Thawing out, hornet nest, and water tanks saved!

Hornets nest

Well, it warmed up today so I went out to scout around a bit.  Look what I found pon the back pf the garage!  Ugh.  I wonder if this is where the European Hornets are staying?  I am not going to check while its this warm!

Water tanks thawed!

At least enough to drain them, and that's all I need!  Yayyy!

Vacation update

It's been cold...

And of course I did not empty these water tanks for it got cold!  I am hoping we will get a warm spurt of weather and let me drain these before they freeze solid and rupture the tanks, if they aren't already damaged.

 

 Everything is chipped!

 I have chipped up all of the old wood scraps!  Yayyy!  That's quite a pile of chips.

 Some "trimming" opportunities exist...

 

There are some dangerous widowmakers along the edge of my property and along my field.  I will have to think on how to address these.  Ladder?  Climb with rope? Ugh.

There is a significantly large limb caught up in that tree!  Delightful

This is just a panoramic view from the top of my field looking out over the valley.

 Wood chipper Modifications

 The chipper feed roller control bar broke off again.  I decided to "re-engineer" the components so that all of the torque is not put on a small piece of metal.  This looks like crap but it worked!

 

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!