danfetter.com

I saw this water main break today, there was blackish water coming from the manholes around Logan and route 90, this one wasn’t too bad, the manholes farther down Logan had 10″ of water coming from them.

Gas is at a premium price, today I saw $1.214/Liter. We may as well start saying the price in dollars and cents rather than cents alone, it’s not going down under a dollar anytime soon, but I don’t feel it will stay this high for much after the long weekend.

On the plus side I got a good price for topsoil, I can get 11 yards of sandy loam for $160 and 15 yards of horse manure for $75.  Sandy loam will make the perfect mix with the clay soil that we have. Perfect soil has equal parts of sand clay and loam, ours has too much clay. The horse manure will supply the organic matter and nutrients to help the garden grow. We just have to wait until the road restrictions are removed, then our soil will be on the way.

I ordered another 900 trees from the P.F.R.A. shelterbelt program, this will compliment the 1300 trees that we planted last year. I will use the trees to fill in the places where last year’s trees have died, then plant a few more in the low spots that were skipped last year. I can plant 150 trees a night if I know where to put them, but this time it will not be as easy as last year. I will have to find the previous trees (hard to find in tall grass), assess if they are alive, and plant the trees where they are needed. So far we have six rows of trees that are 1/2 mile long each, with an estimated %90 survival rate. The trees look like a 12″ long stick with one or two leaves on it, we got three types or trees, Manitoba Maple, Green Ash, and Lilac.

I didn’t do this today, but this is a picture of where the garden will go. I’ve been over it with the disks a few times, it’s looking good, but has too much clay to plant. It needs sand and organic matter to fix the clay problem. I got a pick up price of sand $26/yard and topsoil $24/yard, I’m looking for a good delivered price. It’ll be cheaper to deliver it then hauling it a yard at time ourselves.

 

I picked up the generator/welder today, it starts great, is almost light enough to load into a truck myself (I didn’t try, but it feels rather light), and it runs the air compressor. I was worried that it might not start the compressor when the tank is full, but it works fine.  Now that I have it, I’ve gotten the itch to weld something, the next project is to weld a bracket on the offset disks so that I can temporarily mount my harrows on them. It might be a bit unconventional, but the disks need more weight, and I don’t have a cultivator to mount the harrows on.  The next task is to buy some welding cable. I know I should get 1/0 cable or thicker, but for now I’m going to buy 2 gauge. It will handle the full current of the welder if the length is short enough, and at $2 a foot I’m probably only going to buy forty feet for now.

Shown below is the disks with harrows attached, there is a 4X4 wood piece used on either side to attach the harrows to the angle iron. I want to replace this with a piece of steel, as the mounting brackets are already chewing the wood.

The garden is on it’s way, it might be somewhat late to plant a few things but they should do ok. We have two types of water melon, cabbage, beans, peas, kohl rabi, spinach, turnip, peanuts, garlic chives, two kinds of beets, cantaloupe, onions, three kinds of lettuce, zucchini, two kinds of corn, potatoes, and brussel sprouts. The plants I like the most are the perennials we planted last year (strawberries, and asparagus), Wanda also has a rhubarb plant she got from her dad that we are excited about. It may seem like a lot, and it is, but I will probably end up getting some tomatoes, and everything else that I see at the greenhouse. I never know when to stop when it comes to planting the garden. I’m going to run the offset disks over a large section for the garden today. I’ve disked it last week, but it had ten year old sod and weeds growing on it, it could use some more working.

I have decided to buy a generator to run a saw and an air compressor, this will be useful when building the shop. I have thought about having a temporary electrical service, but it seems like this will be the easiest route for the amount of electricity we will require. I have been looking at buying a generator for a while and have decided that I would buy something with some quality. Joe from work has owned a few and had told me stories of new generators seizing, and needing parts while he built his cottage. It seems like most generators these days are only meant for emergency backup power not real use. I decided that I would buy a engine powered welder, that also has a generator. I found a local mechanical company that has downsized and was selling multiple welders that were not in use. I had a choice between a miller bobcat for $2400 or a Thermal Arc Scout for $1200. I wanted the bobcat, but there is no room for it in the work van, and It is too heavy to move with only two people. I settled on the Scout, It welds at 170 Amps Direct current, and is a 4000 Watt generator. I would have liked a larger generator, but the price is right, and it’s all that I can lift. It has a 9HP Honda motor, people who have those motors seem to like them.

 

Today we had a barbeque at out house to celebrate Wanda’s graduation from university. Most of the important friends and family were there. I proposed to Wanda, and we are now engaged.

I had a meeting with star building today to get blueprints drafted from the drawings that I made for the Shop/House that we plan to build this year. This is a picture of the main floor, it will have a bedroom over the bath/laundry room. It will be 32′ X 54′ with a 18′ ceiling, this should be lots of room to live in temporarily until we find enough funds to build our dream house.  It will have a heated floor, 2X8 walls, and lots of windows on the south side for free solar heat (If it works it’s in the plans for the house).