Reputa Rides Again

Finally brought the old gal out and spent a little over an hour mowing the front field.  There's nothing like a good tractor to make your day that much better.

 

She may be small, but she is mighty. 😁

June-ish things

 Summer is nearly upon us - where has the time gone?  I will say, this has been one of the most enjoyable springs as far as weather goes that we've had in a long time.  Only a few days have brought that late summer type heat, the rain hasn't been a constant deluge, and no surprise frosts have hit us.  

I've had to come to terms with my age and physical abilities, which is a nice way of saying I'm too old and fat to accomplish much these days.  My list has been pared down to a few key projects that are hopefully achievable.  Li'l Red tractor is finally fixed, and Reputa tractor's steering is holding up so far.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to move the manure, which has been piling up behind the barn for the last year while equipment was broke down.  My back has been acting up lately, so I decided to go easy and only do manageable loads of manure, which meant loading it into my little tow behind trailer; the new one I bought to replace the rusted out one last summer.  It's easier to unload than a pickup truck load of heavy, wet, manure and shavings.  I loaded it using Li'l Red, and hauled it out to the back of the property with Reputa.  Things were going great...until they weren't.

Around the fourth trip out Reputa started jerking and sputtering, so I shut her down and only then did I notice the trailer was tipped at an angle.  A quick review of the scene revealed a tire had completely come off the axle.  I unloaded the manure and set about reattaching the wheel, discovering the cotter pin that held it in place was missing.  I left the tire on and went around the other side to check the cotter pin on the other wheel...also missing.  What the heck?  Apparently they either spontaneously and simultaneously disintegrated, or there's a cotter pin thief about.  Or...they never had cotter pins.  I shudder at that thought.  At any rate,  I had some pins that served as replacements for the time being and decided to do one last trip before calling it a night.  I loaded the trailer, headed away from the manure pile, and suddenly Reputa started jerking and sputtering again.  This time, one of the tires had split wide open, so that was the end of that.  I noted the size of the tires and ordered some solid replacement wheels from Amazon.  There was some issue changing out the bearings, but thankfully my neighbor is a mechanic with all of the tools, so he was able to replace the bearings with the correct sized ones (the wheels come with 2 sizes), and I was back in business.  I've only hauled one load with the solid tires, but I am happy with them.  I replaced the bicycle tires on my manure cart with solid ones, and I don't know how I lived without them.  No more flats!

While I was waiting on tires, I had a look at my cottage gardens.  Last year I planted perennials into the grassy areas in front of the hillside garden.  I love seeing grasses in with plants, so I thought this would be a picturesque little garden.  Boy, was I wrong.  The grass, which was mostly crabgrass, quickly overtook the beds and was pretty much smothering the plants.

I pulled up some of the edging from around the wildflower garden out back; because it's over the leach field, it doesn't really freeze in the winter and warm/cold cycles keep pushing plants and landscape pins out of the ground.  I'm tired of having to re-pound the pins each spring, so away it goes.

Once I had the edges marked, I started pulling what weeds I could, and cutting back seed heads.  I laid newspaper over the grass areas and mulched heavily with bark mulch. 

It took me about a day to do each bed, carefully winding newspaper around the plants and making sure I was pulling as many weeds away from them as possible.

Now I have places to plant my other perennials, and the plants I grew from seed this winter.  After this, I need to do the same to the hot borders in front of the barn.

No rest for the wicked, I guess.

Never let me calculate aggregate

 I ordered 5 yards of bank run gravel for the base of my lower seating area this weekend.  Once it was spread, I was finally able to get a feel for the area.  It's one thing to visualize it, it's entirely another to experience it.  It was thankfully a fairly easy job to spread this load using Reputa and my little york rake, with some hand raking in between.  There was a much larger area to work in with no fear of driving over a cliff edge, like with the upper seating area.  

A few people have asked why I don't use some kind of edging along the rest of the area, and my idea is that I want this to be a part of the landscape, not apart from the landscape.  I want the edges to blur, to feel as though this has been there for years, and that any moment the yard might take it over.  It's part of my grand scheme...

Once that was spread, I headed down to the landscape company and ordered 4 yards of round pea stone to top it.  Well, that was about 2 yards too much.  Once I had half of it spread and realized my error, I had to figure out what to do with the excess.  I put some in the low areas of the upper path, some in the water feature and around the rock edges, and quite a bit on the lumpy little road my tractor guy and I had carved out of the brush behind the two houses.

And still...

I barely put a dent in the pile.

I'm going to create a little off-shoot area for my iron fireplace insert that I'll be using as a fire pit, so I can lose some in that.  I may end up putting in a little edging and making a path that leads to the upper area, I'm not quite sure yet.  These are the times I wish we had a little tractor with a loader to make moving this sort of material easier!  Someday...

In any event, this is the last thing I needed to complete before the final push, which is the cat fence.  Next year I'll concentrate on establishing my perennials in the lower area and getting some trees and bushes planted.  I have other projects I'd like to get to before snow flies, if possible.

Project #3 - Fencing is a go, I repeat: Fencing is a go

 I've started putting up my privacy fence!  

I'm no stranger to fences; I've installed picket fence, electric fence, windbreak panels, post and wire fence, post and board fence, split rail fence, and cat fence.  I have never, however, installed dowel paneled fence.  So far it's going pretty well, it's just a little difficult to adjust heights and maneuver dowels into holes by myself, but I'm getting it.  I dug my first hole and immediately realized I'd purchased the wrong posts; I grabbed 3 end posts when I only needed 2, and forgot to buy corner post.  I took some time to re-finagle my design on paper and by simply moving the gate, I didn't need the corner post.  So far the digging has been typical for this area; it took most of the day just to dig four post holes and put up two panels.    

As for my seed...well, it's not what I'd hoped.  I spread three pounds of clover seed just as our well decided to get dangerously low.  Pretty hard to keep seed watered with no water.  I counted on a couple good rain storms to help out, but instead when it finally did rain, it came down with so much force it washed the seeds into low areas...mainly the gravel path.  So what I'm left with is a few clover seedling here and there, and then  clumps of it in lower areas.

So much for my groundcover.  I still have the field peas that I can plant, but I was hoping to save those for my vegetable beds, since they'll add quite a bit of nitrogen to the soil.  Wildflowers don't want nutrients, they want desolation.

I also managed to wrangle my tub into place alone.  It was over near the vent pipe and I wanted it on the gravel.  I chained a six foot pipe gate to Reputa and flipped the tub onto it, then dragged it somewhat into place.  I'll need some help getting it leveled and up on pavers to keep it from sinking into the gravel.  

The perennials in the circle bed are hanging in there, despite the drought.

I'm hoping they survive the winter, and this garden will look much better next year.  In the meantime, I'm off to do some more fencing.

First snow...time to wrap it up.

 Yup, we had our first snow November 19th.  Nothing major, just a few squalls on and off throughout the day.  It didn't even stick.

Still, it was a reminder that winter will be here sooner rather than later.  It spurred me to take care of the tender bulbs I had pulled and was drying in the garage.  They're all clean and trimmed and nestled in fresh shavings for the winter now.

Thanks to daylight saving time, I don't have a couple hours after work to putter around the yard, so I'm cramming everything into my weekends.  I grabbed a load of 50/50 mix to finish up the giant planter.  I can't lie, having a truck is so handy!  

Today I scoured the edges of the woods for some greenery to give it a holiday feel.  A giant planter of dirt isn't really attractive, and I didn't want the soil splashing up against the house if it rained.  Greens (and browns...I'm going for a more natural look) will help keep the soil in place a little better until it freezes.

 

My mother is a pro at floral displays.  Unfortunately I'm not.  But I have seed heads of asters, goldenrod, and staghorn sumac in there for the birds to nibble on, so it's at least serving a purpose.  I also put some solar lamps among the branches and string lights along the stair rails...for ambiance, I guess.

Quick edit - mom stopped on a roadside and clipped a bunch of Winterberries, enough to share.  Definitely an improvement!

 

I was given a load of sawdust earlier this summer and hadn't used it all, so I scraped up what I could and laid it over the landscape fabric on the tiered garden.  I'm hoping it serves two purposes - one, to weigh down the fabric so it stops sagging and stays in place this winter, and two, provide a base for the mulch layer I'll add in the spring.  

I did some organizing in the garage again, and can now fit the truck, tractor, snowblower, and generator in there.  I have a few furniture refinishing projects to work on this winter and once those are done, it will open up some more space.  And after I go through all the boxes of crap I still have, I can purge again and downsize my hoard.  

I was going to leave Reputa in the she-shed for the winter, but when I took out my snowblower to make sure it would run, I discovered that mice had packed nesting material inside it.  I had to remove a bunch of covers and clean it out so I could start it.  I don't want to take a chance of having mice move into Reputa's engine!  I was hoping I could fit her in the garage with the plow on, but there just isn't enough room for that.  Maybe next winter.  

Now I just have to make sense of my tools, and I'll feel better about the state of things.  

What a mess!!!  At least I can't say that I have nothing to do, right?

Race the Rain

 After I installed the first handful of posts for the track, we had a good rain.  It packed the dirt around the posts nicely and really helped to set them.  Knowing this, and seeing the long range forecast calling for sporadic rainfall and one good day of rain early this week, I was determined to install all of the posts - about 40 of them - while the dirt piles were dry and workable.  I was able to achieve this goal with the exception of one root ridden hole that requires a little extra soil.   All that's left to do is put the pipe panel section up, install gates, and start on the no-climb fencing.

 

Not bad for a crippled up old fat broad.  

Also, I swear a week ago everything was green.

Suddenly, Autumn.

Behold!

 Reputa with her new accessory. 

Works pissah!  

Considering it's made to move fluffy snow, it's working pretty good pushing dirt and rocks.  I've put in three posts in the time it would have taken me to do two by hand, but that's mostly because I would have to stop and bitch about how much my back hurt.  With this setup, I'm workin' hard by hardly workin'. 

Anybody need a mountain moved?  😁