Another weekend of mowing! Well, a few other things...

Lawyer and Tractor fan

I got up to the farm early friday so that I could go to the lawyer with Tom and Connie (and Mom).  I think we got this stuff all settled now so that should let mom relax about it a bit!  Anyway,that pretty much took the entire day.  I think I did do a little mowing Friday evening.  I did have time to replace the broken tractor fan blade with a new one that I ordered.  Thank goodness it fit.  Its a bugger to replace that blade because of the limited room between the radiator and the fan.  I did remove the shroud/duct bolts from the radiator, but it only helps a little bit since I didn't want to remove the hoses and the shroud wont move too far with the hoses in place.  After install the blade I fired the tractor up - seemed ok!  I haven't used it yet but I am fairly confident that that should fix the overheating problem.

Mowing and planting over again

Anyway, besides mowing all day Saturday, I also managed to over-plant the beans and corn in the big patch.  The wet weather had caused some of them to rot so I went back and replanted where I saw some missing.  The weeds are starting up in my patches - I wish the plants where big enough to put down some mulch!  Well, technically the potatoes are big enough, but I didn't have time anyway.  I did set the mower to a lower level, hoping that will buy me some time - maybe I can skip mowing next weekend!

Grape trellis progress

I noticed that the grape vines were really getting to the size where they will need to start being trained on a trellis.  I decided to put connecting beams across the tops of my posts before stringing the wire so that I don't have to brace the posts at the ends.  I measured the distances between the posts on the first (top) row and then I went into the red barn with my chainsaw after I spent about an hour replacing the chain (turned out that I grabbed the wrong chain initially and it was the wrong size - I didn't know I had different size chains in that length!)  I found some old wood that was long enough so I sawed what I needed and took it back to the vines.  I got the tops put on the first row of posts (after trimming the posts to same height with the chainsaw), but I only got two wires strung on the first two posts - the wire I have is not high-tensile so it breaks easily when tensioning.  I need to find my high-tensile wire!

Trimming, removing weed protectors and SNAKES!

I removed the black plastic weed protectors from the cherries, paw-paws, and persimmons.  I had caught those damn plastic things in the mower enough and I don't think they help anyways since I mow around those trees!  I still need to remove the ones around the apples, pears, etc.   While I was removing the plastic around the persimmon trees I found a couple small snakes.  The first one was about the size of a large earthworm and I was pretty sure it was a rat snake.  Anyway, considering the number of moles around there, I had no problems leaving the snake alone!  The next one was considerable larger - a bit over a foot long.   I first thought he was another rat snake - similar markings.  I left him there and continued working.  Then I though that maybe I had better get a better look at him...  lo-and-behold, it was some kind of venomous snake!  It had the big diamond head and you could see the venom sacs!  The body was wide, reminding me of the rattle-snakes from last year.  I dispatched him after he struck at the stick about 10 times!  I am still not sure if it was a baby rattle snake or a copper head.  Anyway, I was very cautious while mowing/trimming for the rest of the day!

Big spider scare

Oh, and I found this HUGE spider in the house last night while I was relaxing:

I checked it out online (after spraying and killing him!).  I think its a fishing spider.  Mostly harmless to humans.  Scared the crap out of me though!

Beans and electric fence at mom's place

Oh, AND I set up the electric fence around mom's garden and planted 2 rows of green beans in the garden over there.  Please note that in the future, maybe wait until late May to plant the beans and corn as the ground seems to be too cold and wet before then and they just rot - and even if they don't rot, they don't grow much!