Too Hot again!

Still more elderberries

I didnt pick elderberries on Friday.  Decided it would be too late by the time we got them all cleaned.  So Saturday I got to picking... 30 quarts (on the stem)!

Then on Sunday I picked another 18 quarts (sorry, no pictures from Sunday).  I do know that we got between 6 and 7 gallons from Saturday and Sundays pickings!  Then, before I left Monday, I got more - I don't know how many yet; Katherine is still destemming them I think.  Of the last batch we put at least one gallon of them into the freeze-dryer!  We will see how it goes.  Mom was nice enough to let me put some out berries into her freezer, so I took 6 gallons over to her place before we left.

Also, blackberries and strawberries

We picked some blackberries off of the thornless bushes we planted in 2015.  Pretty goo yeilds for such young plants!

We got another pint (guessing) just before we left.  Plenty enough for a decent size pie!

Not a lot of strawberries - but enough to eat!  I put these into the freeze dryer too!

A few other pickings...

First of summer squash from the late plantings!

Onions are ready but it was too damned hot to do much work outside.  I was already half-dead from picking berries and re-setting up the  fence around the beans.

First onion, a couple more volunteer tomatoes and a couple apples that the birds had damaged.

Grape Vines

While do a ride around I noticed that one of the grape vine arbor posts was leaning way in!  Turns out that it rotted off at ground level.  I will have to replace it.  Until I get a chance, I just braced it with a couple of small posts.

On the lighter side of things - the grape vines are growing nicely!  

I think that the nitrogen I added last year really helped.  I plan on adding some more early next year.

Fruit trees

I found another peach!  It looks rough though.  I wonder how long it will last?

Here are 4 apples that I found - 2 had been pecked by birds.  I picked them (above).

Same apples - I sliced them up an put them in freeze-dryer

Crazy crab-apple bloomed recently - now it has little apples on!  

We figure its going to die - trees will do this when they are stressed.

These are crab-apples - believe it or not!  Large variety that hasn't produced much until this year.

Hornets nest!  Getting bigger!  I want to keep them around - they aren't as mean as  yellowjackets and they eat other bugs.

It looks like the parrot tree (or whatever it is!) is going to make it after all!  It looked mostly dead but the rains seem to have brought some of it back to life!

Just a couple green sprigs there - which some bugs managed to eat - sheesh!  But it seems to be fighting

I was riding around and noticed that my english walnut trees were taking bug damage!  I looked closer and found them - little fuzzy "acid dropper" worms!  I sprayed them with sevin.  I didn't see any worms the next day.  I hope the trees recover.

Fuzzy worm damaged english walnuts

Worms also got one of my butternuts too!  Its also recovering.  

Gardens

We might get something from our corn!  We will have to wait another week I think - not quiet ready. We talked to neighbor, he said he saw a mommy and several baby racoons just across the road from our place.. they probably are the ones eating my fruit!  They love corn and you can see where they have been tearing up the field corn..

Weeds are taking over!

Squash plants are doing nicely.  I actually picked a summer squash!  They had just started blooming last weekend!

the front four plants are summer squash (I think) - winter squash in the back.

Deer Issues in the Bean Patch!

I saw more deer eating away at the bean patch again this weekend!  The electric fence was evidently not working.  I went to put some peanut butter bait on the fence and found that it was not functioning. So I connected the bean patch fence to the "hardwired" fencer!  No I have it baited and connected to a kick ass voltage - that should get thier attention!  I hope my beans are far enough along that they recover and produce!

More Flail Mowing

I was able to get the flail mower out and mowed that field up around the pecan trees.  This area wasn't as hard to mow as the hill was!  Not as dry so I didn't have to backtrack as much either.

Equipment problems

I have been nursing my mower around because of leaking transmission oil and a loose drive belt. Somewhere along the line I got a bad leak in my left rear tire.  It wont hold pressure worth a damn now.  I barely got the grass mowed around the pecans before I gave up.  I didnt have the right patches to plug the hole!  I ordered some more patches - they should be here Tuesday.  I wish the replacement drive belts would make it here before we go up next time, but they haven't shipped yet so there is not much chance of that.

Main mower is down!  

A visit to Foltz of Hagerstown, family easter, and spring chores

Easter at Mom's

We all got together at mom's place on Saturday for our Easter celebration.  Was wonderful weather and good food!

Tom did the camera work.  He set it for time delay and was able to get in the shot.  Great job!

After the meal we went on a quick walk around the place to fix some damaged fence stringers and just take in the spring beauty.

Katherine and me! :)

Katherine and I are trimming mom's Elderberry bush.

A visit to Foltz in Hagerstown, MD - AMAZING!

Katherine had done an internet search to find places that sold metal stock that were on my way to our farm.   I have been getting some stock through the mail, but shipping can be a bit high (metal is heavy and awkward).  She found a place in Hagerstown that we decided to stop at on the way to the farm. The front of the store, what you would see if you just saw it from the street, is nothing particularly special.  However, I asked to see what metal stock they had in their inventory at present and was permitted to go into the back section and look...

This is the metal stock rack!  Plenty of hot rolled and a bit of cold rolled steel.  Even some brass and copper!  A good selection

OMG - the old, wonderful machines!  this is a Mill/drill - looks to have about a 8-10 foot throat!

Millings machine

A metal lathe with what look like a 6 foot swing and a 20 foot bed!  The owner says this was brought in from Baltimore by horse and cart in 4 sections.  It was used to service the trolley system in Hagerstown.  That face plate on the lower right is about 4 feet in diameter!

The old machines were powered by a steam traction engine out back of the shop.  Here are the power distribution pulleys

Another view of that faceplate!  You can see the headstock of the lathe better here too (up and to the left of the faceplate)

Drill press.  Massive.  Hard to get a good sense of size in this picture.  It must have been about 12 feet tall,
maybe a tad more.

This place also has some nice deals for machinists metal workers near Hagerstown.  They still have one gentleman on staff that can fabricate stuff, if you have a need.  I might have to visit them if my tries at making my milling arbor don't work out...

Gardens resize and plowed!

I wasn't feeling great this weekend due to springs wonderful allergies, but I was able to get out long enough to pull and move some garden posts and to plow all the patches.

The big patch was pretty much cut in half.  I sectioned off the "clay" region since that was not very productive anyway.  I plan to plant some of the new elderberry plants there in a couple weeks.

"big patch" - not so big anymore.

Plowing went very well.  No broken shear pins and soil didn't stick to the plow blades.

Here you can see the unplowed old section that I am not going to garden anymore.

Soil looks fairly decent.  I may still have some water issues, of course, but this should help by keeping to the section without so much clay.

The "new" section of the front patch plowed much better than last year due to the fact that most of the tree roots are now gone.  The soil is still not up to snuff, but it will get there - just need to keep putting mulch on there!

I left a bit more room on the left between the blackberries so that I can mow easier.

Again, plowing went pretty good.  Very few tree roots left.

The soil is still crap, but it will improve as I add amendments.  

The paw-paw patch also changed shape a bit.  I moved the patch up the hill a little bit and extended it toward the road a few feet as well.  I sectioned off the wet section.  I redrilled the posts but did not put up the fence yet.  I figure that can wait until after I till.

The grounding rod for the electric fencer put up a hell of a fight!  I never did manage to pull it!  I think I will just cut it off below ground level and bury it.

The soil in the paw-paw patch looks so rich!  This is where the sweet potatoes go this year.  I think I have beans scheduled to go here too - although it might be corn.  I can't remember.

These patches will sit like this for a months or so before I till and plant.  This will give some of the organics in the mulch to decompose and get integrated with the soil.

 More flat-electric fence put up

I didn't get to do a lot on the farm, but i did get some more of the flat electric fence up.  Just did the blueberries.  This stuff is way more visible than the old polystrand.  I hope the deer take notice!

More work on the spindle thread protector

I mounted the thread protector into the 4-jaw chuck and dialed it in.  It is within 4-5 thousandths of centered, which is fine for this purpose.  Then I used brill bits in the tailstock drill chuck to drill out to about 1 1/8".   After drilling to 1 1/8" I was able to mount up a boring bar and start boring to the final dimension (I am not 100% sure what the final dimension is yet, but I have a ways to go before I have to worry about that!).

I found these big drill bits in the stuff I bought from Ken's family.  Biggest is 1 1/8".  They have .5" shaft so that worked out well!  I am not sure drilling bigger than 1 1/8" is advisable.  The drill chuck did slip a couple times in the MT3 tailstock.  No damage was done, but anything bigger I think would cause excessive spinning in the taper possible causing damage.

Showing boring bar and hole in center of spindle-thread protector.

When boring I noticed that a lot of chips go inside the spindle.  I guess its ok to use air to blow those out.

Looks like at least another 1/4" to go.  The bore is about 1 3/8 right now.

Discovered some Wilton Vises!

While looking for some drill bits to enlarge the bore in the spindle-thread-protector, I discovered several little vises - about 2" jaws.  Two of them are Stanley, and two of them are Wilton - little bullet vises!   Very nice!  I really need to get a workbench surface so that I can mount these - I need a vise or two installed!