I couldn’t decide which blog title to go with so I’m using both.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: You need the right tool for the job, and besides tools are fun. In this case: Paint Sprayers. No, we are not talking about a little handheld gun. We got one of those gallon at a time at the base pump, a long hose and a handheld gun prosumer models. Reagan bought it a while back and used it on the kitchen cabinets. I don’t know why we don’t use it more often. Know that I’ve dug it out and used it, I may never pick up a brush again.

We took a midday run to Tri-County, our local lumber yard where the help is always smiling. Reagan has to always sign off on any thing involving color choices. Really, how hard is it to turn down “barn red” So, 5 gallons, 20 bricks, a paint mixer, and a soap dispenser later we were on our way home. I loaded up the drill, nail gun, paint, sprayer, and the boy.

Mason first went to work pounding all the nails on the sides of the machine shed. Over a bunch of years, they slightly work out. This just got everything tight again. While he was doing that, I cut a section of siding off the corn crib and put in a couple pieces of plywood and a double hung window. Man, I’m getting good at this stuff.

Here’s the story. No half finished walls. So how do I reach that last 2-3 feet? Hmmm. Well, we have a wagon for the tractor. That would help. Oh, I can put a pallet on top of the sides. Bingo, this pallet had indents in all the right spots so it locked on top of the wagon. Roving scaffolding, check!
Power?! Don’t have any in the shed. 3 extension cords from the crib just reach the far corner. Nice.

Having Macgyver’d a plan. It was time for work. Here is where the boy came in handy. I stood on the roving platform and would spray the upper edges of the shed. A sheet of cardboard made for a good spray shield on things I didn’t want painted. After I did a good 5′ along the roof line, Mason would drive the tractor forward until I reached the next blank spot. Spray - move - spray - move. Super-genius material here, if not slightly redneck.

After a distance, I’d hop off and spray paint all the lower sections. This thing was amazing. I’ve never seen paint go up so even, with good coverage, and most importantly - fast! We got 2 sides done in a short amount of time.

Since I tossed Adobe from my Mac and lost the ability to quickly make thumbnails, here is a link to a bunch of pics from this and a few other local spots. I’ve been taking a Master Conservation series of classes from the Extension, and there are a few photos from field trips in there.

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With a lot of projects to do, and many different things going on, it’s a juggling act around here at times. The weather has not been helpful in the lawn mowing front this year. Lots of rain, then nice hot days followed by more rounds of the same. Trips to the farm usually involve mowing. Most of the time I hook the trailmower up to the tractor and can make 7′ wide passes. But, some pulley wheel snapped off the engagement arm about a month ago. I have not even looked inside it enough to see if it was a bolt on piece or something that would require more fixing. Even without it, the job is not too bad. You have to mow, every 5 days or or so or you start to loose track of things like buildings.

I was getting ready to head out the door when I saw the boy. He sure looked like he needed something to do. I told him he’s going to the farm and has a paying job waiting for him. Bribes usually work well. I showed Mason the tractor controls again. We tried this in the Spring and he wasn’t too sure of it. I took the tractor out first and cut the outside lines, and trimmed near things like power boxes, barns, baby trees, and gardens. I gave him a section, told him to keep going around an keep the grass blowing to the outside. And he did it, with a smile on his face too!

This was amazing. Nearly the whole place got mowed, and I had time to get work done. Not just prep work, but enough time to make something visual happen and cross something off the list. We need to do this more often.

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Whew.

I managed to fit in a good handful of projects lately. The weather here is still gets a bit odd, as in we should be in a rainforest. The rain and heat has the grass and weeds showing it. While most of the after-work farm trips involve mowing and weeding, there was some harvesting. The Romaine finally gave up to the summer heat and the last of the peas finally gave us some snacks after the rabbits had their fill. The Sunflowers are getting tall, and the potatoes are still growing strong. Around mid-june I finally planted pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe. We’ve done good with pumpkins before, the rest are more for experiment. Those, along with squash and zucchini are growing well. I vaguely remember Garrison Keillor having a bit about zucchini season, that they appear on doorsteps, mailboxes, inside cars, and in everyone’s outstretched hands. This is the only time of year to lock your doors, as I successfully zucchini-bombed my dad’s kitchen with an armload.

Anyhow. Remember that I got a huge huge deal on clearance at Lowes? $91 full glass doors. One had a bad seal and was foggy and it took several weeks for a replacement to show up. However, the replacement shattered on installation. The replacement for the replacement showed up a few days ago, in perfect shape, and the door even know has a doorknob on it.

We have gotten underway with the window project for the South wall and finally figured out how we will do it. For anyone who has seen it this Spring, the 2 storm windows were not permanent and will be disappearing soon. This week, the work was done inside - measuring marking, framing supports, etc. The first few windows and siding should start appearing soon.

Other projects include:
–Finishing installing treads and risers on the main staircase done.
–Got the platform at bottom of staircase started
–put flashing where rain was sneaking in between old and new work
–cut out opening for bottom of stairs.
–Added some extra support to copula framing, although it is not permanent.
–salvaged several 2×10’s from the barn. In fact, this 80 year old wood is still stronger and straighter then the lumber yard’s selection today.
–House: finished bench, ripped last deck board for against house, ordered a nifty raining for back door.

Coffee: The Jefferson Farmer’s Market is going great this year. We have been serving iced Colombian coffee, with coffee-ice on Tuesdays, and a toss up of either hot or iced coffee on Saturday mornings. We watch the forecast to see if the AM will be blazing or cool to make the final call. I did get a new toy, a bottled water pump. This will let us hook up the commercial brewer at remote locations and brew on demand. This should be a hit.

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String trimmers/weed wackers.  Anyone elses blood starting to boil over the though of it?

Mine is a dual string, or dual pain in the a$$ model.  Not only do you have to wind 2 spools, but holding the first in place while threading the seconds, then getting the spool inside the housing.  Ugh.

Weeds at the farm were so overgrown, it was time to break it out.  I must have been avoiding this task, as it was the first time this year it was fired up.  Iowa farm land….yes…you know we can grow weeds.  Many were chest high and an inch thick.   Trying to cut through this ended up re-feeding broken string, or detangling the innards, or relieving pinches that cause the string not to feed, about every 3 minutes.  Then of course, emptied a full spool with 1/3 (the easy 1/3) of the work done.  I’ve tried different thicknesses and different shapes.  My hatred of this thing caused me to rush to the hardware store and look for an aftermarket replacement.

Whirling blades crossed my mind, but wasn’t too keen on the idea.  I know there was some other sort with string like bits that hung from the center.  What I found, and bought was the Weed Warrior.  This was a center black hub, that held bits of red string.  Just string, not propriety replacement bits.  Interesting.  The attachment points are mini-hubs that have dual holes.  You fold a bit of string and slide through. The gimmick here was that the string would pivot back and not break.  You ended up with 4 pairs of line sticking out.

I first noticed that RPM was a little down.  It kept whacking away and I never had to thump the thing on the ground to get length.  I did the deep and think weeds, many finger/thumb thick woody weeds all along 1/2 the corn crib before I wore anything out.  It seemed that I lost 2 stings in a pair, but thought I could finish with just the 2 but they seemed to fling out on the next attack.  Still, I went through 6x what a spool did before replacing.  It did come with a replaccement set of strings, and I do have a big roll on standby.  I finished the crib, did all the gardens, 1/2 the shed, and around the barn.  I also cleared rings around all the new trees and the remaining strings looked hardly used.  It took a little finesse to saw through larger weeds, and needed different strategies on large walls of weeds and grass.

No spools, no refilling, no tangles, easy replacements.  WIN.  The only thing it did not like was any ditch-weed over 8-10″ tall.  It got far too tough and would tangle it up.  Hemp is obviously a very strong fiber and grows well.  Why are we so dumb not to be using this stuff again?

I might like edging again.  PS. the corn crib looks 5 feet taller and a lot nicer again.

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Memorial day was the last post? Jeez.

Where did the month go….Planting, Bell Tower, re-planting, Family, Swim Team, and Farmer’s Markets.

Planting, re-planting, and planting again. We usually have a large garden patch at Two Barn Farm. We wanted to plant extra tomatoes this year, as our canned tomato shelf from the previous year has finally emptied out. However, nature has a different idea. While we grew tomato seedlings for weeks on end in the basement, then never lasted outside. You see, this year, we have gotten some wildlife at the farm. A whole pheasant family, a gorgeous red-headed woodpecker, and a rabbit have set up homes this last season. Yep, a rabbit. Peter Fricken Cottontail has moved in and ate 60 some odd tomato plants, and a dozen cabbages. I saw him too, several times in the shed during the winter and spring and didn’t think much of it. Now, what was a cute little bunny has grown into a fat pain in the rabbit.
Still, we have a good strawberry patch, lettuce, onions, potatoes, and a few peas. I just planted the squashes and pumpkins, and threw in a few cantaloupes and watermelons to see if they would grow.

Construction: what got done? There is a brick patio at the house, and the deck was finished up. That’s about it. We had installed an outside door on the greenhouse, but the glass seal was bad and instantly fogged up. I waited for the replacement glass to show up, but the installer shattered the replacement. Nice. Waiting for him to come out again. I did find a lot of single pane windows that were either from the house, the barn, or maybe the old farmhouse. I’ve cleaned these up and am devising a way to use these as a window-mosaic to glaze the greenhouse with, rather then getting the 6×12′ polycarbonate sheets I had originally plannned. I also found a matching pair of double hung windows at Habitat’s ReStore in Des Moines that will add venting to the greenhouse. Staircase, almost done.

What else kept us busy? Jefferson in June. Besides it being Swim-Team month, with 2 meets a week….OK, I’ll take a break from the professional sounding updates and brag about my kid. Dang, he is fast and the best butterfly swimming 10 year old there. There is one more meet tonight, then the conference finals. Who gets to go to finals should be announced after the meet tonight, but Mason has been winning Butterfly and has been the fly person in the fastest medley relay. I’m pretty sure he’ll be there.

June also brings us the start of the Farmer’s Markets, and the Bell Tower Festival. We have been having a great start at the Farmer’s Market with Greene Bean Coffee. Alexis is doing a great job running the market this year and we do not come home empty handed. We subscribed to Hooper’s Funny Farm CSA, and usually bring home some fresh bread from Aha Bakery! who is another local gem that is growing fast. Visit us Tuesday nights, and starting soon, Saturday mornings.
Bell Tower Festival….hmm. This year was a mixed bag. To paraphrase Lemony Snicket - It’s not mixing up shopping bags in a bowl with a spoon, but like going to a good movie and having a tub of gravel to eat - good and bad. It seemed like a good festival, but no one really went downtown. Sure, they went to the main stage to watch shows, but never circled the square. I think all the separate locations, wine tasting, beer garden, basketball at the park, volleyball up North, seemed to hollow out downtown. This, coupled with many local shops who rather close and not deal with the biggest crowd they have ever seen. It doesn’t draw people downtown as much. So unless, something different happens, I don’t see the benefit of having a booth next year.

What else - tractor repair. Just as I finished tilling and plowing out the spot for a patio, the tractor died. I thought it was out of gas, but it never restarted. It seemed that the coil decided to die at the very moment. A new one got it running long enough to run out of gas and clog up the carb a little. So, that is running well once again. However, the trail mower seems to be having the next major issue. The belt-engagement pulley seems to have broken off. We’ll have to see if this is fixable. Most of that linkage has been quite stuck into position this last year. The motor is in great shape, so we’ll see.

I have farm projects lined up one after the other. IF I get time, things should start happening there again.

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