Pre-Garden Prep for this year...

Last year was my first year to garden. I tried the "Square Foot Gardening" method with a raised bed. I got OK results last year, but I think that the depth of the soil wasn't enough. So I modified the raised beds to make them deeper. The one thing that I was totally right about is that the raised beds make it much easier to weed and maintain... that part I like.

Modifing the Raised Gardens... from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I've since filled these bad boys up with about 2 tons of Llama poop manure from my neighbor Bill, and have planted a bunch of starters, I'll post that up soon.

See You Next Time!

Little Pink Houses

Bird houses, that is... but if you need a little John Mellencamp...


Last year, I did a post on making a $5 birdhouse. Only one problem, a bird never moved in. I think it's because I put it on the barn right by where the dogs go in and out. Probably not the best idea. So I moved the $5 birdhouse and installed my new Modern Birdhouse.


Little Pink Houses from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Does anyone know if it's better to hang a birdhouse on the North or South side of a tree? I was thinking if I hang it on the south side, it would get too hot in the Sun all day? Let me know if you know...

Thanks

Expanding the horse pasture - Perimeter Fencing...

So last year I did a survey of the corners of our property. Just do a search at the top of the blog and you can read all about it... it was quite an adventure - not to mention, it wasn't cheap.

But on the good side, we gained about 30 feet of pasture that our neighbor was using as yard.

It was time to finish up the fence that I started several months ago. (Ok, it was almost 6 months ago, but I was really busy.)

We got the fencing up and the Cowgirl wanted double stretchers so I need to get some more pressure treated 2x4's, but other than that, I think it's looking pretty good.


Perimeter Fence Building with the Cowgirl from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

The Cowgirl wanted to try a different style of construction on this perimeter fencing. Usually, I'd buy Simpson Strong Tie metal brackets and put the stretchers on with screws, but the horses like to itch themselves by leaning into the fence. So we beefed up the posts to 4x6 pressure treated and we're putting the stretchers on the face of the posts and using 3" nails. It was actually a lot easier to do than the brackets, and we'll see how it holds up.

I'm also going to re-purpose a 12 foot gate from the barn area to put in for road access. Just add that to the list.

All Creatures Great & Small - Maple Valley Version

Although I've never actually read the book All Creatures Great & Small, I did manage to make my way through all 7 cds in the book on tape. So I've got that going for me.

Here's a montage video of some wildlife out on the farm.

First: a raccoon that just walks right up to our sliding glass door and is completely unafraid. Not a good thing. They can do some serious damage to a dog or cat. I spoke with PAWS and they recommended first making sure not to leave any cat food out at night and see if that stops him from coming around.

Second: It's been over 2 months since Gerty the dog had ACL surgery. Her rehab has been driving us crazy. She's not clear to run around yet, so we have to keep her on the leash and inside. Not fun. She seems to be doing quite well. She's got a bit of a limp, but Dr. Paul says that will improve as time goes by.

Third: A mystery creature I saw out by the barn.

Enjoy


All Creatures Great And Small from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

More Snow, but I got a new Deere

Spring is right around the corner...right? You'd never know it when we keep getting SNOW.
What's the deal with all the snow this year.

But I'm getting geared up for this season - do your best Price Is Right imitation - "IT'S A NEW JOHN DEERE GARDEN TRACTOR!"


Still Snowing and the New Deere from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

At least it's new to me. A couple around the corner (now I know it's 1.8 miles because I rode the
Deere on the road...) had an amazing garage sale last weekend. They were moving to Florida and selling all their stuff amazingly cheap. I picked up this Garden Tractor that retails for $4200, with 200 hours on it for $800. Not bad. And he threw in a trailer.

As soon as the weather gets a bit nicer, I'm going to see if it's got enough juice to mow the horse pasture that I had to do with a brush hog last year.

I'm pretty pumped about this deal. Should last me for a long time!

Rookie Mistake - Double Fail...

Seems like I've been having a LOT of failures on the farm this year. But as the top of the blog says, I am a city boy trying to figure all this stuff out. This one is a double Fail.

A while back I attempted to make Cherry Wine from the massive amount of cherries in the orchard. (You can follow along with all the Cherry Wine posts by typing 'cherry' into the search box on the top of the blog - it only searches this blog...)

Well, that resulted in some really tart, undrinkable wine. I couldn't bring myself to just throw away my first batch of wine - so I bought a Mother of Vinegar and tried to make Cherry Wine Vinegar. So I'm sure you can see where this is going:


Vinegar Fail! from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So I just delayed my FAIL a few months. But hopefully I learned something this year and will be able to adjust and make a better wine next year.

See you next time~

I Lost My Bees...

Yep, this is what I found last weekend when I went out to start feeding the girls:

Are the bees still alive? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I waited a few days and looked inside. NO BEES. So I took the top feeder off and heard the sound all bee keepers dread - silence. Not one buzzzzzz.

Dead Bees from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So I took the entire hive down to Trees N' Bees in Auburn to ask the experts what went wrong. Their opinion what that the hive tried to supersede, or make a new Queen. That means one of the following bad things happened:

1) The original Queen left the hive and a swarm followed her. That would mean at least half of the bees would be gone in a swarm leaving a very weak hive for the winter.

2) I accidentally killed the Queen when we took the honey last year. The Hive would then try to make a new Queen, but it might have turned cold by then - weak hive - cold - dead.

3) The Hive 'decided' to produce a new Queen because she was weak or not laying enough eggs. When that happens, usually they make a bunch of Queen cells. When the new Queens hatch - they fight each other for the hive, so Queens then die or leave/swarm - weak hive - cold - dead.

But the silver lining is that there didn't seem to be any diseases in the hive, and I've contacted several other Pacific Northwest beekeepers and they have lost their hives this winter too. It was a very cold one for NW standards.

So this weekend I bought about $500 worth of new gear, ordered two new packages of bees, and set out to paint and repair everything... oh and I had some visitors:


Painting the bee hives from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So now I need to get my apiary ready for a new hive by April, and we'll see if I do better this year.

See you next time

Destroying Stuff Is Fun

If there's one thing that gets a guy going, it's destroying something. Ask any fan of Office Space about the printer scene.

We had this really ugly overhang coming off the side of the barn and it was time for it to go. We also wanted to pull out some old fencing that wasn't doing any good.

I started off using some hand tools, and quickly moved to the tractor. By the way, I really thought that when I pulled out the first support in the middle that the whole thing would fall in. I didn't expect to have to pull out so many of the footings. I sped up the video for times sake...


Demo of Barn Overhang from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Now comes the removal process...

See You Next Time

Cowboy Up...

We shot some video last week of my latest riding lesson. I'm trying to learn how to canter. Here you go.


Ron Riding from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I don't think I'll be winning competitions any time soon, but at least I'm more comfortable in the saddle.

See You Next Time~

Ice is slippery, and other obvious things...

Where do I even start on this one?

Because there was a giant wind storm forecast for our area, we took the horses to the Cowgirl's trainer's barn. It is totally enclosed, and warmer than what we have here.

Then it snowed and snowed, and snowed some more, and we couldn't get the horses back on the slick roads. About a week or so later, it was finally clear enough to bring back the ponies. We got them unloaded ok, then this happened...


Good times.