Adhoc gathering for Easter weekend, and a massive bonfire, yeah!

Steve & Josie

Hired Tommy to cut some trails in the back 30 acres, should have done this 2 years ago when the trees/brush were much shorter.  He has a Bobcat forestry cutter, and wow can that thing cut through the brush and trees, even grinded a number of stumps.  Below are a few shots of the resulting trails, a video of him starting and then a video of driving through the new trails.

Bobcat forestry cutter

Property line diagonal

Trail up to the hill where the knocked over deer stand is located.

Clearing at the top of the hill.

Me and Patty assembled the three raised beds this weekend. Took a little longer then I thought it would and I’m glad there were two of us. We were a good combination, more then once Patty’s eye for detail saved us a lot of time.

First one assembled..NOT..turns out it needed one more level of boards.

Patty loves the tractor.

Late Saturday…just need to trim packs added.

Trim really makes them look better.

All trim on, fully loaded.

This year we decided we would be able to spend enough time at the farm to properly take care of a vegetable garden.  After much research by my lovely wife and seeing the garden that Rose Hauling built, we decided on a raised bed garden initially with three 4’x12′ beds 22″ high. My initial thought was to simply stake out an area and plop these down in some basic design. I’m glad my wife pushed to make it more formal and to level the area out. I engaged Zack & August Edelberg from Orange to come out and level a spot over by the barn. When they were finished I’m so glad we went the extra step, it looks nicer and will end up being more functional. Below are some shots of project. When they were finished leveling I spread a combination of white clover and perennial rye grass and covered it over with straw. We had Rose Hauling bring in 15 cubic yards of their organic garden soil so now we’re all prepared to setup the first three raised beds this next weekend.

Starting the leveling of the garden area.

Scraping away all of the top soil.

Part way through

Nicely leveled!

Seeded with dutch clover and perennial rye grass and covered with straw.

15 cubic yards of organic top soil from Rose Hauling.

Had a good week to 10 days of below freezing temperature, usually only getting into the 20s and getting close or below zero at night.  The big pond froze a good 5 inches thick, I tested it in multiple places with a hole saw.  The boys got their hockey skates, sticks and puck and gave it a whirl.  Not so much as a creaking noise from the ice.

I took the opportunity to get out onto the island and clear out all the overgrowth.

At the end of the video below me and Patrick take the UTV for a spin over the shallow part of the pond, again not even a crack in the ice when we drove over.

Even in below zero temps this must be a warm spring upwelling into one of the small ponds in the bottom area.

Patrick helping clear the underbrush

Temperature dropped to 7 below zero that night.

So none of the 5 small ponds down in the bottom area have had proper overflows.  Eventually the dirt overflows erode to the point that the pond gets very low.  I fixed one by replacing the dirt and then putting stones on the top along with gravel underneath the stones to help prevent erosion.  The below pictures are my attempt at doing this for the second pond.

Picture tells it all.

Frigid

First time I’ve transported the tractor myself.  Used JJ’s almost brand new trailer, worked perfectly.  The tractor has a hydraulic leak that I just couldn’t pinpoint, so figured I’d bring it in to get it squared away.

Strapped on and ready to go

Rented an extension ladder that was barely tall enough to get the job done.  Luckily it wasn’t windy and was relatively warm or it would have been a painful process.   In general, I don’t like heights, but I had to get this done, I’ve had the star for several months now.

Its a pretty big star, not heavy, but bulky trying to get it up the ladder

Got it up there!

Bolted it on from the inside of the barn. Barn will come down before this star comes off.

On que, the skies clear…