Year 5 - 2014

I've decided to try a different format starting this year. Most of the things I post have to do with chores and improvements to the farm. Instead of posting a lot of text, I've decided to post mostly pictures and some captions that describe what was done. I suppose that gets away from the "blog" purpose, but adding a lot of text to my pictures posts doesn't seem to work for me. So here goes...

SPRING TRIP

Winter brought some strong winds and a few trees down in the lower pasture. A short ad on Craigslist brought someone who was interested in harvesting the wood. They used their own equipment, cut up the wood, and hauled it away.  What was left over I burned. I still need to figure out what to do with the left over stumps.

I decided the asphalt part of the drive way needed sealing on this trip. Here are the before and after pictures of that sealing project. It should last a few more years with this added protection.

During this trip I installed an Omni-Directional TV antenna on the outside of the house. I like to watch PBS and it was just out of range with the indoor antenna. After installing this antenna I now pick up two sets of PBS channels as well as other over the air programs. In all I get about 12 channels over the air. Not bad for free TV.

The chicken coop was one of the areas I had not touched since I purchased the farm. After clearing out all of the junk and trash, I ended up with a pretty good little building. There were some interesting things in there to include the little drummer boy and the home made food dryer that Grandpa made.

I decided the well head needed a little sprucing up so I installed this small wishing well over it. Unfortunately purchasing on the web didn't really give me the actual size of the wishing well. I had to increase the height a little by mounting it on an old planter. This gave it a height that covered the well head. I think it looks OK?

Here's a random flower that has bloomed out in the old garden area. I'm sure Grandma planted the bulb years ago. It was a nice surprise to the mostly bare area. The area won't be that way forever. I plan to build some raised garden beds in the original garden area and plant row crops in the area behind the original garden.

FALL TRIP

I needed to paint the chicken coop so I decided that this trip was a good time to do that. I even bought a little craft paint and painted the farmer and his wife who adorn the chicken coop doors.

Mom's shed was damaged years ago by a tree that was dropped on it from the neighbor's yard.  I decided to use some of the left over metal from the roofing at the farm to re-roof the shed. First we had to get the shed cleared out. A couple of ads on Craigslist solved that problem. Many treasures were found in that little shed. The roof structure had to be reinforced and a new skin put on the roof. Finally a new pair of doors completed the upgrade. Here are a few pictures of that effort.

It was another great trip and I'm looking forward to the next one. Until then...

THE END.