More apple canning and my backhoe is home!

Apple pie filling

I found a recipe online that looked interesting and didn't require apple juice (the Ball recipe requires apple juice).  the recipe doesn't call for blanching the apples, but cold packs them in quart jars, and THEN proposes to pour the thick sauce over the cold apples!  I made 7 quarts this way.  I had to remove the cold apples from the jars and alternate packing apples in and pouring the thick sauce over top.  I water bathed quarts for 40 mins because 25 just didn't seem long enough for raw apples!  One quart jar didn't seal so I brought it back to taste.  It is good, but i really am going to keep an eye on these!  The next time we are going to use a Ball or similar recipe!


A better recipe may be found on NCHFP.

My Backhoe is home!

Yep!  They finally delivered it Saturday afternoon.  I was getting concerned because by 1 pm i had heard nothing.  I started doing the leaf vacuum thing and was well into it when i saw the truck pull up!  It really wasn't that expensive a fix - they replaced several leaking hoses and rebuilt a hydraulic manifold.  They also serviced the engine, looks much nicer and has considerably more power!  I am very happy!

My baby is home!  I parked it there because i need to use it more in the next couple of weeks!

The Drainage ditch

The next day I put my backhoe to work digging the drainage ditch I had put on hold since last fall!  This ground is stony and well packed so a backhoe is needed to dig it up!  The backhoe did a great job!  I need to clean up the ditch a little and then lay down the tile.  I will have to wait until next weekend though.  There just isn't enough time this weekend.

First leaf gathering of the fall

I fired up the cyclone rake and mowed/vacuumed up the leaves in the front yard.  Nothing unusual.  The grass was a bit taller than it should have been for optimal performance (the vent screen got clogged a couple of time due to grass clippings).    Looks and smells much nicer now.  More leafs are coming down though, so I am sure there will be more vacuuming in the future!

First corking of my concord (well, any) wine!

I finally got the equipment I needed to cork my wine (and the wine was ready - I think) so away I went!  I only did one of the carboys of concord as a test.  The other one was topped off with the leftovers from the first carboy.  Even though I didn't go through a whole carboy of wine I still managed to fill 2 cases of bottles! The second carboy can be bottled at my leisure now since its topped off tight.  Here are some pictures of the setup:

Bottle tree loaded with bottles.

This is a gadget that holds sanitizer and can shoot it up into the bottles.  Very handy!

Here are the bottle after corking.  First 1-2 days they are kept upright.  Then they are stored on their sides.

Bottle rinsing attachment for the sink.  This allows one to clean a bunch of bottles very quick!

I didn't get a picture of the floor corker.  I will try next time I am up at the farm!  It all went fairly smoothly.  It is quite a production though.  Very messy.  Many rags/towels were used!

Pear wine

I racked the first batch of pear wine into a narrow mouth bubbler/carboy.  I added another tablespoon of pectic enzyme to help it clear - its still very hazy.   We will see how it looks next weekend.

I went out to the garage and gathered the remaining pears.  Good lord!  They were ready and there were lots!  I weighed them out after trimming the bad spots and cleaning - all told I ground up 80 lbs of pears for wine tonight!  Counting the first carboy that makes a total of over 120 lbs of pears!   I added double the pectic enzyme to both of the new batches of pear wine to help in the haze issue noted in the first batch.  I did not add any acid to these batches.  I added sugar to get to a SG of about 1.060, as called for in the purple book recipe for "perry".  I used Cuvee yeast since that's what they call for with champagne.   This should be a drier wine.  I need to get some more champagne bottles for this though - I only have 24 champange bottles!   I should probably get more claret bottle for corking too!

Green beans, powdery mildew, ditch digging and a hawk!

Green Beans

I picked what I could of the green beans in my patch - only about 3 quarts.  Then I went to the patch I have over at mom's and picked a whole half bushel (well - a bus tray worth - its a lot).   I also picked some peaches while over at mom's.  She has several trees that came up from the pits they use to throw out!  Anyway, I took the green beans back to my farm house and started cleaning them and prepping for canning.  Long story short: I was up until 4:00 am canning 12 quarts of green beans!  I went back the next day and picked another bunch to take back to SS for processing.  The ones I took back I froze in quarts - 8 quarts!  All told I put-up 20 quarts of green beans this weekend!

Hawk

Well, I found out what was removing the bird protectors and breaking the persimmons tops out.  A Hawk!  I got a pic of him on the game camera.  I looked it up and found out he is a "red-shouldered" hawk.  A small hawk that eats small critters - voles for instance - which I think I saw him pick up!

Ditch Digging

I finally got around to working on the plow - man that was some work!  I removed one of the two plow blades.  I found that the plow framework is a bitch to work with due to its heavy nature and tendency to get out of alignment.  Anyway, I finally got the plow ready and started plowing the ditch along the driveway to the barn when the shear bolt broke!  I went back and installed 2 more before I gave up and replaced the bolt with a drill bit!  Here is what the ditch looks like after I used the frontloader to clean it up a bit:

Ready for some rain!  I am hopeful that this will keep some of the water out of my garden

Grape vine powdery mildew

I was trimming around the grapes vines and looking them over.  Most are growing nicely.

Almost to the top of the trellis!

But then I noticed that some of the vines where having some issues.  Powdery mildew!  I looked it up to be sure.  The articles that I read indicated that it can ruin fruit but that it is not fatal to otherwise healthy vines - unless they are young vines!  I looked up how to treat this problem - organic solutions exist: garden sulfur or potassium bicarbonate.   Fortunately I bought some potassium bicarb last year for treating squash leaf fungus (I never used it for the squash).  I mixed up a gallon an saturated the vines good.  It is supposed to be re-applied every week.  We will see if it works.

powdery mildew causes those brown spots on the leaves.

on the back of those leaves you can see the mildew itself - its quite thick on the leaves.

Elderberries

The elderberries are getting close to ripe enough to pick!  Unfortunately, I have noticed on the big bush that some have already ripened and been eaten off by birds!  Arggh!  I hope enough survive that I can make some jelly this year.

Sunflowers

Here are some pictures of the sunflowers!

Storm Doors and barn doors...

I haven't updated the blog since last weekend because I have been so busy with work and getting stuff ready for spring.

Last weekend I made it up to the farm and immediately went out to shop.   I wanted to get replacement attic vents for the gables.  The weekend before I had removed the gable vents on my farm house because they were holding many wasp nests and were looking rough.  To counter the wasps, I was just going to put a screen over the front of the gable vents but once I had a closer look at the situation I decided to just tear them completely out and rebuild them.  Anyway, I was looking for replacement vents and thought that since I was out I might as well get the hardware for a new barn door (I had measured and taken pictures of the existing door hardware before I left for the store - it wasn't a spur of the moment decision!)  I have also been thinking of putting a storm door on the front door and replacing the screen door on the kitchen door.  Well, long story short:  I bought all the hardware for the barn door, including the material I needed to build the door, as well as 2 storm doors!

Barn Door

Here are some pictures of the barn door hardware I had to replace and match:

I considered replacing this bracket, but decided against it - this one looks sound and usable. 

It's hard to see from this picture, but the rail/track is bent to the point of being unusable.  Fortunately, only one 10 ft section is all that need replaced.

I also needed to get two brackets to hold the door to run in the tracks.

To build the door, I just found three 12 ft oak boards in my pile of lumber and just quick nailed (using my new battery powered brad nailer!) three pieces of 5/8" thick T1-11 to them:

Here it is laying on the barn floor.  12 foot wide and just over 8 ft tall.  It is not light weight - those three 9x1, 12 ft oak boards are easily as heavy as the T1-11 sheets!

Notice that I extend one of the oak boards about 4 inches below the T1-11 sheets.  This extension is to allow me to attach sacrificial boards to the bottom of the door as these doors often take significant damage on their bottom edges.  

Putting the replacement rail went very smooth.  However, putting the door hardware on was tricky mostly due to the fact that the door is freaking heavy!  While I was out shopping I stopped at Tractor Supply Company and picked up 2 farm jacks (one 48" and one 54") that were on sale ($60 and $70, respectively) because I anticipated this issue.   I used the jacks under the lower edge of the door and jacked the door up the side of the barn until it was positioned close enough to the rail to bolt on the roller/brackets.  That was the plan anyway!  Well, what happened was that while jacking the door up I discovered that the wind had picked up and the door was easily pushed off perpendicular from the jacks - causing the whole door to fall to the ground.  This happened 4 times!  It landed on me the last time!  After that, I kind of lost it and hooked up the UTV to the door and dragged it out in front of the barn where I proceeded to lean the door upright against the solid wall of the barn next to the doorway and then I ran the UTV right up against the door to insure it wouldn't fall on me again!  After using the UTV as an extra brace, I was able to use the jacks again was finally able to get the door bolted on!  Whew!

You can see some dirt that got on the door when I dragged it across the ground using the UTV!

The wood brace at the bottom left of the door is to help keep the door pushed against the building for the night since it was windy and I hadn't yet put any fixtures on the door to latch it down.

Unfortunately, I was so busy last weekend I never got the chance to take a picture of the door after installation of the bottom boards and fixtures.  I will try to add a picture here when I get a chance!  Anyway, the barn is now locked and I feel it's now secure enough to use for storing my tractor attachments and maybe the riding mowers (during the summer months).  In that area, it is probably safe to just leave the barn open with my farm implements inside judging by the fact that most of my neighbors leave theirs visibly open and have even more stuff then I do!  However, they are there on location most of the time and I am only there on the weekends.  This extra security just makes me feel better.

Storm Door

While at Your Building Center (YBC) in Everett PA, I found a nice screen/storm door design that was also quite reasonably priced (some storm doors are more expensive than the entrance doors!).  I got two of these doors, one 35" wide for the front door and one 32" wide for the kitchen door.  The kitchen storm door is a great door, except that it is rusting out and it is no longer able to close correctly.  I may not replace the kitchen door immediately, but the front door desperately needs a storm door!  Here are the doors as purchased and ready to install:

The new kitchen storm door, ready to install.  Maybe later..

The front door storm door is in the box seen on the lower right of the photo.  The front door has never had a storm door and it desperately needs one!  Cold air comes in around that door and the rain sometimes hits the door itself during storms!

Here is the front door before the storm door install:

And here are some pictures after the install:

I have never installed a storm door before, but this was VERY easy!  The hardest part was making sure everything had good clearance and that the latch worked easily.  The storm door installation needs to have a 1"x1" corner on the outside framing of the entrance doorway.  Fortunately, the front door had just that clearance so things worked pretty smoothly.  I looked at the kitchen door storm door installation and can see that the door frame evidently didn't have the necessary clearance and whoever installed that door had to make some adjustments.  Anyway, I am doing that one later... I am actually thinking of replacing the upstairs entrance doors now that I have replaced 3 entrance doors already and really like the way the new doors look.

And finally,..

Ditch digging!

Finally, the weather is starting to allow me to get back to ditch digging!  Late last fall I was working on putting in a drainage tile so that I can get rid of the unsightly (and dangerously placed) downspouts and sump pump outlet pipes.  Here are some before and after pictures for the weekend.  I still have lots of digging to do, but this is a good start!

Before renewed digging this weekend.

After this weekend's digging effort.

This was all done by hand.  I was able to attach the auger to the tractor and drill down a row of holes in lines with where I have to dig in the future.

Digging in drainage, and other stuff

Well, work on the Walipini is on hold while I fix up the backhoe, so I will regale you with my other tasks around the 'farm' in the meantime!

First I replaced a old GFCI breaker in my house main circuit panel.  As I suspected, the breaker was the one that controlled the outdoor outlets.  So, now, with the new breaker in place, I have my outdoor outlets working again!  Yay!

I decided that GFCI does sound like a good idea, but instead of the outdoor receptacles, I want to protect the outlets by the sinks inside the house.  Therefore, I added one GFCI outlet near the kitchen sink, and plan on adding another near the bathroom sink.  The bathroom sink has a shared switch cover plate, so I will have to wait until I can find the right cover plate before I can install the GFCI outlet there.

Besides screwing around with the electric system today (and agonizing about how I should install the 2 100 amp garage panels that I bought last week), I also laid out and started digging the front drainage ditches to catch runoff from the house roof and the sump pumps.  Here are some pictures documenting the progress so far:

Note to self: the post seen here is exactly 16 feet from the corner of the house (the south-eastern corner).

I am using the quick-spade thing on the forks of my tractor to dig because using the backhoe here is NOT a good idea.  Besides the fact that the backhoe is leaking hydraulic oil, it also weighs about 9 tons!  There is a sewage line running under this section of the yard that I would rather not have to repair just yet!  The quick-spade is good enough to dig this shallow ditch - only going down, at most, 2 feet.   I do use the pick and shovel to cleanup the ditch after the quick-spade goes through.  The quick-spade doesn't dig near as good as a backhoe - but it digs wonderfully compared to a pick and shovel!  Especially with all the rocks around the foundation of the house....