Funeral and lots of work

Funeral

Aunt Reva passed away Wednesday.  She was 90 years old.   We took mom to the funeral on Monday and stayed for the wake.  I already had Tuesday off, but I did make arrangements at work (since I am still acting TA) to take Monday off for the funeral.  Was good to see some of my cousins again.  Some of them I don't think I had ever met before.  Joe Smith was there, I don't recall ever seeing him before.  He lives in Colorado now.  He came in Saturday for viewing and funeral.  The funeral and afterword pretty much ate up my Monday.

Front drainage tile installed!

I finally got the front drainage tile installed!  I have had the front yard dug up for almost a year now, so it was about time to finish it!  I really needed the backhoe for this job.  As you saw in a previous post, I dug the rest of the drain line a couple weekends ago, but this weekend (Sunday) I dug out the line from the house to the drain line (there are 2 connections from the downspouts and sump pumps to the drain line - one at each end of the house).   I put the tile in and placed some fittings to try to work out if I needed anything else - I did!  I needed more tile!  I wanted to get 2x20 ft lengths, but TSC only had 100ft lengths.  I also bought some work gloves, an outdoor thermometer, and 9 fiberglass electric fence posts.  More on the fence later.   So here are the pictures of the project:

After using the backhoe to dig the ditch for the far end of the house.

Connecting up the sump and the downspout

All set up to start backfill!  

Looking out toward the far end of the house

Looking down from the corner toward the "Y"

The "Y" joining the two sides of  the drains

Looking toward the end of the drain line

After back-filling on Monday morning

Looking up toward the house.

After Monday morning - looking down to the end of the drain

Finally all done!  Looking down to the drain end

Smokey is checking it all out!

Last of the Veggies?

I got down to the paw-paw patch before I left and harvested some Brussels sprouts!

Only 2 of the 4 plants seemed to have any on them

This is cool - this and one other came off of an early plant that had sprouted out!

And still more broccoli!  Fantastic!  I think I might have harvested a couple pounds.  They are smallish heads, but they seem tender and I ate one and they taste good!

Sauerkraut canning

We got up to the farm afternoon on Saturday (I had to be in at work Friday because I am acting TA so I wasn't able to head out early - and its too dark now to head out afterwork Friday!)   The ground was a bit wet so I didn't think it would be a good idea to start work in the drainage project.  I did see some electric fence down due to deer damage, but there is really nothing for the deer to harm inside the fences so i let the fence repair wait until later.  I checked the kraut and found a scum on the top and I freaked a little bit - BUT... it was fine, not mold, I think, but smelled like the kraut.   I cleaned off the scum and proceeded to can the kraut!  Woohoo - 19 quarts of kraut from 41 lbs of cabbage!  Nice!

Deer fencing issues

I found the fence around the elderberries torn up a bit, but not too bad.  Had to replace a couple of posts, but all in all a quick and complete repair.  However, the fence over by the grapes and orchard was in bad shape.  The wire was actually broken!  I bet some deer got caught in it and freaked out when he got shocked.   Bedsides the broken wire, there were several posts broken and the new fiberglass posts that I had just installed a couple weeks ago had the insulators/wire holders torn off!  The fiberglass posts fared better than the original posts though.   I decided to change the outline of the fence a little bit to surround the grape vines as well (and maybe make it a little easier to mow).  I needed more electric fence posts which I picked up Sunday morning on our trip to TSC.  I had to re-arrange the wires a bit so they wouldn't short out on the metal parts, but it is working now.  All the fences are back on.  I do, however, need more deer-pops now!  Sorry. I didn't get pictures, but its really not that exciting. :)

recent plumbing and More tomatoes!

Well, the sink issue in SS finally came to a head.  We tried using more draino on it Monday (and of course, the small snake) and it didn't improve.  in fact, it got worse!  I guess the draino adversely affected the plastic pipes?  Or maybe just the jostling of the plunging actions, but by Tuesday morning, it was leaking under the sink!

I took Tuesday off from work and proceeded to try to figure out a course of action.  I wanted to put in a heavier metal pipe based solution (I had a mix of light plastic and metal), but i couldn't find the parts I needed at Home Depot and time was running short to create a decent PVC solution.  The local Home Depot "experts" are useless, at least with respect to plumbing!

Anyway, long story short, I ended up going back and forth to HD only twice!  A miracle!  LOL  I did end up using the crappy light weight plastic pipe fitting that they offer.  Unlike last time i used those fitting though, I immediately bought pipe sealant!  I also got a 50 FOOT 1/2" pipe snake to clear that damn clog up once and for all!  It took a while to put the snake down and run it through, but I did it and cleared the clog (never did identify the clog though!)  I rebuilt the drain with all new plastic and sealed them good.  The build seemed solid.  Leak testing showed few leaks - mostly just needing to tight compression fitting around the garbage disposal connection.  Hopefully that will get snug and we will be OK soon.  Its good enough for use though, and saved me having a $300+ bill from James Wheat (and having to WAIT for Wheat!)

So that was my Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday night we got back to processing tomatoes (after Katherine spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday cleaning a BUNCH of dishes by hand!)  We got to use the squeeze-o style strainer (BTW, the mail order squeeze-o arrived Wednesday night - but we used the one I bought from Zimmermans because it was already clean).  We processed 5 pints of sauce and  7 pints of juice.

Also, I hung up the sunflower heads in the shop to dry so that the squirrels can't get to them!  Once the heads are dry enough I will remove the seeds and then soak the seeds in salt brine, then dry the seeds for eating.  I need to remember to save some of the seeds for planting!  Probably try to save those that are still on the sunflowers up at the farm.  I don't want to harvest them too early in case they aren't mature enough to make good planting seeds!

Today, I would like to process all of the remaining tomatoes that are ready.  I have a batch in the juicer right now.  Will update blog later.