Category: property

A quick update

Hello everyone. Its been a while, but things have been busy. I have two new project cars, the shop is under way, more work on the garden on the property, and other bits of news.

Im not sure which topic to start with so I think I will go with “Happy New Years”. Yes, in Feburary. I honestly dont know how January slipped by so quick. Time seems to be speeding up, or I am slowing down, either way I blink and another month is gone.

In other news, there is finally progress on the shop. The pieces for it have been up on the property for a few months, but I couldn’t get the tractor guy to show up. So for New Years I decided to go with someone else. The new tractor guy was there in a couple days of me accepting the contract and had the pad done in two days! Here are some pics of it.

Thats moving the big darn rock in the middle of where my shop goes.

And thats where the shop is going.

Thats all I,have time for now. Im thinking about doing some vids from the property showing the different projects: garden, shop, rusty engines and antique restoration. If you think this is something you would be interested in seeing, leave a comment to let me know.

New things happening this month….

Well, the heat is finally here and I haven’t been spending too much time up on the property. Mostly I go up in the morning and take care of the things I need to do like watering the plants and checking on stuff. I purchased two new raised beds made from corrugated Gavalume, with some kind of paint on them to help with corrosion. I plan on putting one together this weekend and getting some pictures of it. I probably won’t install them this weekend since I want to level a spot and put some gravel under them. I also plan on trying Youtuber ‘Self Sufficient Me” way of doing Hugelkulture planting. It’s interesting and sounds like something that may work. He lives in Australia and has a pretty nice set up in an arid hot land.

I also worked out a deal with a gentleman in Massachusetts for some antique engines. Yes, I know…. how many antique engines does one person need? I already have a turn of the century Half-a-Horse, 5 Model A engines, a ’20s Fairbank Morse Z 3hp, and others. And yes, they all need a little bit more attention than I have been giving them. But how could I not rescue what looks to be four 1930’s LeBlond 5 cylinder radials? After all, not only are they fairly rare antique engines, but they are also radial airplane engines! The only downside is that they are in pieces… and in Massachusetts.

This is one of several pictures full of parts for the engines. The gentleman I am purchasing them from didn’t want to ship, but after talking over things came to an agreement that he will ship some parts to me now and then bring the rest out to Cali later this year. He has been packing things this week and plans on shipping them next week. It’s a good thing I am building a shop.

Or am I……..

*Sigh* So, I have no pics of shop construction yet because the person who has the bulldozer to start cutting the pad broke his hand. He seems to be healing up fine from what I am told, but no date yet when I can expect some dirt to be moved. In the mean time, I do have the permit for the shop and the metal parts are in production. I should have a truck of parts heading my way in about a months time and hopefully some dirt moved by then.

That’s the update for now. I will post more when there is anything interesting to see.

A quick update…

I haven’t had much time to post the last couple of weeks. My shop is a ‘go’. Submitted the paperwork for the permit last Friday and am waiting to hear back. For all those that that have dared the maze that is my garage workshop, I will soon have a 40’x50′ workshop if all goes to plans.

The plants seem to be happy still. I had to move the Tayberries out of the greenhouse. They were taking over, tangled in each other and the other plants. I moved them out to the deck for now, but plan on trellising them when I figure out where I want them permanently.

I spent my first night up there in the shed on Saturday of Memorial weekend. I was pretty excited about it until I realized around 11pm I had left the only way to fill my air matress back in town. The sleep was a little rough, but breakfast made up for it. I made ham, eggs, and coffee with a couple cherry turnovers.

I enjoyed my breakfast as I listened to the rain hitting the metal roof.

Last bit is an update on the Medlar, still has fruit and is going strong.

That’s it for now. Maybe more after this weekend.

Spring Storms….

The first week of May brought a storm through the area. It’s kinda rare to have a thunderstorm in the central valley but we received a good one complete with plenty of thunder, lightning, and wind. It is beginning to become apparent that if there is a stiff breeze on the valley floor then it’s going to be gale force up in our hills. If you think I’m exaggerating, remember this pic from a couple weeks ago showing the new screens for the greenhouse roof?

Well, this what I found two days after the storm came through…

Um…. yeah…. did a bomb go off nearby? Seriously. It blew bunch of fairly heavy (appx 5lbs or more) stuff all over the place. I found some of the panels that are missing in the second picture over 200 feet away. The greenhouse put up a fight before it blew apart, it bent a 1/4″ x 3/4″ brace and a corner bracket before it went.

The bracket in the second picture is showing the entire roof moved over about half an inch. I found all the panels, straightened the structure, reinforced some areas, and then put it all back together. On the bright side, all the plants survived just fine and look even healthier than the last post. we are supposed to have another set of storms roll through this Thursday (5/16) and Saturday (5/18), so we will see if it holds together.

Oh, check out what it did to the solar panel mount. Lol.

I laugh because the expensive mount literally blew apart, but my cheap temporary rigged mount below it did better with the storm.

I also did some more work on the raised bed planter. I continued the work by putting down a thick layer of weed block….

Then I put down two layers of fine aluminum screen mesh to see if it will keep out gophers, cause there are a TON of gophers…

No, the dirt didn’t get darker, the light being reflected caused my phone to filter it. As you can see I used the next layer of blocks to hold the weed barrier and screen in place. I also figured it wouldn’t leave gaps for anything to get though. Next came the final layer of blocks….

I was going to use PVC pipe in the cinder block holes to interlock the blocks and layers together, but PVC pipe has gone up in price. Would have cost me over $40 to cut 28 pieces of 2″ pipe at 24″ long. Instead I went with….

2×3’s. Yup, 2×3 wood instead of PVC cost me $17. I’m cheap and this is a proof of concept trial, so wood works. Since the blocks overlap I figure locking them together will give them a little resilience in case the pigs investigate it….

Next is to build the wood portion on top of the block base that will have the screening to keep out the bugs. I will tap all the 2×3’s down to level before I cap the blocks with the wood structure.

Finally for this post, I’m trying something I have never grown before but have always been interested in. I’m trying to grow some tobacco from seeds. I started the seeds in a seed tray on the 26th of last month and here is a pic of the fresh little sprouts….

I started them in potting soil put in paper ketchup cups. The seeds are super tiny and I didn’t realize I got so many in some of the cups. Lol. When they get about 2″ tall I’m going to try and separate them out into individual plants. There are 5 different variety and 4 have sprouted. From left to right (in vertical rows) are Yellow twist, Virginia Gold, Standard Burley, Tennessee Red Leaf, and Orinoco. I’m hoping Orinoco is just a late sprouter.

Things are growing….

And not just my beltline. 😉

It doesnt seem like its been a month since my last post, but the date in the header doesnt lie. The medlar tree has flowered. They are good size blooms, around an inch across. Since I put this tree in the ground in Feb it has taken to the spot and out performed all expectations. Here is what the flowers look like…..

Neat flowers and they were at the end of every branch.

I couldnt sense any fragrance or smell from them, nothing at all. I was sad when they started to wither after barely a week, but then I noticed that they didnt go completely away….

All of them shed their petals and pulled back to this. Some were more closed then others and as the week passed they all closed up tight. This week I netted the tree and noticed that it was getting bigger…

Im now fairly sure that this tree is setting fruit. The pic was taken today, the day this is posted.

Speaking of netting trees, my trees are starting to all look like ghosts for Halloween…

I noticed a few full grown crickets around and want to make sure my trees have a fighting chance this year. The grasshoppers/crickets/locust killed about half of my trees and all but one blueberry last year. I also made screens for the greenhouse so its enclosed but can still circulate plenty of air…..

There is a mix of solar shade screen and plain bug netting screen. Im trying the sun screen to see if I can mitigate some of the direct summer sun here in the central valley. As far as the plants are concerned, they seem to be loving the greenhouse….

Those are all the same plants seen in the previous post. All of them have grown a bit and look healthy. I even found some blueberries on one of the bushes that are starting…..

Since the greenhouse is doing well I am going to give a try with a raised bed idea I have. I found a good location for a test bed and asked dad to bring in the tractor to scrape away the tall grass. Here is the spot…..

And here is what it looked like after Dad brought the tractor in…

I got the first row of blocks done and need to bring more up. Im going to use the blocks for the raised bed portion to see if I can keep the wild pigs from destroying it…..

When I go up next weekend with more supplies I will adust and level the base layer a bit more, I ran out of time on this trip.

Spring is starting 2…..

After years of trying various lighting and humidity profiles to grow my coffee plants, I think I may have got close to the right conditions. I know this because not only are they growing well, but they have flowers..

They seem to be happy, and they are pretty little flowers…

I spent last Saturday moving the greenhouse from my backyard up to the property on the hill by the shed (due to the asshole behind me planting a bunch of trees to block my sun for growing things) . The greenhouse was in shade almost all day long and was useless where it was, so best to put it somewhere it can be useful.

I put it in the middle of all that tall grass, the thought being that there must be plenty of light to grow things there. 😉

I’ve already put my Tayberries in there. Herd to believe these were just bare sticks from Trees of Antiquity just a month or so ago. They love the light and already have buds for flowers…

I put my blueberry plants on the other side of the greenhouse, they have a ton of flowers on them and I’m hoping I will get to enjoy the berries this year instead of feeding the grasshoppers like last year.

Speaking of things that are budding and flowering, the Medlar tree has more buds on it and they are getting closer to flowering. Last week they were closed tight at the top, this week they are larger and just starting to unfurl the outer leaves/petals.

Last but not least, this Saturday I made a stand for the new oven. It was WAY too tall sitting on the table I made. I couldn’t get my coffee maker on the top and there is no way I’m going to put up with that. I wanted the top down low enough that I could use a pan on it comfortably like I would at my regular cook top. This is what I came up with.

Much more usable now. I just need to run it a few more times to double check the heat levels on the things around it. Every weekend I’m up there things get a little more refined for ease of use, and every weekend I’m up there it gets harder to come back to town.

Spring is starting…

Just a quick post. I planted this years batch of trees in the ground, and blueberries/tayberries in pots the second weekend in Feburary. We have had more rain this year than usual and the springs are running still at the end of March. The first tree to wake up was a Medlar from Trees of Antiquity. It was a stick when we put dirt around it and now a few weeks later its leafed.In fact, I think it already has flower buds on it….I haven’t grown one of these trees before, so I am surprised a bit by how vigorous it is. The peaches, apricots, plums, and cherries are just showing signs of leaves. The apples are just now getting fuzzy tips.More posts and pictures coming after this weekend.

New oven for the property

Its been a while since I posted any updates on the property/shed. Actually, there wont be much about either one of those in this post, but it kinda ties in since the oven is in the shed….

Yeah, its a stretch but it will have to do.

So I’ve been enjoying the shed almost every weekend this winter since I have a 2 burner coleman stove and a teeny tiny wood stove. The coleman is great to make my coffee with, and the stove always has a pot of water warming on top for tea or cocoa. Oh, and I can’t forget the occasional can of soup or Chef Boyardee. I have a coleman fold up oven, one of these..

Its a great little oven, but it is little. Biggest pan you can get in there is a 9×9. That means you can bake about half a roll of Pilsbury cinnomon rolls at a time. My other issue is that I can make coffee and some rolls, but that takes up both burners, so no bacon.

Yup, i said it….. no bacon. Suckville.

That leads me to last weekend when I was in my local sportsmans place. I saw an oven that was big enough to use a full 9×13 baking pan…. actually it will hold 2 full sized pans and has 2 burners on top.

This little beauty runs on the same small bottle that my coleman 2 burner runs on and has the option to use a conversion hose for 5lb and up bottles!

So, you ask, how well does it work? First try with the oven today was a success. Warmed the oven up and it held a steady heat on the built thermometer and another I hung on the rack inside. My mom wanted to see how it would do and made a test batch of blueberry scones.

All you get is a picture of the left overs. I was too busy stuffing my face to take pictures…..

;)-

Been too busy to post much….

I’ve been busy, spending almost every weekend up on the property getting things done. We have wells, dad has a shop, some roads are cut. My big project has been building a shed. I knew where I wanted it, figured out what I wanted it to look like, and then I got started.

8/26/17

9/16/17

10/28/17

10/29/17

12/27/17

12/28/17

12/29/17

12/30/17

12/31/17

1/7/18

1/21/18

2/3/18

2/10/18

 

More to come as I keep making progress..

 

 

 

 

Finally!…. Land!!!!

Well, if you have followed this blog then you know I have been looking for land, somewhere in the hills to get away to.  It has happened. The whole family has bought into 280 acres of rolling hills and river. Here are some pics.