General Spring stuff

I got my riding mower back from the shop

It looks great and actually can move up hills now!  I mowed some of the field grass around where I planted some of the trees, the ginkgo biloba mostly - some of the black walnuts.  Seems in good shape!

Water tanks filled

I got around to filling the new water tanks this weekend.  Since the spring rains have produced an enormous amount of running water in the streams, filling the tanks was easy!  Using the small sump pump that I have it took over an hour, maybe even 2 hours, to fill each tank!  I initially tried moving the tanks close to the stream. However, I wanted to fill them to the maximum level and if I did that I wouldn't be able to move them with my tractor forks.  So I got a garden hose out and just pumped the water to the tanks in place.

I gave up on this approach.  A full tank of 300 gallons of water would weigh more than the tractor forks can move!

The pump at work.

I placed the tanks along the driveway to the barn with their outlets facing the road.  I plan to get enough hose to reach the gardens and orchards.  They are higher than the gardens, I'm not sure about the orchards.  I can always pump the water out though.

I filled them to the top!

Dollar General, coming soon!

I saw this sign (and a bunch of construction) right next to the Twist and Shake (the local ice cream stand).  Seems like a unlikely place for one, but then again, they seem to be cheap to run.

Amaryllis in bloom!

They are really going at it this year!  I don;t know why, but they have been blooming so well since we brought them up here.  Maybe they get better light?

Wood wood-plane cleanup-restoration

I cleaned and applied some danish oil to the wood plane bodies.  I removed the blades and started sharpening them.  The blades are HUGE - too big for worksharp tool sharpener!  I ordered a special attachment to allow me to sharpen these blades with the worksharp, but it wont be in until next week.

Making some stakes for the tree cages

I found that I am almost out of wood stakes to use to secure the tree cages.  I will need to make a lot of cages for my trees since the deer are so out-of-control here.  I looked around the sawmill for scrap pieces of wood that I could mill into stakes.  I found some!  

Saw-mill, up and running!

I needed more stakes (I couldn't find enough scrap wood), and I need to mill up my old logs before they rot entirely!  So I started milling up some logs!

A few of the logs I need to mill!  Some of these were cut in 2013!  They really need to be milled before they get totally rotted out and/or worm eaten.

Squaring off a "cant" for further milling.

Some of these are good enough to get some posts out of too!  I am surprised.  They will need to be treated though.  I need to order some more copper naphthalate.

I even got a few boards off of this log! (just the 4 boards on top)

These boards are useless for various reasons, but they can be turned into some useful stakes!

Well - it's winter - again!

Riding mower service time

It was nice and warm Thursday.  In the 70's!.  Friday temps dropped into the teens!   Oh and it snowed more!  I drove up through the snow storm; it wasn't so bad on the roads.   It made for some nice pictures though!  I came up early on Friday to be here to have the zero-turn riding mower picked up for service.  The mower started up and I was able to just drive it onto the truck bed (they had a tilting bed truck - nice).

Shelving over the chop-saw station

I got to finally putting up the shelving over the chop-saw station.  I used a cleat attached to the concrete block wall using concrete screws.  The shelves had a lip on them that was designed to hang from - kind of like a french cleat system.  I don't know how much weight these can take.  I will try to take it easy on the weight i put in them!

Its cold as heck, so it must be time to do some rain gutter maintenance!

I was walking out to the shop and happened to look back toward the house when I noticed the rain gutter hanging about 1.5ft from the roof!  In fact, about half the length of the gutter on the front of the house had been pulled away by winds!  So I immediately found some fasteners (fortunately I had 3 packs of screws and ferrules made for this purpose on hand!) and got the big step ladder out.

I never think to get the "before" shots! :(  So this is after repair shot of the front gutter.  This piece was about 1.5ft from the roof when I started.

I went ahead and repaired the entire front.  Cleaned it while I was at it.

That should hold (famous last words...)

Here is the back side of the house - THIS is a BEFORE picture - lol - finally.

It has pulled away some, but most of the gutter is still intact.

NIce after shot. All clean and screwed up tight

After shot of front.

After shot of rear.

Scrub plane refurbishment

I started going through my recent ebay purchases and found my "new" replacement base for my recently acquired scrub plane.  The seller of the scrub plane said that he discovered the plane in a pile of dirt in an old family barn.  It was in fairly decent shape, considering how it was treated, but the base had been rusted pretty bad - big pitted rust marks.

Hard to see how deep these pits go in the picture - they are almost a 16th-8th on an inch deep!

So I found a replacement base for this plane on ebay.  It was also old and rusty but it wasn't as bad as the original.  I replaced the original base and started cleaning it up.

As per my usual habit I did get a before picture!  Here is a shot of the base after considerable cleanup.

Here is kind of a midway through picture.

Below are the after pictures!  I sanded the wood portions some and treated with danish oil.  I lightly oiled the metal surfaces to keep them from rusting.    I had to trim the bolt that runs through the rear handle to get it to tighten sufficiently.  All in all - I like it!

This Stanley 40 Scrub plane is ready for some work! Actually, I need to sharpen the blade yet - but otherwise its good to go!

Shelling beans

It was cold out and I couldn't get to most of my to-do items so it was time to shell some beans!  These are "accelerate" variety of bean.  This coming year I think I will just plant kidney beans and maybe some navy beans,  These beans, "accelerate" and "velour" are just too small and difficult to process.