Whatcha Up To???

[w_r_ranch]

Went to town to vote & them up to La Grange to shop. We tried a new (to us) meat market & picked up 2 whole sirloins that they cut/trimmed for us... gorgeous cuts of meat!!! (this may well become my go-to meat market) Stocked up on a years worth of paper towels@ WalMart, then hit the grocery store & Tractor Supply for misc. stuff that I needed.

Harvested more asparagus & watered them/the onions/potatoes.

Started bringing the hanging baskets up to the back porch (I'll bring up the front porch plants tomorrow).

 

[wolffman]

^ Prause Meat Market?

 

[w_r_ranch]

Bingo. I've been meaning to stop in there for years & today we did. They were very accommodating & I was impressed with them. We'll be back in a couple of weeks to pick up our big order (we need to rearrange stuff in the freezers).

 

[ErnieCopp]

Kids are different. We had all three of ours in four years. First and last ones were not much trouble. Middle one cried and cried. We were exhausted like Yan describes. We were young and doing exactly what the Doctor told us. Finally in desperation, we changed doctors. The new doctor was an old man. He examined Dan who was not skinny at all, asked what we were feediing him and we told him exactly what the other doctor had told us to feed him. He said. "The reason he is crying is because he is hungry. Feed him more until he stops crying.," He looked very normal, so i do not know how he knew, but that solved the problem.

Ernie

 

[wolffman]

Today I feel like a total wuss. Last week I had to do an MRI, but I only made it about 7 minutes because of some severe claustrophobia. I've never had that before. Today I went again, and they gave me a valium beforehand. I made it through all 40 minutes, but it was all I could do not to squirm my way out of that machine. I do think I'll ever do one of those again lol. I don't know what it is, but my mind goes nuts as soon as my head goes in that machine.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Wednesday:
Finished bring up the ferns to the front porch & watered them.
Line trimmed the yard & then cleaned the trimmer.
Cleaned the toilets & refilled the chlorine tank for the septic system.
Made bread.
Harvested more asparagus.

Thursday:
Cut the grass.
Watered the trees, flowerbeds & garden.
Cut rebar that will be used for staking the risers for the irrigation system upgrade.


Friday:
Pick up cattle feed & ranch fuel.
Continue cleaning the garden (I hope to finish it this weekend so I can till/form rows).
Watered the garden & the flats in the greenhouse.
Harvested more asparagus.

 

[ErnieCopp]

We had a swarm of bees settle in the Rosemary tree. My neighbor has a hive, and i alerted him. Do not know if they were his bees or new ones,
The Rosemary is about 8' tall and just packed solid with blooms. Does not look like a good place for a swarm to settle as it will be difficult to extract them, but do not know what Neighbor will do. If he does not capture them, i may have to exterminate them. I kept bees until i started having toxic reactions to the stings. I love them, from a distance, so i hope he can recover them.

Ernie

 

[wolffman]

Ernie, give them a few days. They should be on their way soon.

 

[ErnieCopp]

;;;;I was telling Linda it did not look like a suitable place for them to stay, but i was not sure how long the Queen will be able to fly after she was bred. Do you know how much time she will have?

Ernie

 

[wolffman]

I don't Ernie, but we usually have a swarm swing by once a year. They never last longer than 4-5 days.

 

[ErnieCopp]

I do not need to be in that area for a couple of weeks, so i will just give them free accomodations for a while. I have peach trees and some other things blooming, so maybe they will do some polinating for me.

Ernie

 

[w_r_ranch]

Finished cleaning the garden... Tomorrow I will harvest the last of the carrots, chard & spinach.

 

[wolffman]

Another busy day today. Got most of the main garden planted. Corn, okra, bush beans, pole beans and peas. Still waiting on squash seed to show up in the mail. Didn't seed pepper plants this year, too much going on. I'll go down to the feed store and buy a dozen this week. Still in the process of prepping the tomato/cucumber garden. Weatherman says lots of rain this week, that will probably mess with my schedule. As soon as it dries out from the rain we're going to get, I'll probably have to take a day off work to wrap up the Spring garden.

 

[w_r_ranch]

I'm playing it by ear as well. If I plant late, it won't be the first time...

 

[Mr_Yan]

Lead a FPU small group today - week 5 of 9. During that I got a text from my wife telling me that there is a squeaking noise coming from the wall upstairs. It's a bat. I hope it finds its way out tonight. Spent the last two hours looking for ingress points from the wall cavity to the living quarters and sealing them with tape and cardboard. Looks like I need to get behind the knee walls and really start to seal things.

Highs in the 50s forecast for the next few days. Lows below freezing. Getting worried my peach tree will flower early and get hit with a seasonal early May frost.

 

[ErnieCopp]

We have had an inch of rain and some hail so far, with some more hard thunder storms forecast. Wettest the ground has been all winter. No run off from my place so far, but some water in ditches from up above. Hillsides are baked so hard, probably not much penetration up there.

Ernie

 

[w_r_ranch]

Been raining lightly here the last 24 hrs. Ran out & harvest asparagus & noticed that the potatoes are coming up.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Severe thunderstorms today... the forecast shows 3+". Pretty dark out there right now.

UPDATE: Received 3.45" today... It's safe to assume that the garden will not be going in 'on time' again this year, LOL!!!

 

[w_r_ranch]

Still raining here... we have received an additional 0.61" since midnight with more on the way.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Well we've been really warm around here for the last week. I was thinking I might get parsnip seeds direct seeded and start my broccoli, kale, and collards inside.

I just stuck a probe in where I want to put the parsnips and it seems the raised bed is still frozen 3" down and deeper.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Still raining here... another 0.26".

Made Italian bread & a loaf of garlic bread to go with the spaghetti squash that we are having for dinner.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Still raining lightly, another 0.29" since midnight...

 

[ErnieCopp]

I spent some more time thinning peaches. This is the second crop for the tree, and it set 15 to 20 peaches per foot of bough.I did not prune it much as i wanted maximun growth from the leaf energy, so not only is the fruit set heavy but lthe branches are dense. I have been thinning down to about one fruit per four inches so that means i have been thinning around 90% of the crop, leaving one or two of twenty.

They are now beteen the size of a small black olive and a big stuffed green olive. I have never seen a fruit set so dense. I may have a natural fruit drop later, but so far have not seen any.
Always something different each year.


Ernie

 

[Mr_Yan]

Really warm out here and supposed to rain tomorrow. We even saw mosquitoes out today - that 's unheard of for this time of year.

I pruned some of my peach tree. Really late but oh well it happened.

Tore up some of the pallet garden I tried over the last two years to replace it with raised bed walls. The wood was surprisingly rotted. I went the lazy route and left the pallets there and built the raised bed walls on top of them.. I filled them with the base layer(s) for a strawbale / lasagna type garden using the prunings from my neighbor's ornamental grasses.

 

[Mike]

Added some compost to the garden yesterday and picked up all the fallen sticks. Need to hook the rain barrel back up so I can start collecting this rain water for the summer.