Douglas Fir is all stacked! More wood coming in June. Arrrgh!!

I finished stacking the last of the Douglas fir.  I’m a little sore and tired, but it sure feels good to have all of the wood under cover.  I have never had a problem with theft here and fire wood in May is not a high value item subject to theft.  It just makes me feel better, when a person can’t see wood lying around the alley.  Another advantage of having the wood stacked is I can start planting the Mossy Rose/Portaluca and sedums in the alley area I have been covering in wood mulch.  I have had some success growing sun chokes and the sedums in the mulched areas of the alley.  I have seen Sunflowers grow along the border areas of the alley and fences. So there are a few plants I can plant that hopefully will start replacing the the weeds.  This year I’m going to add some dirt and compost to those alley planting areas and I can water those areas through out the summer.  The weeds this year seem to be bad along the edges of where I laid down mulch and rock.

It might be Karma, now fire wood suppliers are calling me to take loads of wood.  I got scammed a few years ago on a fire wood delivery when I paid cash up front.  I learned and usually do a pay half now and pay off the delivery in cash when delivered. Today I got a call from my primary wood supplier to take early delivery of 2 cords of poplar.  I suspect the supplier has a lot of poplar and needs to free up some work space as many people don’t buy poplar or any kind of firewood in May or June.  Any hoo I have another 2 cords of cut and split poplar to be delivered on June 7th but I can’t pay for the wood in July. It really feels good that my wood supplier trusts me to pay after I have the wood delivered to my home.  This capitalism at it’s finest as both the customer and the business work with each other for mutual benefit.

As for the other wood delivery it was cheap wood because of the price and they were honest about the wood being delivered was not a true cord for $125.00 per “cord” nor was all of the wood cut and split to fit in a wood stove.  While I don’t think I’ll buy more fire wood from that supplier.  I will say they were very honest about the firewood quality and why it was offered at such a cheap price.  This person also called me back to take another delivery of their fire wood.  If someone asked me about getting some cheap fire wood fast I would show them the wood and let them decide if it worth $125.00 a “Face Cord” delivered.  I don’t think I got screwed on this wood delivery.   It is just a bit daunting the work I have to do to get Mom her wood and get the carport area prepared for 2 cords of poplar in about 2 weeks.

With all those caveats stated I’m sort of looking forward to splitting that wood and stacking it.  While there are a few chunks of wood that need a chainsaw to cut to length, there is a lot of hard wood that just needs to be split to make a long burning fire.  My “redneck” is coming out as I have a new splitting maul/axe in the 3.5 pound range that I want to try out splitting those hard woods using a 3 pound sledge. I tried out the 3.5 splitting wedge on a small piece of poplar and it split the wood.  The wedge will do better when sharpened.

Some times you can get screwed and all you can do as look at that situation is a learning experience and not do that thing again.  I’m a firm, believer in “what comes around goes around”.  Learn from my mistakes but don’t think all people are evil because some people do evil.  Also don’t be dumb like I was, and always hold back about 50 % payment on any job.  It does not mean you won’t get screwed but at least the cost is lower.  80% of all people you meet are great, that 10-20% of assholes are very annoying.

 

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I filled the last wood rack with Doug fir!

The last rack is filled with wood and covered with tarps.  It has been very rainy in my area so getting the fire wood covered and drying this summer is critical.  I’m finishing up the last small pile of Doug fir I’m stacking on the concrete walk way between the wood racks.  This wood I’ll add to the porch fire wood rack first to burn and start cutting into kindling this summer to fill the new kindling box.  It is tempting just to chuck the last of the firewood into the open section between the wood racks but I have done that before and found the stack wood dried better plus it is easier to gather stacked fire wood when the weather gets cold and blustery.  I was a discouraged for a time moving the wood Sunday but after that pile wood was stacked the remaining pile of wood went much faster as I was only walking about 16 -24 feet with each arm load of wood.

My wood racks are 8 ft. x 4 ft. by about 18 inches deep so they only hold about a “face” cord rather than a true cord of wood.  I can stack wood between my wood racks on a concrete base over 24 feet long, I’ll stack the remaining fire wood so I know I’m getting delivered about a cord “128 sq.feet” of fire wood.  There will always be a few gaps when stacking wood, but if you come out with 128 sq. feet of wood you have a “cord”of fire wood.  If you use tarps to protect your wood I’d recommend buying tarps at least 10 ft x 12 ft. long.  With 8 foot long tarps you don’t have any overhang to cover the fire wood racks.

The wood under the carport is a jumble right now but with the wood Mom hauled away I have room to work stacking the remaining fire wood.  Most of this wood is cut to length for a wood stove but will need to be split to work in my wood stove.  Mom filled her truck with the smaller/split wood to fill her truck as well as fit her little wood stove.  I am okay with that as I have more tools to cut and split wood plus my wood stove has a larger firebox.  I’m still digging around this wood pile but it looks like we got some elm, white maple along with a mix of fruit wood, pine and some poplar.  Mow I’m no expert on fire wood but in the last couple of years I hope I have gotten a bit better at identifying wood.  I’m not a big fan of elm but I love white maple.  Fruit woods like apple and cherry burn clean, hot and long but are almost impossible to split with an axe. I’ll be doing a lot of cutting with my little chainsaws getting some of the wood into usable sizes.

I got a 3 pound splitting maul that should help split and stack the wood under the carport.  I have to sharpen all of axes and mauls, but I have all of the tools to cut and split all of my fire wood.  I think I will get another 2 cords of poplar around August or September.  I know many people poo-poo pine, fir or using poplar as firewood.  I really like poplar as a fire wood.  Poplar burns clean, is easy to start and burns about as long as Doug fir and poplar cheaper about $100.00 per cord than Doug fir, from my supplier. It seems that poplar has a straight grain though many knots/ branches in that tree.  The little 3 pound maul cut trough a small bit of poplar easily even using a dull edge maul.

Stay away from using a Star type maul unless you are using a hydraulic or powered wood splitter. If you are splitting wood using muscle power a simple wedge type maul will take less effort to split wood. I suspect I’ll be using my 3 pound splitting wedge to start on the wood and then use my 3 pound sledge to drive the maul through the chunk of wood. It will be slow,  but it is what I can handle with my physical limitations.  I bet there are a lot of people that have the stamina to swing a 3 pound sledge for several hours, that would be worn out swing an 8-12 splitting maul for an hour or 2 especially if they never split fire wood in their life.

I just want split fire wood ready to burn for winter.  If I work 20 minutes a couple time per day every other day for the next 5 months and I have my fire wood ready to burn by October.  I’m good to go this winter.  If I could do the same job in two weeks in June it would not change the fact that the wood is ready to burn in October.

I’m a little peeved I got a nasty gram from the city about weeds in my alley area when we have had almost daily rain and they demand I kill the weeds that no one in Idaho has every proven capable of killing.  It is annoying as I have added a lot of rock and mulch to add drainage and I’m trying to build the soil that won’t give weeds good growing area.  I don’t use weedkiller/Roundup because I’m trying to build up the soil to support good plants.  Building soil takes time, even years and my weeds are not that bad plus weeds can be good as the hold bad soil in place.  I hate cheat grass and goat heads but until you improve the soil and replace the bad plants, the weed problem will remain a problem.  All the city of Nampa is the weeds are not tall of unsightly.  Making good soil or growing healthy plants is far down on the list.

Sorry for the rant, I got some mossy rose/portaluca to add to my alley way garden bed.  I have a bit of good dirt and the sun chokes are doing okay coming back.  I’m a bit pissed about the edicts from the City of Nampa but I’m still trying to make the alley way garden the best it can be as a healthy garden.

 

Two loads of fire wood in two days? Idiot!

My timing has sucked,  trying out another fire wood supplier this week but I have to say I’m glad I got the fire wood on site and I can take time to stack it all.  The first delivery of wood was tossed under the carport so the wood will stay dry until I can stack it.  About 1/2 of the doug fir is exposed to the elements so getting that wood stacked and drying is my priority.  I filled 5 of my 6 wood racks of the Doug fir today.  The rest of the stacking of wood will take a bit more time.

From the new wood supplier, the wood looks like a good mix of hard and soft wood and Mom says she will take half of that fire wood to start building up her wood pile.  I’m a believer in getting fire wood delivered in early summer to give the wood more time to dry/season before winter wood heat is critical.  One nice thing about living in a high desert climate is the humidity tends to be low, so wood tends to dry quickly when stacked.

I’m physically worn out, but looking at all that fire wood gives me a good feeling about the winter heating season.  After this last winter and all the wood Mom bought from me. I think it is plausible I could store 2-3 years worth of fire wood.  I’m still playing catch up on stuff but once the firewood is stacked I don’t have to worry about that winter heating issue for a couple months.

 

It stopped raining so I moved wood around

The skies cleared and I had about 3.5 hours of dry weather this afternoon to move the wood in my wood pile.  I’m  moving the older, over sized dry wood (for my wood stove) under the carport to stack and will be cut to size, too fit my wood stove.  I moved the wood racks around to make stacking the wood for easier access and set up an area for cutting and storing kindling.  I have 2 cords of Doug fir incoming  this week so getting the wood racks prepared for incoming fire wood is important for my heating plan this winter.

I’m trying a new supplier of wood and paying as I go.  Mom says she will buy up some of the wood to mitigate my initial cost for wood.  Over all I feel okay about the wood buy, but we will see if the wood is worth the cost.

Just took delivery of the wood and the carport is darn full.  I suspect I got at least 1.5 + cords of mixed fire wood mostly cut /split and ready to burn.  Perhaps it is Karma helping me on the good side since I got screwed on wood deliveries a few years ago. I’ll need to stack the wood to see how much fire wood I have on hand.  Money is going to be a little tight getting this fire wood delivery before I planned for getting wood this year, but getting stocked up on wood this early will pay off this summer and into winter.  I’m good on money, as I can deal with taking a hit of $250.00 either good or bad easily.

Physically I’m going to be toast Tuesday, after moving the fire wood and wood racks around the yard.  I have a 2 cord wood delivery on the 22nd so I’ll be in  recovery mode the 21st.

The cole crop garden beds seem to be thriving after opening up the Agri-bon frost cloth.  It seems that this week is going to be good for cool weather crops getting a good start for growing.

Plants are going into beds. Huzzah!

I think I suffered a bit of a CIDP flare this last week and did not get much done as I felt less than chipper, during the good outside working days last week.  I was able to run my errands and get a bit of shopping done but until today I was down, and in recovery mode.

I did get a lot of great buys via Fred Meyer’s Founder’s sale this week as  Pet-it Sirloin steaks are $2.69 per pound and 70/30 Hamburger is only $1.79 per pound.  With all the flooding in the midwest and the crazy trade war talk, Stocking up on beef/meats  is one of my missions this spring.  Getting the freezer full is high on my to do list this spring.

We got snow in the mountains around the Treasure Valley and the weather went from 85 degrees F. for a high to 55 degrees for a high in less than 24 hours.  Saturday the 18th was about the only dry day to get much work done in the garden or on the yard.  I finished mowing the front lawn about 9:15 pm while my solar lights were on.  Thankfully my electric mower is somewhat quiet and I did not disturb anyone partying on a Saturday night.  I normally would not mow so late but this is the last dry day for the next 7-10 days.  May tends to be a “wonky” weather month around here,  as I have seen 100 degree days as well as snow in the valley as late as May 18th.

I did get one of my garden beds full.  I added two types of romaine lettuce and Napa Cabbage starter plants to my “Cole crop” raised bed.  The broccoli and cauliflower plants that have been under the Agri-born frost cloth are growing very slowly and may need a little more sun though the onions seem to be to be doing well  for “scallion” type growth.  The Agri- born cloth seems to inhibit sunlight a bit more than I anticipated so I have cut the cloth in the middle to allow more mid-day sunlight to hit the crops in the raised beds.  One of my biggest problems with my past gardens is crops bolting, if the Agri-born cloth helps mitigate that issue I will be extremely happy.

I finally figured out what to grow in the former tomitillo raised bed.  I’m going with melons and flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums.  I want to play around with natural bug control and edible flowers/landscape plants.  Plus I’m growing a very  different plant/rotating the crops so that should help mitigate any bug or soil problems.  While I want to go vertical via trellis with the small melons,  this bed has the most area for plants that tend to spread out.

Great news my blue potato buckets have a few plants are starting to come up and put on some greenery.  I was about to give up on those plants but that is the best thing about using big planter buckets/pots as you can try new stuff and give the plants time to grow or fail, without affecting your main garden.  City gardeners like myself that use raised beds or containers always seem to find others that want to know how plant experiments work out.  It’s not snark when some people have great success or another person has a less successful growing of a plant.  It is about finding what worked, and did not work for each individual garden.

Last but not least I had some quail wander through my backyard and it was wonderful watching those little birds check out the backyard.  I’d love to expand my backyard into an urban wildlife habitat. Yeah, some critters are annoying, but there are many bonuses to having wild critters around to eat insects and such.  Never discount a potential protein source in your preps.

Happy Mothers Day all.

Mom has had a Fybro flare and is recovering so she did not feel like going out or doing the standard Mom’s day stuff.  She would like me to scrub her bedroom carpet this week for her Mother’s day gift. Gosh that is a simple thing to do and I might bring out the tiller and see how easy/hard it is to dig in the raised beds.

For myself I puttered inside the house and got some cleaning done.  I gave both bathrooms a good cleaning washed all the bath rugs. Washed and wiped down all the kitchen cupboards.  I’ve been ignoring the interior of the house and it needed a good wash down if not a full on Spring cleaning.  I really like using the Lysol all-purpose cleaner for wiping down the cupboards and general cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom.

I got more the starts trans-planted into larger cups/pots. Using the wood tongue depressors have worked great for popping plants out of the small 6 starter paks without destroying the paks!  I transplanted the start into Styrofoam cups and gave my neighbor some beef steak and Cherokee purple tomatoes, celery and a couple types of sweet peppers.  I kept back some of the transplants for myself and Mom, but giving away starts feels great and is the best sort of charity.  It isn’t just giving away garden vegetables, it is giving away the start of a vegetable garden.  Plus, I get to learn how to start plants from seed and transplant, not only into my garden but help others with plants in their gardens.  I think transplanting is a skill I will need once I get the greenhouse built.

Update:  The red potatoes are growing and I added another layer of dirt to those planters.  It seems the Blue potatoes are a bit of a bust for growing in tubs.  That is okay because I think next year I will plant Yukon golds rather than a blue potato. I’m still playing around with the frost cloth as a sun barrier/frost barrier and the anti-tucker dog digging in my raised garden beds.

One size fits all means that one size fits no one well.  I live in high desert so my garden plan probably is not good for someone in Alabama as we have very different climates, rainfall, humidity and temperature.  I think Kansas, Nebraska are “muggy/humid” states.  Well they are compared to SW Idaho.  But no mater where you live/garden building good soil is first and them growing plants that thrive in your area is next for building a good garden.  To give the other states some love…  There is an old joke that some one said their is no humidity in SW Idaho and another person said there is very little humidity in an oven.

Kind of lazy plus some updates

This new spring/summer has really screwed up my sleep schedule. I have been coming up about 2 hours short on for the last few nights.  That has sort of worn me down and I’m not getting all the projects done daily.  But I’m going to darken my window blinds tonight and see if the morning sunlight is waking me up early.

I got a start moving some of the older wood to it’s new spot under the carport. Organizing the wood racks for the wood delivery in a couple of weeks is one of the bigger jobs that needs to get done.  Some of last year’s wood delivery was stacked on topped of the older dry wood that I need to cut and use up this winter. Having the older seasoned wood ready to use will help make my wood pile easily accessible will give me a better idea about how much wood I need to burn during a “Normal” winter.  I need to move the wood racks a little bit so I get good rain coverage with my tarps but the wood can season naturally this summer/fall.  I got the final design of my kindling box finished and I just need to finish adding the cedar wall slats and top so the kindling can season and stay dry.  I know this is a simple box with an angled lid but it is also my first try at constructing something like this, so a few mistakes is part of my learning process.

Much like the wood racks I’m adjusting the raised bed gardens and the use of the frost cloth.  I have heard that some people cover their gardens through the summer but I’m going to open the tops of the frost cloth for natural pollinators to do their job. I just hope the little bumblebees will come in and do the hard work.  I have to say this is the first year in five years that I saw the fuzzy little bumble bees in my apple tree blossoms and among the flowers.  I hope this means that the bee population is starting to recover.  I’m also using my frost cloth as a barrier around my raised bed gardens to keep my Peke Tucker from digging in the beds and so far it seems to be working.  Tucker has his little swimming pool of dirt and a couple of places in the yard to dig. So he is happy and has not dug in the raised beds.

I used some 90 degree elbows to make pvc square over the raised garden beds. For my garden I think this set up will work best for most of the summer.  The wonderful thing about pvc pipe is you can adjust it, change configurations very cheap and easily.  One thing I noticed in myself using the frost cloth is I don’t see the garden beds daily So there is tendency in myself to assume the plants are fine and don’t need weeding.  So far my bed is okay but that sort of “out of sight, out of mind”  is something I need to avoid.

Went to my local garden store and got some winter squash plants for the 3 sisters garden.  They had a Sedum tray on sale that I got a rain check on to start planting in the alley garden.  I need to add more plants in the alley way garden to drive out the nasty weeds.  I need to adjust my rock and mulch and add a different water plan.  I’m not sure trying to drown weeds is a good plan. LOL

Updates:  The Homemade pepper spray appears to be a success!  I have had no squirrel size hole dug in my berry planters. I’ll add another spray coat to the straw mulch this week but so far I’m very please with the results.  The red potatoes are putting on a lot of new growth so this weekend I’ll add more dirt to the buckets.  Mom tells me the blue potatoes tend to grow a bit slower so I have not given up on those taters.  The Starting plants are ready to put in larger pots.  I want to grow every plant but some times you just have to thin out the starts.  I am excited as I will have starter plant to give Mom and my neighbors.  Once I give away the plants, I don’t have to see the plant carnage !  Last but not least I have saved the “burnt” cast iron pans and I’m building up the non-stick coating. Scrambled eggs are not sticking much to either pan so I think the pans are as good as they can be.

 

Mowed the back yard grass patch

I had a few tall grass “bunches” in the backyard that I knocked down with the weed wacker.  I ran the mower on a high setting over the backyard lawn.  Basically I’m trying to level the grass from the old stuff to the new grass growth. The new grass is seedling are a bit delicate and only about an inch tall so no carpet like lawn is possible yet!  But the grass seed is growing and filling in the backyard area.

I set up a new watering system for the front yard that waters my plants and does not water my windows or siding of my house.  My irrigation water is hard and watering windows or siding will leave a scale on on the house.  Best to water the yard and garden beds and not my house.  I’m not sure that my front yard re-seeding project worked but that part of the yard did not have as many weeds this Spring and the lawn is a bit more level after raking in compost/manure.

I’m starting to transplant plants from the starters from March.  This process is new to me but I think I have the basics down.  Mom and my neighbors say they will take any transplants so I’m using Styrofoam cups as a larger “pot” for the plant to grow.  I’ll be adding many seedlings to the pots rather than tying to separate the plants.

It never really crossed my mind that I might start plants from seeds.  I see plants growing and it always stuns me.  I know I have built the soil, a watering plan but to see theory result into food plants is stunning to me.  While my little backyard lawn patch is no big deal in the world.  It makes me happy and my dogs love it.

Get self reliant now. Practice everyday, every little bit helps you.  I’m not buying 4 cords of wood because I love Idaho power!  Buy a little solar panel that powers your phone, a light or whatever you want powered. Can you cook a meal, boil water off grid?  If you can do that you are better prepared than 90% of americans.

Mowing the weeds at Mom’s place

We had a big work day at Mom’s place cutting down weeds in the garden area.  The green works electric mower did okay cutting down the semi-damp/2 foot tall weeds.  I wanted to use my bagging lawnmower hoping I could bag some of the weed seed.  I’m not sure I bagged the weed seed, but we did get Mom’s garden area cleaned up enough so she can start her raised bed gardens with new soil and compost.

Mom was a little concerned about using my lawnmower on her weeds but the little Greenworks mower did good, even though the weeds were very damp. I think I showed Mom she can take her riding lawnmower into the field and keep the weeds cut back even if we can’t eliminate them this year.   Cutting down 2 foot tall weeds is a challenge for any mower but I have proved the Green works electric mower can handle the job if not quite as well as a powerful gas mower.

A friend suggested using old carpet as a weed barrier.  This friend is a garden goddess that built a greenhouse from cast off window frames.  So she knows about going cheap but also spends money when and where it is needed.  Our friend just happen to know someone getting rid of some old carpet and Mom got it for free.  After mowing/weed wacking. Mom laid down the carpet “JUTE” side up and will add mulch on top carpet so the carpet makes a weed barrier and Mom can walk around her beds without the weeds trying to trip her up!  Mom will need more mulch.  I don’t know about anyone else’s garden but I always need more mulch.  It might be that as I learn more about gardening and landscaping I see more areas that mulch would be a great addition from building soil to water retention

The Kellog’s soil,  I love using this soil in my raised beds and when (the soil) went on sale a couple of months ago and I was correct in guessing the cost per cu. ft. was going up by about 33- 50 %.  I was able to give Mom four of the 3 cubic ft. bags as well as top off all my garden projects.  I did not plan for that soil to go up in cost but I’m composting and the steer manure/compost is a low cost augment to my garden beds.  Now I have added enough good soil in my beds that I hopefully no longer need to add soil.

Great news my onions are coming up in the garden bed!  The grass seed is sprouting up and my potato buckets are starting to grow.  The pepper spray on the straw mulch in the berry buckets seems to have dissuaded the squirrels from digging in the berry planters.  My hoses reach to all parts of the garden and I soaked all the planters I have not watered the last few days.  I’m still working on the garden irrigation plan but now I know I have plenty of hoses ready to water all of the garden beds.

Last but not least I splurged on some Jiffy starter packs.  I want to have a fall garden as well as succession plantings in my raised beds. These are cheap starter beds, but if they last 2-3 years the cost of $4-6.00 is an acceptable cost for starting plants.

 

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