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Monday, March 28, 2016

SEMI PRODUCTIVE WEEKEND

SO...I woke up Saturday to a great breakfast but had the beginnings of a headache.  But things needed to be done.  So I drove to the farm.  Got there and saw the neighbors goat...I thought it was on the other side of the fence until I saw the pear tree bend over as it ate off one of the lower branches! 

BAD GOAT!!!!!!!!!!!


I ran over there when I realized it and chased it back, it ran back through the gap in the barbed wire fence and started grazing like it had never left.  J from 2nd Family said they got out in the road the other day so she called the sheriff who came and got them back in and warned the owner.

Barbed wire fence
The picture above shows the gap where the old wiring was bent down.  It's a quarter of a mile (or more?) long if we wanted to have it all replaced.  The neighbor is not inclined to do that and so we'd have to pay for all of it.  Not going to do that, right now anyway.  So I got R from 2nd Family (not their goats but the same fence borders their property too so he's always checking it).  He brought some barbed wire and we put another section in the open spot.  It was only on about four posts where it had snapped loose.  He said he was going to check the rest of the fence line tomorrow for us.  Headache still going on...


The above picture is from shortly after we lost the hive.  We had already thrown away all of the comb and the frames (you have to dispose of the frames as well).  But I still had to clean/disinfect the rest of the inside of the supers and each component to reduce any possible contamination of the new incoming hive.  While I was doing all this, I attracted a lot of bees, even though this is probably an acre away from our remaining hive, I guess they were curious.  I was constantly fending off curious bees.  Didn't help with the headache...

Hive components
I scrubbed and chipped away the propolis and then pressure washed them all.  I left them in the hot sun to dry and disinfect further, periodically flipping them to make sure all parts were hit by sun.  The sun didn't help me either...

Beehive matching barn
Here is it, put back together (minus the frames inside, those are on order).  It's ready for the new residents, which are also on order and should arrive the 2nd weekend in April. For now, I put the hive back in the barn so that nothing else decides to take up occupancy in it.

Weeds in a raised bed
Next I turned to the garden.  

Last weekend I mowed but this weekend I wanted to get the beds weeded.  Some were OK but a few that had their plastic panels blown off in various rainstorms got lots of rain and thus, lots of weeds.  I started pulling weeds, and about two beds in, I pulled up a weed that was in the middle of a fire ant mound.  I dropped it but 5 or 6 fire ants got my hand.  

That didn't help the headache either...

Raised bed weeded
But I pushed through and got ten of the sixteen raised beds mostly weed free like above.  The others I'll worry about another time.  At least we have some beds almost ready for planting.

Raised bed cover
I put the covers back on and hopefully we won't have any big storms (none in the forecast at this point) before next weekend.

Water manifold
The last thing I did, which wasn't on the list but I realized I needed to do, was make sure I got all the hoses hooked back up.  For Winter, we unhook, store away, and wrap everything to protect it all from freezing.  Of course, we had NO Winter this year but I still needed to make sure there were no leaks and that we had good, working, water capability.  I got it all hooked up and all is good.  

I've ordered our drip irrigation pieces and so now all that's left is the mulch.  Hope to get that ball rolling next weekend.  I did it all by myself last time and it dang near killed me, ha.  For those new to the blog, CLICK HERE to see what it looked like when I did it.  The picture below is after I did it.  Definitely beautiful.  Definitely a lot of work.  This time around, 2nd Man said we'll hire help.

Hopefully it won't be as bad.  

Right after mulch put down the first time, TWO years ago
But it SURE is pretty when it's done!  I look at this picture often to remind me that we need to get it done again.

I gave up and came home to rest...

Yesterday was my birthday and sadly, 2nd Man started getting sick.  He thinks he's getting a cold.  Sigh.  So we postponed an official birthday dinner, although he did make a wonderful dinner anyway, so it was still worth it.

Hope your weekend was better!


33 comments:

  1. I had one measly raised bed at my little house and big dreams of home grown vegetables. The neighbor's goats got out (several times) and chomped everything down. After a couple of seasons of that I gave up and planted marigolds. The baby goats are so cute!
    Happy birthday! I hope 2nd man is feeling better.

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    1. I heard from 2nd Family today that the goats were back again! I am calling the sheriff tomorrow. I would be so livid if they chomped up everything. And I LOVE marigolds!

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  2. Late Happy Birthday.

    Looks like a very productive day despite the headache.

    In our state the livestock owner is responsible for keeping livestock in. Not your job to keep them out. Just something you might check before you buy someone else's fence. Sometimes fence expense is split if the owners are agreeable.

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    1. yes check into it. here in most provinces in canada it is a general "understood" rule that neighbours share the expense of a fence.

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    2. No worries, thanks for the bday wishes. I will check into the laws that you mentioned. Texas is a big Ag state, there are bound to be laws about that. Thanks!

      And yep, Kymber, same here, in neighborhoods at least, most neighbors share the cost (in fact we did in town with the next door neighbors when we put in a new deck and attached a fence to it. They were more than happy to pay.

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  3. Happy Birthday! I hope 2nd Man gets well very quickly.
    Have you thought about adding some sort of clip to the raised bed covers instead of the bricks? Or possibly screwing them down in several places? Then the wind couldn't blow them off. Just a thought. :D

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    1. Thank you for the wishes!!! We are both better now, thanks!! I'm thinking of a clip of sorts, it was something I saw at Home Depot but I need to go back and roam around, ha. We love the plastic panels they are great...when they stay on. :-)

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  4. Happy Birthday! What a productive weekend you had - I don't think I would have been able to barrel through all of those tasks if my head was pounding. We are also ordering several yards of mulch this week, but those will be going in our ornamental beds, which we are redoing this year (finally!).

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    1. Thank you!!! Don't you just love when the mulch goes down? It's SO beautiful. I can't wait to get some down, it will inspire me in the garden. Thanks again!!! And have fun with your mulch!!

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  5. Happy Birthday! Hope everyone is feeling better.

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    1. THANK YOU SO MUCH! How did the ribs come out?? :-)

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  6. Great job! Hope you had a wonderful birthday! Great weather.
    Angie

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    1. Thank you Angie, it was a good weekend weather-wise. Hugs to you and the fur babies! :-)

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  7. well - you know i like to sing songs on people's birthdays but i am afraid my caterwauling will make your headache worse or make it come back!

    so i will write you a birthday poem:

    roses are red
    violets are blue
    your mulched garden and cleaned up beds are a gorgeous inspiration
    and so are you!

    Happy Belated Birthday! and when you are both feeling better, i hope you go and celebrate at some posh foodie restaurant and take lots of pics!

    sending much love to you both! your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Well, by now you probably know, we didn't make it out anywhere or have much celebration here, but it was still good. Any day home relaxing and doing nothing is a reward of its own, ha. Thank you much for the wishes and the poem made me misty eyed. Love to you both!!

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  8. You sure got a lot done - and that’s with you not feeling 100% - and on your Birthday weekend! Super (1st) Man! I’m glad that you’re going to hire some help for all that mulching.
    Do you have any more bricks? I think with some extra weight on the edges, those raised bed covers would stay down better.
    Sending Get Well Soon wishes to 2nd Man.

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    1. Thank you for that. Yep, we're going to hire more stuff when we can. Selling the house in town has given us a bit to work with (though we have to be frugal) but yep.going to get some help.

      Yep, have more bricks, I do need to gather them up and bring them in, I think that might work. Thanks!

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  9. Happy birthday.
    I hope the headache is now completely gone. You achieved a lot with it.
    Love your mulch. I am mid mulch here too, but weeding as I go.

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    1. Thank you so much. The mulch was 2 years ago and it's all gone now, well, not gone but just tamped down and covered up with weeds and grass.

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  10. I feel for you in regards to your sore head but you were very productive none-the-less. Hope the headache didn't hang around.

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    1. Thanks, and yep all is much better now. And another weekend approaches!!

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  11. it DOES look pretty! BUT, 2nd man is right; you guys need help on the farm. and the wandering chewing goat needs to be confined to home!

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    1. Yep, not being there full time, we're going to get help when we can. And goat is going to drive me crazy if he/she keeps getting out.

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  12. bad bad goat! happy birthday!!!! i hope 2nd man is feeling better soon!

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    1. Definitely bad goat. Thank you or thank you for the wishes!!

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  13. Hope you and 2nd man are feeling somewhat better today.
    Goats are nice for keeping the grass short but not when they eat neighbors trees, etc. They will eat anything and everything . Our used to be neighbor's goat was always getting out and eating my roses and even ate my nice Meyer Lemon tree right down to the ground and it never did come back. :{(the lemon tree not the goat) as it was always getting out and had to call the county sheriff several times out here. Dang goat even destroyed our large bird feeder but standing on it's back legs and eating the bird seed. Thank goodness the neighbor finally moved out.
    Now, 1st man, what you want to do with the chewed off branch is take your cutters and make a nice clean cut as close up to the truck as you can without nicking the tree trunk. Leaving it the way it is, it could get deceased / infected. It's like having an open wound the way it is.
    All and all I say you have gotten A lot accomplished.
    You both take care and hope you guys get to feeling better real soon.

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    1. I was going to work on that this weekend (the branch). I've heard both good and bad about goats. I suppose contained where they are supposed to be, they are good but free to roam where they shouldn't be, that's a different story.

      Thanks for the info!!!

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  14. You just had a birthday?! Happy Birthday! A headache isn't much of a present but I hope by now it's a thing of the past.

    I so hope your new bees do better; I hope we both have good success this year.

    Not a good fence for goats. Goats can be tricksy! I hope your repair job does the trick.

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    1. Yep, 3/27 thank you so much!!! Yes, this is the BEE YEAR for us all! Fingers crossed, for you and us! Thank you again!!

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  15. How is your head? A persistent headache in the sun is nothing to mess with my dear!

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    1. Thank you for asking! Yep, it was all gone in time.

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  16. I'm exhausted just looking at the pictures, but your newly mulched garden looks great(even before planting).

    Sometimes when I get a headache it's so bad that I forget to take aspirin-lol. Here's to no more aches and I hope that 2nd Man is feeling better, too.

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    1. Oh, now that picture was from 2 years ago. When we had a batch delivered and I put it down by myself. We're hoping for that look again soon. Thank you very much for the well wishes. :-)

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