Winter arrives, and projects move indoors...

Today saw mostly mid to low-20's here in central Ohio, which meant that my father and I were working on stuff inside where it was warmer.

We had aims to tackle the structural support of the white (animal) barn, which is leaning pretty badly on one corner due to soil erosion caused by lack of a gutter along one side (grrrr), but in the end we decided that it was a bigger can of worms than we were ready to open. At this point, I'm hoping it stays stable throughout the winter so I can come back to it with some custom-formed concrete blocks, a few bottle jacks, and the proper tools to get it stabilized semi-permanently. That said, if it falls down once the first heavy snow settles on the roof, I'm gonna be pissed.

My garage, which theoretically can hold two vehicles but has of late been mostly a dumping ground for all the last-minute movings out of my old apartment and storage building desperately needed a cleaning out. Every morning that I end up scraping ice off my truck windshield before leaving for work makes me feel that much sillier when I have a perfectly good garage sitting mere feet away.

So the majority of today was spent cleaning out and organizing that space. We put a 4'x'8' piece of pegboard on the inside wall, and built a nifty workbench out of an old door and some scrap two by fours. Can't quite park the truck in there yet, but there's always tomorrow.

Seed in the mail...

got two of my handful of seed orders in the mail today, from Cherrygal.com and Bountiful Gardens.

such small packages contain such large potential!

First mortgage payment...

Dropped off my first mortgage check this evening on my way home from work.

Felt a lot like paying rent, but better.

Attack of the bushes, part 2...

Had lofty hopes of getting some more sheet mulching done today on the last day of my November vacation... but the wind was kicking up enough to make working with sheets of cardboard and straw a mess and a nightmare, so I opted instead to finish digging those ancient bushes out of the front yard.

Turns out the ones that had me so irked yesterday were just little eensy babies compared to the ones near the middle. I was pulling beach-ball sized balls of roots out of the ground for each little spurt of leaves aboveground. At this point I feel the need to look up what all these things are/were, so I can assign them a name that I can then curse.

Despite being a huge and undoubtedly nutrient-rich pile of stuff after all is said and done, I didn't want to incorporate it into my compost pile for fear it would survive and thrive. So, I dumped it all in a pile back by the woodline. We'll see about using it when it's safely composted (read: dead).

Now terribly sore (again, I'm learning the level of soreness that signals the proper end to a day's work), and hunkering down for a bit of R&R and then some freelance work.

Back at the real job tomorrow...

Post-Thanksgiving...

After a relaxing and restorative few days spent at home celebrating Thanksgiving in Cincinnati with my parents, sister, and Grandmother, I'm now back up at the farm for the second weekend of this month's vacation before I have to head back to work.

Picked up some neato bookshelves at IKEA whilst I was down there... now my budding all-encompassing reference library has a home. I was worried I wouldn't have enough space for all my books, now it looks like I need more.

Feeling bad about not having been putting in time around here for a few days, I endeavored to dig up some of the more useless ornamental flowering shrub/bush things that are lying wilted all over the front yard by where the original turn-of-the-century farmhouse used to sit, between my house and the road.

There's a row about 20ft long of whatever these are, along what used to be the back of the house... so they've been there since at least 1980 when the old house was torn down. There's a decent chance they've been in-ground for the better part of a century. Having only managed to dig up four of them in several hours, including giant potato-like roots more than 5 inches across, it wouldn't surprise me. Yeeeeeesh. I have the sneaking suspicion I'll be re-digging up stragglers from these things for years, no matter how carefully I try to get everything up out of the ground. They just have that "I spread and survive no matter what you do to me" look to them.

Finally met my neighbor Brian. He's a volunteer firefighter, works with garage doors, and seems like a great guy. The lovely Rhode Island Reds who visit my yard each morning for forage are his, and he offered to get me some fresh eggs in the short term, and some free hens next spring once I'm ready for them. Nothing says "great neighbor" like free chickens.

Headed back down to Columbus tonight to see some friends and get a head-start on cleaning out the last of my old apartment, which has to be done by Monday. Ugh.

You know you've been working hard when...

I actually found straw in my underpants today. That has to be some kind of important farmer's right of passage, right?

Got a tremendous amount of stuff done today. And I am very sore. And a proper update is forthcoming, likely tomorrow night, once I'm too tired to do anything but type.

first big Work Weekend...

(An awesome antique pair of safety glasses that I found in a box of tools my dad gave me)

My parents came up to the farm to help this weekend, and as a result we got a huge amount of stuff done. Company counts for extra hands, good company, and motivation. And after two days of absolutely busting ass, I'm completely bushed and seriously considering hitting the sack at 7:30. Down at dusk, up at dawn?

I spent Saturday morning shopping for provisions (it's well past the time to actually get some food in the house), and met my parents up at the farmhouse just after lunchtime. I showed my mom (who's never seen the place until this weekend) around. She's no easy sell on anything, but fortunately she really likes it. Anyone who has a mother may well understand that going into 30 years of debt to purchase something your mother hates is a very bad idea.



My dad brought up a sizable quantity of plastic and wooden barrels from his secret supplier back home... the brown ones will be used as rain barrels, the white ones cut in half to make makeshift cold-frames, and the wooden ones just look awesome and will likely become habitats for plants of various sorts. Pleased to say I'm getting them cheap.

After unloading the trailer, we used my dad's van to rip out about 12 dead/dying juniper bushes that had been planted around the house at some point, likely around the time of it's construction. Yanking out bushes with a tow chain and a giant vehicle is a seriously fun process, made even more fun by the opportunity to break out my Fiskars chopping axe and go to town on the root systems to help them come out. In doing so I learned that I have a moderate topical allergy to whatever juniper bushes get on/in you when you get knee-deep in them... my shins have been itching nonstop since I did...



My new truck driving, poop-delivering friend Jim showed up with a truckload of composting manure around 5pm, and dumped it behind one of my barns. Man, what a huge pile of poop!



We took some of the super-awesome sandstone blocks I scored on Craigslist and made a big fire circle around a tree-stump that needs removed. This will continue to be the site of all large fires in the future.



Had the first meal at my new house that night that involved either plates or sitting down. Cooked up a decent meal, had some wine, and hung out and talked with my folks until we passed out (this took approximately five minutes).



First thing Sunday morning (second if you count making coffee) we got a fire going inside the circle on the tree stump and burned up the Juniper bushes. They go up fast and hot, and then are gone in just a few minutes. I'm still amazed that so much bush turned into a tiny little pile of ash.








I got a fair amount of sheet mulching done on Sunday... an area that starts in front of the front porch and curves around the house, bordering the area set to become a brick floored patio next spring after I get the old deck torn off.

I learned that an amount of compost doesn't go nearly as far as you think it will, but an amount of straw will go much farther than you think it will. I'm learning the interesting properties of various materials as I go here.




We were visited mid-morning by my neighbor's chickens (a crew of lovely Rhode Island Reds and the sorriest rooster I've ever seen), who seemed much intrigued by all the new stuff I'd crammed in the overhang of the goat barn...



My dad spent some time digging juniper stumps and regrading some dirt by the house to encourage water to run away from the foundation, rather than towards it. My mom went on her usual cleaning binge and ended up washing all my windows and the entire exterior surface area of the house. Bless her heart! That was pretty much last on my list.

After the sheet mulching wore me out, I got to work wire-brushing my outdoor woodstove so I could hit it with the Rustoleum later. Whatever tiny shred of energy I had left was gone after that, and I was reduced to shuffling and griping for the remainder of the day. My father, of course, helped with that.

They're now headed back home, and I'm blessed with a hot shower and internet access here, both for the first time. It's a damn good thing, as my clothes were dirty enough to stand up by themselves and my inbox was crammed (and yet, nothing important?)

I'm tired as hell and sore as I can remember being in a while, but to say I'm grinningly-happy would be a massive understatement. The work I'm doing comes with plenty of purpose, and that makes hard work good.