gardening, self-sufficiency, homesteading, food preserves diary
Blog documenting progress in transforming new property (50 acres - mostly wooded) into garden-farmette . Trying to become more self-sufficient and more self-aware.
I finally got to trimming the locust trees. There are a lot of locust trees here! The locust tree beetle is really doing a lot of damage to these trees. I even saw some of the bugs!
Lots of trimmings! I wanted to burn these but they are too green! I will let dry a bit before burning.
Spraying the trees!
I didn't get any pictures of it, but I sprayed the bejesus out of the trees! Not much to see anyway. I sprayed the locust with dormant oil mixed with carbaryl (sevin), dormant oil on the remaining fruit trees, and deer repellant on the white pines, forsythia, choke berry/cherry, and elderberry! Whew. Lots of spraying! Really. It took most of a day!
Northern Pecans and Hican planting
Seems like I am missing a weekend here somewhere, but I can't figure out where, so I am sticking this in here! The pecans and hicans arrived! They are not of great quality - the roots are barely formed and the grafts are still wrapped. I hope they survive!
I had to plant these deep to accept the long root stem on these trees. Also, I unwrapped the grafts, that seemed very new...
At 60 feet apart, it took the top half of the field to hold all of these! I will need to cage these so that the deer don't damage and so the farmer doesn't run them down when he makes hay!
I lucked out and caught this picture as my car made 100,000 miles!
Yes, I took the picture while driving, but it's ok - the cruise control was on!
Tree Trimming Time
Lots of trees to trim! Most are looking pretty good. I trimmed a bit less aggressively than previous years since they are get closer to their ideal structure.
Removed the trimmings to keep the disease and pests out of the orchard.
They didn't arrive on Friday the 24th as expected. Damn. NTO contacted me just before they closed to say that the sub-contractor needed my phone number. IDK why NTO just didn't given them my number..
Anyway, I was able to contact the local/sub on Monday morning (everyone was closed over the weekend) and arranged for delivery at the farm on March 3. That's my CWS day but I will have to be there that morning so I will probably take off for the farm Thursday afternoon.
Grape vine and Fruit Tree trimming started
It was a real nice day on Friday - I mean like in the 70's! So i decided to work out trimming the grapes and trees. I have been sick the last couple of weeks so this was really nice to get out in the nice weather. I got the grape vines entirely trimmed and 13 of the fruit trees done before I called it quits for the day. It rained and was miserable on Saturday, but I was able to get back out on Sunday, and managed to trim another couple of rows of trees. I still have about 4 rows left to trim.
Jay Knepper stopped by and asked if I could help him trim some plum trees next weekend. I said sure. The trees he described are much older trees that aren't producing like they should, probably because they haven't been pruned properly for that last several years. I will take a look and see.
Chops saw station and more shop cleanup
I did some estimating and thinking and video watching until I came up with a design for a chopsaw station that should work for me. I have a lot of "scrap" wood in the shop that is in my way - in fact it was in the way of where I wanted to put the chop saw station! So I used as much of that scrap as I could in building the station.. I still needed to do a good amount of cleanup and fiddling around to get the chop saw station installed. I must admit though that having more table space really helps when cutting the OSB sheets! Here are some pictures:
I used 3 different non-connected tables. This helped in leveling later but my intent was so that I could use the tables as outfeed for the table saw - which is at the same height.
I used the remains of an old barn gate for the table top of the chopsaw table and for the underneath storage shelves
Its hard to see in this picture, but the table to the right looked way off square. I checked it and the table was ok - but the FLOOR was really off level there!
I added shims under the feet of the two tables on the ends. Look at the feet of the table on the right - the far right side has almost a 1/2 inch shim under it to bring to level!
Each table is level, the and chopsaw is shimmed up to level between the tables.
I hope I don't need to move these much! LOL Shimming is easy but it could be painful if I have to redo it alot.
The shelf on the left of this picture needs to be moved so that I can get to my radial arm saw (I need it for dado cuts)
So I moved it here! I am using it for fastener storage and some small tools
I can finally get to the raial arm saw again! I still need to clean a lot of crap out of there though...
The socket head bolts came in so I installed them and cut them to length. The collets also came in this week so I chucked a couple in and gave the new chuck a spin! Works great! I much prefer the ER collets to the 5C's (and 5V's on the mill) that I have.
New metric (M8-1.25x40) socket head bolts installed (and cut to fit lengthwise)
ER32 Collet in the chuck - fits nice!
Video of Chuck construction and running for first time!
Shop lights
I finally got around to putting up some of the LED shop lights that I have had for about a year now! I dearly needed more light around the lathe and the mill! Now I have it.
Wow! Such a difference! I can SEE!
Its like a new shop! Except now I can see how bad the walls look!
Also, now I can see how dusty everything is!
TIG welding!
I managed to stop by Roberts Oxygen in Frederick Maryland on the way up to the farm. I got some E70S2 filler rod and a small tank of argon. the filler rod I had ordered off ebay didn't get to me yet. But I didn't feel bad about buying it at Roberts since I will always need more!
"consumables" that came with TIG. 3 different size collets, a collet closer, and 3 different diffuser cups - I think 4, 5 and 6
This is still setup with the plasma cutter - but the connections are very similar
Just a front shot of the combo unit
They don't get great reviews - but so far its done everything I need it for!
Here is the TIG torch with a "red" tungsten tip in it. I sharpened it myself on the grinder.
Its a "New Century" WP-26. New Century is a Chinese brand and WP-26 is the size designation. This is air cooled torch. WP26 is a larger torch from what i have read. But by no means the largest. Size actually isn't necessarily a good thing - it makes it hard to reach into places!
See the "New Cent" logo?
Here is the cute lil argon cylinder connected up! I had to get a hose clamp to connect it to the welding hose - the little clip they sent let it leak!
Notice that this flow meter is calibrated in L/min? I didn't at first - I was assuming it was cfh! I was blowing holes in my work!
Connected up and ready to go! I wasn't sure how much Argon I would be using so I got this small unit. I figure if I need more I can always trade up. Small cylinder is easy to move around!
TIG welding requires very clean metal and close-in work so I set up this table in the shop.
I put a chair in the - it helps a lot! but can't see the work that well - even with the halogen lights I set up nearby (you can see the glare from the lights in the picture)
The torch, in between tip sharpenings! I went through about 1 inch of a tungsten electrode during the weekend. I am not sure how much argon. So far though, I am not alarmed at materials usage.
Some of my first tries at drawing a bead! Yes, the metal was clean when i started!
I tried left and right handed. There is a surprising amount to keep track of when you are doing this! Besides the settings for argon flow and amps there is the torch angle and filler rod feed rate and tip "extension" from the cup.
I got tired of cleaning metal so i just used some old bolts
Some of these beads aren't as bad as they look - I hammered on some afterwards to see if that black was scale of just dirty metal.
On the right there you can see that I actually welded these two bolts together. The welds are surprisingly strong!
Bottom line: I need MUCH more practice! I am watching youtube videos like crazy and learning a lot. However, nothing but practice will get the hand steadiness that I will need to get good welds.
More orchard care
I got out the pole-trimming tool and went to work on the orchard. I did all of the high cuts and some of the low cuts on a few trees I didn't get to last time. Actually, I didn't get to the peaches at all last time - and peaches take a lot of trimming! I finally got to the spraying of the dormant oil and realized I needed to remove the plastic protectors to spray the trunks. Worked out fine though as a way of marking which trees I had sprayed. I would remove the protector just as I sprayed the tree. When I was done spraying the trees and grapevines I went back and gathered up all the protectors. The next day I sprayed the cherry trees and removed their protectors.
I was in a rush of sorts to get this done since the weather report says we are going to have a warm week and the trees might take damage if I do this too late this year!
Septic field concerns
While looking for some papers earlier this week, I found the septic field layout that the original inspectors drew up for us when we bought the farm!
The drawing shows some interesting things.
I tried to layout some markers on the ground to get a better Idea which trees I would need to move.
See the little white "baton" in the upper left of this picture? On the ground. That's about where the distribution box is for the septic drain lines.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the individual lines were - I think that this is close to where one of them is. (the yellow measuring tape on the ground)
Overall, it looks like I really only need to move the lower 2 sweet cherry trees! I will move them all - the lower two are the biggest anyway - the upper ones should be an easier move. I am considering moving some of the sour cherry trees too - but from my understanding - sour cherry trees are all "dwarf" and maybe wont send roots so far... I will do more thinking about this.
