Cooking and Growing

Well, we are finally cooking in the kitchen. We don't have a sink or counter top yet but we are making do with a little plywood for now.

Here are a couple of shots of the walls in the dinning room. Just imagine a gloss white chair rail running across between the red and the gray.

This one is showing up a lot brighter than it really is, the one above is closer to the real color.

What a difference a week makes in bean production huh?

The sweet corn has survived the onlought of the rain.

We have one tomato plant that is just going wild. I don't know why but I like it.

Cucumbers after a week. I am going to build a trellis for them to climb next weekend.

Zuchinni

Garden Pictures

Well, this weekend we finally got the garden weeded, tilled again, and planted. The shot below is of the water tower a block from our house. It was getting ready to storm and I thought the contrast was perfect for a picture.



























Here is a shot of our bush beans that are coming up. We planted four rows of them.


























We have one lonely eggplant.

This is Flat Leaf Parsley, Basil, and Watermelon in the background. I intend to put a chickenwire fence around the Watermelon after it gets running to keep it penned in and under control.

We have eleven Pepper plants, California Wonders and Some Yellow Bells.

This is Zuchini in the foreground and Cucumbers in the background. The Cucumbers I intend to build a verticle lattice fence that they can climb on.

This is our thirteen tomato plants. We have Better Boys, Jet Stars, Early Girls, One Roma, and about three cherry.

Last here is our four rows of corn. Its the Yellow and White Variety.

Here is the whole garden shot. We started to see some rabbit encroachment so after I shot this, and while it was raining I cut a 50 foot roll of Two foot chicken wire down the middle using some tin snips to make 100 foot of one foot rabbit fence. If they decide to jump it,,,,well I hate it for them if they are still in there in the morning!

Garden Update

This afternoon I had some time at home due to a meeting and actually had time to work in the garden. I have yet to get the tiller fixed so I turned some soil the old fashioned way, I used a shovel. I sowed four rows of bush beans about ten feet long. Kim planted some Hostas next to the house and the garage, along with some flowers. I started weeding the corn and let me tell you, that is a lot of work. I am having to do most of it on my hands and knees so I wont rip out any more corn plants. Yea, I got two of them as soon as I got started with the hoe. This Friday is payday so I will have the funds to buy some more chicken wire. It seems that the local cottontails are enjoying a corn treat at night. I guess I will use the chicken wire to surround the whole garden until we can get the permanent fence up. I understand that if you are farming and rabbits are eating your crop, they can be considered a varmint and shot. I wonder if that works in town?

Tiller Work

I didn't get a whole lot done in the house this weekend, we have company so I wasn't in the mood for the whole painting thing. My step son Nick has been here for a week and he is heading back to college this weekend. I did get the gutters cleaned out though. I got four wheel barrows of crap out of them. They were full of dirt, leaves and maple tree saplings. It looked like they hadn't been emptied for a couple of years.

I had time this afternoon to tinker with my tiller a bit. I pulled the gas tank off of it and poured about a quart and a half of really orange gas out of it. It had this sick, sweet smell to it. It seemed like it had been sitting in there for a season or two. I had to clean up the carb a bit and work on the pull starter, but after I got through it started on the second pull! The bearings are going bad in the pull starter and it needs a gasket between the tank and the carb but those are minor. The pull starter shaft is an easy fix if I can find a place around here that has briggs and stratton parts. When I grew up here there were a couple of places that repaired small engines but now I cant find any. I'm sure that after a little research I'll find a place.

No garden update this time, it has rained here more that three times a week lately so I still have not been able to get any seeds planted. I have maple trees sprouting up all over the unplanted section but its too muddy to deal with it. Soon,,,,Soon.....

Great Garden Find!!

This weekend we got the tomato plants and the peppers planted, along with some flat leaf parsley and some basil. I had to buy some chicken wire and dowel rods to keep the rabbits out of them until I get the real garden fence put in. I just cut chicken wire into little round fences and shoved the dowel rods through them into the ground holding them in place. I see a lot of people around here using buckets or coffee cans with the bottoms cut out of them but I had none of those items. I hope this works because it was getting dark as I finished the last one and was being watched by two huge rabbits in the neighbors yard. I thought that I heard the "Mission Impossible" theme in the background.

Oh yea! The "Great Garden Find"?

We went to an auction at our local auction house and I found this old Tiller. I think it is a "Yardman Earth Bird". I waited all day for them to get to this tiller. I think that it was three items from last. I got it for $40 bucks! I talked to the man that owned it and he said that he used it last year and it ran fine. Me and my dad tried to start it after we got it home but it wouldn't run. I think that it has old gas in it. What a find that was! This will be my little weekend project soon. I think with a little fresh gas and a carb cleanup and a new spark plug, this old bird will be tearing up earth again.

I will get pictures of some of the other stuff we scored later and get some pictures up of our sweet corn that is over four inches tall already. I'm back on the road early this weekend so I doubt that I will have time to post them.

Peace

Tim

Walls, Walls, And More Walls

OK here is a shot of where one of two doors going into the living room used to be. There is a big double sized door that leads into there from the kitchen so we closed this one up. Besides our couch wouldn't fit along the wall on the other side without being in that doorway.

Here are the wall that Sean put up, closed up.

We had to use joint compound on the grooves in the paneling that we are covering up. They still show through the wallpaper a bit but it was better than not filling them in.

Here are the walls around the washer and dryer closed up and muded.

This is the wallpaper and the color that it is going to be. We are using this in the kitchen and the dining room. Its the same color as the cabinets just in a satin finish. That's only one coat so it will be darker after a few more coats.

That's all for this weekend, stay tuned for more later.

peace!