furniture.   My next purchase will be a miter saw.

 

Here I'm ripping down a 2X4 into two - 2X2's.  I can buy the smaller lumber but a 2X2 costs more than a 2X4 so I make my own 2X2's for about half the price.  The table saw does a better job ripping but it's in another building.  I was only doing a couple of them so it was faster to just use the RAS.

 

I had to replace the blade on this one. That was another $20.00 expense.

 

We are just going to put the roof and end walls up for now.  The clear roofing was left over from a project two years ago but we forked over real cash (around $30.00) for the rafter boards.  The rest of the lumber was scrounged or left over from other projects.  It's still been a pretty cheap project though.  We're going to replace the roof on the cabin in July or August and I'll have some more clear plastic panels from the old roof.  We'll use them for the sides.

 

One thing saving us money is our solar power.  I run an extension cord from the cabin's electric system (solar powered) to the greenhouse project in the garden.  The extension cord was expensive ($1.50 per foot - it's a heavy gauge cord) but we've had it for several years.

 

Scott loves playing with my stuff.  He grabbed the cordless drill from another project and ran (to escape with his contraband goods) out to the greenhouse and began "drilling" into this stump.  I have the screwdriver bit on the drill but he managed to drill into the stump (it's old and partially rotted out) using it.  The grimace is from how hard he has to work to hold the trigger and make the drill run.  His hands aren't big enough to go completely around the grip.  He told me to "go away" (he didn't want to give up the drill yet!), so I snapped the picture and did some other projects until he tired of the drill. 

 

 

More parts for the car and lawn mowers.  I hit a rock and destroyed the blade mount on one of our power mowers so I had to buy another one.  I also bought a blade for the other power mower we have along with an oil filter for the Cherokee and another for the small generator. 

 

 

I did some judicious blade straightening on the rock casualty then re-sharpened and balanced it.  I was afraid I'd bent the crankshaft but then saw that the blade was bent rather than the CS.

 

I installed the new blade in the spare mower.  We normally use our reel mowers but we've had so much to do that we got out the power mowers to keep up with the grass.  (We've had lots of rain this month.)

 

 

More flat tires.  I finally took this one to the water tank and submerged it to find the leak.  It took  about three weeks to deflate so it was a very small hole.  It was punctured in the sidewall by something very small (probably wire).  I tried patching it but the patch didn't hold (didn't think it would but it was a Sunday and the parts store was closed so it was worth a try).  We bought a radial tube for it on Monday and that did the job.  The tube was about $13.00. 

 

It's also been making some growling sounds so I ordered a wheel bearing assembly while we were in town.  That was another $80.00 and another trip to town.  They had one of the more expensive bearing sets in stock but they wanted $130.00 my cost for it.  We decide to wait the extra day for the $50.00 savings.

 

We also put air shocks on the rear.  The springs on Cherokees are designed for ride rather than work and ours is often heavily loaded.  We got tired of hitting the axle stops and decided to install air shocks.  Those were another $75.00.  When I went to put them on the top mount bolts for the shocks were rusted in and broke off when I tried to remove them, so ... I had to drill them out (all four) and cut new threads.  I've always enjoyed having hot bits of metal falling onto my face while drilling out the broken bolts (NOT!) so it took a lot longer than planned.

 

I'm going to change the oil and filter on it today.  When I bought the filters, the parts store tried to sell me the top-line they have.  It would have been $17.00. I asked for the "econo-line"  (AKA - cheap), which brought the price down to $7.00 for the pair.

 

Our daughter loves her old Land Cruiser but the radiator's core is rotten.  I've tried fixing it but to no avail so we ordered a new one online for abut half the price the local part store wanted (we paid $230.00).  I put it in during the week so she is back on the road ... sort of.  She wanted me to check the tail pipe which was rattling on the rear axle.  I checked it out and found out that the top leaf of the driver's side rear spring was broken and letting that corner sag.  They're looking for some used springs.

 

 

Another of our kids hit a deer with his car so we had some minor repair work for it as well.  It wasn't a lot of damage but it will still need a grill and radiator.  We took it apart and the parts should be here next week.

 

 

Susan took Scott on a bike ride outside of Eureka.  It's an old railroad right-of-way that follows the river and ends at Lake Koocanusa that's been opened to walking and bicycling.  This is just one of the photos she took.  Last year they had a grizzly bear hanging out on this trail so she took her bear spray along just-in-case.  It's about 14 miles round trip.

 

1-8 November, 2012 - Black Bears, Taters, Tires, Fires and Splitting Wood

We had a visitor last night.  The dog was barking her fool head off about 12:30 so I went to investigate.  I expected another skunk trying to get at the chickens but it was a large black bear that had dumped out the chicken feed and was enjoying his feast.  (At least he left the chickens alone.)  The dog was smart enough to just sound a warning and not engage him although the bear was pretty much just ignoring the dog.  When I arrived with the flashlight and shotgun the bear ran off about 30 feet and stopped to look me over.  I kept walking toward him and he took off for good. He was a pretty bear.  His back and front third were jet black and the middle section was chocoloate brown.  He was so fat he was almost as wide as he was long.  He'd better go find a place to den up before someone puts his hide on the wall and the meat in the freezer.  Maybe I should load one side of the shotgun with a slug from now on.

Winter is closing in and we've been playing catch-up since we got back home.  The weather has been overcast most of the time with some light rain so we had to run the generator once to fully charge the battery bank.  If you've never lived on solar power it's not good to run the batteries in a consistently undercharged state.  If the sun hasn't fully recharged them after a couple of days we run the generator to top them off. 

I called the Forest Service and we now have open burning so I torched three of our brush piles.  It was too wet the first time and I couldn't keep the fires going so I waited a couple of more days to try again.  They still didn't burn completely so I'll have to hit them again next spring.

The nice thing about winter weather is that we have the wood heating stove going and we can cook on it.  I just fried up some bacon and I'm now cooking eggs in that skillet while I make toast next to it.  When making toast we fold the aluminum foil over the top.  Otherwise the bread curls.

We finished digging potatoes in the garden.  We were fortunate that the ground hasn't frozen yet.  The harvest wasn't great this year.  We should have watered it a couple of times during the summer.

These are some of the spuds laid out in a storage room to cure a few days before being stored in the root cellar.

These are some that are sorted and ready to be placed in bins in the root cellar.

Susan's peeling potatoes for supper while I put a patch on a tube.  It was too cold outside to apply the rubber cement.

The patched tube, ready to re-install in the tire.  This is off one of the wheel barrows.  We have two wheel barrows and often consider buying a third one.  They are the workhorses of the homestead.  Garden carts are okay for many jobs but wheel barrows are more versatile.

It's time to get the winter tires on the Cherokee.  Usually we run studded snow tires in winter but this year they're just snow tires without studs.  We plan on spending a lot of the winter in places where there is no snow or ice!

I have my own tire machine (purchased from Harbor Freight Tools) so I mount/dismount our tires myself. These are used snow tires in almost new condition that we got for free (almost).

I had a fair sized stack of firewood from last year left over so I put most of it in the wood shed without splitting it (I didn't have room there last year).  I split this batch because it's what I call "trash wood" (it burns fast and not as hot as fir and larch).  I want to get it burned soon before it gets real cold.

Finished!

Each row is 2/3 of a cord of firewood.  I filled up one row and part of another then had enough left to fill a wheel barrow before I quit for the day.

These are from one of our kid's garden.  It was their first attempt at gardening and they had more than they knew what to do with so we brought these six pumpkins home with us.  They'll make great pies and pumpkin bars.  They had a good crop on everything that they planted but learned some important lessons as well.  The most important will be the new fence they'll put around it next year.  Deer are pretty to see but they love fresh garden produce.  It tkes a good fence to keep them out.  They estimate a 50 percent loss to deer over the summer.